WIAW: Recipe Makeover Edition

Happy WIAW and as always, thanks to Jenn @ Peas and Crayons for hosting!

On Monday night, I made a lighter version of one of my favourite Milk calendar recipes – Quick Cashew Curry.

This was a big deal for me because I rarely mess with recipes. While I consider myself a somewhat competent cook, I don’t have enough confidence in the kitchen to make up or even modify recipes. I’m strictly by the book when it comes to cooking so if a recipe doesn’t taste that great or is too high in calories, I’ll usually just scrap it.

This recipe is a little on the heavy side at 500 calories (not including rice or noodles) so on Monday night, I decided to make a few minor tweaks to make it lower in calories.

I cut the butter in half from 2 tablespoons to 1, reduced the amount of pork from 1.5 pounds to 1 pound, milk from 1.5 cups to 1/2 a cup and flour from 1 tablespoon to 1 teaspoon. This cut out about 100 calories, making room for a serving of brown rice.

The verdict? It honestly tasted exactly the same as the last time I cooked it. Even my mom didn’t notice and she has an uncanny ability to suss out healthy modifications.

The only other issue I have with this recipe is that it stinks up your entire house.

And your clothes.

And hair.

I didn’t really consider this when I went to a BodyStep class later in the evening. Luckily, I wasn’t too close to anyone else in the class but I was still really paranoid about sweating and stinking like curry (NB: I actually think the smell of curry is rather pleasant but understand not everyone in the world shares this view).

I also didn’t consider this when I reheated my leftovers for lunch yesterday and inadvertently stank up the office kitchen. Oops.

As for the rest of the day’s eats, I had a standard P28 bagel with almond butter and strawberries for breakfast.

For dinner, I had one of my new favourite 5-minute dinners – a baked microwaved sweet potato with almond butter and egg whites sprinkled with cinnamon. I think there are two types of people in the world - those who just gagged and those who have eaten something similar and will nod their heads in agreement when I say this is a delicious combination.

I really like this as a pre-workout meal because it’s not too heavy, has lots of slow releasing carbs and a good serving of protein.

At the time I made it, I didn’t actually know what workout I was going to do (one of the perks of having memberships/passes to three different fitness studios at the moment is that I no longer have to plan workouts in advance because between the three studios, there’s guaranteed to be at least one class that fits into my schedule) but figured this would be a good choice regardless (I ended up going to BodyAttack; I really wanted to do kickboxing but I also want to make my 10-class pass last as long as possible).

As for snacks, last week I experimented with not snacking at work and I discovered two things 1) I won’t keel over and die if I don’t have a snack between meals and 2) I function better and feel better when I do snack between meals.

So yesterday I brought in some of my snack staples – apples with peanut butter and Greek yogurt with blueberries and granola. After my workout, I had a whole wheat waffle topped with ricotta and blueberries (yum!).

And that’s What I Ate on Tuesday.

Do you every make over recipes?

For those of you who work in an office, what’s your strategy for reheating “fragrant” foods at work?

What’s your favourite pre-workout meal?