Oven-Roasted Corn on the cob, no butter

I have made this recipe before and love it. It's on page 324 and it comes with a nice picture. Basically, you roll the corn in a mixture of olive oil, lime juice, water and cilantro. Then you wrap it in foil and bake or grill. YUM! If you love cilantro like I do, you will love this recipe. 1 ear of corn is only two points, and trust me, you do not need butter. If you live with people who are picky about eating produce that is in season(like I apparently do), don't make this in the winter.
We ate this with fish tacos, which is not a weight watchers recipe.

I don't really have a lot to say about corn on the cob. Oh, check your teeth after eating.

Spinach-stuffed mushrooms

Page 50. Not a bad substitute for the delicious cream cheese and worcestershire stuffed mushrooms (or cream cheese and bacon, however you roll), especially if you like spinach. I like spinach, plus it's good for you. It would appear as though a WW thing is to use a very strong flavored cheese but only a little of it. This is a pretty good strategy. Unless you like mouthfuls of cheese (which I do, but no matter) you don't really need a lot if it has a lot of flavor. Monterey Jack is one such cheese, and it tasted great on top of these mushrooms. The nutmeg mixed in also added a nice flavor, although I felt kind of like I was eating a quiche. Several problems with the recipe though:

1. I mixed an egg in with the "stuffing" mixture as per the recipe and I'm not sure why. It didn't really seem to add anything.  Except the weird quicheness

2. The recipe called for 4 large white mushrooms, but the white mushrooms I had were still kinda small. I mean, white mushrooms are supposed to be smaller than portobello, yes? It specifically said NOT to use portobello because they are too big. Except, mine were too small. And the white mushrooms I bought are average size. I didn't even use half of the spinach mixture in those 4 mushrooms. So, I have no idea what went wrong here. I made 9 or 10 mushrooms and then threw the rest in a frying pan. Which was weird, because of the egg thing.

3. The recipe called for one bag of triple-washed spinach. What the heck is "triple-washed" spinach? I checked all of the bags of spinach and none said how many times they were washed. In the end, I chose the spinach that was "jet-washed". Figured it might be cleaner than the other spinach.

If I wanted to replace my cream cheese and worcestershire stuffed mushrooms with a healthier variety, I might make these, but I would lose the egg and maybe add some chopped onion. And garlic! Yes, garlic is what these mushrooms need. But besides that, not bad.

A recipe that might make you unpopular

Yesterday I tried the Caramelized Garlic Spread on Toasts (pg 42). This ended up being my lunch, which was poor planning on my part. This spread consists of garlic, honey, cayenne, water, salt and pepper. I ate them with baguette slices I got from Farm Fresh (little ones). The spread is easy to make and doesn't take very long. However, I'm not sure how good of an appetizer it is. I mean, it tasted fine. The cooking of the garlic with the honey took some of the bite out of the garlic, and then you add your own bite with the cayenne. I used the least amount of cayenne recommended by the recipe and found it still too spicy. Also, the amount yielded by the recipe is strange. It makes enough to spread on 9 pieces of toast. So, if you want to serve this at a party (which I wouldn't recommend), you would have to quadruple the recipe at least. If it is just you and one other person, the amount is fine, but it lacks as an appetizer in my opinion.  It's just ok. Nothing to write home about. If I had the choice between caramelized onions and caramelized garlic, I now know that I would choose the onions.

These are 2 points for each toast + 1 teaspoon of spread. Since it was my lunch and I was alone, I ate all of them so as to not waste any, and that was a bad decision. It really wasn't worth the 18 points (for non WW people; that is way too many points for one meal).

So if you are planning on having people over and want to serve low-calorie or somewhat healthy food, you can probably skip this one. Maybe it would be better, and less points, if served with cut up vegetables instead of toasts. And when it comes to appetizers and point values, and you are trying to lose weight, it's probably a good idea to limit yourself to 1 or 2 appetizers anyway. I wish I hadn't eaten 9.

I'm sad because Fabio got sent home from Top Chef. He's Italian, it's not his fault he doesn't know how to make a burger.

Secret's in the saffron?

Risotto is another one of those food items that I cannot resist ordering if I see it on the menu. I absolutely LOVE risotto. I have tried to make it several times before using different recipes and failed. It always tastes the same- bland. I'm not sure if the problem is me or the recipes I have tried. For those who have never made risotto, it requires some patience because you slowly add chicken broth or wine and then let it absorb, stirring constantly, then add some more, usually only 1/2 cup at a time. This takes a while, as you can imagine. You add some cheese and butter at the end, and the result is creamy risotto. A proper recipe will never have cream in it; the risotto becomes creamy from the absorption of the broth and wine. Once when I ordered risotto at an italian restaurant, a dinner-mate made fun of me for ordering "a bowl of rice". Risotto is SO much more than a bowl of rice. If properly made, it is really creamy and flavorful. I have never eaten nor made Risotto Milanese before, which is from Milan, but there it was on page 343 so I gave it a go. I already had most of the ingredients except for the saffron. I have never cooked with saffron before (either because my other recipes didn't call for it or I just left it out), but I know it is common in Spanish cooking because of a previous Top Chef winner who used it all the time. I went to buy the spice at the supermarket and was shocked to see that it was $18, much more costly than the other spices of $4 and $5. So I gritted my teeth and bought the stuff, thinking it better taste like GOLD! Apparently it is so expensive because it is hand harvested.

As I was making it I was on the phone with my sister Melanie and I did not have high hopes because it didn't smell that great when I was adding the broth. After adding the cheese, butter and lemon zest, I gave it a try. SUCCESS!!!! It was so good! It has a nice golden color from the saffron and a little zip from the lemon zest. I am so happy you have no idea. I will make this recipe again and again and again and would even make it for company.

I ate the risotto with a little cheese and parsley sprinkled on top and a glass of Wiemer Semi-Dry Riesling, courtesy of Melanie (check out her wine-making blog: http://iheartnywines.blogspot.com/ ). For the vegetarians out there, you can probably make this with vegetable broth instead. For WW peeps, its 3 points for half a cup ( I ate a lot more than that, oh well). Risotto is actually supposed to be a "first course" but if you love it as much as I do, it definitely takes center stage.

So if you think that risotto is just a "bowl of rice", come on over and try some. If there is any left :-)

Snow day cooking

We got about 3 inches of snow here in Hampton Roads on Thursday, and since the 7 cities all share one snow plow, schools were closed. This was a good day for me to catch up on my lesson plans, so I did, and also spent a little time crocheting. My belly dancing class was cancelled so I figured I had no excuse not to cook dinner. So I tried out the Polenta with Fontinella-Mushroom sauce. I love mushrooms so I was excited! Cooking this meal was interesting. Fontina cheese is expensive! I realized when I started cooking that I had bought the wrong cheese, Fontina instead of Fontinella. I googled them and I'm still not sure if they are the same cheese or not. Different websites say different things. But, I had Fontina so thats what I cooked it with. I also couldn't find my measuring cup so I had to wing the measurements a little. It came out pretty tasty, I ate the meal with some chicken and then I had leftovers for two days, which I ate happily. The cheese had a good flavor and any sauce with mushrooms is a good sauce. The polenta was just ok, but drenched in sauce it was good. I had polenta recently when Jack and I went to McCormick and Schmick's for dinner before he left for his underway, and the polenta in my dish was delicious! So the polenta that I bought was less good. Apparently in northern Italy polenta is preferred over pasta. If it's made well, I can see why.

3 recipes, 1 stone!

I decided I was in the mood for some WW pizza, so tonight, I made the Basic Cheese Pizza (pg 301). For my New York readers, I must remind you that while I grew up in New York,  home of the best pizza ever, I have been living in the South for almost 3 years. I am accustomed to eating sub-par pizza. So you either need to eat crappy pizza for a while before trying this recipe to lower your standards, or just accept the fact that this is NOT New York pizza. For those who don't know, New York pizza is characterized as wide, thin and foldable. Unlike the pizza I had at student teaching orientation, which cracked when I folded it, NY pizza would NEVER crack. There is also a thin amount of sauce and the crust is made from "high gluten" bread flour (thanks Wiki). The rumor is that the yummy flavor of the crust, which I have not found farther north in NY than Rockland County and anywhere outside of NY, is due to the minerals present in the water.  I am suspicious of this theory because Long Island draws its water from a different source than NYC and Rockland, although may have an equally high mineral content. Long Island gets its drinking water from groundwater aquifers, which was blamed for the breast cancer cluster that has appeared on Long Island. The salt used on the sidewalk and street ice gets into the groundwater......yea, I guess that would cause a high mineral content. FYI the investigation into the "environmental factors" and the rate of breast cancer was not conclusive. In case you were wondering.

But I digress. Basically, NYers and pizza snobs, lower your expectations if you are going to try this pizza. Moving on, in order to make this pizza I also made two other WW recipes, the Roasted Tomato Sauce (pg 7) and the Basic Pizza Dough (pg 300). The sauce was pretty good, although a little sweet on its own. If I am going to eat it with pasta it will need salt. Or, maybe a sprinkle of Parmesan or Romano to add some zing. It was easy to make too, just roast some tomatoes and onion with balsamic, garlic, salt and pepper and then throw it in the food processor. The crust was also pretty easy. The water needed to be a certain temperature, so I had to use a thermometer (like, the one I use when I'm sick). Don't worry, I cleaned it first. I am not a very good baker, so I get a special satisfaction when I am making something with yeast and it ACTUALLY rises. Instant gratification! I had issues with the stretching of the dough in the pizza pan though. Practice makes perfect I guess. I put the sauce on, and the amount seemed like a lot. Too much sauce, not enough cheese. But, I followed the recipe exactly. And you know what? It was pretty good! Sprinkle some chopped fresh oregano on top just before serving. The sauce and oregano make up for the lack of cheese because the flavor of the pizza is pretty good. The crust had a nice crunch even though I didn't bake it before putting the toppings on (which I wanted to, but NOT in the recipe) and the crust flavor was decent. I might like it better than the pizza around here. I wanted to drink Coke with it, but we have no soda so I mixed some lemonade with Firefly and peach schnapps, which was a decent replacement.

 I made a rectangle pizza since I don't have a round pan (or a stone) and divided the finished pizza into 6 pieces. 1 piece is 5 points, which is kind of a lot since you likely will eat more than 1 slice. However, restaurant pizza is probably a bazillion points so you will be ahead of the game. Ratings of these recipes- thumbs up! Except I now have a ton of roasted tomato sauce so I will be eating it for a while. Maybe I will make a lasagna or something. Oh, and the pizza dough recipe makes enough for two, so the other half is in my refrigerator. There are also multiple variations of the crust recipe, so there will be more home-made pizzas to come. AND the book suggests that you and I can use bread flour for a high-gluten pizza! Maybe we can see if the flour makes a difference in the flavor of the dough. And, I can bring in some water from NY. Who wants to come over for a taste test?

And lets not forget that, like I would any other pizza, I burned the top of my mouth on it.