First up was the recipe for Cauliflower Poppers.
Now by the description, they're supposed to taste like french fries and be yummy delicious enough for Husband to even enjoy them... and Husband thinks cauliflower is one of the most foul foods on the planet. I, however, think cauliflower is delicious all raw and crunchy, so I wasn't sure I'd be thrilled with it all cooked and french fry-ish.
The results:
The upside for Husband was that they really did not taste like cauliflower once they were cooked. The downside is that somehow each piece ended up with way way too much salt and I felt like I was chewing on a salt lick. I blame my lack of natural cooking skills for this issue and I'm not yet ready to give up the good fight if it means I can finally get Husband to eat it. My other issue is that it's possible I left them in a few minutes too long... some of them were scary crispy.
Second was the recipe for Baked Jalapeno Poppers.
Being baked, they're supposed to be a bit better for you and since we were already cramming enough crap into our stomachs, every saved calorie was a good thing.
The results:
Seriously fantastic. I improvised a slight bit on the recipe mainly because I didn't want to shell out the coin for all the random ingredients, but I don't think I missed anything by leaving stuff out. Instead of ricotta and monterey jack cheese, I used fat free cream cheese and about a half cup of Mexican blend shredded cheese (yay for getting stuff out of my fridge!). And instead of making my own bread crumbs, I took the lazy way out and used the container of bread crumbs I had in my pantry. I was also pleasantly surprised that the batch was not too spicy... I was afraid the Boy Child would take one bite and run screaming out of the room. Instead, he ran screaming out of the room because he ignored my warning that they just came out of the oven and were nuclear grade temperature. All in all, though, A+ on this one.
Third was the recipe for Chili Party Dip.
I got this recipe from a friend who is on WW and thought it sounded easy enough to make.
The results:
Delicious. Seriously delicious. We did, however, have to improvise a slight bit on this one because no matter what store we went into, canned turkey chili with no beans was missing. Instead we just used regular chili without beans, which I'm sure probably added about 900 points to the final total. I also used fresh jalapenos since I had purchased them for the Baked Poppers and didn't want to screw around with both jarred AND fresh ones. One round of jalapeno juice is quite enough, thank you. Because the jalapenos were fresh, the dip wasn't as spicy as I think it could have been... but honestly, burning my mouth off wasn't part of my Superbowl plans anyway. We served it with tortilla chips that probably then added another 900 points to the chili total, but you only live once, right? Or at least that's what I keep telling my arteries.