Recipes

Hi all!  Hope you had a good weekend.  Work was hard for me this week–mentally and physically.  What’s new.  I did run a little more on the way from the parking lot to the unit and back out, and I even got in a good run when I had to take some stat labwork to the other side of the hospital  (its a BIG hospital, and I know which floors are mostly empty!)  AND,  ta-da!  Today I checked my 10-minute mile challenge time, and I came in at 11 minutes flat!  I was really so excited.  Because every time I start out, I think,  Oh, today will not be a good day.  Its cold.  My knee hurts.  I am really tired from yesterday.  I shouldn’t have worked out at the gym before I checked my run time.  How far is that telephone pole*–I’ll never make it.  I’m gonna have to walk.  Etc. etc. etc. (*telephone pole is at the quarter mile mark.)

Okay.  On to the good stuff.  Recipe news!  First, here is a picture of the roasted tomato soup.  This is when I added rice to it.  You can see that it is pretty thick and chunky, which I like.  But you could make it smoother by processing it more in the blender.  I might do this next time.  That is the ham and cheese breakfast muffin next to it.  Those are as good as they look.  They are a great addition to lunch or breakfast!  I think this recipe was originally Lori’s.  Thanks, Lori!

Next up is the quinoa breakfast recipe.  Sorry I didn’t take a picture of this.  But it was absolutely delicious, and quite decadent.  I ate it three mornings.  The first two mornings it really held me for 3-4 hours, but the next morning, I was hungry after two hours.  Don’t know that its the quinoa’s fault…anyway, keep in mind that you can make a serving any size you want.  If 330 calories sounds like a bit too much for you, then split the recipe into 4 servings and it will be about 250 calories/serving.

Next is the Pumpkin Oat dessert.  If you look at the ingredient list, this would also make a very nice breakfast snack.  I am not 100% sold on this recipe.  But I keep eating it, so I guess that is a good recommendation.  I like it enough to share with you.  I’ll be interested to hear if any of you try it.  The part I am not sure about is the ‘oatmeal effect.’  I added the oatmeal on purpose to bulk it up.  But with the high liquid content in this recipe, the oatmeal turned into…well, oatmeal.  I think you can even see this in the picture.  It also is not super sweet.  As you can see, I am trying to use real sweeteners (agave and maple syrup) and depart from my dependence on splenda.  And also challenge myself to be satisfied with something that is lightly sweet.  Anyways, there you have it.  It needs a better name.

Today I tried a recipe that has been hanging around the house forever–a Cauliflower-potato bake.  Do you guys do that?  Cut out a recipe from a magazine or whatever, and then have that paper floating around in the kitchen/bathroom/bedroom?  You really want to try it but are missing one ingredient?  Well, I finally remembered to get the one missing ingredient–a red bell pepper!  I am not a fan of green bell peppers (I will pick every last minute shred of green bell pepper off of a slice of combo pizza.)  And so that hate transferred over to the poor red peppers.  But I have noticed recently that I like the red peppers okay in certain foods that I have tried–they add a nice flavor.

The recipe was one that came in a flyer from my health insurance company!  I followed the recipe exactly, and it was just scrumptious!  So scrumptious that I had a second serving for my dinner tonight!  And yes indeed, that is a steak on the plate there.  I probably have one steak every 3 months or so.  It was just wonderful.  BTW, at our local market, if you buy a whole filet, they only charge $6/lb instead of the normal $12-15/lb that we see around here.  So even though I am only one person, I will buy this once in a while, and then slice it into just the size steaks that I want, and wrap and freeze them.

BTW, I plan to use some of the leftover cauilflower-potato bake in an eggie scramble.  Doesn’t that sound delicious?  I love re-purposing foods!

I was looking around the blogs tonight, and Sybil linked to this new recipe blog, and her first recipe sounds fascinating and quite worthy, especially for some of you vegetarians–Garlic and Rosemary Roasted Cannellini Beans!  Doesn’t that sound fascinating?  And healthy.  She says they are crunchy and taste like crispy garlic bread croutons–great for salads, eh?

And finally, the Noah shot.  He is getting almost too heavy for me to pick up!  Unbelievable.