Healthy Chili Relleno

Rachel Ray drives me nuts and I therefore never watch her show. However, last week I was finishing a workout and her show was on at the gym, and it caught my eye because she was making a healthy chili relleno. Rachel has no idea how to pronounce relleno.

One of the things that appealed to me was the green rice she made as a side dish. It seemed flavorful and really healthy. I am always looking for more ways to eat spinach.

I am lazy so I didn't actually make rellenos. Instead, I turned this into a rice salad. I thought I would make it a little less spicy by using two serrano chiles instead of one jalapeno. I was wrong because this was pretty spicy. I ate this four days in a row and was not sick of it, which is a major statement. I found this to be very tasty and healthy. I added black beans for some protein.

X and O Meringues

I made meringues for the bridal shower and they tasted wonderful, yet they formed into one large mass, due to three days of rain, I think. Rain is not meringue weather. This is the recipe.

Lemon Tarts

I made mini lemon tarts from this Epicurious recipe. I used 4" tartlet pans with removable bottoms, tripled the recipe, and ended up with 24 tarts. Leigh gave me meyer lemons from her tree, so I used the juice from them, instead of the lime the recipe calls for.

The tarts turned out really well. Everyone raved and even though I'm not a huge tart fan, I also found them to be a perfect sweet to end a delicious meal.

Happy Birthday to Gillian

Gillian requested vanilla cake with vanilla frosting so I made the buttermilk cake from The Joy of Cooking and found a butter and powdered sugar frosting from Martha Stewart. Even though I prefer chocolate cake, this was pretty tasty, and didn't last long.

Spiced Pumpkin & Walnut Bread

I got this recipe from Goop, when I was looking to incorporate more agave syrup in to my life instead of sugar. I made this around Christmas time in Colorado, and everyone enjoyed.