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.