1 can of corn (drained)

1 can of black eyed peas (drained)

1 can of Rotel Tomatoes

1 diced green pepper

2-3 diced tomatoes

1/2 diced onion

chopped fresh cilantro

2 1/2 cups (about) Fat Free Italian Dressing

garlic salt (to taste)

You can also add a can of drained/rinsed black beans. My mother in-law uses hominy too.

I should have had this up earlier!  It would be the perfect Super Bowl appetizer!

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One thing about being pregnant is you have to watch how much seafood you consume because of the mercury levels in seafood. I wrote an Examiner article about the fish with the most and least amounts of mercury in them.

Check it out: Mercury in Fish

So I carefully pick which nights of the week I want to eat seafood so I spread them out. It’s hard because I love seafood! Anyways, tonight was a salmon night. I was hoping to find a fun and new way to marinate the fish. I wanted something other than soy and ginger because we had those flavors last night at PF Chang’s.

I used an idea from Eating Well which was just a simple salsa plus agave topping. I then created something delicious!

With my new pumpkin butter from Trader Joe’s:

I turned regular salmon into this sweet glazed treat:

I highly recommend trying this. I am sure it would work with chicken or shrimp as well. It was so sweet and had hints of pumpkin and fall flavors. Brady and I both picked this over the salsa style.

Here is our serving plate for dinner. We didn’t eat it all – but we ate all of the veggies:

To go with the fish, I broiled some asparagus and some red pepper. I also made a simple salad.

I topped this with light balsamic dressing that I make homemade and keep in the fridge.

Here is a look of the whole meal:

Pumpkin Butter Salmon

• 1 tbsp. pumpkin butter
• 1 or 2 servings of salmon
• sea salt

Spoon pumpkin butter onto salmon filet. Spread around with a spoon. Sprinkle with sea salt and broil on high for 8ish minutes or until done!

I can’t wait to make this again. I need to start thinking of more things to use my pumpkin butter in besides oatmeal and toast!

Any suggestions?!

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday. I am planning (hoping) to get up for working out in the morning. Then it is off to a quick (cross your fingers) day at school and home to get ready for our best friends from college to come in town for Wittenberg Homecoming. It should be a great time!

Hope your weekend plans are fun!

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While searching some of my favorite blogs I came across Erica’s corn pancakes with a link to the recipe on NoMeatAthlete. I immediately thought they looked delicious and had an idea.

I made the corn pancakes with the following – they are slightly different than the original recipe because I omitted corn (didn’t have any) and oil and butter because I wanted to see if they would work without the added fat. Also, I used skim milk instead of buttermilk.

So my recipe included:

• 2/3 c. cornmeal
• 2 tbsp. whole wheat flour
• 1 c. skim milk
• few squirts of lemon – into the milk (to replace the buttermilk)
• chili powder
• salt and pepper
• 1/2 can of green chilis
• 1 egg white

1. Spray a non-stick pan and cook like a pancake!

Delicious, right?! I loved it, it was so much better than polenta!

So then I took the pancake, and following Matt’s lead, I spread refried beans mixed with green chilis on it. Then placed it on a bed of spinach – for extra greens.

The next layer of this delicious experimental meal included a tomato from my garden and a ripe avocado.

All of that goodness was topped with my salsa salmon which I broiled for about 10-15 min.

And here is a side view from Brady’s plate:

Overall, it was a simple and different dinner that we are definitely making again!   

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