Sharing the Wealth (of New Recipes!)

One day last week, my husband called me at work to ask what was for dinner and to see if I needed him to stop at the store for any ingredients on his way home. I am a big advocate of meal planning; I even have a workshop called Meal Planning Made Easy! However, last week was a week when I had not heeded my own advice so I had no meal plan, and as I was starting to suggest one of our typical stand-by recipes, I suddenly had a fantastic idea—I referred to my stack of recently submitted Montana Meals January Challenge Logs (Try New Things!) and picked out a recipe that received a 5-star rating and rave reviews: Southwestern Chopped Salad with Cilantro Lime Dressing . I agree with you, Peggy L., from MSU Bozeman, that this recipe deserves 5-stars and has great flavor!

Rather than keep all of these recipes to myself, I thought I would share a few online 5-star favorites, according to your January Challenge logs:

• Spicy “Noodle” Bowl with Peanuts and Cilantro
• Crunchy Pear & Celery Salad 
  
• Beef-Broccoli Stir Fry 
  
• Pasta with Grilled Chicken, White Beans and Mushrooms 
  
• Quinoa Tabbouleh 
  
• Pumpkin Fettucine 
  
• Samosa Pie 
  
• Slow Cooker Pulled Pork with Root Beer Sauce 
  

And for leftovers from the last recipe:

• Pulled Pork & Black Bean Burritos 
  

I get hungry just looking at all these delicious sounding recipes and can’t wait to try more of them myself. Many of the recipes above also include heart healthy foods from the February Challenge list, so you can meet this month’s challenge at the same time as trying more new meals!

Some of you were ambitious enough to create your own recipes for the January challenge. Way to go! I plan on sharing one or two of those in an upcoming blog post, so stay tuned, and if you have an original recipe that you’d like me to share with our fellow readers, please send it my way.

Happy Eating and Cooking!

CS