Rockin' Roasted Shrimp & Asparagus Corn Chowder - p60

Review: The concept of this recipe was awesome. But there were a couple thins off. I think the cayenne was a little much. HG likes stuff SPICY! Wow. I liked the shrimp in this recipe because I couldn't taste them but they snuck in as a protein source. I'm not sure that roasting the shrimp and asparagus does much for the recipe though. I actually used precooked shrimp and canned asparagus.

Also, the cooking time seems off. I cut my potato chunks smaller than 1" cubed and after 15 minutes of simmering, there was no way in hell that was going to mush up the potato. It was still good - just a little hard. And spicy. And surprisingly potato-y. There isn't much potato in this recipe but it seems to STRETCH out. Weird.

Score: 3/5
Prepared: 12/28/09

Peaches 'n Cream Pie - p216

Review: So, this recipe wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. By no means was it good but that might be more user-error than anything else. #1 - I totally thought the sound of peach Jello was disgusting. #2 - I'm not a fan of fiber one crusts. Plus my pie pan is deceiving and I always think I've pushed the crust far enough up the sides and I never do. So, what happens is that I end up with a REALLY thick crust on the bottom and not enough up the sides. And then I can't use all the pie filling. I only used about half.

Then I was really amazed when I cut the pie and everything held together! But then my slice was like 90% fiber one and 10% peach jello. It was pretty sad. Maybe I won't totally write-off Fiber One crusts. Oh and before you get all grossed out by the ingredients, think about it - it's not much different from eating a bowl of cereal with peaches. Kind of.

Score: 2/5
Prepared: 12/24/09

Mug O Pumpkin Creme (vegetarian) - p274

Review: This recipe was ok. It seemed like it could be awesome but left me wanting something. I dunno. I've been on a hot chocolate kit so maybe it just didn't meet my needs at the time? No idea. But I'm tired of buying soymilk so I'm going to look at 200 Under 200 and see what uses soymilk so I can use it up and be done with soymilk recipes. Anyway, the recipe was creamy and pumpkiny but I think the pumpkin pie spice makes it seem more artificial. I used 2 sweetener packets and it was sweet.

Score: 3/5
Prepared: 12/25/09

http://www.hungry-girl.com/week/weeklydetails.php?isid=988

Sweet Cheese n Peach Cinnamon Raisin Kugel (vegetarian) - p263

Review: I was actually really surprised by this recipe. NOTHING about combining tofu shirataki noodles, cottage cheese, peaches and raisins (among other things) sounds good. But IT WAS GOOD. A little chewy but still really good. Yummy sweet. Now I just need to find someone to share it with. :)

The prep time wasn't bad. I didn't get to just nuke my tofu shirataki this time but had to COOK it in the pan. That was new. The part that took the longest was trying to wait for the cream cheese to soften. Eventually I gave up on that and put it in the microwave. There's a 30 minute bake time so don't sit down to make this if you're already hungry.

Score: 4.5/5
Prepared: 12/23/09

http://www.hungry-girl.com/week/weeklydetails.php?isid=896

Spicy Tomato Soup (vegetarian) - p53

Review: This tomato soup definitely has a new combination of flavor. The Frank's and powdered creamer definitely bring their own spin to this traditional soup. It's not quite as creamy as I would have hoped but it's pretty good. It's not too spicy either. I substituted canned diced tomatoes instead of fresh so I probably could have skipped the first steps of cooking and cooling the tomatoes and gone straight to the blender. Or just bought pureed tomatoes. I'll have to consider that next time.

Score: 4/5
Prepared: 12/23/09

Noodlicious Veggie Crabcakes - p266

Review: This maybe my favorite tofu shirataki recipe. I substituted angel hair shirataki for spaghetti and assumed that these pancakes would cook up crappy like the zucchini or other pancake-like recipes but this one actually worked out pretty well. In fact, my husband tried one and said, "wow, this actually taste like crabcakes." If that's not a testimony, I don't know what is. Even with all the other random non-crabcake-like-stuff in them, the flavor is really good. Just a little more work than I like to put into my dinner.

Score: 4/5
Prepared: 12/22/09

Perfect Plum Tomato Cabbage Soup (vegetarian) - p49

Review: For anyone who has done the cabbage-soup-diet, this soup is not for you. It totally gave me flashbacks. I was super excited by how easy it was - literally the soup can cook in like 10 minutes. But I felt that that actually wasn't long enough - my cabbage was way too hard. Also seemed like a waste of time and money to buy fresh tomatoes when I could just use diced canned tomatoes. Best part about this soup? It was warm when I was cold.

Score: 2/5
Prepared: 12/22/09

http://www.hungry-girl.com/week/weeklydetails.php?isid=976