Stuff your face Sunday....on Monday.

Well, my first attempt at my food photo filled post was a big fat FAIL.  Spent so much time cooking that I ran out of time for posting yesterday so here ya go: healthy food porn to start your Monday (err...Tuesday by the time many of you read this) off right!  I promise I'll try to be better.  I love alliteration so Stuff Your Face Wednesday is just not as pleasing to my inner grammar nazi.

So!  One of my "secrets" to healthy eating during the week is to cook a bunch of food on Sunday.  I pick out 2 major meals that I'll eat for lunch and dinner all week, make a bunch of it, and voila, I don't have to make any "big" food decisions til the weekend.  (I always eat breakfast, I just tend to eat the same thing over and over so that doesn't vary much.)

Here are this week's culinary adventures:

Cheese + chicken = happy mouth, tiny butt

String cheese chicken!!  Find the recipe here.  This is my favorite meal this week.  Melty mozzarella cheese, chicken, and a psuedo fried taste thanks to the bread crumbs.  I made a few modifications: didn't use sun dried tomatoes or paprika because I don't like either, but I dipped it in tomato sauce when I ate it.  It tastes like a pizza minus the carb coma.  For a side dish I made flavored cous cous with pine nuts.  Easiest recipe ever:

Herbed Cous Cous (make as much or as little as you want)
Whole wheat cous cous prepared according to package but using chicken broth instead of water
parsley flakes or whatever green spices you want to use
toasted pine nuts

To round it out and get a fruit/veggie serving, I had a bowl of strawberries which are coming back into season in California.  Boom.  Done.

Have salmon, will travel.

Dinner was what the recipe called "melt in your mouth salmon."  You can get the recipe here.  However!  Let me warn you: I definitely modified this recipe so it probably wasn't as melt in your mouth as originally intended.  But we can't all be Paula Deen and get a seven figure paycheck for getting diabetes so I strongly advise against ANY recipe that calls for 1/2 cup of butter.  I used about 2 tablespoons so my marinade was more vinaigrette-y than thick gravy.  Trust me, my thighs thank me for it.  I actually made this to take to my man friend's house for dinner and while I didn't think it was my best effort he couldn't stop talking about how much he liked it.  This could be because he's a bachelor and lazy so rarely cooks anything for himself that takes more than 5 minutes, this could be because he wanted to get in my pants, or it could be true.  Try it, and you be the judge.

Oh and don't forget your veggies!  I kept it simple for my man friend and myself: fresh arugula with olive oil and coarse sea salt.  It was a really light and delicious dinner and with enough arugula you can get a good 2 veggie servings in without going to bed feeling like a beached whale.

I like to eat so I always have snacks on hand.  I was very excited to try this one: Cheesy Quinoa Bites!  Again, I modified it.  I only used 1/4 c of parmesan cheese.  I figured between my string cheese chicken and this, that was more than enough to hit my cheese quota for the week.  I like it as much as the next girl but I also know I don't want my ass to start resembling a big squishy chunk of brie.  I also used egg beaters instead of real egg.  Fair warning: this makes a LOT.  Be sure to have enough mini muffin cups on hand.  I threw half of them in the freezer for that week in the future when I'm busy having a Sunday Funday and mimosas are more of a priority than cooking quinoa.  They are a little bland and I haven't figured out the dipping sauce that will most perfectly complement them but I have to disagree with the author: I definitely don't think it will be anything in the honey mustard family.  I may try some warmed olive oil with minced garlic in it.

And when you're all done, hopefully you have something, or should I say someone, like this to help with the clean up.  Happy chewing!

The Conehead: not so effective for cleaning, highly effective for entertainment.