Jello Salad

You can't go wrong with a jello salad, right? Simple. Sweet. Good.
Ingredients:
1 pint cottage cheese
1 tub thawed cool whip
1 box jello
1 can mandarin oranges, drained
1 can crushed pineapple, drained
or any fruit (canned or fresh) of your choice

Instructions:
Mix together. Chill.
How simple was that?!?

Classic Macaroni Salad

What's a BBQ without a pasta or macaroni salad of some sort? A lame one, I know! But to try to "lighten" things up a little I went with a different recipe for a macaroni salad. It was pretty good, maybe a little dry, but good.
Ingredient:
8 oz uncooked macaroni, elbow variety
1/8 tsp table salt, or to taste (for cooking pasta)
1/2 c reduced-calorie mayonnaise
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 c celery, chopped
1/3 c red onion, finely chopped
2 tbsp parsley, fresh, chopped
1/4 tsp table salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp black pepper, freshly ground, or to taste

Instructions:

1. Cook macaroni in salted water according to package directions; drain and transfer to a large bowl.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together mayo, vinegar, mustard, and garlic powder; stir mixture into cooked macaroni. Fold in celery, onion and parsley; season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve warm or chilled. Yields about 2/3 cup per serving.

Servings: 8
WW points per serving: 3
Prep time: 12 min
Cooking time: 10 min

Weight Watcher's recipe

Roasted Potato, Garlic, and Red Pepper Salad

I have a friend that is not a fan of creamy, white foods. Like mayo. Yuck! So I made it my personal mission to find a recipe for potato salad that is not mayo or sour cream based. And I found it! And I made it for my little Memorial BBQ. And it was good!

Cast of Characters...
Mid-roast...

Ingredients:
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
3 pounds small boiling potatoes (white, red, or fingerling)
2 red bell peppers
3 1/2 tablespoons EVOO
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup small fresh basil leaves
optional: olives, pine nuts, goat cheese, grilled chicken, tuna, or prosciutto

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 450F.
2. Wrap garlic cloves together in foil. Halve potatoes and cut bell peppers into 1/2" pieces. In a large bowl toss potatoes, bell peppers, and 3 tablespoons oil with salt and pepper to taste. Arrange potatoes and bell peppers in one layer in 2 large shallow baking pans and roast in middle and lower thirds of oven (simultaneously, roast wrapped garlic on either rack), stirring occasionally and switching positions of pans halfway through roasting time, until potatoes are tender and golden brown, about 35 minutes.
3. In a bowl immediately toss potatoes and peppers with 2 tablespoons vinegar and cool. Remove garlic from foil and squeeze pulp into a small bowl. With a fork mash garlic with remaining 1/2 tablespoon oil and tablespoon vinegar and toss together with potatoes and peppers, salt and pepper to taste. Just before serving, add basil. Serve potato salad at room temperature.

Gourmet
July 1997

And I suck and once again did not get a picture of the finished product. But trust me, it was pretty. Pretty good!

Catepillar for lunch?

Gotta love sushi!

Mint Chocolate Ice Cream Cake

Mom's Day, 2009. My mother decided that she wanted an ice cream cake. Sure, I could have run to the local Coldstone's or Baskin Robins. But no, I took it as a challenge to make my own.

Plus I figured it would have been less expense to make on then to buy one.

So I found a recipe via my iphone (gotta love it!). Kaitlin and I went to the store to get the goods. Then we went to work.

The Cast...
Pressing the crust...
Freezing the first layer...
Apparently I didn't get the "using a fork" memo. So the melted chocolate ended up a little globby. Still tasted good.
Who did that to poor Kaitlin?!?
Speaking of iphone. Chris and his pocket god app. Check out the upgrade, there's a dinosaur now!
Kaitlin like it so much that she licked her plate.
The rest of us just scraped it clean.
Ingredients:
1 - 16 oz. package chocolate sandwich cookies
3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 quart mint chocolate chip ice cream
1 quart cookies and cream ice cream
1 - 10 oz. package mint chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Finely grind cookies in processor. Blend in melted butter. Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and 2 1/4" up sides of 9x2 3/4" spring-form pan. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, soften mint ice cream slightly, about 2 minutes in microwave set on medium-low or in refrigerator.
3. Spread mint ice cream evenly in chilled crust. Freeze until set but not solid, about 1 hour.
4. Soften cookies and cream ice cream. Spread evenly over mint ice cream in pan. Freeze at least 2 hours or overnight.
5. Melt chocolate chips in top of double boiler over simmering water, stirring until smooth. Using fork, lightly drizzle some chocolate back and forth over cake, creating design.
6. Release sides of pan. Cut cake into wedges. Serve, passing remaining melted chocolate chips separately as sauce.

Recipe from Bon Appetit, September 1992.

Chef's Notes:

• We tried to cut back some. So we used reduced fat oreos, and half fat slow churned ice creams.
• Since we couldn't find mint chocolate chips, we used regular chips and added mint extract to taste.
• Also, some reviews said that they added a fudge layer between the ice cream. So we did too!