Grilling!

Ever since I got my grill at the end of last summer, I have been obsessed with grilling. In the past week or so I've grilled mahi mahi, marinated chicken, sirloin steaks — now hot Italian turkey sausage.

Yesterday I did a freezer clean out and restacking because I was sick and tired of having the box of frozen pot stickers bean me in the head every time I opened the freezer door. And in the back, I found two hot Italian turkey sausages wrapped up.

I wanted to take advantage of the great weather we're having, so I decided to grill them up. I treated them like I do brats by cooking them in simmer water until cooked through. Then, tossed them on the grill to brown them up. I dressed these as I do any grilled brat or hotdog with spicy deli mustard. I had sweet potato fries and a salad on the side. Simple, but great.

Here's the eats:

Breakfast: Ezekiel English muffin toasted, topped with 1 tbsp orange marmalade, apple slices and a slice of 2% cheddar cheese and broiled

Lunch: A serving of Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Tomatillo Salsa, 3 small corn tortillas and an orange

Snack: 4 ounces low fat vanilla yogurt with 2 tbsp homemade granola around 3 p.m. and then a handful of salt and pepper cashews when I got home

Dinner: Grilled hot Italian turkey sausage on a white hot dog bun with deli mustard, sweet potato fries with ketchup and an arugula salad with 1 tbsp vinaigrette and a little bit of feta

Snack: Probably some milk or a milk serving of some sort because I'm low on dairy.

Coconut Curried Tofu with Green Jasmine Rice

I've been eating a lot of non-postworthy food lately. A lot of random leftovers, fried egg sandwiches and more cafeteria lunches that I care to admit to. At least my cafeteria has a "healthy" station, but trust me when I say their turkey meatloaf and cauliflower mash is nothing to write home about let alone an entire blog post.

I found this photo tossed in a bunch of my photos and realized I hadn't shared it, so now's as good of a time as any.

This meal was definitely atypical for me. I don't do many curried dishes in general and I shy away from coconut in dishes. I think the flavor is not something I'm used to. I associate coconut with the the Easter bunny cake my mom used to make every year from her Betty Crocker cookbook (the coconut was its "fur") so when I taste it in a savory dish it just seems out of place. I tried a Thai green curry at a local Thai place and half way through my meal I realized I hated the coconut milk.

But, because I firmly believe you have to try things more than one time before you can really decide whether you like them, I made Coconut Curried Tofu with Jasmine Green Rice. And you know what? I really, really liked it. The coconut milk didn't bother me one bit. I used light coconut milk, maybe that makes a difference? I don't know that much about it so I have no idea.

I think I liked the tofu better than the rice, and if I make it again I'll probably add more vegetables along with tofu. Tomatoes were a good start, but without other veggies the serving size was teeny tiny.

My only real complaint was that my entire apartment smelled like curry for DAYS. :)

Here were my eats today because I haven't done it in a while. Like most weekends, it's kind of lacking in nutrition. I worked out both days, though. My goal next week should be to eat a balanced diet on the weekends.

Breakfast: Cinnamon-oat pancakes with maple syrup. I'll have to photograph these next time. They were DELICIOUS and fluffy. Also had coffee with a little 1/2 and 1/2.

Lunch: Family dinner with my parents, sister, and her fiance: Brats on the grill on a whole wheat bun with yellow mustard, and some asian slaw. Tiny piece of carrot cake from a Cooking Light recipe.

Mini-snack: about a handful of homemade granola just to try it. I burnt the first batch to a crisp and the second batch only burnt in parts. Despite what the recipe says, I think I need to add the nuts and coconut in mid-way through the baking. So far, I'm still not loving homemade granola. Anyone have any tips? Please?

Dinner: Grilled sirloin steak and roasted potatoes with an arugala salad.

Snack: While cleaning up from dinner and packing tomorrow's lunch I ended up eating some multigrain tortilla chips with fresh salsa. Just a couple though!

Cajun Shrimp and Cheesy Grits

I have had horrible headache all afternoon. At first, I thought it was from drinking too much caffeine, so I slugged down a CamelBak water bottle full of plain water and took a few Advil. It went away but came back not even 2 1/2 hours later. So, I ate a little something for a snack and that didn't help, so then I slugged down more water and finally took more Advil. Still had a headache.

It wasn't until I ate dinner that I finally got some relief.

With a pounding headache I didn't want to fuss. No chopping and I wanted dinner on the table in 20 minutes or less. So I ended up making Cajun Shrimp with some cheese grits (and some green beans because I realized I hadn't had any veggies other than peas today. Oops.).

When I got home tonight I knew I had shrimp I could thaw, but I had no idea what to do with it. So, I went to one of my favorite recipe sites, myrecipes.com. It's a database of recipes from Time Inc. publications like Cooking Light, Real Simple, and Health. I use the enhanced recipe search the most. Tonight, I used shrimp as my search term and checked off all three of the above magazines because I knew they'd all be healthy choices and clicked "quick/easy." Then, I sorted the results by rating. Cajun Shrimp came up near the top and it sounded great. Truthfully, it was the idea of cheesy grits that sold it for me. Yum! Both were great, actually.

Their Dinner Tonight feed is another place I look for new recipes, and if you're a beginning cook, these recipes include a video that helps you see the dish being made first. My only complaint is that keep the videos short, they use pre-chopped vegetables, which is what I needed help with most when I was learning to cook. Understandable, though, because who wants to sit and watch a 45-minute YouTube- style video?

When I was learning to cook I watched a ton of Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals. I know she grates on people's nerves sometimes, but she doesn't use swap outs on that show, so that's how I learned to cut a vegetable. I never actually made her recipes, though, because most have a zillion calories. It's an exaggeration, but you get the idea. At least the Dinner Tonight dishes have reasonable calorie counts for those of us trying to cut back.

I'm always looking for new recipes, so where you look for recipe inspiration?