Trying new things

Chris is gone this week on a work trip which means I got to be a little more experimental in the kitchen.  While Chris will always try what I make, I don’t want to make him try something gross so I like to test most new creations out before I debut it.  Glad I did.  Because nearly all of today’s concoctions were failures.

Breakfast was a green smoothie for day 3 of the green smoothie challenge.  If I thought I was crazy with the carrots yesterday then today took it to the next level with sweet potatoes.  It sounded like a great idea.  I love pumpkin in my smoothie so this felt like it would be similar, and while I liked the taste, I didn’t like the texture.  It almost reminded me of applesauce.  I think if I’d added a little more milk it would have been fine but I didn’t taste it before I poured it.  If you like thick smoothies you’d probably like this one.  I just like mine super thin, almost watery.  But on the plus side, I think it filled me up more because I didn’t get hungry once today.

Sweet potato, almond & banana smoothie
Mix all the ingredients together.  Serves 1

• 1 cup roasted sweet potatoes/yams
• 1 cup spinach
• 1/2 frozen banana
• 1 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 2 tablespoons flax meal
• 1 tablespoon almond butter
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 2 scoops protein powder (I used this)

My “during the day” food was pretty normal (almonds, quinoa bean salad mix).  It was once I got home that things went downhill.

I attempted to combine 2 recipes – A black bean goat cheese burger with a quinoa burger.  I only used the black bean recipe as inspiration, thinking I’d just add black beans to the quinoa burger recipe.  I started by mashing black beans.  Easy.  Then as I got through the rest of the ingredients I saw that it called for splenda (which I don’t eat) and flour.  Perfect, I thought.  I’ll use coconut flour to bring in the sweetness.  Bad plan.  And I didn’t have cottage cheese, so I skipped it.  It couldn’t matter that much right?  I ended up with a decent consistency and scooped out 4 1/4 cup, cute little burgers and started frying them.

Cute little guys

But then they kind of fell apart.

Burger turned bowl

To be honest, they weren’t that bad.  A little dry so I mixed up some fry sauce (ketchup and light mayo) and  that helped but I threw out the rest of the mix after the first 4.  Lesson learned here?  If I want a burger get some turkey.

Then I wanted some dessert so I thought, I’d whip up something similar to this chia seed protein powder pudding.  I was suppose to let the chia seeds soak in the liquid for 20 min.  But I wanted it right away so I didn’t.  Just dumped chia seeds, almond milk, protein powder and honey in a glass.  Taste was great.  Texture was like chunky milk.  Fail.  But I actually ate it anyway.  Don’t judge.

What did I learn tonight? Recipes are written for a reason.  And I should follow them.  I also learned that I’m tired of trying new things and maybe I’ll just eat cereal for the rest of the week…