New Recipes, I've been busy lately

I have been trying quite a few recipes lately in an effort to cook for hot summer days, eat better, pay attention to calories being around 300 for a meal and to loose a few pounds.  Some accomplished this goal while others sabotaged it but they were tasty none the less.


From this months Cooking Light magazine, special edition, Quick & Easy Summer Dinners I found the following.

Caramelized Onion Burgers:  They were tasty but caramelized onions could make paper taste good so topping the burger with them would be just as good.  The onion to meat ratio made the burgers fall apart a bit, 2 onions to 1.6 lb. ground meat.  Next time, if I add the onion to the meat I'll do a full 2 pounds or add some chopped mushrooms to make up the difference.  The burgers were with the cumin and smoked paprika with garlic were a winner at 385 calories unfortunately my bread held two 1/2 C. patties so my burger was more like 800 calories which isn't good.  I should have cut the bread in half since I cut the sandwich in half anyways, duh.  It made 8 burgers. 

Skillet Beef & Bean Dip:  With the leftovers I made a beef and bean dip and tomorrow will add the remaining two to a Thai salad.  Shown here is the bean dip before and after I topped it with the Fiesta Cheese mix.  Before I served it I topped it with chopped tomato, avocado and cilantro unfortunately the picture was a bit blurry.  I would also suggest sour cream and red bell peppers added to the sauté.  It was a totally different use for two leftover burgers so it didn't seem like leftovers.  It was listed at 385 calories also.

The Thai Beef Salad was another great use of leftovers and other refrigerator contents but a few more changes are needed next time and then this will be perfect. I used a bit of lemon and the rest lime juice but it was too sour so first I'll try using just lime as recipe wanted and change it up from there. Original recipe from Cooking Light, Quick & Easy Summer recipes, pg. 58. used haricots verts (French green beans) but I only had 5 regular green beans from my sad garden which is why I used the asparagus. Although I didn't saute the cabbage I didn't serve it separate topped with the hot mixture.  I'll post recipe when I try it again.

BBQ Sauced Chicken:  Last night I marinated 4 thighs in half my homemade BBQ sauce for 30 minutes or so then basted them on the grill as they cooked and served it with a Broccoli Slaw salad with a creamy dressing.  The chicken was good, don't know if the marinating them added more than just basting them would but it gives me something to do in the morning and then let them marinate until I am ready to BBQ later in the day.  The Broccoli Slaw was boring, just OK even after adding 1/2 C. chopped dried apricots.

Chocolate Coffee Vanilla Milk:  This was so tasty but it blew being good out of the water.  For two drinks I used the entire tub of ice cream and it wasn't shake like, more sweet milk texture a bit too runny but still VERY GOOD.   Anopther one to work on, ice would have helped thicken it like I do when I make a Mudslide.  This is what I did:  Add 14 oz. container vanilla ice cream with 1 C. condensed cold coffee and 1 T. chocolate syrup. Makes 2 drinks.