Chicken Quesadilla

It's not hard to love quesadillas. Chicken, cheese, salsa, all grilled to perfection. This one comes in just under 300 calories. I've had more then a few bad quesadillas at restaurants. This is not one of them.

My wife actually made the these first last week. It was so delicious, I decided to try it myself. These came out absolutely awesome. I honestly couldn't tell you that these were low fat.

For the record, normal quesadillas come in around 1200 calories. That's a lot for so little.

Salmon with Mustard Crust and Sauteed Spinach

I don't eat a lot of fish, but this was incredible. It was also incredibly easy. An orange, dijon mustard, a red onion, a salmon fillet and you've got yourself a meal. The spinach was sauteed in a small bit of bacon, which made the meal. Yes, bacon.

The really nice thing about this was that it was done in a matter of minutes. Some of these recipes have been rather involved. This one isn't. Literally anyone could do this in a matter of 15 minutes.

This comes in at less then 250 calories a serving as well. And I am full, which is really surprising. I wonder if it's all the protein.

Our cat approved our dinner as well.

Eggplant "Manicotti"

I have never cooked eggplant before. I mean, I've cooked eggplant that was frozen and breaded, but never from scratch. The first eggplant we bought for this recipe was a little beaten up, but Market Basket is the best grocery store ever, and they took it back the next day, no questions asked.

Anyway, this is a pasta free dish. The "manicotti" is the eggplant. Of course, in preparation of this dish, I sliced some of my "pasta" too thin, so it got a little toasted and unusable.

This was a big hit with the fam. Even our cat came off the couch and was prowling around, hoping that we'd give her some. She could use it, considering that this dish's calorie count is below 250. Yummy!

The exciting thing is that I only have one more dish to do this week. That will be a salmon dish, so come back soon!

Strawberry Graham Cracker Tarts

Rocco has a chapter on desserts, which is something I don't usually make. It is a very simple recipe, although one of the secret ingredients is pomegranite juice, which gives the custard part a real sweetness. All together, the calorie count is 207. This was definitely yummy and I will have to make this again.

Jalapeno Poppers

I like spicy. I like cheese. Therefore, I love jalapeno poppers. The dish was relatively easy. The one part I missed was using salt. It wasn't in the ingredient list, but in the directions he says to use a bit of salt and pepper on these. I didn't. Anyway, these taste good, I just wish I would have followed the directions and used the salt. Next time these will not just be good, but awesome.

On a plus side, I did manage to do two recipes this week, which was more then I expected. So far so good. :)

UPDATE
We had leftover Jalepeno Poppers for breakfast this morning, and they were actually better then the day before. The taste of the pepper really came out. I've noticed this when I've made Stuffed Peppers. They taste good when they come out of the oven, but they taste even better as leftovers.

Fettucini Alfredo

The best Fettucini Alfredo I ever had was at Ricardo's in downtown Lowell. For whatever reason, they no longer offer it but it was the most awesome cheesy thing I ever ate.

So, tonight, I made Fettucini Alfredo, from page 166. I followed the directions carefully and it came out awesome. Very cheesy and creamy. The great thing about these recipes is that if fills you up. Something about high fiber really is filling. And, the final calorie count is 336.

Anyway, on the left is the picture. This was taken after we already ate our portions. Enjoy.

The Rules...

So, here are the preliminary rules. I reserve the right to change them. :)

1. I only have a small family, so it doesn't make sense for me to cook a different recipe every day. I will cook at least 3 new recipes a week from the book.
2. I may substitute dried herbs and spices when the recipe calls for it, but only if the spices come in large quantities that I can't possibly use or when the small fresh package is too expensive. A good example is cilantro. It comes in a giant bunch and I can't possibly use it all.
3. I may take vacations/sick time off.
4. I'm ok with subistituting 1% for whole milk, that sort of thing, as long as it makes the dish less calories.
5. I won't publish the directions because that would be stealing someone else's materials. Buy the book yourself if you want the recipe.
6. On my first week, I'll probably only do one recipe. I have to get prepared for this.
7. Since the book is broken up in different things like appetizers, soups, etc, I will do it in the order I choose. I don't want to do 3 dishes of fish straight in one week, so I'll try to break it up a little. I'll come up with some sort of spreadsheet to keep track of it all.

Any other rules I should add?

The idea that started it all

Recently I purchased the Rocco Dispirito's book, "Now Eat This", which is 150 recipe book, all with lo calorie comfort food. I was showing it to a coworker and she suggested I do the Julie and Julia thing, which is to blog your way through a recipe book. I thought about it for about 2 seconds and decided I would. So, without further ado, let's get started.