A HEALTHY dose of FAILURE.

Welcome to Yummy Monday - the special Tuesday edition - where I introduce you to all the new food experiments I subject my family and my parents to.


Up on the docket this week - getting healthy.  Or, you know, healthier.  Ish.  Obviously all these Yummy Mondays with their delicious main courses and scrumptious desserts are taking their toll on our waistlines.  (That combined with turning 30.  What is it about 30? It's like the Freshman 15.  "The 30 30".)  ANYWAY.  Soooo, my mom has been referring me to The Hungry Girl blog, trying to get me all excited about the healthy swaps she does.


I looked around there and found a recipe for "Fried" Zucchini and one for Peach Cobbler that I decided to give a go.  Along with the links to Hungry Girl, my mom also sent me some salmon. (not via email.  via my dad in a grocery bag.) (No, wait.  My DAD wasn't in the grocery bag.  The salmon was.  See how confusing compound subjects can be?)  So I also looked around for a tasty and slightly different salmon recipe and eventually found this one for Baked Dijon Salmon on Allrecipes.


First off, the salmon.  Here's the recipe for you:

Baked Dijon Salmon

• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
• 4 (4 ounce) fillets salmon
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 lemon, for garnish
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).  In a small bowl, stir together butter, mustard, and honey. Set aside. In another bowl, mix together bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley.  Brush each salmon fillet lightly with honey mustard mixture, and sprinkle the tops of the fillets with the bread crumb mixture.  Bake salmon 12 to 15 minutes in the preheated oven, or until it flakes easily with a fork. Season with salt and pepper, and garnish with a wedge of lemon.
• 
  

We all tried it and loved it.  Although I do admit to being partial to white fish, the salmon had a nice flavor and a bit of crunch due to the topping and it was a nice change.  I would definitely recommend this recipe to others.  I ended up with extra zucchini so I chopped that up and drizzled some of the extra sauce for the salmon on the veggies and baked it alongside.  They were pretty tasty that way as well.


The "fried" zucchini...  Let's just put this out there right now: you can not fry anything and have it be healthy.  Therefore, you must pretend to fry - which really just means baking.  So why do they attempt to make you think it's going to be the same as fried?  It is NOT.  Baking is significantly different from frying.  Which is why it can be so much healthier.  I don't have a beef with baking things.  I love baking things.  My beef is with calling something fried and comparing it to the REAL DEAL when it can't even come close.  Call the darn thing "Baked Zucchini That Is Crunchy And Therefore Slightly Resembles Fried Zucchini In Texture But Not At All In Taste But As An Upside Will Not Increase Your Pants By 1500 Calories Or Rather 2 Sizes."  Because then they're being honest and you know what to expect.  

Obviously I'm an idealist and an optimist - at least that's what I'm blaming it on.  What else could make me believe that healthy "fried" zucchini could be as good as the real thing?  For the record, it is not.  I'm not even going to put the recipe here because I'm not ever going to try it again, and I'd advise you to avoid it as well.  You can find it here if you want, and just so you know it has a bunch of ground up bran cereal in it - the weird pellet kind that looks and smells like guinea pig food.  That should have been my first warning sign...  BUT it does have 78 calories compared to 450.  So there is that.


On to the cobbler.  So, I found this on Hungry Girl too.  This also should probably NOT have been compared side by side with it's honest to goodness cobbler counterpart because - again - it's all healthified and stuff, which automatically makes it NOT cobbler.  Setting aside my love for unhealthy desserts and my annoyance at calling food things it is NOT, I actually kind of liked this cobbler.  

Had the peaches been a bit more ripe, I think it would have been pretty good.  Here's the recipe.  If you're looking for a healthy fruit dessert, give it a try.  And who doesn't like homemade whipped cream?

My parents were good sports and said they liked it all - although I saw right through my dad when he made faces at the zucchini.  mr was much more honest.  He enjoyed the salmon - which I remind you was NOT specifically a healthy recipe.


He also told me this dinner made him rethink his firm decision to be more healthy.


PS.  Did you see yesterday's post?  There's new stuff in the shop tonight!

*Be sure to check just below for all the fun parties I link to!