Carnitas Pizza

So we had the carnitas pizza from the Pioneer Woman's second cookbook.  We used her pizza dough recipe, and then made the carnitas in the crockpot using a roast, spices and papya pineapple nectar.  Aaron loved the meat, he said he gave the flavor a 9, but didn't like the juicy meat on the pizza, so overall he gave the pizza a 6.  Noah, Owen and I  gave it a 9, and although I liked it better without the meat on it, I liked both parts, pizza and meat.  We sliced it in 12 slices, and each slice with meat was 350 calories per slice.  We served it with tomatoes and avocado.  The only problem I had with the recipe is the cooking temperature and time were off.  We needed to cook the crust a little bit first, then add the toppings, but the recipe didn't call for that so part of the crust was delicious and part of it was still underdone.  I'll remedy that next time.  Tomorrow we're having jalapeno popper pizza and the Pioneer Woman's prune cake.

Coconut Cake Pancakes

This morning we had Coconut Cake Pancakes.  These were yummy, especially the bananas.  I made 21 pancakes out of the batter, and so with that number our calories were 89 calories/pancake with bananas.  We gave the bananas a 9 and the pancakes an 8.  I like that the recipe uses whole wheat flour as well as all purpose flour, and I like that this was very easy.  Instead of using one egg white and one egg, I just used two eggs, and I used less maple syrup in the banans and added 1 T of brown sugar to the bananas.  Also, I left out the oil entirely.  These were a great Saturday morning breakfast, and we'll definitely have them again!  We're trying a carnitas pizza from the Pioneer Woman's second cookbook tonight.

Thai Chicken Salad

Tonight we had Thai chicken salad from Ourbestbites.com.  This is the last of our Mexico meals, and probably our least favorite.  We gave it a 6 only, and it just didn't inspire us.  The calories were around 400 calories for 6 servings, and although the boys liked the noodles, the rest just didn't make it for us.  Oh well.  New recipes coming on Saturday.

Big Meatball Meatloaf

Tonight we had Italian meatloaf made in the crockpot.  Again, no pictures, sorry, but this was so fabulous!  We gave it between a 9 and a 10.  I used the basic recipe from the Italian Slow Cooker cookbook I've talked about before, and this recipe was so easy and worth the calories :)  Here's what I did:
Big Meatball Meatloaf
1 lb hamburger
1/2 c parmesan cheese
1 egg
1/4 c bread crumbs
salt, garlic salt, onion powder
2 1/2 c marinara sauce
4 oz pasta, cooked

(This is close to the recipe in the cookbook, she used less spices in the meat, and added more egg, and added garlic and pepper, and she used a lot less sauce.  She also uses tinfoil to line the crockpot and doesn't use the pasta.)
Spray a crockpot with cooking spray.  Mix all ingredients except for sauce in a bowl and shape it into 2 mini loaves or one big loaf, depending on your slowcooker shape.  Dump all the sauce over it.  Cook on high for 4 hours.  Then add in cooked pasta to heat through and mix with the sauce.  Cut the meatloaf into 8 slices, and place on pasta like meatballs.  350 calories/serving with pasta.  We were amazed at how well the meat loafs stayed together, and how great it all tasted.  So little work, but so much flavor.  Yum!  Tomorrow we're having a Thai chicken salad from Ourbestbites.com.

Greek Couscous Salad with Chicken

Although I have no pictures for you, this recipe was fabulous!  We had a Greek couscous salad from Our Best Bites cookbook, it was fast, filling, and super easy.  I made some chicken in the crockpot, and then just added it to the salad for a main dish.  It was couscous cooked with herbs, then chicken, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, feta cheese, all covered in a light lemon dressing.  Really delicious. We gave this a 9, Noah ate his so fast and said he wanted couscous all the time.  There are 300 calories per serving for 6 servings.  Tomorrow we're having Italian crockpot meatloaf.

Creamy Black Bean Salsa Chicken Tacos

Today we had Creamy Black Bean Salsa Chicken and made them into tacos.  These were good, but not fabulous.  The calories were 235 for 1/6 of the total, which is a very generous portion.  I used creamed corn and homemade salsa in this, and we used kidney beans rather than black beans.  We gave them 6-7 stars.  Being in Mexico limits how much we can post, but hopefully this will work!  Tomorrow we're having a Greek Couscous salad from Ourbestbites.com.

Jello, Cookies, Steak, Potatoes and Biscuits!

We had such a busy day today, with cooking as well as other things.  We will be going to Mexico this coming week, so I had to make a bunch of food today to take with us for meals.  Hopefully I'll be able to post over the coming week.  Today however, we had some yummy food, and some not so yummy food :)  We had food from ourbestbites.com, and from the Pioneer Woman's first cookbook, and some cookies from tastykitchen.com.  First, we'll start with the jello.  You can find this recipe at ourbestbites.com, and since Noah wanted jello, and I couldn't see us just eating straight jello, we made this.  I don't ever have Cool Whip, so we just used 1/2 c whipping cream instead.  It's not as light or fluffy, and it has more calories, but it still tasted great.  Calories are 205/jello cup, and we gave it an 8. 

These cookies are so soft and delicious.  Like Aaron says, chocolate for him and butterscotch for me.  Yummy!  They are easy and great tasting and have great texture.  I made 47 cookies, and they were 131 calories/cookie.  We gave them between an 8 (Aaron) and a 9 (me).

For dinner we had Roasted Beef Tenderloin, Creamy Herbed Potatoes, and Buttermilk biscuits all from the Pioneer Woman.  The tenderloin is from PW's first cookbook, and it received a perfect 10, hooray!  It was tender, had delicious flavor, and was fast and easy.  Make it by browning the meat, then coating it in a sauce made from olive oil, bacon grease, salt, sugar and pepper.  I added garlic to that as well.  Cook for about 20 minutes, and you have delicious beef tenderloin!  271 calories/serving because I cut down on the oil and grease and butter.  The Potatoes were from P.W.'s first cookbook as well and these were also very good.  I loved them, and if I hadn't oversalted them a little, I think they would've scored really high.  We gave them a 7, mostly because of the poor seasoning.  They were 280 calories/serving.  The last thing I tried was the buttermilk biscuits from PW's first cookbook, and these were a flop.  I have made buttermilk biscuits from Cook's Illustrated before, and they were great.  These, however, were a flop.  They didn't rise very high, they were dense, and the recipe called for way too much flour.  Oh well.  They were 141 calories/serving, and received a 2 from us.  Just not good.  So a busy day, and hopefully you'll see more of my labors in the coming week.  Tomorrow we're having a crock pot chicken recipe.  We went to see Brave for free today, thanks to Nova Home Loans and Derek Polder, our loan officer.  It was so fun and I really liked the movie, and we think our loan officers are great too :).  Go see Brave if you get a chance, I think it's totally worth it.

Shrimp Scampi and Squash

Have I adequately expressed my love of all things Cook's Illustrated?  If I haven't, I should say now that I think they come out with the best, most fool-proof recipes ever.  Our dinner tonight was their Shrimp Scampi, and it is such a pleasing, easy, delicious recipe.  Noah said it's his favorite kind of shrimp, and I have to agree with him, it is up there for me.  We give it a 10, and since there are only 169 calories for 4 oz of shrimp, this is low calorie and so great.

Shrimp Scampi (adapted from Cook's Illustrated)
1 lb shrimp, shelled and deveined (can leave tails on, we don't)
1 T olive oil
salt and pepper
pinch sugar
2 T butter, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 lemon, juiced
pinch cayenne pepper
1 T parsley, chopped

Mix together shrimp, salt and pepper and sugar.  Heat oil in a large sautee pan.  Cook shrimp in an even layer, about 2 minutes.  Don't stir.  Remove shrimp from the pan when shrimp have just barely turned pink.  In same pan, add 1 T butter then add in the garlic.  Remove pan from heat, add in the lemon juice, cayenne, and 1 more T butter.  Add the shrimp back to the pan and top with parsley. 

Takes all of 15 minutes, prep work and all, and it's so delicioius.  Anyway, we also had the Herbed Squash found at foodnetwork.com.

This had really good flavor, but I didn't prep the squash correctly, we must've planted a different kind of squash than I thought, so the outside was very tough.  However, I would definitely make this again.  About 70 calories for 1/4 of the recipe.  I give the flavor an 8.
We didn't make the Penne a la Betsy from the Pioneer Woman, since I didn't want that much food because Aaron is gone, but I would recommend that recipe to anyone.  It's great, we have it a lot, we give it a 9.  Tomorrow we're having some breakfast food and also some beef tenderloin.

Gingerbread Donuts

We had donuts this morning.  I love my little donut pan, it makes baking donuts so easy.  That said, these gingerbread donuts were a little disappointing.  They tasted good, but they were like muffins, not donuts.  The snickerdoodle donuts we had recently were definitely better and more donut like.  Aaron and the boys said they preferred those, and we gave these between a 6 and a 7, mostly for the consistency.  Also, as you can see, the batter made enough for more than 6 donuts, so ours were a little larger and not very donut-shaped.  Anyway, the calories were 230/donut, and they were easy and tasted good.  The shrimp and noodles and squash are coming tomorrow instead of today.

PW's Chicken and Bratkartoffeln

Tonight we had bratkartoffeln and the Pioneer Woman's Honey-Plum-Soy Chicken.  The fried potatoes, or bratkartoffeln, is one of our favorite dishes.  It's a great way to use up left over potatoes, and we eat them for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  I used 6 potatoes, 4 slices bacon, 1 onion, 3 T butter, and season salt and pepper.  Cook up the bacon, use the bacon grease and butter and cook the onions and potatoes.  Season to tatste.  Add back in the crumbled bacon.  Serve.  We made 8 servings out of these ingredients, at 150/serving.  We give these a 9.  The chicken we made from the Pioneer Woman's second cookbook, and we didn't like it.  I changed the recipe a bit, because we don't cook with alcohol, so we used beef broth and some red wine vinegar, and I used the crockpot, and we used cherries instead of plums, which was one of the Pioneer Woman's suggestions.  This came out falling apart, and had plenty of flavor, we just didn't enjoy the flavor.  If we had used all the sauce, the calories would've been 440/serving, but we didn't use all of the sauce, or even most of it.  We gave this a 5.  Anyway, we won't be having this again.Tomorrow we're having Penne a la Betsy (a really delicious recipe from the Pioneer Woman) and some herbed squash from our garden.

Crockpot Sausage Ragout and Green Beans

Tonight we had Crock Pot Sausage Ragout and Carmelized Green Beans.  This dinner was delicious!  I used a recipe from the Italian Crockpot Cookbook mentioned a few posts ago, and basically made it my own.  We loved it, and we really liked the green beans too.  They both received 9's from us.  The green beans were 114 calories/4 oz of green beans, because I left out the bacon grease and the olive oil,  and the Ragout with pasta was 270 calories for 3/4 cup.  Here is the recipe for the ragout:
Sausage Ragout
1 lb mild Italian Sausage
1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
3-4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, diced
14 oz left over marinara sauce
Seasoned Salt
Crushed Red Pepper
Any other seasonings
1/2 c cream
Crumble the sausage and add to crock pot along with all the other ingredients except the cream.  Cook on high for 3 hours, then low for 1 1/2 hours.  Add the cream, stir well, then cook on low for 1 more hour.  Serve.

We served ours with whole wheat penne, and I didn't brown the meat or soften the garlic and onions first, just dumped it all in the crockpot.  Everything cooked up so well.  Tomorrow we're trying Pioneer Woman's Honey Plum Soy Chicken.

Sprinkle Muffins and Jalapeno Poppers

Today for breakfast we had this recipe from the Pioneer Woman. We've had these before, they are super delicious, and we give them a 9. I change the nutmeg to cinnamon in the recipe, and even though I cut the recipe in half, I still get 10 muffins out of it, resulting in a calorie count of 319/muffin. Easy and fast to make, great to have the kids help me, and they just taste so great!

Aaron wanted these jalapeno poppers for dinner for Father's Day, but asked me to postpone making them until today, because he wanted me to spend time with him on Father's Day, not spend an hour cleaning out jalapenos :).  These are so good.  A little spicy, creamy, salty, and delicious.  Man, we can eat so many of these.  Our jalapenos on our bush are small, so I can get 60 poppers out of this recipe.  I used the recipe in the Pioneer Woman's first cookbook, leaving out the barbecue sauce and the green onions, and cooking it according to the online directions.  Here is the link for the online recipe.  The cookbook only calls for one block of cream cheese, and 1/2 c of cheese.  For 60 poppers, the calorie count is 32 calories/popper.  Aaron and I give the poppers a 10 and the boys give them a 1 :)  They don't like spicy food.  Tomorrow we're trying a crockpot sausage ragout and some green beans from Our Best Bites.

Father's Day Breakfast

Happy Father's Day! Today we made breakfast in bed for Aaron, and here is where you get the recipes:
Double Chocolate Waffles
Baked Breakfast Taquitos

We didn't make the berry sauce, because Aaron said he preferred regular syrup, and we didn't make the sourcream dip because of calories.  The taquitos were 211 calories/taquito, and the waffles were 164 calories/waffle.  We gave the taquitos between an 8 and a 9, and the same with the waffles.  They were both delicious, and Aaron was very happy with his father's day breakfast.  Tomorrow we are having some muffins from PW and also her jalapeno poppers.  The salsa in the red bowl is actually PW's restaurant salsa which is our favorite, easy and delicious, and so low in calories, especially since I don't add the sugar.

Chicken with Herbs, Bacon and Peas, PW's Caesar Salad, and Butterscotch Tarts

We had a Father's Day lunch today for my dad, and it was fun to try new things. We tried the Pioneer Woman's spicy caesaar salad, I made croutons from left over hamburger buns and butter rather than the ones called for in the recipe, and we used our garden lettuce. We all really enjoyed the salad, it was flavorful and delicious, and also full of calories. For 6 servings, the salad was 429/serving. Wow! We gave the salad between an 8 and a 9.  Anyway, we had a crockpot chicken meal as well, one I tried from this cookbook.  We had chicken with pancetta, herbs and peas.  I always forget in the flurry of activity surrounding serving dinner time to reseason my crockpot food.  This chicken was moist and tender, real fall off the bone kind of food, but because I didn't reseason it, it was bland.  Sigh...  We've tried this meal before and it was very tasty, just this time not as much.  The chicken was a 7 because of how bland it was, and the calories varied based on the cut of meat, but my peas and chicken thigh were 220/serving.  Now on to dessert!

I tried this recipe for Father's Day for my dad, but I didn't want to use a traditional pie crust, so I made a graham cracker crust, added in the filling, and then topped with my own whipped cream.  So the filling recipe is the only part of the recipe I used.  I also only managed to get 4 little pies out of the filling, not 12.  The pies were 307/pie, and they were really good.  I give them an 8.  Since I had made enough crust for 12 pies, I needed to fill them up with something, so I made a quick no-bake cheesecake to serve.  8 oz cream cheese, 1/2 a bowl of cool whip, and 1/2 c sugar all mixed together until smooth.  They were 266/serving.  Easy and yummy!  Another 8.  Tomorrow we're having some breakfast food from Our Best Bites cookbook to make Daddy breakfast in bed for Father's Day.  We're also having the pork tacos we had a few weeks ago since Aaron enjoyed them so much.

Sesame Noodles and Steak and Nestle Toll House Cookies

Tonight we had Sesame Noodles with steak marinated in the same dressing as the noodles.  I gave the steak a 9, and the noodles a 7, and everyone prettey much agreed with me.  It was delicious!  Only 331 calories/serving, and we had some steamed veggies on the side.  We also made some Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies, which are Aaron's favorites, so we had them for this weekend since it's Father's Day.   
These are obviously a 10 in our family, and they are 142 calories for 1 cookie from a batch of 40 cookies.  I just cooked one dozen of them and then froze the rest of the dough.  Tomorrow we're having a chicken crock pot meal and some mini butterscotch pies.

Pioneer Woman's Ranch Style Chicken an Our Best Bites Roasted Broccoli

We had this tonight, which is one of the recipes from PW's newest cookbooks.  It was good, but I think leaving out the extra oil was a bad move on my part.  The chicken was just too dry.  We gave it between a 7 and an 8, because of the dryness, and Aaron thought there wasn't enough honey mustard flavor, which wasn't a problem for me, but definitely was a problem for Aaron.  The calories were 220/chicken tender.  The broccoli we got from Our Best Bites cook book, and we roasted it in the oven with a little olive oil, salt and pepper, and then after roasting topping it with a little parmesan cheese.  We gave that an 8, it was super delicious, and very crunchy.  Noah said it was a little like eating chips :)  The calories are 113/4 oz of broccoli.  Tomorrow we're having grilled steak with sesame noodles from PW and squash and peas from our garden.

Pioneer Woman's Linguine with Clam Sauce and Apple Cinnamon Roll Cake

The dinner we had was found in the Pioneer Woman's first cookbook, the Linguine with Clam Sauce, and we gave it a 7 overall. The boys and I liked it better than Aaron did. There were 6 servings and each serving had 353 calories. It's just noodles, cream, butter, clams and some clam juice, salt and pepper, lemon and garlic. Pretty great!

Here is the link for the cake.  Yummy!  This was a great, easy, moist cake, and we all really liked it.  We gave it a 9, and for 20 servings the cake had 325 calories/serving.  Tomorrow we're having chicken and broccoli, which we were supposed to have today.

Mediterranean Chicken and Pioneer Woman's Marmalade Muffins

Here is the link to the recipe we had tonight.  I really like everything we've tried from this lady, and this was another one we enjoyed.  We gave it a 7, and it was a quick, easy pretty healthy dinner, only 435 calories for rice and chicken and sauce.  The only change I made was to cut the oil in half, and use 5 chicken tenders, so we cut it into 5 portions.   Notice the green beans?  They are from our garden :)

We had these mini muffins for breakfast this morning, and they were delicious! We got the recipe from the Pioneer Woman's first cookbook, they are called marmalade muffins, and although they don't have any marmalade in them (thankfully), they were easy and great tasting. I cut the recipe in half and made 20 mini muffins out of it, and the calorie count for each muffin was 114/muffin. We gave it on average a 9, for the ease of making them and how delicious they are. Tomorrow we're having a chicken dish from the Pioneer Woman and a broccoli recipe from Our Best Bites.

Pioneer Woman's Pan Fried Kale, Mozzarella Sticks, and Inside Out Burgers

Tonight we had this recipe which I made a few changes to.  I don't do the mushrooms, I cut the amounts in half so we have smaller burgers, I don't add the oil, and I use other kinds of cheeses.  We used pepperjack tonight.  The total calories for the burgers were 577/burger using a small bun.  We gave them an 8, mainly because the calories are so high.  We also made pan fried kale from the Pioneer Woman's newest cookbook, only 40 calories, and we gave it a 3.  We just didn't like it, sigh :(  The fried mozzarella we also took out of the Pioneer Woman's newest cookbook, and we loved those.  They were 125 calories/ cheese stick, and although I couldn't get them to stay together well, they were so tasty.  They also received an 8.  The burgers and cheese sticks were both easy and delicious, if a little high in calories :).  Tomorrow we're having a chicken and rice dish, and we're having some muffins as well.

Take Home Chef's Prosciutto and Emmental Stuffed Chicken

Our dinner tonight was a take on this recipe.  I always use chicken tenders, so I didn't stuff the chicken, I just pan fried the chicken after breading it and then topping it with a little slice of bacon and a bit of Emmental cheese.  We love having broccoli this way, the same way as I made the cauliflower, boiled in well-salted water and then topped with a little butter.  We added some garlic to the butter as well.  The total calories for 4 oz of broccoli and 1 tender were 427.  We gave this overall a 9, we would've preferred a different cheese.  Even more expensive Swiss cheese still tastes like Swiss cheese ;).  Tomorrow we're having burgers and mozzarella sticks.

Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

Here's the link for Friday's recipe.  We gave this between an 8 and 9, and we really liked this.  155 calories/serving.  Sunday we'll have the chicken recipe finally ;).

Tilapia Meuniere

Tilapia Meuniere was what we had for dinner tonight.  Here's where you find the recipe, and although it's supposed to be sole, I couldn't find any sole and so we used tilapia.  I only used 1/4 c flour and 1 T olive oil, and I didn't bother with the oven heating, since I cooked all of our fish at the same time.  Everything else stayed the same.  This was easy, fast, and delicious.  We gave it a 9 and everyone really liked it.  242 calories/filet using 5 filets.  I made the cheesecake bars today, but we didn't cut in to them, so they will be on tomorrow's post, along with a chicken recipe.

Raisin Bran Muffins

We had Raisin Bran Muffins today, and I love this recipe.  We've had it before, and it's great that I can use up cereal, and have fresh hot muffins every morning without waiting for them, since I can refrigerate the batter and cook them in the microwave and they turn out great.  Sorry the picture is blurry, I thought one had turned out and it didn't :(.  We give them an 8 and 200 calories/muffin.  I exchanged the 1/2 c oil for 1 T oil and 3 oz of plain yogurt.  That helps keep the calories down.
Tomorrow we're having a fish recipe and some cheesecake bars.

Red Beans and Rice and Our Best Bites Rolls

I kind of made my own recipe tonight using a red beans and rice recipe from Emeril Lagasse off of foodnetwork.com and basically changing everything. I took some sausage, a ham bone, 4 cups of chicken broth, celery, green pepper, onions, thyme, bay leaves, garlic, and 3 15 oz cans of beans with their juice, and cooked it all in the crockpot on low for 7 hours. An hour before serving, I put in two cups of rice and turned the crock pot to high and then put in some cayenne pepper and served it. I love the crockpot, especially when I don't have to do any work, and only get one pot dirty. The food was yummy, we gave it an 8, and the calories came to 276 for 1/12 of the total.

I also made the dinner rolls from the cookbook Our Best Bites. We gave them between a 9 and a 10, and I love how well they turned out with not very much effort on my part, thanks to my Kitchenaid :). They were delicious, and were 220 calories/roll.  I had to sample one before we ate :)

Tomorrow we're having raisin bran muffins.

Cheese Stuffed Pork Chops, Pioneer Woman's Potato Skins, and Cauliflower

We had Cheese Stuffed Pork Chops  tonight, and we really liked it.  I liked having the beans along with it, and we used our garden lettuce instead of the escarole.  Very yummy, and pretty easy to make.  We only had 257 calories a serving, because of less oil and how we served it up, and we gave it an 8.

We also had potato skins from the Pioneer Woman's first cookbook, and these were a 9.  All the kids loved them, my kids and my friend's kids, they thought they were super yummy.  163 calories/potato skin.

We also had what we call Germany cauliflower, because I learned how to make it in Germany, and we all love to eat it.  Even Aaron who swore he didn't like cauliflower likes this stuff.

We just take a whole head of cauliflower, place it in well salted water, and boil it until it is soft but not mushy.  Then top with butter and if you want bread crumbs.  I only add 1 T butter for the entire head of cauliflower, so it's not super buttery.  93 calories/serving for a large head.  We love it this way.

Tomorrow we're having red beans and rice and rolls.

Fake Orange Julius and Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Tonight we had Pumpkin & Cheese Spice Bread with eggs for dinner, some of the left over fruit pizza, and orange julius.  Fast Sundays are great, because we don't have to worry so much about our calories :).  Another reason to love fasting, right?  The recipe for Orange Julius is almost not a recipe it's so easy, but the boys loved it.

Fake Orange Julius 6 servings, 177/serving

6 c orange juice, divided 720

1 envelope dry Dream Whip 160

1 package (2 c) vanilla pudding mix 180

Pour 3 c of orange juice into blender, then add in dream whip and vanilla pudding.  Blend on low for 1 minute then turn to medium for another minute.  Pour into serving container, add in remainder of orange juice and serve over ice.

I found this recipe in a book by Joanne Fluke. I added some ice to the blender, and just blended everything up then served it over ice, and like I said, the boys just thought it was the best thing ever.  They gave it 10's, but Aaron didn't like it as well so it only scored a 9 over all.  The bread we gave an 8, and we really enjoyed it as well.  166 calories for a 1 inch slice.  I put the bread into 2 regular pans, so the loaves are shorter.
Tomorrow we're trying a pork chop recipe and potato skins.

Pioneer Woman's Fruit Pizza, Cook's Illustrated Irish Soda Bread, Ranch Pull Apart Bread, and Cream of Onion Soup

Look at all the food I cooked today! We had a very successful food day, and I received my first 10 today :)
We'll start with our first item, fruit pizza from the Pioneeer Woman. I didn't use her cookie crust, I used our favorite sugar cookie recipe from Cook's Illustrated. We all liked it, although I cut the topping down quite a bit so there wasn't so much filling, but we agreed it was between an 8 and a 9. I made 12 servings and cut the filling in 1/4, so the calories were 260 for 12 servings.

Next comes the Irish soda bread, the recipe I also took from Cook's Illustrated.

I needed an easy recipe for bread to make this, and I didn't want to use a normal yeast bread, and the result was

which gave me my first 10. Both the bread and the fillings were highly enjoyed by everyone. Unfortunately, the calorie count was high! 493 calories for 1/8 of the bread. Aaron loved this especially.
Here was our cream of onion soup, and you can follow this link to find it.  I didn't do the bread part of it, I just put in the extra clove of garlic to the soup, and then added some gruyere to the top of the soup and broiled it for a few minutes.  We really liked this soup a lot, it was sweet and flavorful and very low in calories.  We gave it a 9, and calories were 115/serving.  The servings were very small, but with the bread we didn't need very much.

And finally, we had veggies from our garden.  They were so delicious!!!  We gave them a 10, obviously, and we're so happy to have peas and green beans. 

Tomorrow the only new recipe is a quick orange julius recipe.

Shrimp Fraiche and Pan fried Spinach

Our dinner tonight was found here.  I loved that it was so quick, from start to finish, less than 30 minutes total, and I like making my own creme fraiche.  I added the pasta, and didn't use any wine or cognac, and I didn't use scallops, but otherwise just left it the same.  The spinach was pan-fried spinach from the Pioneer Woman's new cookbook, and although it was good cooked spinach, I still didn't win Aaron over to eating it ;).  The calories for the shrimp and pasta are 545/serving (2 oz of pasta) and the calories for the spinach was 39.  Tomorrow we're trying 3 new recipes, fun!