New Recipes 14 and 15 - Balsamic Chicken with Mushrooms and Creamy Garlic Pasta with Shrimp and Vegetables

The hubs and I enjoy inviting the in-laws over for dinner on a regular basis.  We usually pair this with some kind of Sunday evening "hang out" time.  This past Sunday, I decided to try a new (to us) Weight Watchers recipe.  We had the Balsamic Chicken with Mushrooms with roasted red potatoes and steamed broccoli.  This recipe was super easy, but looked like it was hard to make.  There were very few ingredients - basically chicken, balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard and mushrooms.  If you are looking for something easy to fix that looks and tastes like a million bucks - this is your recipe!

With the previous review to be the positive, let me follow with a little negative...


Sometimes you win with new recipes, sometimes you don't.  Tonight was the latter.  I was very excited to find the Creamy Garlic Pasta with Shrimp and Vegetables recipe on EatingWell.com last week.  It looked like it would be another one of those recipes that would be super easy, but taste awesome.  Unfortunately, it wasn't all that awesome to us...  Don't get me wrong - the recipe was easy and tasted pretty good; it just wasn't our style in the end.  When I first tasted it, I thought it was going to be keeper - so much so that I took a picture of it and posted it on my Facebook.  As we continued to eat, the less yummy it became.  With each passing bite, it got heavier and heavier.  The hubs and I both love the mixture of ingredients, but not the creamy sauce.  The whole wheat spinach spaghetti, shrimp, asparagus, red bell pepper, and peas were good.  But, I just couldn't get past the white sauce - there was just something "wrong" with it... I should have realized we both wouldn't fall head over heels for this dish - we both aren't big fans of creamy, white pasta sauces.  So, we've decided that we will definitely use most of the ingredients for a modified version of our own - the big difference will be that we will use a red sauce and/or diced tomatoes instead of the creamy yogurt sauce.