Today's Special

I don't remember what days I did these recipes so you can just have a regular boring list. Here you go.

Grilled Eggplant Panini- This was a new recipe and holy crap was it good. They didn't have any eggplant at the store I went to so I just got portabello mushrooms instead. The jarred roasted red peppers were surprisingly good and I plan on finding more recipes that use them. This was a great fast dinner.

Hamburger Buddy- This was also a new recipe. The name sounds really dumb but it's basically an upgrade to your average Hamburger Helper. It was good, but didn't knock my socks off. However, we did use the whole grain pasta that the recipe called for and it passed inspection. I'd use it again.

Crunchy Pork Chops with Applesauce- I saw this on an episode of America's Test Kitchen and made it two days later because it looked so good. And I don't even like pork chops. This turned out awesome and Seth said it was the "juiciest pork chop [he's] ever had." They have a recipe for applesauce as well, but I just bought some.

Chicken Cordon Bleu with Mushroom Sauce- I ended up making these this week instead of the week before. This is insanely easy to make. I put the mushroom sauce on top about half way through cooking so the mushrooms get softer. Also, this has always taken closer to 30 minutes to bake, but I suggest using an oven probe thermometer to continually monitor the internal temp. I have this one and it works great. Also useful for the pork chop recipe above.

Fresh Tomato, Sausage and Pecorino Pasta- This is a new recipe. I haven't made it yet, but how bad could it be?

I also thought I let you in on an amazing new discovery. For those of you who use Google Reader to keep track of the blogs you follow, this is one more thing you can 'subscribe' to. I recently subscribed to a handful of sites that have daily recipes. The recipes automatically get sent to my Google Reader account as soon as they are posted and I can easily scan through the list and put a star next to the ones I'm interested in. It's a great way to find new recipes without having to search through a bunch of stuff. I got 3 of the 5 recipes for this week that way. The sites that I subscribed to are EatingWell , MyRecipes, and Betty Crocker Recipe of the Day.