Recipes – Page 35 – Fervent Foodie

Turnip Fries!

June 12, 2010 5 Comments

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. 😛

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — Turnips (as opposed to beets)

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!

Recipes

Ten Cheese Pizza

June 11, 2010 2 Comments

Usually on Friday nights, my BF (AKA man candy) and I order up some Gionino’s pizza with hot sauce. This week, however, we’ve got big plans for dinner Sunday night ( 😉 😉 Tim), so we decided to go the healthy route tonight.

The BF follows a strict diet and workout plan, which I have declared the “Road-to-Ultimate Fitness.” He eats the same meals every day. Day in and day out. I would never succeed on the road to ultimate fitness. I love food far too much, and get bored far too easily to do such a thing.

Although the plan was to eat healthy tonight, there were no pizza sacrifices on my behalf! I whipped up a flat bread pizza using a Joseph’s Middle eastern Bakery Lavash bread, some Classico Fire Roasted Tomato & Garlic sauce, leftover grilled chicken, thinly sliced tomato and onion, and a random assortment of cheeses that have accumulated in my fridge.

It’s real easy to go over board on the cheese – so I made sure to measure everything out. 1 tbsp Kraft Italian Style Five cheese blend, 1 tbsp Athenos Reduced Fat Feta, 1 tbsp Digorno Shredded Three Cheese, and 2 tbsp fat free ricotta. That’s ten — count ’em — ten cheeses 😀

Some people hate ricotta cheese but I adore it. I feel it adds a layer of delicious decadence to any meal. (Which reminds me — I’ve been wanting to try out this recipe for Lemon Ricotta Cookies)

So back to the main event–THE PIZZA. I seasoned the pizza up with some garlic salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, and some dried parsley and baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes. Served up with some leftover cucumber salad.

For a person whose favorite part of a pizza is the crust, I was extremely happy with how this turned out! The flavors of the cheeses and seasonings were perfection! Only item to modify for next time will be to put the Lavash in the oven for a few minutes before topping it — that will give it time to crisp up so the sauce doesn’t make it soggy in the middle.

Stats for the whole lavash pizza (and I was only able to eat 2/3 of it): 431 calories, 35g carbs, 13g fat, 48g protein, 10g fiber

I do want to make side note of my afternoon snack — I had an afternoon meeting so I grabbed a Peanut Butter Cookie Luna bar to take with me. I’ve heard mixed reviews on this specific flavor, but I thought it was downright tasty! Though, it did remind me more of a peanut butter rice crispie treat than a cookie, but I’m content with that!

After the pizza eatin’, I decided to mix up a breakfast cookie. I follow a few different food blogs, and I kept seeing this “breakfast cookie” popping up so I decided to look into it. According to her website, Fitnessista is the brains behind the breakfast cookie. I’m pumped to give this one a go!

My cookie consisted of oats, optimum nutrition chocolate whey, Trader Joe’s crunchy Almond butter, skim milk, some mashed up blackberries, and little brown sugar.

Recipes, What I ate

I got eggs on the brain

June 11, 2010 6 Comments

TGIF!

It’s Friday, and I’ve got eggs on the brain! I think my body was upset with me for not taking the time to make eggs yesterday–so I decided to have them for breakfast AND lunch to make it up to myself!

This morning, I took a look in the fridge to see what I could throw into an omelet. I decided to go with 1 egg, 3 egg whites, splash o’ skim milk, chopped up red and yellow peppers, black beans, salsa, and spinach. Kind of an odd combo… but throw some hott sauce on there and you’ve got a Mexicomelet!

This was very yummy and very filling. I should have topped it off with salsa, green onion, and a small dollop of sour cream (duh!) but that didnt dawn on me until I was half through devouring it. Next time!

B#1 Stats: 206 calories, 20g carbs, 6g fat, 23g protein, 9g fiber

For breakfast #2 I SLAMMED a Dannon Blueberry Greek Yogurt with some blackberries and 1/2 a 100 cal pack of Emerald’s cocoa roast almonds crushed on top.

Greek yogurt is just amazing. How did I live without it?? This was my first time trying the cocoa roast almonds–and I’m a big fan. Went perfectly in the yogurt.

B#1 Stats: 175 calories, 17g carbs, 4g fat, 18g protein, 3g fiber

Today’s lunch menu: EGGS.

When I was young, my mom used to take me to a restaurant called the Sandwich Board. Their egg salad sandwich had about 13 eggs and 2 pounds of bean sprouts on it, and I absolutely loved it! So today for lunch I decided to make my own egg salad sandwich.

I had light mayo in the fridge, but I really wasn’t feeling it. So, I decided to try and make a healthified egg salad consisting of 1 egg, 3 egg whites, 1 tbsp fat free sour cream, 1 tbsp mustard, green onion, salt, pepper, and dill weed served up with sprouts, tomato, and red onion in 1/2 a Joseph’s Low Carb Pita.

This was a quite tasty first stab at healthy egg salad. Note for next time: double up on the seasonings, less sour cream, more mustard (as if it wasn’t yellow enough already).

Egg Salad Pita Stats: 225 calories, 20g carbs, 6g fat, 23g protein, 5g fiber

On the side I had a dill pickle spear and some cucumber salad (cucumber, red onion, dill weed, and white vinegar).

On the agenda this weekend are the following:

Give the elliptical a go (and hope my knee holds up)
Flat bread pizza using Joseph’s lavash bread
Make a breakfast cookie (been dying to try these — it’s like a food blogger phenomena)
Make a lightbox
Post a bunch of clothes I don’t wear on ebay and hope for high bidders 😉
Make a barley breakfast bowl
Finish watching season #1 of Will & Grace, start on season #2 😀

Recipes, What I ate

Lunching

June 6, 2010 No Comments

I always find it hard to stick to a good eating schedule on the weekends. There always seems to be a ton going on and a ton of good eats tempting you at every corner!

I woke up at about 7 this morning, downed a small bowl of cereal and went back to bed shortly after. That’s pretty unlike me on the weekends (the back to bed part, not the cereal obviously), but today it’s pretty gloomy outside and it doesn’t look like I’ll be making a big dent in the yard work today. Instead I’ll be working on cleaning up my pigsty of a house before heading to Cleveland for a slumber party with friends.

For lunch today I made a turkey/ham wrap using a lite Italian Flat-Out wrap.

I still got my mad burrito lady skills! Only thing that could make this wrap taste better is a little grillin’

Recipes

Shrimp, and sex, and the city ;)

June 3, 2010 No Comments

Tonight I am craving SHRIMP. Last weekend, I ordered the Applebees low cal Shrimp and Island Rice and it was DIVINE. I felt like I was indulging! (Side note – I also tried the skinny marg, which was nothing to write home about… though apparently it was worthy enough to blog about… haha)

Since then, I’ve been craving some shrimpies so that’s what is on the agenda this evening.

I found a new blog that I’m really enjoying that is all about healthy recipes called Skinny Taste

On the blog, I saw a delicious recipe for shrimp quesadillas. I don’t have time to run to the store to buy all the ingredients before sex and the city 😀 😀 😀 — so I’m mixing it up a little bit based on what I have on hand.

9 Large Shrimp
1/2 tsp minced garlic, cayenne pepper, paprika, black pepper, lemon juice, water
1/4 tsp salt

1 Joseph’s Low Carb pita with Flax
1/4 bag Calabacita blend veggies (leftovers from last night)
1 slice pepper jack cheese goodness
Tomato, onion, banana peppers
1 dollop of daisy fat free breakstones 😉

Stats: 320 calories, 29g carbs, 9g fat, 27g protein, 6g fiber