Weekly Meals, Today’s Dietitian Cookbook

When it came time to prepare dinner 2 weeks ago, I wanted to try out some different things.  I received this cookbook at FNCE last year when I purchased my subscription to Today’s Dietitian Magazine.

 

Since it is not specifically a vegetarian cookbook, I looked through it and then put it with my other cookbooks.  Like I said, I was looking for something different and something that was not relying on plant proteins, since we (I should say I) do eat eggs, dairy and fish.  It is not so much a concern for me, but a concern for Ryan who has higher protein needs than me.  I selected a salmon recipe and then an egg recipe because those are different from what I usually cook, even though they are equally as easy to prepare.  It is nice to get the variety.

I went with a baked BBQ salmon recipe.  It started with marinating the fish in pineapple juice.

The recipe was just for the fish, and since that is not a balanced meal, I decided to cook this brown rice medley and a veggie.

I have a rice cooker that also has a veggie steamer.  The rice took just over 30 minutes to cook, so when it was nearing the end, with about 10 minutes to go, I added the veggie tray on top and steamed up some green beans.  It worked out perfectly!

 

Next I made the rub with some spices and brown sugar.  Put that on top of the fish and placed it in the oven.  Obviously I had this baking while everything else was steaming. 

The fish smelled wonderful, especially with the brown sugar mixed with cumin and chili powder.

  The timing was perfect and everything was done at the same time.  I love when it works out like that!

It was an awesome meal and I will definitely make this again.

I had some brown rice medley left over, and like I said it was so good, I decided to use some for lunch the next day.  I mixed it with soy crumbles and kalamata olives.  It was delicious!

The second dinner I made 2 weeks ago was a crustless quiche.  Yep, I am that behind on my own posts and reading everyone else’s.  I am sure I will get caught up soon…I hope!

I loved the looks of this recipe because of all the veggies and the use of some eggs, but mostly egg whites.

 

I bought the prepackaged egg whites because the recipe called for 6 egg whites and I felt like I was wasting food to crack open that many eggs and without a use for the yolks, they were going to be thrown away.

 

I mixed it all together, at which point I discovered our pie pan was completely rusted.

To save the project I took out a glass casserole dish and just baked it in there, which was good because I don’t think I could have fit all of it in the pie pan.

While that was baking I started on my hash browns.  The recipe was just the quiche, and I felt like it was missing something, so I added in a starch for my side.  The quiche had eggs, veggies and dairy (cheese), so potatoes would be perfect.  I had never made hash brown this way, but I discovered after reading about them online, I needed to dry off the potatoes, which I did, but I think not well enough.

Somehow or another, this bottle of wine was opened.  No complaints from me!

 

As my potatoes were cooking, and luckily Ryan had just gotten home, I realized dinner took longer than expected to prepare and I only had 5 minutes until a conference call.  Ryan took over in the kitchen and finished up and when the quiche was ready, he served me dinner while I was in my office on the phone.  Even though we did not get to eat together, it was yummy and I was glad Ryan liked this dish too.

 

I wish I had a picture of the finished meal, but I was on a call at the time it was finished.  I really thought there was one on my iPhone, but sadly I can't locate it from the upload I did to my computer.  Sometimes this Mac drives me nuts.

QUESTIONS:  Have you ever prepped something only to discover you don't have the right dish to cook it in?  What is your favorite whole grain?  Any tips for making hash browns with shredded potatoes?