New pumpkin beer to checkout!

Okay so I love fall because of all the pumpkin flavored stuff. I heard good things about the Catawba Valley Brewing Company right here in the Carolinas (Morganton, NC). They have the King Don’s Pumpkin Ale which I finally found at Healthy Home Market off south blvd. It only comes in growlers so be prepared to either drink one with every meal for the weekend or find a pumpkin loving friend to share with.

You twist the cap off and u are met with an awesome whiff of pumpkiny goodness. The taste doesn’t disappoint either. It’s kinda like fall in a glass. It’s almost dessert like and sits a little heavy but in a “glad you are here” kind of way.

This might be a contender with the Cottonwood Pumpkin Ale I love so much. Enjoy! This was 13.99 for the growler!

What rj is drinking tonite

Nor*cal IPA. We picked this up from Healthy Home Market (home economist for those that can’t deal with the name change). It was in the 5$ range for a 22oz. Initial thots: lighter type of IPA. light to Moderately hoppy and a lighter in color IPA.

Has a citrus beginning taste and a sweet finish. Thumbs up.

Yummm beer!

I am usually pretty lame when I drink beer. So when we went to total wine this weekend I expanded from the usual. Highly recommend this Hefeweizen. It’s UFO by Harpoon. Light and great with an Orange slice!

Restaurant Review – The Liberty, Charlotte, NC

The Liberty in Charlotte, NC

Dining Area at the Liberty

This past weekend we finally tried someplace new. There are so many interesting places to eat in Charlotte – and we always go to the same place. The Liberty is located in Charlotte’s South End area and we both really enjoyed our lunch. We had been there for a few beers before – they have a fairly impressive list of beers available.

Week In Review – Oct 18-22

Wow – where does the time go? Another week, another delicious four meals to report on. This week, we’re going to include the 4 recipes we cooked below with the links so you can quickly jump to them if you are interested. Then in separate posts each with the recipe name – I’ll put our review, pics, tips, and any changes we made so you can reference that if you want – or not!

Here’s the 4 we picked for last week:

Slow-Cooker Black Bean-Mushroom Chili (A+)

Meatloaf (this calls for ground beef but we used ground turkey breast instead!) (see review for tips for a sauce that will bring the score on this recipe up) dReJ rating: B (A with sauce)

Slow Cooker Braised Pork with Salsa (this recipe says to serve it over quinoa or rice and we decided to make a Salsa Cornbread instead) dReJ rating: A

Loaded Potato Soup (we served this with a french baguette for yummy dipping) dReJ rating: B-

Check out our individual recipe reviews for additional info.  Enjoy!

-Dre & RJ

 

Slow-Cooker Braised Pork with Salsa & Salsa Cornbread

 

A healthier take on cornbread

 

Quick link to recipe: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/slow_cooker_braised_pork_with_salsa.html

Ingredients/Servings
8 servings, generous 3/4 cup each (again, we only made HALF – so 4 servings worth)
Active Time: 7-8 hours
Total Time: 7-8 hours

INGREDIENTS (remember to split this in half to make your 4 meals for the week!)

• 3 pounds boneless pork shoulder, or butt
• 1 1/2 cups prepared tomatillo salsa, (see Ingredient Note)
• 1 3/4 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds, or ground cumin
• 3 plum tomatoes, (1/2 pound), thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro, divided
• 1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream

Again, other than cooking half the amount – we followed this recipe. The main recipe page suggests serving this over quinoa or rice, but we decided to make a yummy cornbread (inspired by delicious cornbread at San Antonio’s Modern Mexican restaurant in Charlotte – review to come!) to dip into the pork/broth yumminess.

Meatloaf (Turkey Version)

 

Hearty homecooked meal - minus all the extra calories & fat!

 

Quick Link to recipe: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/meatloaf.html

Ingredients

10 servings (we only made 5 servings – so be sure to split everything in half)
Active Time: 40 minutes
|Total Time: 1 3/4 hours

• 1 cup dried mushrooms, such as shiitake, porcini or chanterelle (we picked shiitake)
• 1 cup bulgur, (see Ingredient Note)
• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 stalk celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained
• 1/2 cup nonfat evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 large egg
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 1/2 pounds 90%-lean ground beef We swapped for Lean Ground Turkey ~ 3/4 lb (this is already halved for 5 servings)
• 1 cup fine dry breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

What we Changed: Above in  the ingredients list you see we left out the bulgar and traded ground beef for lean turkey. We don’t eat red meat 99.9% of the time (unless it’s a holiday party and someone has gourmet appetizers 🙂

Slow Cooker Black Bean-Mushroom Chili

 

Perfect to take to work for a quick reheat!

 

Quick Link to Recipe: http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/slow_cooker_black_bean_mushroom_chili.html

Ingredients/Servings:
10 servings, generous 1 cup each (we split this recipe in half to make 5 servings – so we got a little more than 1 serving each time)
Active Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 6 1/4-9 1/4 hours

INGREDIENTS (remember to make half if you are cooking for 2 for the week!)

• 1 pound dried black beans, (2 1/2 cups), rinsed
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup mustard seeds
• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds, or ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds, or ground cardamom
• 2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
• 1 pound mushrooms, sliced
• 8 ounces tomatillos, (see Ingredient Note), husked, rinsed and coarsely chopped
• 1/4 cup water
• 5 1/2 cups mushroom broth, or vegetable broth
• 1 6-ounce can tomato paste
• 1-2 tablespoons minced canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, (see Ingredient Note)
• 1 1/4 cups grated Monterey Jack, or pepper Jack cheese
• 1/2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 2 limes, cut into wedges
• dReJ addition: 1/2 lb ground turkey (this is ALREADY for half the servings)

dReJ Tip: We made this recipe as is (other than making half of the ingredients), and then we added our leftover ground turkey after we made our meatloaf. As you are putting the ingredients in the crock pot for STEP 3 of the recipe instructions on the link – add the crumbled up raw turkey. It will cook as you leave it in the crock pot.

If you have a slow cooker/crock pot – you are set. This is a super easy meal to make as you don’t have to be actively involved the entire cooking time. So don’t let the cook time freak you out.  If you don’t have a crock pot – it does give stove top directions at the bottom of the recipe!

Loaded Potato Soup

Very yummy for a cool Fall evening!

Here’s the link to the recipe: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000002012818&cookbook_id=5334599

What we changed:

Okay – so we kept the ingredients the same, but when we cooked this it turned out more like mashed potatoes than a soup. 😦 So RJ being the whiz he is decided to thin it out with  2% milk to make it a soup consistency.

dReJ tip: We made this meal in advance – so perhaps if you are eating it right away, you may not have this problem. Just keep an eye out for the consistency!

We also couldn’t resist buying a French baguette to go with this soup. It was a perfect dipping bread – we toasted it up and put a little low fat shredded cheese on it. Delicious!

Calorie Count: The recipe as is = 325. We added some 2% milk and some bread with low fat shredded cheese. So let’s add another 150 for the bread, 45 for the cheese & 70 for 1/2 cup 2% milk. So about 590 calories. Again – if you are trying to lose weight, just skip the bread on the side!

Week in Review: Oct. 11 – Oct 16

Greetings foodies! We’re anxious to get rolling with our first dReJGourmet food review! Below we’ll post the 4 recipes we picked, some pictures of the products and cooking process, calories and anything we changed or left out from the recipe. And most of all – we’ll tell you what we thought about the recipe!

Four Recipes:
Tuscan-Style Tuna Salad from EatingWell.com
Southwest Turkey Burgers from  CookingLight.com with Southwest Corn (dReJ special concotion: see below for the idea behind this)
Creamy Fettuccine with Shrimp & Bacon from CookingLight.com
Chicken Tetrazzzine from Cookinglight.com

The Ingredients (note – anything with a strikethru font means we made a change!)

Recipe #1: Tuna Salad

Tuna: 4 servings, 1 cup each
Active Time: 10 minutes/ Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 6-ounce cans chunk light tuna, drained
• 1 15-ounce can small white beans, such as cannellini or great northern, rinsed
• 10 cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 4 scallions, trimmed and sliced 1/2 cup diced white onion
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 1/4-1/2 cup fat free Kraft Mayo (to taste!)
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground pepper, to taste

Served with: Martin’s Potato Sandwich Rolls Potato Rolls & Cooked Carrots as a side

What we Changed:
As you see – this recipe served as an inspiration because we remembered as we started to make it that we had made this recipe before and it was too dry. So we decided to keep the mayonaisse base and leave out the olive oil. We switched out the scallions for white onion since we were using the white onion for other recipes this week.

Here’s what it looked like before we mixed everything together – YUM!

dReJ Concotion: Easy Carrots
Slice up carrots, put in pan with enough water to cover carrots and bring to boil. Once carrots are to your desired tenderness, drain water and put carrots back in pan with 1/2 teaspoon of butter per serving & quarter clove of garlic + salt and pepper to taste – mix this all together and let the butter melt, sprinkle with parsley (dried parsley works!) and enjoy! Serving: about 3/4 cup chopped

Estimated Calories: The calories will obviously depend on how creamy you like your tuna – the original recipe was 253 calories, so when you take out the olive oil and replace fat free Kraft Mayo – it’s a pretty good trade, saving some fat grams and calories. We served this on a Martin’s Potato Sandwich Roll that is 130 calories and served with cooked about 3/4 cup chopped carrots (see recipe below for EASY cooking). Just FYI – a cup of carrots chopped is about 53 calories. You’ve got some extra things in their like a 1/2 teaspoon of butter to help season them, so even if we overestimate at 60 calories for the 3/4cup serving – we’re looking at about 450 calories for this meal.

dReJ Says: This is a super simple, FAST meal to prepare. In weeks when we are lacking in time – a tuna salad is both easy and cheap.

Recipe #2 – Southwest Turkey Burgers from  CookingLight.com with Southwest Corn (dReJ special concotion: see below for the idea behind this)
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 burger)
Ingredients

• 2  poblano chiles (about 1/2 pound)
• 1  ounce  French bread baguette 1 ounce breadcrumbs
• 1/4  cup  1% low-fat milk
• 1/2  teaspoon  chili powder, divided
• 1  teaspoon  ground cumin
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/4  teaspoon  black pepper
• 1/4  teaspoon  ground red pepper
• 1  pound  ground turkey breast
• Cooking spray
• 2  tablespoons  canola mayonnaise (we used Kraft Fat Free Mayo)
• 4  (1 1/2-ounce) hamburger buns, toasted (we used Martin’s Potato Sandwich Rolls)
• 4  (1/2-inch-thick) slices tomato 1 Avocado (sliced)
• 4  green leaf lettuce leaves

dReJ Says: Don’t let the “grill the poblanos” part scare you away from this recipe. If you don’t have a grill or you are just lazy (like us) you can do this inside on your stove top. See the picture? You can do this, too. Just keep a careful eye on them – letting them get blackened on each side. It will smell like it’s burning. Just a warning! Once you “roast them” – put them in a plastic bag for about 5 minutes and then you should be able to pull the skin off easily with your fingers.

Dice them up and put them with the turkey mixture as the recipe indicates.  And pretty soon – you’ll have 4 little turkey burger patties ready to be cooked up. Again – you don’t have to use the grill. Pop them in the pan on the stove top with a little cooking spray and cook them up.

We served this with the mayonaisse as indicated and on a Martin’s Potato Sandwich Roll.

dReJ Concoction: Southwestern Corn (Easy cooking!)
1 can Corn + Original Rotelli (you can pick how spicy you want it to be)
Dump into saute pan and heat it up!

Estimated Calories for this meal: 321 for burger w/bun + ~100 for corn/rotel recipe = 421 calories

dReJ Says: This recipe is the bomb. So good! And it’s easy to heat up in a toaster oven or microwave. Very filling!

Recipe #3: Chicken Tetrazzini

Ingredients:

Yield: 2 casseroles, 6 servings each (serving size: about 1 1/3 cups)
dReJ note: We made half the amount of this recipe (so 6 servings of this). We had 1.5 servings a piece for our dinner since it was around 500 calories. The ingredients below reflect “half” the original amount.

Ingredients

• 1  tablespoon 1/2 tablespoon butter
• Cooking spray
• 1  cup 1/2 cup finely chopped onion
• 2/3  cup  finely chopped celery
• 1  teaspoon 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3/4 3/8 teaspoon  salt
• 3  (8-ounce) 1.5 (4 ounces) package presliced mushrooms
• 1/2 1/4  cup  dry sherry
• 2/3 1/3 cup  all-purpose flour
• 3  (14.5-ounce) cans fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth ~22 ounces of fat free, less sodium chicken broth (we use the cubes that you just throw in a cup of water and boil it up)
• 2 1/4  cups 1 1/8 cups or 4.5 ounces (9 ounces) grated fresh Parmesan cheese, divided
• 1/2  cup 1/4 cup or 2 ounces (4 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese
• 7  cups 3.5 cups hot cooked vermicelli (about 1 pound uncooked pasta)
• 4  cups 2 cups  chopped cooked chicken breast (about 1 1/2 pounds)
• 1  (1-ounce) slice white bread .5 ounce bread crumbs

This recipe is pretty straight forward – so even for a kitchen novice (me), it wasn’t hard. Remember since you are using breadcrumbs you don’t have to worry about the food processor! Also – you have to cook the chicken and the pasta before, so make sure that you don’t look over that part!

dRej Says: This is a delicious casserole. It would also be easy to substitute whatever veggies you have or like for the ones it calls for. Same thing with the pasta – you could use another type of noodle to avoid buying more. It was also easy to make in advance and stick in the fridge until we were ready to bake it. Reheats nicely!

Calories: For 1.5 servings of the casserole = 570 calories

Recipe #4: Creamy Fettuccine Penne or vermicelli with Shrimp & Bacon

Yield: 8 servings (serving size: about 1 1/4 cups pasta and 1 1/2 teaspoons parsley)
dReJ note: We only made 4 servings – so make sure to reduce everything by half so you’ll be able to have it for 2 meals a piece!

Ingredients

• 1  pound  uncooked fettuccine penne or whatever other pasta you have!
• 2  bacon slices (uncooked)
• 1  pound  large shrimp, peeled and deveined
• 1  garlic clove, minced
• 1 1/2  cups  frozen canned green peas, thawed
• 1  cup  shredded carrot
• 2  cups  2% reduced-fat milk
• 2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour
• 1/2  teaspoon  salt
• 1/2  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper
• 1  cup  (4 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2  cup  chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, divided

So I must admit – I’m not typically the one who cooks, but I did cook this meal! So for anyone freaked out by cooking, this is an easy recipe – even the sauce is simple to make. If you can chop up veggies, cook pasta, and stir some ingredients together while they are boiling – you’ve got this!

The only thing I messed up on was not putting enough milk in the sauce, and honestly, is still turned out good – just a bit more thick. When we made it the next time – we used the rest of our  vermicelli pasta and the sauce turned out much better!

dReJ says: This was also tasty & quick to make. As long as your shrimp are thawed prior to cooking, you don’t really have anything that takes long about this recipe. In the time it takes to cook the pasta, you can make all the other stuff and you are good to go.  Also an easy recipe to throw in other veggies you might have on hand from other meal leftovers. Could be an easy switch out for another meat as well!

Calories in this meal: About 382 (obviously if you change the meat you might change the calories on this one!

What’s it going to cost me?
That’s it, folks. Our 4 recipes we picked this week with ingredients, our changes and our thoughts on the recipes. Last week we spent about $45 a piece and we got food for these meals, personal item, breakfast and a meal for the weekend.

It’s hard to believe – but true – you can eat healthy, cheap, & delicious, too!

-Dre & RJ