turnip fries – Fervent Foodie

So, I have a confession to make.

…

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:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — 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.

Dinner Stats: 298 calories, 23g carbs, 9g fat, 36g protein, 9g fiber

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!

Well here it is.

Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins.

Lets take a few moments and discuss why this cereal is utterly amazing.

First the limited list of ingredients (which is pretty darn good for a cereal).

Second, one serving is only 110 calories, 23 carbs, 2g fiber, 6g of sugar, 3g of protein!

Third, the taste is pure peanut butter amazingness.

Fourth, the puffins are shockingly large. For comparison purposes:

Go. Buy. Now.

Turnip Fries!

Tonight I was craving burgers and fries! Or at least a healthy version of them. So, we decided to cook up turkey burgers and turnip fries! That’s right, turnips.

I had a few snacks while shopping for groceries this afternoon:

Some Skinny Water (note the clearance sticker)

The Skinny water was pretty good and no after taste (always a plus!)

Also downed a White Chocolate Macadami Luna Bar:

This is my favorite of all the luna bars I have tried. Felt like I was eating dessert!

For the turkey burgers, I used this recipe as my guide but modified it slightly. Here’s what our burgers consisted of:

1 lb 97% Fat Free Ground Turkey Breast
1 small zucchini, grated
1/4 cup red onion, grated
1 clove garlic minced
Salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes

Now on to the fries! I don’t believe I’ve ever consumed a turnip before. I went to the local produce market to pick them up, and once I walked in the door I realized that I had no idea what I was looking for! After some deliberation, I picked up what I thought were turnips, and asked the nearest employee if they were, in fact, turnips. After a huge smile appeared on her face, she let loose a belly laugh, then told me I had picked up beets–which are not turnips for those who were wondering. 😛

With turnips (AKA not beets) in hand I headed to the kitchen to get to fry makin. We gave the turnips a good scrub, then cut then up into thin strips. We were hoping this would speed up the cooking process — next time I’ll go for bigger sticks (more like steak fries size) since the turnips shrink up considerably while cooking.

We seasoned the turnip fries with salt, black pepper, and cajun seasoning. The first batch we cooked at 450 for about 40 minutes (again — hoping to get things mover fast since we were starving). These turned out good — but were not really crispy (even though some of them were burnt). The second batch we threw in at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

The second batch didn’t really turn out crispy either–I’ll need to play around with the cooking temperature on these guys to get it right. Despite the lack of crisp, they were definitely tasty and definitely healthier than potatoes! They reminded me of the kind of fries you get in a big sack at Five Guys Burgers (minus the grease of course).

Will and Grace time!

Confession

Turnip Fries!