First impressions are EVERYTHING. How often have you heard that expression in life? Work? Relationships? First impressions. They either make ya or break ya.
When I first got the Betty Crocker 300 calorie cookbook, I was beyond excited.
I was SO excited, that I spent my lunch break thumbing through the pages and flagging all the recipes that sounded delicious.
(Overzealous, much?)
Could it be true? 300 calories of home cooked goodness? Sounded like it was right up my alley!
Shortly after, I tried out my first recipe in the book: Chicken and Spinach Skillet. I picked the recipe because it used two of my favorite ingredients (chicken and spinach, obviously) and it was an extremely simple recipe. How can you go wrong with that?
It seemed as though the stars were aligning. Hundreds and hundreds of healthified recipes at my fingertips. All hinging on this first recipe. This first recipe that was, well, a big fat flop. It was blah. So blah, in fact, that I threw the leftovers away… and that is simply UNHEARD of in the Fervent Foodie household.
And so the book sat. Poor little Betty Crocker and her 300 calorie recipes sandwiched between a bright green cover with fun yellow letters… dozens of pages flagged with anticipation…
Months passed. FINALLY, this week I pulled the cookbook down from the bookshelf and my heart churned over the little yellow flags peeking out of the book. And I decided to give it another go. I decided to give Better Crocker a second chance.
This time around, I went with the Chicken Enchilada Pie:
Annnnnddddd it was….. meh.
Better than the Turkey Spinach Skillet, but not good enough to even bother posting the recipe on the blog. I mean, I’m not throwing away the leftovers or anything, but let’s just say the tour de Chicken Enchilada Pie won’t be coming round my house again.
Hmmmm… well…. crap.
So, do I give Betty a THIRD shot, or what?
Pondery.
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Oh bummer! I was excited to see what you thought because I'm all about low-cal meals (because I can eat more..mwuahahaha). Too bad!
I say try just one more recipe!
Ugh. I hate when that happens. Do the recipes maybe just need more spices or something? I'm with Shanna - try one more.
Third time is a charm right? I had never heard of this cookbook and I am a big Betty Crocker fan.. I'm so surprised that they aren't turning out -- that's such a bummer!
i say no.
i have a cookbook like that (well, not like that at all, since it is a book filled with cookies) and for some reason, every time i tried a recipe out, they went from "meh" to "really terrible" and i usually make pretty tasty cookies.
it's not worth your wasted time, efforts or ingredients.
That's horrible!
Try again. And think about how you can Marify those "blah" and "meh" recipes--make them your own!
They say third time's the charm! But I guess it would be difficult to make something phenomenal at only 300 calories.
Hahaha that's what I'm beginning to think!
Hi!
I'm from Norway and I was ordering Josephs pita bread from netrirition.com, but the bread was so thin.. I didn't get it to puff-up in the oven.. Do you have any tip, or is it just not supposed to blow up in the oven?
- love your blog and recepies btw! :)
Hi Natalie! Thanks for checking out my blog! Pita bread is pretty thin (which is why it's so low cal), so it's kind of a trade off. When I'm craving a thicker traditional pizza, I usually go to Trader Joe's and buy some of their pre-made whole wheat pizza dough. It's really good! I'm not sure if you have Trader Joe's in Norway, but I bet you could find something along those lines somewhere. At least I hope so... for the pizza's sake :)
Bummer on the recipes :(
Jen
Maybe you could alter the recipes a bit to make them more exciting? Of course that defeats the purpose of the cookbook. There have been a couple times where I have actually found cookbooks that I've been wanting at the local library. That way, you can try out the recipes and you aren't out any money if you don't like it. That has saved me a lot of money. :)
Bummer! Maybe one more try? What makes them so boring?!