Emily: So, this Fellow Foodie Blogger Recipe Tour is going quite well. I love trying delicious recipes straight from my favorite blogs!

Emily: Yes, especially after that amazing Chunky Vegetable Chili recipe you tried last night from Coconut & Lime.

Emily: Yes, especially after that.

Emily: But it has eggplant in it. You hate eggplant remember?

Emily: Well, umm, yes but I really liked it in this chili and am slowly embracing the lovely fruit. Can you believe it?

Emily: You realize I can never trust anything you say again right? Next you will be saying you love ricotta.

Emily: Oh shut it and go eat your delicious chili leftovers, that recipe rocked!

Emily’s Cat: You realize you are saying all of this out loud? My mom is crazy.

Yippity skippity, day six! As the trend has been the past six days, I started my morning with a frozen peach smoothie and slices of fresh mango.

As I mentioned, I’m unofficially starting my Fellow Foodie Blogger Recipe Tour and for lunch let’s travel to our gentle neighbors to the north, Canada! I love the blog Sea Salt With Food based in Vancouver. Her photography is gorgeous and I love the cultural variety of her recipes. Just looking at her blog today she goes from a Tom Kha Gai Soup to Carrot Spice Muffins to Sausage Rolls. I have been dying to try something of hers and to stay with my diet plan I tried this Roasted Tomato Soup recipe. This mix of roasted garlic, thyme, yellow onion and roma tomatoes was fantastic. The real kicker to this? You add one diced chili in adobo to the soup and then blend the whole thing. I loved this spicy addition to the soup and think you will too.

For dinner, I went with one of my other favorite bloggers and Bon Appetit contributer, Molly Wizenberg aka Orangette. Once again trying to stay on my diet track (with a fried egg, cheese and bread…sure Emily whatever you like to tell yourself) I chose her Boiled Kale with Fried Egg and Toast. I have to say, this recipe name does not do this dish justice. The boiled kale – which is amazing – is ladled on top of a piece of toast and then you place a fried egg (fried in olive oil) over the whole thing and then top with Parmesan cheese. Goodness gracious, this was so simple and perfection in a bowl. I have a feeling this will be a good cold night staple I will turn to time and again.

Day 6 is in the books lambs! More blogger recipes for the rest of the week to come and thanks to Sea Salt with Food and Orangette for the beautiful recipes and continued inspiration.

Wow y’all, still no caffeine, sugar or processed foods but I do have to say since it is Saturday, I am enjoying a teeny glass of Pleiades wine after my awesomely, delicious dinner – more on that in a minute.

On to dinner with the these Sugar Pumpkin, Feta and Cilantro Quesadillas from Bon Appetit. Yay cheese! Yay tortillas! The recipe calls for a sugar pumpkin or a butternut squash which as you guessed I had to use a butternut squash since I couldn’t find sugar pumpkins. This was super duper simple to assemble and I served with a side of black beans. My only critique was that I thought this could use some sort of spice maybe cumin or cinnamon or something along those lines to give it a little more pizazz.

I’m menu planning now and we’ll see what comes up for the next three days and next, I’m doing a week of recipes from my favorite food blogs out there. Can’t wait!

Photos from cookinglight.com and bonappetit.com

Still going strong folks! No caffeine, no processed foods and I’m still feeling good. I started my day with a smoothie made of frozen peaches, almond butter and honey plus a red apple. They have a bounty of the Jazz variety at my HEB and I’m loving its extra crispy, tart taste.

For lunch, I had my leftover serving of the chicken and cucumber salad from last night. Now onto the main event – dinner. I decided I would have one red meat night this week and I chose to cook with lamb. Through my work with The Tri-Lamb Group I have learned to appreciate lean, nutrient filled lamb. I know some people go “awwww how could you?” when I say the word lamb but trust me people just give it a try and you will be saying “yummm, how couldn’t I?” If you are still not convinced, more for me then. 😉

Now I still wanted to choose a healthy lamb recipe and I hit the jackpot with this Lamb Chops with Pomegranate and Dried Fig Relish from Bon Appetit’s Fast, Easy, Fresh section and was also labeled low calorie and high fiber. I couldn’t find pomegranate molasses at Central Market so I decided to go ahead and use regular molasses for the relish…oh, the relish. The pomegranate seeds burst in your mouth with each bite and the molasses, balsamic vinegar, dried figs and fresh mint complemented the lamb perfectly. I also loved the cumin seeds on both the lamb and in the relish. I wish my camera worked because this was a visually stunning dish too with the colors of the red pomegranate seeds, fresh green mint and figs served over the lamb chops.

This truly was fast, easy, fresh and utterly delectable. There was nothing on my plate after I snarfed this down. Tomorrow is my total vegetarian day so we will see how it goes. Stay tuned!

So still no caffeine and I’ve limited my amount of processed food intake for the past two days…I’m feeling good!

I started day two with a blueberry and almond milk smoothie and then an apple. For lunch I had the leftover Fiery Coconut Curry Soup but this time added fresh slices of avocado and really loved this new addition to the dish.

For a snack I had almonds and freshly, sliced mango. For dinner I tried this Cold Sesame Noodle Salad with Chicken and Cucumbers from Cooking Light that was really fresh and very satisfying. I used whole wheat spaghetti instead of udon noodles and I also served – as recommended – with a simple side salad of spinach and radishes. I really liked the crunchy peanuts and fresh cucumbers and the dressing was really simple to make and delicious.

I halved this recipe and then saved a serving for my lunch tomorrow. Day two down!

So for the first day in my week-long journey on a diet shake-up, I started with a simple mango, coconut milk (light) and pineapple smoothie with a smidgen of honey plus a red apple.

For lunch, I made this Fiery Tofu and Coconut Curry Soup from Cooking Light and all I have to say is “fire in the hole!”. Yowza, this thing had some spice too it and it probably had something to do with the 1/4 cup of red curry paste in the soup. I have to say for a veggie tofu soup this was really good, but if you are not the heat lovin’ kind you might want to lower the red curry paste a bit.

For dinner, I made this Sauteed Halibut with Lemon-Pesto Butter (come on now, I had to have butter somewhere in my day) from Cooking Light and it was del-i-cious! The butter mixture was perfect over the halibut and I served this with a sauteed kale recipe from Bon Appetit magazine minus the nasty capers. The two dishes combined were perfect together and I highly recommend giving this a try. Also, if you haven’t explored the world of kale, this article from Molly Wizenberg might convince you.

Day one down and stay tuned for tomorrow!

I was supposed to make Bacon Mac ‘n’ Cheese from Cooking Light and it looked like a fairly simple recipe, but for some reason I just wasn’t feeling it. Instead, I wanted a BIG salad and I remembered coming across this salad in Everyday Food and decided to give it a try.

Starting on Tuesday, I’m going to take a healthier approach to my diet – for a week. After scanning my favorites here on Cooking Inside the Lines I noticed a lot of red meat, cheeses, BACON and bread products. While I like to think my diet is balanced, I’ve been feeling a little off-kilter recently and am thinking a week of a little more “clean” eating might do me some good, this also includes no wine or caffeine at all…at all…at all. So, no wine, caffeine or processed foods if I can help it, plus more fruits and veggies and vegetarian and fish options for a week. I’m hoping after the week is over not only will I feel better, but it might serve as an inspiration for me to continue to eat a wee bit healthier moving forward.