Simply Recipe's Shrimp, Bacon and Avocado Pasta Salad

This is a great summer salad, I loved having something easy and fresh to make for our family that was a great light dinner on a hot night.  I found this easy recipe here, but I will post the ingredients I used, which are a little different from the recipe.  Follow the link for instructions.  Each serving was 351 for six servings, Aaron and Noah gave it an 8, Jonah really liked it, I gave it a 9, and Owen gave it a 6 because he didn't like the peppery flavor.  Here are the ingredients I used:

1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
6 oz tri-color rotini
1/2 t chipotle chili powder
1/4 t ground coriander (to also sprinkle on the shrimp)
salt
3 slices thick cut pepper bacon
1/2 onion, diced
1/3 c diced red bell pepper
1/3 c diced green bell pepper
1 green onion, diced
1 avocado, chopped

Dressing:
1 1/2 t whole grain garlic mustard
2 T fresh lime juice
1 T white wine vinegar
salt
2 T olive oil

Simply Recipes' Strawberry Oatmeal Muffins

I found this recipe here for Strawberry Oatmeal Muffins, and these were a great way to use up strawberries, and while not an over the top win at the house, these are a tasty muffin, and we gave them an 8.

The recipe made 21 muffins for me, and each muffin was only 122 calories, so that's nice to have a low calorie muffin.  The only change I made was to put in a little less pepper than it called for, but everything else I did just like the recipe said.  Follow the link above for the recipe and enjoy!

Simply Recipes Apple Turnovers

We had a yummy breakfast treat, Apple Turnovers!  I love these, and always have, and this recipe was easy and great.  Owen gave them an 8, and Noah and I gave them a 9.  The calories per pastry were 300, and we made 6 pastries.  I used the frozen puff pastry dough, because I had some and it's a lot easier than making my own ;).  We found the recipe at Simply Recipes, a great resource for recipes.  Anyway, here's how I made the recipe.

Apple Turnovers

2 small granny smith apples, peeled, cored and chopped
3 T cherry flavored Craisins
1/4 c sugar
1/4 t cinnamon
1/2 t cornstarch
1/4 c unsweetened applesauce
1/4 t vanilla
1 frozen puff pastry sheet, thawed
2 T butter, cut into small pieces
1 T sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 400 and put oven rack in the bottom third of the oven.  Grease a cookie sheet and set aside.  Mix together the apples, Craisins, sugar, cinnamon and cornstarch.  Add in the vanill and applesauce.  Roll out the puff pastry, and then cut it in desired number of pastries.  Place apple filling in the middle of each square, and add butter pieces to it.  Fold the pastry square into a triangle, press sides together, and sprinkle top with sugar.  Bake for 20 minutes or until puffy and golden.

Halibut with Cilantro Sour Cream, Pepperjack Potatoes, and Strawberry Cream Cheese Danishes

Today we had http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/guy-fieri/pepita-crusted-pacific-halibut-with-cilantro-serrano-cream-recipe/index.html, but we used Panko instead of pepitas, and since I didn't have eggs, we didn't do the eggs or flour.  Calorie count was 294/serving of fish and sauce.  This was delicious, and we had http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/pepperjack_potatoes/ to go along with it.  We like them mashed.  Calorie count was 290/serving.  The cream for the fish was great, the potatoes are delicious, and of course corn is always good :)  Unfortunately I oversalted the fish, so it wasn't as good as it could've been.  Sigh... The potatoes get an 8 out of 10, and the fish gets a 7 out of 10.  For breakfast this morning I made easy strawberry cream cheese danishes, I tweaked a few recipes I had found on the internet a long time ago, and just made do with what I had.  411 calories/danish.  I used crescent roll dough, and since I didn't have eggs (again), I just used cream cheese, whipping cream, sugar, and lemon juice, then sugared the strawberries just a little.  These were delicious right out of the oven, but the bottoms became soggy as they set.  5 out of 10.  Tomorrow night--chicken fried steak.  Yummy!!!