Pan Roasted Tilapia with Buttered Chive Gnocchi

Friday night before heading to a holiday party for work, I made dinner for my family, Pan Roasted Tilapia with Buttered Chive Gnocchi. I've made it before, except I used cod last time and tilapia this time.

When I got to the party I wasn't hungry so I didn't need to munch much. In fact, a coworker noticed and said, "You're being so good, I wish I had your willpower." I really wasn't trying to be "good." I ate before the party, because while the sign-up list was circulating there were a lot of desserts and not a whole lot of real food on that list. So I decided to eat before I went and sampled some desserts. I had a piece of caramel brownie and a Hershey kiss along with a small sampling of the veggie pizza -- only because it's my party staple and I had to compare it to mine. It was nearly identical by the way.

But eating beforehand is an excellent strategy for holiday parties if you're trying to keep calories in check. This one started at 7 p.m. and if I had tried to wait until I got to the party I would have starved to death and probably inhaled everything in sight. If you know you'll like the food, eat a small snack rather than a full meal like I did. But by eating that full meal I was able to enjoy a couple bites of what looked really good, but wasn't grabbing at everything. Do you have a strategy for holiday parties?

Noodles and Co.

Tonight I had takeout. It's definitely rare for me to grab something out. But I was so happy to fill up my car's tank for less than $10 that I couldn't help myself. Plus my parents went out to dinner and I was on my own.

I ran to the store to pick up more wine (for my semi-nightly treat) and frozen cream puffs for the work party on Friday. I would make something, but my usual work cocktail party fare (a veggie pizza) was already taken. For my own parties, I always make a batch of my homemade caramel corn which is ridiculously easy to make and always goes fast.

So tonight I stopped at Noodles and Company, which is surprisingly not terrible for you. First of all, don't be fooled by their sizes. A regular isn't "regular" it's giant. And a small is good enough. In fact, I was starving when I ate and I had the small Japenese Pan Noodles with the smallest side salad ever:

And I was stuffed. Too bad they accidentally gave me balsamic vinaigrette when I asked for fat free asian. I didn't use all of it, though. The noodles, with shrimp, clocked in at 7 points, and I estimate the dressing was 2 points at most. I would have preferred the asian, which I'm guessing is zero.

If you decide to try it, definitely check out their site, they have the nutritional info for their entire menu. I love when restaurants do that. Takes the guessing out of it. I always look ahead and decide what I want before I even leave. It's definitely the easiest way to avoid temptation.

Crispy Chicken Fingers with Sweet Potato Fries

I've been wanting to post more regularly, but things have been hectic lately. The good news is that I made two successful parts of our Thanksgiving dinner: multi-grain rolls and gravy. The gravy wasn't healthy in the least with 2 cups or so of drippings (my mom roasts her turkey with a ton of chicken stock in the bottom of the roaster), two tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of flour. But it tasted great.

A week or so ago I was helping my mom clean out her pantry and found a box of cornflake crumbs, which we've always used to make Crunchy Garlic Chicken. It was kind of old, but I wanted to try it in the Crispy Chicken Fingers recipe I saw. My mom already has a standard baked chicken finger recipe (a WeightWatchers recipe incidentally), but the cornflake crust sounded like an improvement.

The dish pretty much failed for two reasons: the crumbs were stale, and the chicken itself didn't have much flavor. I think it could be improved by adding a little dijon mustard to the buttermilk (like our favorite recipe does) and, of course, always use fresh cornflake crumbs. To be fair, we didn't make the sauce that goes with it. We used regular bbq and ranch to dip in.

On the upside: they were crunchy, which is where our usual recipe fails. So I think if you combine the two, you've got one tasty chicken finger.

Oh, and on the side were Alexia Sweet Potato Fries. Tasted more "fried" than the ones I make from scratch, but were just as soggy. I was hoping these would crisp up more in the oven.