Tuesday, May 22, 2012

A Month Without Sugar: Day 16

What a difference a day (or 12 days) makes.  It’s funny how much less I want sugar right now.  I know just less than two weeks ago I was seriously jonesing for some sort of dessert (or 10) but today…meh.  I will admit, I cheated this weekend.  I was doing perfectly, and then my Visiting Teacher brought over peanut butter cookies that she’d made for me and it seemed so rude to just throw them away, so I ate them.  And you know what? They were alright.  They weren’t fabulous, I liked them, they were warm and chewy and sugary, but I could have not eaten them and been just fine.

I have found this whole experiment makes me look for things that I can eat.  As opposed to looking for recipes of this that are sugary I end up looking for dinner recipes so I can make something new to drool over. Like the stuffed shells I made Sunday for lunch.  (Or was it dinner? Is 4 p.m. lunch or dinner? Anyway…)  I’ve also got a soup and pizza planned for this week.  Both of which I’m looking forward to.

I’ll also admit, usually about Wednesday or Thursday I really start craving chocolate.  Like kill someone to get a piece of cake craving.  But I power on through and on the weekends I really don’t want anything.  Which is weird.  You would think that hanging out in my apartment on a Friday or Saturday night would be a prime time for me to give in and make brownies, but oddly enough I’m good.  I eat my piece of dark chocolate and that’s it.

Julia introduced me to Whole Food’s candy section last week.  That’s a dangerous place.  They have massive amount of super dark chocolate.  When you go to a normal grocery store they have maybe 2 or 3 choices for 75% or higher chocolate.  You go to Whole Foods and they have about 10 brands each with at least 5 different flavors.  It was heaven.  I got a mint bar that I haven’t even broken into yet.

Okay, that’s enough rambling.  Later this week I’ll finally get my act together and post my Spinach Dip recipe.  For now, I decided to share the recipe I found here, for Stuffed Shells.  I only made half of it and it made two really big servings.  But it’s delicious so I totally recommend it.   

Simple Stuffed Shells

10-12 jumbo pasta shells

1 cup ground beef

2 cups cottage cheese

1/2 cup + 1 cup mozzarella cheese

1 egg

1 tsp italian seasoning

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 cups Pasta sauce

Cook pasta shells in boiling water according to package directions, and brown ground beef in a pan until no longer pink.

In a bowl, mix together cottage cheese, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella, egg, ground beef and seasonings.

Spoon the mixture into the cooled shells and place them facing up in a baking dish. Cover with pasta sauce and the remaining 1 cup of cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 375 for 20 minutes. remove the foil, and bake for an additional 10 minutes.

No comments:

Post a Comment