January 29, 2009
Grilled Lemon Herb Pork Chops with Parmesan Roasted Potatoes
I made this the other night and even though it’s not from the weight watchers cookbook, it’s definitely low fat (the pork is anyway) and it’s quite flavorful. I have some other WW recipes I need to post, but I’m having some technical issues, mainly that I’m having trouble getting good pictures in my horribly lit new kitchen (as you can see from the pic above, which I wouldn’t normally post, but it’s the best I had)*. I’m thinking about getting one of those table top lighting systems, possibly this one
*Update: Made this again and got some much better pics to replace bad ones on here before. I wound up getting the lamp mentioned above and I like it a …
January 19, 2009
Mulligatawny (Indian Curry Soup) with Naan
So I’m finally back. We moved in to the new apartment about a week and half ago and I got the last few things unpacked and my pictures hung this weekend so I guess we’re officially settled in. After looking through my cookbooks I went on a grocery shopping spree last week and restocked my new kitchen (LOVE my brand new oven and dishwasher) and I’ve been cooking up a storm since then. Because, seriously, for the two weeks while we were moving, ALL we did was eat at restaurants and fast food places. I was sooooo tired of greasy food by the end of it and I think I’ve had my fill for the foreseeable future.
So for the next month (up until my birthday, exactly a month away), my goal is try as many recipes as possible from my Weight Watchers cookbook. I’m not going to be doing the whole point counting thing (though I have in the past and lost a substantial amount of weight) but I definitely want to concentrate on eating better (more vegetables, whole grains, etc.) and trying to be healthier …
December 30, 2008
Black and White Cupcakes
It’s still December (barely), so that means one last sweet treat until diet month! Actually, this will probably be my last post for a few weeks anyway because I’m moving to a new city and I don’t imagine I’ll have time for much posting until we get settled in our new apartment. Plus I need time to look though all my cookbooks and find new, heathly(-ish) recipes to make!
Anyway, back to today’s recipe. I had so much fun making Black and White Cheesecake that I decided to try that method with regular cake. I’m listing yellow and chocolate cake recipes that I like, (been using them for years, so I don’t even remember where I got one of them…) but really, this is all about the method. If you have a better yellow or chocolate cake recipe in your arsenal, use that instead. You can even just buy some boxed cake mixes to make things even simpler.
December 23, 2008
No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies
In January I promise to post some low fat recipes to get in the New Year’s resolution diet mood, but until then it’s still December and I’m baking like there’s no tomorrow! The cookies come to me courtesy of my boyfriend’s grandma from Tennessee who I like to think of as the quintessential southern woman. Almost every time I’ve been over to her house she has a feast prepared, even if she’s only expecting a few people to come over! Brandon compares my cooking to hers all the time (That’s not how my grandmother makes it…), but that’s ok because she’s a great cook, so if I could be as good as her one day that would be a great compliment.
I’d never had these cookies until the first time I went over to her house and I think I must have eaten about 50 of them that day because now every time I go back she’ll tell me that she made my favorite cookies. She’s even sent us a big batch of them for Christmas in years past. But since Brandon had forgotten to send …
December 16, 2008
Chocolate-Filled Mexican Wedding Cookies
I think Mexican Wedding Cookies are one of the quintessential Christmas cookies out there*. Besides decorated sugar cookies and gingerbread men, they are definitely what come to my mind when I think of holiday sweets. I’ve also seen them called Mexican Wedding Cakes or Russian Teacakes. I remember my mom would make them for Christmas parties and she’d always have to make special ones for me because I don’t like nuts.
*Update 5/1/2009: A commenter said she was making these for Cinco De Mayo, too. Great idea!
Last month I thought about these cookies, which I haven’t had in years, and decided to whip some up. They are so easy to make and just as good as I remember. I still don’t like nuts and I think these cookies taste just fine without ‘em. The recipes I looked at instructed me to make them into balls, but I always remember that my mom made hers into crescent shapes. I obviously didn’t have her technique down because mine weren’t as nicely shaped as I remember hers to be. I guess that’s why …
December 9, 2008
Irresistible Peanut Butter Cookies
So I guess December is the official cookie baking month, right? I don’t feel so bad about making/eating cookies in November and December. Diets are what January is for. I consider myself quite the cookie connoisseur but I realized last month that despite my love for all things peanut butter, that I’ve never made peanut butter cookies from scratch. Of course, I had to remedy this immediately. Brandon had a cookie craving one night and didn’t want to wait the requisite 36 hours for chocolate chip cookies so I found this recipe and whipped it up. I LOVED how fast and easy these were to make. This recipe also had more peanut butter in it than any others I found, and I don’t think you can go wrong with more peanut butter.
While I liked these cookies a lot, I couldn’t help but think that peanut butter always tastes better with chocolate. I remembered a cookie recipe I saw where they dipped the cookies in melted chocolate and then let it set. I tried this with some of the batch I made and …
December 4, 2008
Black and White Chocolate Cheesecake Supreme
I decided to buck tradition this year and I made a cheesecake for Thanksgiving instead of apple or pumpkin pie. Brandon and I both LOVE cheesecake and he insists that it’s more pie than cake, so in his mind I still made the traditional pie. I used my previous cheesecake recipe, (which IMHO is the best) but modified it by adding melted white and dark chocolate, a method I’ve seen in a bunch of other recipes. If you remember from my previous sojourn into cheesecake baking I had some issues getting it right (it looked undercooked, though it really wasn’t). I baked it a bit differently this time and found this is definitely the right way to do it. Plus I think this new method makes it much more like a real New York cheesecake (or so I’ve heard) because it browns the top and sides slightly. While this method made the top kind of flaky looking (nothing you notice when you are eating it), the cake itself didn’t crack.
