'Cooking' on Medifast

Our second order of Medifast food is coming in and I thought I'd go over what we've had so far, and the best ways to prepare it!

 First the easy stuff: 

• Peanut Butter Crunch Bar
• Chocolate Mint Crunch Bar
• Parmesan Cheese Puffs
• Cheese Pizza Bites
• Chewy Cookie Dough Bars
• Ready to Drink Dutch Chocolate Shake 

All of this we've eaten right out of the package. With the exception of the Cheese Pizza Bites, all of these are pretty good too. Now on to the food that has more preparation:

Cream of Chicken Soup - made by the instructions, this was horrible, and I ate it when I was hungry no less. It was so bad I didn't give it another chance for over a week. When I revisited it, though I did the following: Soak the soup in water, add a tiny bit of chicken flavor, an oz of finely chopped cooked chicken breast, and some Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning. Now it's good! It takes an oz of your Lean and Green protein, but it's worth it. 

Vegetarian Chili - soak this for *hours* before you microwave it, seriously. Overnight is good, but at least 4 hours. This gets the beans tender enoguh to eat and thickens everythign up nicely. I add Chili Powder or Cayenne to give it some kick, and an oz or two of ground turkey from my Lean and Green. This gives it some more depth and bulks it up, too. 

Macaroni and Cheese - this is edible with enough pepper if you prepare it normally, but when you mix in a wedge of Laughing Cow and a dash of something spicy (more Tony Chachere's), it transforms. Throw in something from your L&G (mushrooms, or turkey, or chicken) and it becomes a great lunch.

Cinnamon Crunch Cereal - I was very iffy about this, because I don't like dry cereal, and I never had any desire to try soy or almond milk... I don't even like skim milk. Then I had this with Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk and it was amazing. I will be using that milk for all cereals I eat, even when I'm off Medifast completely. It's that good.

Pancakes - These cook faster than 'normal' pancakes, so you have to set the temp a little lower. Also, mix them by eye, and not measurement, as they tell you to add way too much water. Unlike real pancakes, where you have lots of wiggle room to add more mix and toss the first one when you under/overcook it, you really only get one chance with these guys. Tastewise, they are decent, but this has probably been the most frustrating thing I've cooked. I want to explore some of the options with these, my one experiment so far has been a pancake muffin in a cup in the microwave, and it didn't turn out great.

Blueberry Muffin Soft Bake - cooking these by the instructions ends up with a dry mess. I need to find out how to perfect this, because I want more of these, but they are hard to prepare.

Chocolate Chip Soft Bake - for this, I add a little extra water and pay attention when cooking, I want it to be a little underdone. We're going to explore some options with this tonight, as well... makign a Chocolate Chip/Chocolate PB2 'truffle' tonight, using the brownie method below:

Chocolate Brownie Soft Bake - this simply wasn't as good as the chocolate chip, until we made a find. Mix up your brownie mix with a touch more water, pour half into a parchment-lined muffin cup. Put a ball of PB2 on the brownie mix, then cover with the rest of the brownie. Bake for 12-14 minutes at 350, then pull it out and toss it in the freezer for 30 minutes. the brownie doesn't cook completely in that time, and you end up with this rich fudgey peanutbuttery treat. I might have thought this was this amazing on day 1... not sure though.

Chocolate Pudding -  we've only made this one way, and I don't see any reason to change it. You throw the pudding, a half cup of water, and a cup of ice into your Ninja Blender and blend the living crap out of it. Dump it into a glass and you've got this really nice chocolate soft serve. Add more liquid and it's a drinkable milkshake (a 'real' shake, that is difficult to get through a straw). If you've got the calories, make it with almond milk instead of water, and if you like darker chocolate, add some dark cocoa powder.

That's all so far. I'll also give a piece of general advice... if you don't like something early on, try it again later. You really will have a light shift in your taste buds and things will taste differently to you. Also, split up your L&G. After a few days on plan, your L&G is realyl too big of a meal at one sitting. Spreading  it out to 'enhance' your Medifast lunch is a great trick. Also, we make a point to have a 'dessert' after dinner every night, and save our puddings and chocolate chip/brownie soft bakes for this. That helps a lot with having somethign to look forward to.

Final thoughts: I had bunless turkey burgers for dinner last night, wrapped in romaine lettuce. I managed to eat all of my lettuce, and didn't give up on it. This is a pretty major victory for me since I hate lettuce. I want to incorporate more into my diet and maybe I'll be able to eat some salad in the future.