Five Food Reviews (say that three times fast!)

Healthiness, Convenience, Affordability. These are all top priorities in my (cook)book. And while I may not always hit all three, I try.

Here is a round-up of some recent recipes we've tried, and how they turned out:

Freezer Breakfast Burritos:
We assembled these (over two nights because we ran out of tortillas) recently. I've been wanting to add something more nutrient dense than coffee to my mornings, so breakfast burritos it is!

Goat Cheese Stuffed Black Bean Burgers:
Anything "stuffed' intimidates me. This may be the easiest thing I've ever stuffed though! And the recipe left me feeling stuffed. HAHAHA hardyharhar. Sorry. Anyway, even Wynston warmed up to these meatless entrees after the first bite. A little time consuming to make, but worth it on a night you're not in a hurry. Good texture, creamy goat cheese inside, very filling. We skipped the avocado slices the first night we had them, and used pita's instead of buns. I smeared avocado all over my pita last night when having these for left overs and oh my. So good.

Lemon Quinoa Avocado Cilantro Chickpea Salad
Umm is that a recipe title or a grocery list?! While the very descriptive name sounds enticing to me, this recipe was a dud. Dare I say "too much avocado"?! It just didn't have enough texture, it's the wrong season for grape tomatoes. I don't know. She prepares her quinoa differently than I do (a presoak, then boil/simmer). Maybe that led to mushy quinoa. Not sure, but this isn't a keeper for us.

Baked Mozzarella Sticks
This was a "use what's in the freezer" items. We had left over wonton wrappers (still do), so I grabbed four part-skim cheese sticks at the store, and wrapped away. I cut my cheese sticks in half since I had wonton wrappers not eggroll wrappers. I didn't even need the water she mentions. I just nonstick sprayed my pan, wrapped, placed in pan, lightly sprayed the tops with the nonstick butter flavored spray and baked. Flip halfway, bake some more. Enjoy easy cheesiness after 15ish minutes. Yes, I cooked mine longer than called for, and they were still delicious and gooey. .

Zucchini Ribbons with Lemony Bread Crumbs
Sparkpeople is an awesome online healthy living community. It's got trackers (calorie, workouts, etc), tracker apps for your phone, recipes, workouts, forums, and more. Pretty cool. We are big fans of zucchini in this house and enjoy all sorts of cooked zucchini recipes (like this one), but thought we'd try something new. Those lemony breadcrumbs were such a nice surprise. This really turned out better than we expected.