Groceries, Pesto & Leaving Room for Wine

I went on a much needed grocery shopping trip yesterday to Trader Joe's, and I got a TON of stuff. I usually go to Raley's because it's conveniently close and they have an amazing health food section, but I save a lot of money at Trader Joe's, even with a full cart. I got all of this for under $100!

Part of the reason why I so desired the grocery trip was because I wanted to try out a recipe I found on one of my favorite sites, Hungry-Girl.com. Lisa Lillien brings a fun, healthy, quirky & creative twist to a lot of great  foods. I especially like her efforts for creative recipe titles like the recipe I made, "Simply the Pesto". Come on, who doesn't love a good Tina Turner play on words?! Here is the recipe:


Simply the Pesto
PER SERVING (1/4th of recipe, about 2 tbsp.): 68 calories, 5g fat, 228mg sodium, 3g carbs, 0.25g fiber, 0.5g sugars, 3g protein -- PointsPlus™ value 2* 

Ingredients:
1 cup fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup fat-free ricotta cheese
2 tbsp. reduced-fat Parmesan-style grated topping
2 tbsp. pine nuts
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. chopped garlic
1/4 tsp. salt, or more to taste
1/4 tsp. black pepper, or more to taste

Directions:
Place all ingredients in a small blender or food processor, and blend/process until a smooth paste forms. If you like, add additional salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate until ready to serve!

MAKES 4 SERVINGS




I made the recipe basically just as instructed, but I used all of the organic basil I bought because I love basil, and I knew I wouldn't use it before it went bad anyway. Here's what it looked like in the food processor (don't judge just because it's the smallest food processor you've ever seen):

I went out on a limb and bough some brown rice pasta, mostly because it only had 200 calories for a cup of cooked pasta, which is quite a bit better than normal pasta

I added some Trader Joe's marinara sauce & sun-dried tomatoes to the pasta, and I also added a green salad with fat-free Feta, a few croutons, & Trader Joe's Parmesan Ranch (amazing and only 30 calories for TWO tablespoons!). The meal was under 400 calories, and I didn't even have to modify it to make it tastier for my boyfriend! I even rationalized having a small glass of red wine just because I couldn't believe this pasta dinner was so healthy (and because I just wanted a glass of wine!). 

You can see the finished product above! It was great. I'd highly recommend all of it. We even have half of the pesto left to use for sandwiches and dip this week!


Well, that's all the time I have for now since I'm on my lunch break, but I am definitely following up to talk about some other great Trader Joe's finds and to talk about one of my favorite topics: Makeup! Until then...