April Favorites from Around the Web

Once I started my blog, I naturally started to read more blogs as part of my learning process.  To top that off, once I made up my mind to join Foodbuzz, I met a whole slew of new bloggers and got to see what they were cooking up as well.  It seems that I have dozens of recipes bookmarked from all these great sites.  So many great dishes and so little time... 

Perhaps it would be easier if I didn't live by myself, since when I make a recipe it lasts for several meals for me...  Here are some of the recipes I tried out this month!  Hope you will try them out as well, I'll share any additional tips that I have as well.   

First up is Tori Soboro Donburi, from Nami at Just One Cookbook.  I had decided to make this for my boyfriend as a nice bento lunch, since he had to go into work on a Saturday.  I knew for sure he would love it, plus I had all the ingredients at home already.  But I wasn't too sure how much I would like it cause 1. I have a weird thing about eating loose ground meat and 2. I wondered if it would be too sweet for my taste.

I worried for nothing because this dish was so yummy.  I didn't mind the loose meat at all since each bit was packed with rice and the ginger in the chicken seasoning complemented the sweetness in the sauce perfectly.  I had sprinkled some furikake on as well and the bites of salty sweet with the sweet tamago was excellent as well.  The best thing about this dish is that it's so quick and easy and it comes together so nicely.  Check out Just One Cookbook for more great Japanese recipes.   

The next recipe I tried this month was Bananakies (Banana Chocolate Oat Cookies), this recipe was perfect since it used a up a lot of half packages of things I already had in my kitchen.  (Don't you loooove when that happens?)  It didn't hurt that each cookie is only 45 calories and only 6.3g of carbs.  When I took these out of the oven I was worried they weren't cook through since they maintained the shape of my cookie scoop and didn't spread out.  One bite told me that I didn't need to worry at all.  I want to try these cookies with some added protein powder or maybe some peanut butter.  Definitely making these again- its a great way to use up those bananas that look a little past their prime.



Savory Chicken Spinach and Cheese Crepe

I had also been eyeing Suzanna's from Firefly Blog's Crepe recipes.  I debated back and forth, they looked so decadent but I was trying to be good about my healthy eating.  The answer finally came to me, I would make a half recipe and I would use them to make both savory and sweet crepes!  My first crepe was a total fail since I used too much batter.  But by the second one I got the hang of it!  For my savory crepe I filled it with some grilled chicken, spinach and a Laughing Cow Cheese wedge and paired it with a nice salad.  The perfect light lunch for a spring day! 

Not going to lie, I also made a sweet crepe.  For this I filled it with sliced Strawberries, Bananas lightly drizzled with Nutella.  Thanks Suzanna for the easy recipe!  Crepes were intimidating to me and now I know they are do-able.  One step closer to my goal of making that crazy crepe layer cake by the end of the year.