My First Goodies Box

Goodies Co box for March

Back in March I posted about signing up for the Goodies Co subscription box and I finally got my first box.  Goodies Co is a subscription healthy food box run by Walmart, each box costs $7.

This first box contained

• Frontier almond blueberry lemon bites
• Zone Perfect peanut butter chocolate bar
• Angie's sweet & salty popcorn
• Green Giant multigrain sweet potato chips
• Truebar fruit and nut bar
• Celsius energy drink
• $50 wine gift card from NakedWines.com

I had only heard of the popcorn, the Zone bar (got two in another subscription food box), and the sweet potato chips (other bloggers are getting them in the mail), otherwise everything else was new to me. 

Taste Test

For a snack one day I tried the Frontier bites and the sweet & salty popcorn.

The Frontier bites were small squares that looked like a granola bar. I liked the lemony essence, glad it wasn't weak like some lemon flavored items.  I also appreciated that the first and second ingredients are almonds and sunflower seeds, not sugar.  

The sweet and salty popcorn was nice, I'm cool with kettle corn.  I liked the cane juice sweetener they used, it had nice sweetness than you might expect.  But it was a tiny little package, like you'd feel ripped off if you packed this in your lunch with your sandwich and a piece of fruit because there was barely anything in it.

Menu Plan: Week of May 6

I can't believe we're already into May!  The last time I felt like I was paying attention, things were cold and I was wearing gloves on my way to work in the mornings, and now things are nice and warm!  Here in Wisconsin it felt like we missed out on spring, but jumping straight to the warm weather is perfectly fine with me.

• Monday - Even after a weekend of going out for several meals, we're going out to Brickhouse BBQ tonight because I've got a Groupon deal that expires on Friday.
• Tuesday -Quick breakfast meal of eggs, sausage, and toast because I want to try to make it to a drop-in Zumba class.
• Wednesday - sandwich and piece of fruit because Husband Jeff and I have exercise class.
• Thursday - Lemon cream pasta made with peas and bacon with some sort of veggie and salads
• Friday - Shrimp lo mein and salads
• Saturday - Meatball pizza pitas and salads
• Sunday- Mother's Day dinner with both sets of parents at Sardine.

Cauliflower-Green Bean Tofu Curry

Almond pieces toasting up in a dry pan.

I needed a recipe to use up the head of cauliflower I had impulsively bought at the grocery store.  I posed several cauliflower dish options to Husband Jeff and he picked this curry recipe.

Inspiration

Laaloosh Cauliflower and Cashew Curry

I also had some green beans I bought without having a recipe in mind.  They were on sale and I figured that since we eat green beans that I'd figure out something to do with them. Into the curry they go!

I also made substitutions based on what we had in the house.  I used almonds instead of cashews, regular peanut butter instead of reduced-fat (and used less of it), and a sprinkle of lemon juice from a bottle instead of lime juice.

Ingredients

An army of cauliflower florets.

• 1/2 cup chopped almonds
• 1 head of cauliflower, chopped into florets
• 3/4 pound green beans,  snapped
• 1 15oz can light coconut milk
• 1 tbsp curry powder (or more if you like it spicy)
• 1 tbsp sriracha hot chili sauce
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 T tbsp peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice

Some key players

Instructions

Toast the almond pieces over medium-high heat in a deep pot until they lightly brown.  I used a tall skillet but maybe next time will go even taller with a stockpot since the long green beans like to flip all over.  I had several traitorous beans "abandon ship" that had to be pulled back in to teach the others a lesson.

Green beans, cauliflower, coconut milk, and spices

Add the cauliflower, green beans, coconut milk, curry powder, sriracha, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper.  Bring to a simmer, then turn the heat down to medium and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.  I put a lid on while it cooked to ensure the vegetables softened and the sauce didn't evaporate away.

While the curry was cooking, I dry-fried tofu to add to the dish at the end for some protein. 

When the vegetables are to your liking, add the peanut butter and lemon juice and cook a few more minutes until the sauce warms back up.

At this point I added the tofu and stirred everything around to get it coated with sauce.

I served this on top of brown jasmine rice with bacon ranch slaw on the side.

Halfway cooked.

Verdict

Slightly spicy, rich and creamy curry.

Added tofu at the end.

I thought this curry recipe was simpler to make than the one I normally use.   Not that the other one is really complicated, but this was more of a dump-and-stir recipe without a lot of chopping or prep.  If I had a bag of frozen cauliflower and frozen green beans, it would have been even quicker. 

I loved how the coconut milk thickened down to a really luscious, thick creamy sauce. The peanut butter seemed like a strange ingredient, I always think of that as an ingredient for Asian dishes but rarely do I use it for other cultures.  It probably contributed to the thick richness of the sauce. 

Husband Jeff seemed to like it a little more than my regular curry recipe, so this one will probably be my new go-to curry recipe.  Sonny D dug right in when I placed his bowl in front of him, but I don't think he was expecting it to be spicy (wasn't too spicy for him though) so he didn't eat any more of it.  I dumped everything out of his bowl and started over with plain rice and added soy sauce.  He liked that much better and ate three bowls of rice. 

Oatmeal Banana Muffins

Soft oatmeal banana muffin

I've had this banana muffin recipe bookmarked for several weeks now with every intention to make them but apparently it wasn't a top priority since they didn't happen for a while.  But I finally got my act together and made them. I was intrigued by using only oats and no wheat flour and I wanted to see how that would turn out.   

Inspiration 

the.well.traveled.wife oatmeal banana breakfast muffins

Ground up oats

I read all of the comments and made some adjustments based on that.  I whizzed up the oats with my immersion blender before mixing with anything else.  I also reduced the amount of sugar from 3/4 cup to 1/2 cup and used brown sugar for a deeper flavor.  I also added cinnamon, salt, and vanilla paste.  I used the standard muffin technique to mix all of the wet ingredients, separately mix the dry ingredients, and then gently combine the two only until mixed.  If you over-combine, it can cause the muffins to be tough.

Some reviewers substituted almond milk for the yogurt to make it dairy free.  

My first opportunity to use my vanilla paste.

Ingredients

• 2.5 c rolled oats, whizzed up in blender or food processor
• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
• 1 c Greek yogurt (I used Sonny D's strawberry)
• 2 eggs
• 2 ripe bananas

Sonny D stirs the wet ingredients

Directions

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Spray muffin pan or use liners.

Wet ingredients plus dry

Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Stir only until just mixed. Bake 12 min.

Verdict

A surprisingly soft and tender muffin version of banana bread. 

I liked how they were oaty without being dry, dense, or too chewy.

After writing it up, I realize that I had measured out half a teaspoon of most of the ingredients instead of one and half. They were still good but are probably even better if you put the full amount in!   

These turned out quite nice, even with my accidental mis-measuring.  I like really banana-y banana bread (which is surprising since I don't really like bananas much) so next time it would be fun to add another banana and take the yogurt down to 3/4 cup to adjust for the additional wetness.  I would also like to replace the yogurt with almond milk and add the full amount of cinnamon that I had intended this time.  It might also be really good to try a strawberry version.

Weight Watchers Classic: Cheese Danish

Toast

I tried out a old Weight Watchers recipe that replicates a cheese danish.  While it's not even close to a real cheese danish, that's actually really good, because those things are pretty high in calories.  Feel free to splurge on those occasionally, but here's a replacement that you can eat on a more regular basis. 

Ingredients

• bread (amount depends on how hungry you are)
• some cottage cheese
• topping - fruit (jam, fresh, etc.) sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar, etc

Directions

Toast up some bread, spread cottage cheese on top, and then add your desired flavorings.   

Verdict

Surprisingly good snack!

I had this to round out a light dinner before exercise class.  I went with cinnamon sugar because it seemed like a good starter flavor before branching out to other versions.  This is a weird concept for me because in my mind, cottage cheese is a savory food, not a sweet one, but this works. 

This has protein (cottage cheese) and whole grains (whole wheat bread) so it should be pretty satisfying.  Plus it's a good way to have a little something extra without a lot of calories. 

Individual Frozen Rice

An individual serving of rice just for you!

I saw this idea on Pinterest and I totally love it. The Food Doodles website showed freezing rice in a muffin tin to get individual servings.  Genius!  I hate it when I find these awesome suggestions like this and find that it's so obvious that I can't believe I didn't think of it on my own.

I regularly make extra rice and freeze it, but I rarely think ahead to split it into smaller sizes.  I usually take whatever amount is leftover and put in a Pyrex glass container with a rubber lid and throw it in the freezer.  Whenever we need rice, I heat up the whole thing, which is sometimes way too much.

I don't know how easy they would be to get out of a metal muffin pan, but mine is silicone, so I can easily pop them out by pushing on the back. 

The process

I recently made a mix of brown and white rice in the rice cooker.  I pressed the rice into each muffin space (wet one hand and use it to press the rice down with your fingers, the rice won't stick) and and froze the rice for an afternoon and then popped out the rice pucks into a freezer bag.   A few days later I needed rice for dinner, so I took our four pucks, added a splash of water (maybe a tablespoon?) and reheated it in the microwave for three minutes.  Hot "fresh" rice! 

Measuring Ingredients

Four piles of taco seasoning.

When you're measuring out multiple instances of an ingredient, I highly suggest separating out each measurement.  This might save your dish later on.

In my photo you can see an example.  I browned up my ground turkey for tacos and I needed to measure out four tablespoons of taco seasoning. (I use Penzey's Bold Taco, it's a little spicy and so tasty!  Plus not as salty as the packets.)  I made four separate piles of each tablespoon rather than dumping it all in one big pile.  That way if I was interrupted by my toddler son, the phone ringing, the dog barking at the doorbell, etc.I can easily see my progress.

Plus sometimes my brain wanders when I'm in the middle of something boring like measuring out water for oatmeal and I have no idea where I was in counting...  "Was that cup number four or was I just thinking about it being next?"  I even count out loud in hopes of not losing my place, but it doesn't help.  At least with oatmeal it's not too big of a deal since it'll either come out drier or wetter than I had hoped, which can be fixed.