BLT

I did this recipe on September 14.

I always get turkey clubs whenever I can't figure out what I want on a menu. It's a great standby because it's hard to mess up. The BLT is a a turkey melt without the cheese and turkey. So, I like BLTs.

Rocco let's you use real lowfat bacon, however, my wife is against eating piggies, so I had to get turkey bacon. Turkey bacon is no substitute of real bacon, so I kind of wish I didn't use turkey bacon, but I did. It was ok. I think if we had real bacon, it would have been better.

Normal BLTs come in at around 800 calories. This one comes in at around 350 calories.

Baked Beans and Barbecue Sauce

I originally did this recipe on September 9.

This is a two for one special here. Because I needed to make the barbecue sauce and baked beans, and because Rocco's baked beans calls for Rocco's barbecue sauce, I did both at once. They both came out great. The barbecue sauce was actually a lot sweeter then what you would expect. And, putting them in the beans didn't dilute the sweetness enough. My wife mixed rice into her portion of the beans and it definitely helped. With the left over sauce, I also made my version of sloppy joes, which came out good too. I added in some water to cut down the sweetness.

I don't really like baked beans. I'm not sure why, maybe because they taste like the can they come in. These didn't have that canned flavor.

Normal baked beans are around 200 calories. Rocco's baked beans are around 100 calories. Normal barbecue sauce is around 150 calories. Rocco's bbq sauce is around 25 calories.

Spaghetti Carbonara

I originally did this recipe on September 7.

I've never had spaghetti carbonara before, but I loved this recipe. It's almost appears sauceless, but it definitely has a sauce. The sauce is an evaporated skim milk that you add cook with some egg yolk, onion, and bacon. It's really a great recipe.

Normal spaghetti carbonara comes in at around 1000 calories. Rocco's comes in around 300. Two thumbs up.

Peach and Blueberry Cobbler

I forgot to take a picture of this. But it came out great. My wife was actually the one who did this. We had it for a dinner party and everyone loved it.

This would normally be around 700 calories. Rocco's version comes in at around 100 calories. Definitely a keeper.

Gooey Garlic Cheese Bread

This recipe was originally done on September 3.

I wanted to like this recipe, I really did. It was just ok. I think I have an idea how I would make it better. Rocco calls for soaking the bread in chicken broth. I think the one thing I would do would be to dissolve  some garlic powder with the broth. Perhaps that would give this a more garlic taste.

Normal garlic bread comes in around 800 calories. This one comes in at around 220.

Individual Lasagnas

This recipe was originally done on August 29.

Everyone knows that lasagna isn't good for you. This recipe, though, is definitely a keeper, though.

I didn't do this exactly as the recipe called for. I was supposed to put them in four individual pans, but I didn't have that, so I just put the whole thing in one larger pan.

Anyway, it's awesome. It's much better then the zucchini lasagna I tried earlier for this experiment.

Normal lasagna is around 1000 calories. This one is just under 340.

German Sweet Potato Salad

I did the recipe on August 26.

German sweet potato salad is really tasty. I've never had a potato salad with sweet potato before, but it really works. It is both sweet and sour. Plus, it has bacon. Definitely a keeper.

Normal potato salad is around 500 calories. This recipe comes in at around 100 calories.

Basic Gravy

I originally did this recipe on August 23.

Who doesn't like gravy? It's the perfect topping for meat. This one is is kind of interesting. It almost has a baby food sort of texture. It did start to taste better over a few days, but I was kind of disappointed.

Normal gravy is around 90 calories and 5 grams of fat. This recipe has 1/10 of a gram of fat and only around 10 calories.

Mama-Approved Spaghetti and Meatballs

I originally did this recipe on August 22.

Spaghetti and meatballs is a classic recipe. It's also ridiculously high in calories. I've mostly used frozen meatballs in my cooking, but I think since I tried this, I might have to make fresh meatballs from now on. They were that good.

The way you make fresh meatballs kind of freaked me out. The recipe calls for uncooked meatballs be put straight in the sauce and to leave them in there until they are fully cooked. I was worried that the raw meat would somehow ruin the sauce. It didn't and these were close to the best meatballs I've ever had. They are just really tender and have a great taste to them. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Normal spaghetti and meatballs is around 1500. This recipe is just under 350 calories.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

I did this recipe back in August 11. And, I've got two pictures to show.

This recipe is really hard. I'm not sure if I did it right. I tried to follow all recipe but there was a lot that was pretty unusual, like squirting the gnocchi dough onto the back of a cookie sheet, and then put that in the freezer. You can see the picture of me on the left squirting the dough on the cookie sheet.

My attempt came out very doughy and not sweet potato enough for me. I might have used too much flour during one of the steps. The sauce also had a weird strong cheese taste, so that was a bit of a turnoff for me as well.

Normal gnocchi comes in at around 1000 calories. This one comes in at around 350.

Macaroni Salad

I'm really behind on this blog.

I originally did this Macaroni Salad on August 8. And it's really good. As good as any regular macaroni salad. It might have a bit more "veggie" taste to it, but that's fine.

Normal macaroni salad comes in around 350 calories. This one comes in at around 170. It's the perfect picnic treat.