Photo by The Girl Who Ate Everything

• 24 good white dinner rolls
• 24 pieces good honey ham
• 24 small slices Swiss cheese
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 1/3 cup miracle whip

Poppy seed sauce

• 1 T poppyseeds
• 1 1/2 T yellow mustard
• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 T minced onion
• 1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

In a small bowl, mix together mayonnaise and miracle whip. Spread onto both sides of the center of each roll. Place a slice of ham and a slice of Swiss inside of each roll. Close rolls and place them into a large baking dish or heavy cookie sheet. Place very close together.

In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the poppy seed sauce ingredients. Pour evenly over all of the sandwiches. Let sit 10 minutes or until butter sets slightly. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes or until cheese is melted. Uncover and cook for 2 additional minutes. Serve warm.

I have seen this recipe posted over and over again on Pinterest.

Well, technically, I have seen the photo and the link to the recipe posted over and over on Pinterest but that's just semantics.

Brad, being the freak he is, bought some brussels sprouts one day, randomly, out of the blue, at the grocery store. When I asked why, he said, "Because I like them."

To me, when I think of brussels sprouts, I think of this:


Which, I'll admit, is not totally fair because I'd never had brussels sprouts before. But they look like tiny cabbages and I hate cabbages. So why would I want tiny cabbages?

A couple friends insisted that roasted brussels sprouts were actually quite good.

I scoffed.

But then I saw this posted all over Pinterest and so, being the good wife that I am, I decided to give this recipe a try.

• 2 lb Brussels sprouts, trimmed and halved (quartered if large)
• 5 cloves garlic, minced fine or pressed through a garlic press
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

Move oven rack to the upper third and preheat to 425 degrees.

In a 9x13 inch baking dish, toss together Brussels sprouts, garlic, water, oil, salt and pepper and spread out in a single layer.

Bake for 40-50 minutes until caramelized to taste, tossing once about 25 minutes into cooking time. Remove from oven and toss Brussels sprouts in the pan scraping up brown bits into the sprouts.



My only revision to this recipe was that I halved the recipe. I mean, it's just me and Brad so even 1 lb of brussels sprouts was a bit much.

Before my review, I must state that I am not a veggie lover. In fact, for the most part, there are very few veggies that I can tolerate. Anything that is sweet or mild, I will eat. And as we all know, the more pungent the taste, the better the veggie is for us.

So keep in mind that this review is biased by a person who has a general dislike for veggies.

Now, getting that out of the way, I have to say this recipe was not bad. It wasn't great for this veggie non-eater but it wasn't terrible, either. My take on this was that the roasting most likely made the taste milder. This was confirmed by Brad, who is the veggie eater in this relationship.

Were I to change anything on this recipe, I would probably use garlic powder rather than minced garlic because I really couldn't even taste the garlic at all. I don't know if using fresh garlic gives it the best flavor because I'm too cheap and lazy to buy fresh garlic and mince or press it myself.

This recipe will definitely not help sprouts make their way up to the top of my favorite foods. And if I never ate sprouts again, I'd be absolutely fine with that. However, if I cook them again, I will definitely be using this recipe.

How's that for a mediocre review? I'm sure if you like brussels sprouts, you will love these. It's just veggies are not my cup of tea. So to speak.

So I've heard that Paula Deen is a fan of butter. I don't know that because until today, I've never made any of her recipes. But this one sounded interesting and involves a lot of butter. So I thought I'd give it a try.

Gooey Butter Cake

On the length of time it takes to cook, my recommendation would be to aim for 40 unless you know for sure that your oven runs cool. I split the difference on this and cooked it for 45 and wish I'd done it for 40 because the edges were slightly over-cooked.

However, that said, this cake was... DIVINE! Seriously. All of us except my youngest, Frank, went back for seconds on this. I would have gone back for 3rds only I was a bit concerned I would get sick due to how rich this is.

This totally does not need any frosting but if you feel it needs something, I might use some powdered sugar sprinkled lightly on top.

And if you'd like a lighter version, Paula's son Bobby makes a lighter version of this recipe. Obviously I haven't tried it yet but am looking forward to giving this a try to see if it's as good.

Monday, I tried a new recipe, courtesy of Weight Watchers.

Yes, I had it Monday and yes, I'm only posting about it now. I had other things to talk about, man!

Chicken and Cheese Quesadillas

• 2 cups Chicken breast without skin, roasted, chopped or shredded (chopped)
• 1 tsp fresh lime juice, or to taste
• 1/4 tsp Durkee ground cumin, or other brand
• 1/4 tsp table salt 8 medium whole wheat tortillas, about 6-inches each
• 1/2 cup fat-free black bean dip, spicy-variety
• 6 Tbsp low-fat shredded cheddar cheese, sharp-variety
• 2 medium scallions, green parts only, diced
• 4 sprays cooking spray
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 2 Tbsp reduced-fat sour cream

In a small bowl, combine chicken, lime juice, cumin and salt; toss well to combine.

Place 4 tortillas on a flat surface and spread each one with 2 tablespoons of bean dip. Top each with about 1/3 cup of chicken and then sprinkle each with 1 tablespoon of cheese; divide scallions over top. Cover with remaining tortillas and gently press down on each one.

Coat a very large nonstick skillet with cooking spray; place over medium heat. Cook quesadillas in a single layer until golden brown on bottom, about 2 minutes. Flip quesadillas and press down on them with a spatula; cook until golden brown on second side, about 2 to 3 minutes more. Remove to a serving plate and cover to keep warm (or place in oven); repeat with remaining quesadillas.

Slice each quesadilla into 4 pieces; serve with salsa and sour cream. Yields 1 quesadilla, 2 tablespoons of salsa and 1 teaspoon of sour cream per serving.



As before, I had a couple variations on this recipe. I used 2 tsps lime juice (which I guess is technically "to taste"), Rosarita No Fat Refried Beans with Green Chile and Lime rather than the black bean dip, and I didn't have any whole wheat tortillas so used regular Mission Flour Tortillas.

One of the problems I've had with some Weight Watcher's recipes in the past is that they tend to be a bit bland and I find myself adding spices as I go to add some zest.

Which is why I added an extra teaspoon of lime juice, coz I'm just wild and crazy that way.

I totally did not have that problem with this recipe. I wouldn't call it spicy by any stretch of the imagination but I really enjoyed this recipe and I have to say that cooking the quesadilla* like this, with cooking spray on a skillet, gave that tortilla a really nice taste and texture.

Overall, I give this meal a two-thumbs up and will definitely be having this again.

I have no idea what the calories and other nutritional content of this meal is, although Weight Watchers gives it a PointsPlus value of 9, but I'm sure that if you really need to know, you can do the math on the ingredients and divide by number of servings to get your ballpark range.

*Apparently, Firefox doesn't like the word "quesadilla", as it underlines it as a spelling error. When right-clicking to see the spelling suggestion, I get "quadrille", which is a type of square dance. I'm pretty sure that quadrilles are not related to quesadillas, although I suppose you could eat quesadillas at a quadrille, which would be even more fun if you had them at a quay. "I went to a quadrille at the quay and ate quesadillas." People will think you're fancy.