Cooking Light Misses & Wins

I love Cooking Light. Really, really love it. Most of the time their recipes are huge wins. The Chicken Parmesan Burger in the April issue was a miss, though. But only a near miss. The recipe (see it here) calls for ground chicken. Niki and I thought this was interesting and so we went for it. It was totally bland and a weird texture. Not recommending ground chicken for any recipe ever. The recipe called for mixing in marinara and herbs for flavor- and that helped. Just not enough. They don't come out looking a thing like the picture- it's more like a wobbly, white patty.

What the recipe is SUPPOSED to look like. Not at all how it actually turns out.

That being said, the herb flavor and the ciabatta rolls were awesome. And for me- the fresh basil. Adore it! And it's still a much better choice than a restaurant Chicken Parmesan. We plan on trying it again with thin sliced chicken breast. I'm going to chop the herbs well and coat the breast, the sear and bake. We'll get the same benefit of a great Italian chicken flavor on the lighter side. So try this- just not with ground chicken. So weird. 

I also tried the chocolate chocolate-chip muffins. OK, these were great!! Definitely up to the Cooking Light standards. YUM!! I admit up front, I added another 1/4 cup of chocolate chips. So shoot me. I was nervous because the batter texture is really strange- but they turned out delish! Still 190 calories, but for a muffin lover that's cool. Usually when you pick up a blueberry muffin somewhere it's around 400 and 12 grams of fat. Plan on eating these with a glass of milk- they're dense. And they dry out kind of quick- so eat them in the first few days after making.

Great evening snack when you're having a craving. 

What I love about Cooking Light is that their recipes aren't 0 fat. Let's be honest- that's never going to taste good. They do a great job of making things into better choices.