Burnin' Up The Stash

The produce stash, that is! I bought way more fruits and veggies than I should have at Wal-topia last weekend, and they're all on their last legs. So I used up some bananas by making more Frozen Banana Fudge Bars: I made one with vanilla 120 and cinnamon, one with vanilla 120 and 2 Tbsp PB2, one with chocolate 120 (like last time), and one with chocolate 120 and 2 Tbsp PB2. I love these and wish I could eat them every minute of every hour of every day. Delicious.

My next stash-busting activity was to use up the okra I bought by making roasted okra, but the okra appeared to have gone bad. So I roasted my elephant garlic instead, after searching for directions online. I used a bit of zero-calorie olive oil cooking spray instead of olive oil, and we were golden. I wasn't that enthused by the results, however. It still tasted kind of bitter, so I mashed it up and combined it with my one remaining entree, turkey chili, and sprinkled a little nacho cheese flavored popcorn seasoning on top. The flavor and color of the seasoning combined with the texture of the mashed garlic actually caused it to be vaguely reminiscent of the old cheese-laden (and calorie/fat laden) chili that I used to enjoy, back in the halcyon days of my youth.

Finally, I did something that can almost qualify as real cooking in order to use up my ample supply of grape tomatoes (I had so many wonderful plans for them, but alas, they grew wrinkly and gross-looking, and had to be used post-haste). I based this creation on a recipe found at Diet Recipes Blog (although some of the things that they classify as "diet" seem kind of sketchy to me).

Garlic Tomatoes

Ingredients:
8 oz grape tomatoes, halved
1-1.5 tsp minced garlic
Dried thyme to taste (I think I may have used about 1 tsp)
Salt and pepper to taste
PAM olive oil cooking spray

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees, lightly spray bottom of 9x13" glass baking dish with PAM.
2. Cut tomatoes in halve (optional, since it takes a long time to cut that many tomatoes, you can probably just leave them whole). Transfer to baking dish and give them a quick spray with PAM.
3. Sprinkle garlic and thyme over tomatoes; if you are bad at sprinkling things evenly (like me), mix them around a little with a fork or spoon. Sprinkle tomatoes with salt and pepper.
4. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until tomatoes are slightly charred (and extremely delicious).

Makes 2 servings of vegetables (Or fruits, technically...).

I used minced garlic because I wasn't sure how to execute the "squeeze the meat from the garlic cloves over the tomatoes" step in the original recipe, and dried thyme because I seldom if ever have fresh herbs in my house.