Princess Di

I seriously have not had to lift a finger to cook since...oh, sometime last week. Well, you'll see one meal I made toward the end of this post, but please, it hardly counts if it takes five minutes.

Getting spoiled knows not the confines of a single birthday, as evidenced by the length of my birthday-palooza, and the roomie kept it rollin' tonight by making us Indian food for dinner! Are you jealous yet?

She made Saag Tofu, which is a lightened-up version of Saag Paneer (paneer being an Indian cheese and therefore not-so-light). Her version was based on this recipe, and she said she followed it fairly exactly, though she has fancy spice skizzles that I dare not try to repeat here.

Live-in chef? Yes please! That's just between you and me though, since of course she won't be reading this. ;)

Anyway, getting down to business, I owe reviews to two products that were sent to me recently, so let’s get to it, shall we?

I got coupons in the mail from Better Whey of Life to try out their yogurts, which are fortified with extra protein (15g per 6 oz. container of vanilla, to be precise). I picked up a cup of their vanilla flavor and stirred half into my cereal deskfast yesterday.

It tasted good, and I look forward to trying a few of their other flavors, but I can’t say that I stayed full longer than I would have on normal yogurt. It is a rare and miraculous day that I’m not starving within three hours of eating breakfast, and yesterday was no exception.

I still prefer my yogurt unsweetened, whether it is normal style yogurt, such as the Better Whey brand, or Greek, which tends to have more protein per serving than this kind anyway. That’s just me - I'd rather add my own mix-ins to give it flavor. Still, for a sweetened yogurt, I appreciated the relatively short ingredient list and would consider it a smart choice (as opposed to, say, Yoplait/Dannon/Colombo) if I was looking for a vanilla yogurt. They have plain yogurt, according to their literature, so I'll keep my eye out for it. Visit their website for a $1 coupon!

And then there’s the Buitoni Riserva line of pasta – FoodBuzz has plopped their Wild Mushroom Agnolotti onto nearly every food blogger’s doorstep, it seems, and being that it would have gone bad had I not cooked it soon, I decided to give it a try.

I liked how Emily blatantly broke the rules by not boiling these ravioli-in-disguise, so I put on my culinary thinking cap (I guess that would just be a chef's hat) and cooked mine in a skillet. I was playing make-believe and I wanted these to be pierogi more than ravioli. After heating a pan misted with cooking spray, I dredged a serving of the pasta in some diluted pesto and browned them for a couple minutes per side, then served them with a pile of messy roasted zucchini. A sprinkle of parmesan on top and I had a very yummy meal!

If I dig deep inside myself for an honest opinion, I think I am of two minds. I feel like if I ordered these at a restaurant (which I might, given the option), I would probably dig in and proclaim it a very impressive meal.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I was holding the package in my hand, reading the nutrition facts and the ingredients, and the truth is that I would never pay money for these at the grocery store. It’s just not my habit to buy products like this that pack such a calorie and sodium whollop into a pretty small serving. Anyone who likes to eat likes to eat a LOT, so on a normal basis, I’d just rather have a pile of vegetables in its place.

Ok, with business out of the way, I feel obligated to let a good friend make an encore cameo.

We ordered paninis from Tarallucci e Vino at the office today, and once again I made sweet love to the grilled zucchini sandwich. Believe you me, I ate this over the course of like, a whole hour. It is a meal to be savored. That is all. Moving on now.

On a final note, I thought I would pass on a great website that I learned about through a friend of my dad's. It's called Happy Cow and is a directory of vegetarian restaurants and health food stores, complete with reviews. This will help you find the best veggie-friendly places to eat in your area, not to mention pretty much anywhere else in the world! I'll link to it at right under "Healthy Resources" too for future reference. Check it out and have an environmentally-friendly meal this week. Happy Earth Day!