Easing In to HFC

Okay, so breakfast today was a freebie. I wasn't planning on using the Healthy Family Cookbook (hereafter referred to as HFC) to make breakfast, but figured I'd thumb through and see if I had the ingredients for anything on hand. I wound up making Classic Strawberry-Banana Smoothie (pg 38), which tastes exactly like any other strawberry banana smoothie you've ever had. I did end up adding some milk to loosen it up, because the recipe just calls for plain yogurt (I used greek, so that's probably why it was too thick), the fruit, a bit of sugar, and a pinch of salt.

I wish there was more to say about this smoothie.

Conclusion: Liked it. I mean, it is what it is. There are some other more interesting smoothie recipes in here that I'll try (Raspberry Lime Rickey, Creamsicle, etc), but I didn't have the ingredients today.

Dinner was Penne With Chicken, Asparagus, and Lemon (pg 185). This dish kept popping up in Amazon reviews, so I figured it was a good place to start. It was okay. I'm having a hard time deciding how to rate the dishes in this book. Do I rate them on a scale of how they compare to other diet food, or do I just rate them as food?? The book claims that it makes food healthy without losing anything in the process, so I'm inclined to just rate it as food. However, I expect that we're going to be seeing a lot of "Just okay"s.

Anyway, about the Penne. It was very lemony. Charlie's face squinched up when he tasted a piece of pasta. It was seasoned with fresh thyme, basil, leeks and garlic, and the sauce involved broth, white wine, flour to thicken it, lemon juice, lemon zest, and parmesan cheese. Nothing about it would ever make me say, "Hey, I'm really in the mood for that." Matt's very slow response, as he picked at it was, "It's...okaaay. I mean, it's fine. I guess. For health food."

I felt very unsatisfied after eating it and was immediately thinking about what I could have for dessert, which led me to realize that for the majority of the time that I was cooking from Around My French Table, I didn't crave dessert and didn't have it, except for the once in a while when I planned ahead of time to make something. I wonder why that is.

Blogger isn't letting me upload a picture of dinner, but I'm sure that whatever way you imagine a bowl of pasta, asparagus, and chicken to look will be pretty accurate.