#treesponge

a collection of mistyped layer names.

bonus @treesponge:

Who: Treesponge #258475

What: Sales

Why:  Amazingly kind and A+ service

When: 7/02 - 7/06 (Before but that includes my boyfriend)

It’s gotten really hot here in the last week, so I decided a salad might be the way to go! (I needed the oven anyway, joke’s on me)

myrecipes.com’s Kale, Apple and Almond Chicken Salad

First thing I did was find a pound of Steelhead trout (looks a lot like salmon, tastes a little less fishy) for half off...so I swapped that out instead of chicken. I’m gonna post the nutrition values for the recipe as shown with chicken. If you sub, the MFP recipe builder is a great help for your nutrition information!

There’s the fish cooked up in the background. doing that means a whole step of the recipe was skipped re: marinating and cooking the chicken lol (are you testing recipes or not?!)

Cooking the steelhead was as easy as putting it in the oven, and setting it for 12 minutes and coming back after prepping everything else. Had to toast the almonds, but that’s just keeping an eye on them. Almonds burn very easily. Now I have some spare toasted almonds too!

Making the rest of the salad was just chopping, measuring, and whisking. Then throwing everything in a bowl!

As for taste, the dressing is lemony but not too strong. The salad feels light but it’s very filling between the meat and the almonds. Very crunchy, I liked it quite a bit!

                                                         tasty greens!

I think you could sub any protein you prefer into this one, though for me beef would be a little heavy. Also if you don’t like kale, or like more than one note in your greens some arugula or spinach could be good additions!

PROS:

Easy

Some substitutions wouldn’t hurt it 

Filling

Good for summer - can make the warm stuff the night before

“Superfoods and Antioxidants” if you’re into buzzwords ;D

CONS: 

For a salad it does take a little extra time with cooking the meat

I can’t really think of another con. Recipe was written easy to follow

Rating: Tasty and would suggest it but would probably forget to make it a second time/10

Nutrition provided on recipe for 3oz chicken and 2 cups salad (1 serving) (always remember I’m not a nutrition expert, just someone cooking through the internet, one hopefully healthy recipe at a time. Always do your own nutrition research if you have questions.)

Calories 318

Fat 20.6g

Satfat 3g

Monofat 12.9g

Polyfat 3g

Protein 20g

Carbohydrate 14g

Fiber 4g

Cholesterol 81mg

Iron 2mg

Sodium 447mg

Calcium 159mg

Sugars 6g

I enjoy food, a lot, so the idea of calorie counting was something that worried me until I realized I could just cook things that weren't filled with butter and whole cows. CRAZY.

Disclaimers: sometimes I have to substitute ingredients because of the kitchen i'm working with and I tend to double recipes that look small because while I'm trying to eat less and better...the other people in this house are not. But I'll put in the information as I see it on the recipes I pull from the internet!

That said, today's recipe!

Eatwell101's Tomato Spinach Shrimp Pasta

I don't want to post a million in progress shots or talk about how my 4 year old just loves this dish on a saturday during Summer or all that. For one thing, I have no 4 year olds or children of any kind!

You can get that sort of food blogging from the recipes I'm trying out. I DO want to give my personal review of what I thought about making it and how it tastes

Gathering everything beforehand and cutting or prepping helps cooking time a LOT.

Making this recipe was incredibly simple. I think the only thing I had to cut up was the mint (subbed for basil we didn't have)

The thing I have to suggest heavily is cook your pasta beforehand! This recipe has it as step three, but boiling the water and all that takes so long that the rest of your meal will be overdone and cold before you can finish! Terrible.

Also, re: shrimp, a lot of recipes involving shrimp tend to give a time to cook them, but using your eyeballs is a lot better. 5 minutes for shrimp can be a lot. Once they're pink and just opaque and curling a little bit they're good to go for me. I suggest watching them instead of setting up a timer so they can be cooked as you want them.

Maybe i'll get better at food pics >.> maybe

PROS:

Easy

Can sub chicken or fish or any protein. This isn't a dish made or broken by shrimp

Filling meal. (I ate about half what I would have eaten before I joined MyFitnessPal and I was still full after)

CONS:  

the website makes you pay actual money for the nutrition information. (I'll be avoiding them in the future) I loaded the recipe into MFP to get the cal count.

Bland except the shrimp*

*this recipe suffered from the idea that the spices used on the shrimp would carry over into a whole lotta pasta from the same pan. This is how you get well-spiced shrimp and super extra bland spaghetti/penne/other pasta brand pasta that tastes a little like last night's pasta from the fridge.

Rating:  Edible but bland/10

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Remember to research all nutrition values listed for yourself as well. I'm also just a member of MFP learning how to eat better and I am not a licensed nutritionist in any way. Just poking internet recipes that are labeled "healthy" and seeing how they cook and how they taste :D

Nutrition Facts (from MFP's Recipe Importer) Servings 4.0 Amount Per Serving  Calories 423 % Daily Value* Total Fat 16g 25% Saturated Fat 1g 5% Monounsaturated Fat 6g Polyunsaturated Fat 1g Trans Fat 0g Cholesterol 120mg 40% Sodium 147mg 6% Potassium 62mg 2% Total Carbohydrate 47g 16% Dietary Fiber 5g 18% Sugars 0g Protein 22g 43% Vitamin A 34% Vitamin C 41% Calcium 7% Iron 7%