It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago I subsisted on a diet rich in processed foods and Olive Garden takeout. As a new college graduate, I found cooking dinner during the workweek especially challenging. By the time I got home from the office and pulled a meal together, I’d be close to passing out from hunger. And the reward for all my hard work? Eating the leftovers for dinner e-v-e-r-y night for the rest of the week. Oh, the joys of cooking for one.
Back then, I had a few quick standbys–deli turkey sandwiches, blue box mac and cheese, and rotisserie chicken quesadillas, to name a few–but, my specialty was cheese ravioli, steamed broccoli, and Texas toast. From the depths of the freezer to depths of my belly in 5 minutes flat. When I was especially tight on time, I’d often turn to prepackaged freezer meals to fill the void. Somedays, I’d have a Lean cuisine for lunch and another for dinner. I was partial to the pastas, pizzas, and paninis, though it wasn’t the taste that made me opt for the frozen entrée route–it was the low price and the low-calorie counts displayed on the packages.
Before we get into that matter, let’s recap lunch and dinner:
As posted earlier, I was ill-fated this morning so I decided some pizza for lunch would help me come around.
Lean cuisine cheese pizza with leftover gionino’s hot sauce… Pretty darn close to the real thing:
If you haven’t tried hot sauce on your pizza, I am begging you to give it a try!!! Soooo good!
On to dinner. Things just keep getting better! I don’t mean to brag, but hot damn my dinner was good! (said with midwest hillbilly accent while simultaneously throwing in an arm jab)
I had a leftover turkey burger from the weekend I wanted to use up, but I wasn’t feeling the typical ketchup and mustard fixins. So I decided to make a quesadilla burger — and let me tell you it was glorious!
Here’s what went into the quesadilla burger:
quesadilla burg fixin's
The sauces I used were 1 tbsp fat free breakstone’s sour cream, 1 tsp (AKA all I could scrape from the container) of Trader Joe’s Jalapeno Cilantro Hummus, and some Frank’s red hot. I threw it all in between a Mama Lupe’s Low Carb tortilla I had ordered from Netrition.
I also decided to take a second stab at turnip fries. This time, I cut them into larger wedges and cooked them at 450 degrees for 35 minutes.
I threw the quesadilla burger on the waffle iron (that’s right, waffle iron) to crisp up the tortilla and heat everything through. Why dirty the george foreman when the waffle iron was just sittin there begging to be used?
All together on the plate:
Not the most appealing photo, but trust me this quesadilla burger was awe-inspiring.
The turnip fries still didn’t have the fry texture I was shooting for. Crunchy? No. Tasty? Yes. I actually preferred the smaller skinny fries we made last time over these. Could be because the larger fries reminded me of the rooty texture of you know what.
On to what you are all really here for: the confession.
About a week ago, I discovered what may be the most amazing cereal on planet earth. I have secretly been enjoying sporadic handfuls of this glorious cereal since then, yet I have not posted anything about my discovery on my blog!
