Recipe Rewind: July 2017

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July Recipe Reviews

July was a busy month. A trip away to my NYR Organic Conference for me. Two work trips for my husband. A family trip to South Padre Island. So this all meant a lot of summer busy fun and less cooking and eating at home. (I find it hard to cook for my family when my husband is out of town because its not as rewarding to cook for me and my two girls who are 1 and 3 years old.) So, the new recipes I cooked were a little few and far between, but never the less, here are the new recipes I cooked in July.

As with every month, I will give the following information:

Description: A quick description of the recipe.

My Story: How and when I cooked it; any interesting tidbits.

Easy to Hard Scale: 1 is super easy. 10 is super hard. Thinking about the amount of dishes it takes, how many cooking methods and appliances. How fast it is to pull together.

Unhealthy to Healthy Scale: 1 is super unhealthy with no redeeming ingredients. 10 is super healthy. I am considering whole foods, fruits, vegetables, proteins to be the most healthy. Any straight white carbs would be the least healthy.

Would I Make it Again? Is this recipe worth adding to the rotation? How often would I make it? Would I recommend it to a friend?

Instant Pot Buffalo Chicken Meatballs

Description: Meatballs in a light buffalo sauce.

My Story: I wanted to be using my Instant Pot more. Plus trying to do more low-carb cooking. These are whole-30 approved, using almond meal and ghee instead of butter. These had good flavor, but I didn’t expect my daughters (ages 1 & 3) to eat them, so there’s that.

Easy to Hard Scale: 7. These are nothing difficult, but they are much more involved than some dump recipes. Making meatballs is not the quickest thing, especially when a 1 year old daughter is hanging on your leg.

Unhealthy to Healthy Scale: 7. Whole foods, good fats, all that.

Would I Make it Again? Nope. Life is too short for dry chicken meatballs. I might alter the recipe next time. Or let it do more natural pressure release. (Who has time for that?) Even so, I had ordered my groceries to be picked up and they substituted ground chicken breast for ground chicken. So it was even leaner. And made for drier meatballs. Next time I would do beef. I would do the actual process again. Using the Instant Pot was fine. Nice to saute and cook in one dish.

Asparagus Wrapped in Prosciutto

Description: Pretty self explanatory.

My Story: These changed my life. After my first bite I vowed never to eat regular asparagus again. No big story here. I just had always wanted to try these but hadn’t. And now I have. And life is good.

Easy to Hard Scale: 3. Pretty simple. A little involved with the wrapping, but it is still pretty easy.

Unhealthy to Healthy Scale: 9. It’s a vegetable, y’all! (And prosciutto is one of the few no-sugar-added meats!)

Would I Make it Again? Yes! Yes Yes! I can see making this once or twice a month. It is a little involved, but when it’s crispy….. so good. But here is a tip: only make as much as you will eat right then because they are so much better when warm and crispy.

Instant Pot Chicken for Taco Salad

Description: Mexican chicken in a tomato sauce.

My Story: I didn’t have dinner planned and I wanted to use up a bag taco salad mix. I looked at several recipes to make some yummy chicken for my salad, but this was the winner because I had all the ingredients. Scratch that. I had all the ingredients except for ground coriander. I’ll add that to my list. But I like this recipe because it is made up of pantry ingredients AND it is not too spicy for my girls, like a jarred salsa would be. Note: I didn’t use this salad recipe. I already had a bag of taco salad. Just added the chicken and some canned black beans.

Easy to Hard Scale: 2 Very simple! I love dump recipes!

Unhealthy to Healthy Scale:9 – pretty healthy!

Would I Make it Again? Sure will!

That’s it for July! I also did a Wildtree Freezer Meal Workshop in the last week of July, so I hope to give recipe reviews for some of those meals soon! Here’s to cooking at home, saving money, and saving calories.

Be sure to check out my Pinterest board Yummies I’ve tried for links to all of the online recipes I have made. Or come and join the conversation in Alicia’s Organic VIPs! I usually talk about meal planning on Mondays.