I can eat THAT?

I restarted a diet this past week, only this time - because I'm trying to get my husband to follow it as well - I'm using the various cookbooks that you can buy for this diet to try and find tasty interesting meals and snacks to keep us motivated.

Diets have such a negative connotation. People always ask, "what can you eat?" or "what have you cut out?" as if a diet is somehow a punishment for prior indulgences. But as someone much wiser than I once pointed out, a diet is what you eat, some are just healthier than others.

So in the process of looking for interesting things to make, I stumbled on three great things this week. The first was lemon blueberry muffins. Oh my, with lemon zest and lemon extract and fresh blueberries, these turned out to be very tasty. And, on this "reduced calorie" diet, you may have two with a small serving of fruit and it's only 400 calories (which is a meal). The second was just a simple chicken recipe - coated in whole grain breadcrumbs and chopped walnuts and baked - sliced and served over field greens with....the most amazing tasty pomegranate dressing - dont' recall all the ingredients, but you use 100% pomegranate juice and you cook it till it reduced by half and then you drizzle it over the chicken/salad. Sweet and tart and totally yummy. I saved the best for last....who ever heard of a reduced calorie diet with Stuffed French Toast? This was amazing - finely chopped semi sweet chocolate combined with that fake cream cheese stuff that starts with an 'N' that I can never spell, spread on a 1/2 inch thick slice of italian bread, topped with a matching slice, dipped into an egg/vanilla extract mixture and then cooked in a skillet with a little margarine. Topped with sliced strawberries mixed with orange zest and a little sugar. WOW - Sunday Brunch at it's best.

With food like this, this "diet" could be fun.