Hungry Girl Weekend #1

Last weekend was our very first Hungry Girl Weekend.  We used my new Hungry Recipe Cards and we picked out a few recipes to try.  (These recipes are also found in the Hungry Girl books).  We decided to try Lord of the Onion Rings, Ooey-gooey Chili Cheese Nachos, Bake-tastic Butternut Squash Fries, and Gimme Gimme Smores Sandwich. 

Lord of The Onion Rings:  (Recipe found in the original Hungry Girl book, pg. 104)  This recipe requires crushing up original FiberOne Cereal.  Since many Hungry Girl recipes require this, it would be best to crush up all of the FiberOne cereal and store it in an airtight container.  It takes a while to crush up.  It's probably a lot easier to use a food processor (which I don't have).  I do have one of those little Black n' Decker choppers, that really works.  Using the Pampered Chef chopper takes too long and doesn't grind it into a fine powder, like to you need for this recipe.

Another suggestion for this recipe, wear safety goggles.  Chopping up the Onion will make you cry.

As for the actual taste, they weren't bad.  They were a little bland but Ketchup solves that.  Next time I'm going to try adding some Italian spices in with the FiberOne for a little more flavor.  But for only 153 calories per serving (fast food onion rings are 450 calories), it's worth the effort.  And I think you burn a lot of the calories just making it.

Ooey Gooey Chili Cheese Nachos: (Recipe found in the original Hungry Girl book, pg. 99)  This recipe is fairly easy if you can find the right kind of Turkey Chili in the store.  Diana and her husband Matt couldn't so Matt just made the Turkey Chili for us.  But once you make the Chili and Cheese sauce on the stove, the rest is so simple.  You just put the alloted amount of baked tortilla chips in a bowl, add the cheese sauce, add the chili, and optional toppings (like fat free sour cream).  This would be a great meal option on Super Bowl Sunday for only 216 calories per serving.

Bake-tastic Butternut Squash Fries: (Recipe found in the original Hungry Girl book, pg. 100)  This one was a bit more challenging.  Once you get past laughing over the shape of the Butternut Squash --yes, we revert to being teenage girls--then you have to peel the whole thing.  Make sure you have a sharp knife when you start cutting into it. 

The problem we had with this recipe is the time listed.  It says to bake for 40 minutes.  After 20 minutes, the smoke alarm went off because some of them started to burn.  Apparently we cut them too thin.  We cut them to look like normal fries--or carrot sticks.  If you cut them thin like we did, then cut the time in half.  And the recipe says it is 2 servings but it could definitely feed more.  The three of us couldn't finish all of the fries.  But they were good--the ones we didn't burn, that is.

I redid this recipe a few days later but broiled them in my toaster oven for 20 minutes, they were perfect.  They tasted like real fries but with a sweeter taste.

And for those of you who are worried about using Butternut Squash.  All I have to say is that Matt doesn't like vegetables and we got him to eat the Butternut Squash fries and he liked them!  And the best part, they are only 125 calories per serving.

Gimme Gimme Smores Sandwich: (Recipe found in the Hungry Girl 200 under 200 book, pg. 260)  We didn't actually get to make these on our Hungry Girl Weekend night so I tried them on my own.  Extremely simple to make.  Just remember to get the mini-semi sweet chocolate morsels.  I bought the regular ones and it was a little too much for me (I'm not a big fan of chocolate).  But I must say, I loved these desserts.  It tasted like an ice cream sandwich.  I even made a few with just the fat free cool whip and graham crackers.  Tasty, tasty.  And only 133 calories--even less if you leave out the chocolate and marshmallows