Hausfrau Dinnerblog

I know. Dinner is wicked exciting.

This week there was a kind of awesome post over at ForeverYA about traditional Sunday dinner, which made me want to make a pot roast. Instead of using chuck roast, I bought top round and baby carrots instead of having to cut things up and I also chucked in some sliced mushrooms.

The recipes also include one for brussel sprouts which I’ve eaten exactly TWICE and liked them (once I made them myself, with bacon). It has a prune (gack) and balsamic reduction but I think I’m going to use some thick cut bacon, balsamic vinegar and medjool dates. That sounds way more tasty. The roast is currently cooking with veg in the oven, basted with New Belgium’s 1554. I’m dorkishly excited about blanching the sprouts because I think the key is to not have them too mushy. Plus, bacon. How can I possibly go wrong? Add the sweetness of the dates and the tart of the balsamic, I’m stoked about seeing how this concoction turns out.

Link to the Forever YA article. Aside: I love their LadyNerd series.

Why I love cooking

Unlike baking, recipes can be more of a guide than a ‘you must use these measurements’ step by step.

My latest favorite thing is the Hungry Girl books. Yes, they’ve got a fairly hideous name that was probably cute when she started the blog/website/email but now rather unfortunately pigeonholes her product. No chance my husband would even pick UP one of those cookbooks, let alone BUY THEM.

To be clear, that’s the only downside I’ve found with these cookbooks. The design is pretty great, kind of a fun retro font and my absolute favorite thing is the “pantry list” of frequently used items in the front of each book (200 under 200: 200 recipes under 200 calories & 300 under 300). They’re basically the same list, but the latest cookbook (300) has some updates with new brands available.

Here’s the story of why I bought the books:

The Spouse and I are just looking for healthier ways to eat things we already like, rather than dramatically changing our diets. We’re both active and neither of us have a TON of time to cook. I picked up the 200 book and the very first recipe was for Banana Wheat Mini Pancakes. If you remember my post about The Delectable Egg and their AMAZING Banana Wheat Pancakes, you can imagine that I was pretty intrigued. I picked the book up and put it down about a half dozen times. Then I picked up the 300 book and saw that it had an entire “International Favorites” section – including a Chicken Pad Thai recipe. SOLD. I did something I NEVER do; I bought both cookbooks at the same time.

I started with the Egg Mugs. Basically, egg substitute and a variety of vegetables/cheese/bacon added to a large mug and cooked. Takes less than 5 minutes and means I get a hot breakfast on my way to work (in a nearly non-spillable container). Spouse has also gotten on board with these in a big way.

The Banana Wheat Pancakes are just as awesome as I’d hoped – I made them Saturday AND Sunday morning. I double the recipe and it makes about 7  palm-sized pancakes, which is perfect for us (4 for Spouse, 3 for me) and instead of using the sugar-free maple syrup we have agave syrup. They’re delicious and VERY easy to make.

The Chicken Pad Thai was fantastic, but this entry is about tonight’s adventure with Fish Tacos.

I used the recipe for the marinade/rub and purchased vacuum-sealed frozen Mahi Mahi. After my workout, I made the marinade and threw it in with the thawed fish while I got the other stuff ready and heated the grill. Instead of making the Avocado Cream according to recipe, I used an entire avocado and a matching amount of fat free Greek yogurt (rather than sour cream). I was a bit more heavy handed with the chili powder and garlic powder, but it was DELICIOUS. Add chopped tomato, coleslaw mix cabbage and wheat taco-sized tortillas and it made a pretty excellent dinner.

The absolute best part of these cookbooks is that the recipes are designed for 1 or 2 servings: no having to shrink the recipe OR leftovers for a week. I suspect this is designed to help with portion control (smart) but if you don’t have kids, it’s wicked awesome to have MY family-sized recipes.

The author states pretty clearly that the recipes are not designed for extreme caloric limitation/dieting. They DO however make it easy to combine several dishes for a larger meal or to have several small meals throughout the day.

Everything has been very easy to prepare and the only really esoteric item (I live in a rural area) was pasta-shaped Tofu noodles that I found at Whole Foods. They’re kind of an awesome substitute for regular pasta, though pricey enough that I wouldn’t probably use them in place of all pasta recipes.

So that’s my latest  schedule addition and it’s been pretty good for the budget. Cooking this many meals at home has saved more money than I’d have expected.

In related news, I had a Coke Zero for the first time in over a week and it turns out I didn’t really miss it. I didn’t have any crazy caffeine withdrawal – in fact I haven’t ever since the first big caffeine boycott when I was in college (now THAT was miserable).

In thoroughly UNRELATED news, I’m kind of looking forward to SyFy’s new Legend Quest show.

This project is close to done!

Got the clearcoat done on the deck – now I’m just hoping that it doesn’t RAIN.

I’m painting the last living room wall today! I’m not PLANNING on painting any of the other rooms, but since my exam got postponed, I’m not making any promises.

My car gets better gas mileage than I thought.

Our guests are gone. I have returned from Glenwood Springs. I have to work this afternoon but I totally promise that blogging returns to normal tomorrow. Probably I’ll link to photosets rather than posting a lot of pictures (because I’ve taken a lot) but I’m going to try and catch up the Daily Leadville and 52 weeks.

Piper fantastically spilled a mini-bag of dog food ALL OVER the back end of my CR-V. My car will smell like dog food forever.

In the meantime, I’m contemplating a nap before work.

I thought Beyonce sucked it.

I really thought her version of America the Beautiful was terrible. P.S. It’s not the national anthem, Tom Hanks, so you don’t put your hand over your heart.

The football games today were excellent! Great plays, great comebacks and fantastic effort all around.

I’m on to book six in my reading of the new year and I’m thinking that while Spouse is watching Big Love, I’m going to make some brownies – even though we don’t have any milk.