Ramblings, What I ate

Outrageous

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What could possibly be  better than having an outrageously good looking boyfriend?  Having an outrageously good lookin boyfriend who likes to cook, of course 😉  I don’t call him Man Candy for nothin’ (scroll to the bottom of this page for the story behind the nickname).

Anytime the BF offers to cook, I’m MORE than happy to oblige.  Lucky for me, he offered to cook us dinner Tuesday night 😀

On the menu for the evening was some Italian crusted chicken over penne with a spicy red sauce.  First up, the chicken breasts were covered with the contents of an Italian dressing packet along with some garlic powder and onion powder:

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Making sure every inch of the chicken was covered with Italian goodness: DSCF3671

Then he popped the chickies into a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes–until the chicken was cooked through and was nice and golden brown:

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Slicin’ up the goods:

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Jarrod is the most precise chopper I’ve ever known.

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Chicken + spicy red sauce (with onions of course) + whole wheat penne + parmesan = HEAVEN.  Oh and don’t forget the garlic breadstick!

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We also cooked up some Jalapeno Popper spread for movie snackin’

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We L-O-V-E dips.  LOVE them I say.  (We used fat free sour cream in place of the mayo on the original recipe)

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As I’m typing this post, I am actually on the airplane to New Orleans (my bday present from the MC).  Expect LOTS of delicious food pictures, and more than our fair share of Italian feasts over the next few days 🙂 🙂 🙂

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Recipes

Pumpkin Cookies

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I LOVE all things pumpkin.  A few years back, I found this recipe for Iced Pumpkin Cookies, and it has been one of my go-to cookie recipes ever since (I do make a few Mary-tweaks).  Feast your eyes, my friends.

Feast. Your. Eyes.

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Oh yes.

First up, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Then combine the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl:

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

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Next, combine the following in a large bowl until creamy:

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup white sugar
  • 3/4 cup brown sugar

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Suga butta:

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Then add:

  • 1 small can pumpkin puree (or ONE HEAPING cup)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

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Once combined, add in the dry ingredients in thirds and mix:

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Pumpkin batter:

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I use a small cookie scooper to drop the cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  I don’t flatten mine like the original recipe states.  I like them a lil poofy.

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Cook for precisely 15 minutes, immediately remove from the cookie sheet, and pop into the freezer for a couple minutes.

Yes, the freezer:

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I’m not entirely sure why I do this, and it is probably an unnecessary step… but regardless I always do it and I think it helps the cookies to stop cooking sooner (which equals super moist and delicious cookies).

Once the cookies are cool, it’s time for icing!  You can also make the cookies a day ahead and ice the next day.  Just don’t store them in an airtight container (or you’ll end up with mushy business).

For the icing, mix the following in bowl:

  • 2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
  • 3 tablespoons milk
  • 1 tablespoon melted butter
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Sprinkling of cinnamon

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Nom nom nom!

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Take a sandwich size plastic bag and place it in a small drinking glass.  Pour the icing into the cup:

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Mess free!

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Snip a small corner off of the baggie and you’ll get oober professional results 🙂

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Fancy pants:

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Once I ice the cookies, I pop them into the freezer AGAIN:

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Ok yes, probably unnecessary.   But this helps the icing to set up.  At least I think it does.

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VOILAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

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Eat me now.

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Since these cookies are super moist and delicious, you do NOT want to store them in an airtight container.  I like to keep mine in the fridge and eat them cold.

MMMMMM HMMMMMMMMMMMM GOOOOOODDDDDDD.

This recipe makes 4 dozen pumpkin cookies.

What’s your favorite pumpkin recipe?

 

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What I ate

Loaded Joetato

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When I first graduated college and entered “the real world” cooking was not exactly my forte.  Typically, I’d pick one to two meals for the workweek, purchase all the ingredients on Sunday, and then eat the same thing for dinner for the next five days.  Can we say blasé? 

Add this lack of knowledge in the cooking-for-one field to my pure disgust for all things raw-meat and you end up with a meal plan that looks something like this:

  • Spaghetti with red sauce and garlic bread
  • Chicken quesadillas (using pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, of course)
  • Ravioli with red sauce and garlic bread
  • Egg salad
  • Macaroni and cheese (and garlic bread if I was feelin festive)
  • Ice cream
  • Anddddd repeat.

After a few months of this monotony, I started to branch out…. to every local restaurant within walking distance that is.  The food was FABULOUS, and the weight gain was… well… FLABULOUS.

Fast-forward a few years.  I started to realize that Olive Garden take-out wasn’t the best option for my wallet.  And while the Chop House in Cleveland has THEE MOST AMAZING MASHED POTATOES and Fat Fish Blue has fried pickles with hot sauce that rock my friggin socks off, these weren’t the best options for dinner every night of the week. 

Dangit.

I love multi-purpose ingredients, but I HATE eating the same foods day in and day out.  So how the heck do you eat healthy delicious meals but avoid having to eat the same foods over and over and over again?  This is about the time I started batch-cooking basic ingredients to have on hand throughout the week to toss into whatever random concoctions I decided to make each night after work.  Additionally, I changed my approach to grocery shopping.  Rather than buying ingredients for a specific recipe (that undoubtedly made 6+ servings), I simply started purchasing fresh produce and ingredients that LOOKED tasty and then worked on incorporating those things I really liked into as many different concoctions as I could.

And I FORCED myself to get over my repulsion for raw meat.  At first I handled all raw meat with two sets of tongs…  Even this method led to sporadic dry heaving…  Can you picture forming a hamburger with two sets of tongs?!  Trust me… it ain’t easy.

In my house, Sundays are for cooking.  Every Sunday, I cook up breakfast for the entire workweek, wash and chop veggies, batch-cook chicken breasts or turkey sausage, and roast up some veggies.  Not only does this make healthy eating during the week super easy, but it also cuts down on my work-week cooking time. 

Hallelujah.

So where does this lovely story take us?  It takes us to a Loaded Joetato.  Feast your eyes on this puppy:

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This Loaded Joetato consisted of my leftover healthified sloppy joes atop 1 medium sized potato topped off with some fat free sour cream and chopped onion leftover from my chicken quesadilla and some roasted broccoli leftover from my Sunday cookfest.

Ohhhhh Joe. 

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Recipes

Healthified Slop Sloppy Joes

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Sloppy joes are a fall food staple in my family, and I have been craving a big fat sloppy joe since the start of football season!  This was my first attempt at making a healthified version of the sloptastic treat:

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Looks pretty good, eh?  To start things off, I sprayed a skillet with cooking spray and tossed in:

  • 1/3 cup chopped white onion

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Once the onions started to soften, I added:

  • 8 ounces 99% lean ground turkey
  • S&P

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I cooked the turkey til it was no longer pink.  I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly a fan of rare poultry… bleck!

Nice and brown:

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Next I added:

  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/2 cup Reduced Sugar Ketchup
  • 1 tsp mustard
  • 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/4 tsp onion powder

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Once everything was combined, I popped a lid on and let the joes simmer for about 25 minutes on very low heat.  Then I spooned half the mix on to a Pepperidge Farm 7 grain deli flat and topped with some chopped raw onion.

 A thing of beauty:

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Ohhhhh yesssss…. 

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That is one happy joe.

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These sloppy joes were super easy to throw together and pretty tasty — I think the only change I’ll make for next time is to use the ORGANIC Heinz Ketchup instead of the reduced sugar version (which oddly has this crazy sweet taste that I am NOT a fan of). 

I’m still craving a good old-fashioned Manwich sloppy joe… so I’m sure those will be making an appearance on an upcoming Sunday game day menu 🙂

Stats on the sloppy joseph:  256 calories, 27g carbs, 3g fat, 35g protein, 6g fiber

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What I ate

Cheeseless Quesadilla?

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What do you call a cheeseless quesadilla?

Is it just a dilla?  What about a cheeseless quesadilla with beans?  A habadilla? 

Something to ponder…

Quesadillas are one of my favorite fast-fix dinners.  I put a lot of random things in my quesadillas, and I’m convinced that you can sandwich pretty much anything in between a tortilla, throw it on the george foreman grille, and have near instant glory in your mouth.

Take this dinner for example.  I started off with 1 Tumaro’s low carb tortilla topped, 1/4 cup fat-free refried beans and 2 ounces grilled chicken:

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Plus 1/2 a cup of frozen calabacita mixed veggies that I defrosted in the microwave:

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5 minutes of quality time with the george:

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Naked quesadilla:

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Veggies for toppin’

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Add 2 tbsp of fat-free sour cream and you have yourself magnificence on a plate!

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Stats on the habadilla:  264 calories, 38g carbs, 3g fat, 33g protein, 12g fiber

 

 Mmmmmm beans……  Love them.

 

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