What's For Dinner? Tri-tip with Nutty Quinoa Cakes

Three or four times a month the Man is scheduled to close at his store. It's slightly annoying, in that cooking for 1.5 people can be a challenge, but cooking for .5 of a person is even tougher. But, I try and take advantage of it and experiment with some recipes that he's unlikely to find appealing. One of his dislikes is "chewy grains"  which means anything but white rice. So if I cook quinoa or other grains, it's only for me.

I recently found a web site called http://www.foodily.com (Food, I Love You) that's sort of a recipe search engine, or maybe better said an aggregator of content crossed with a sharing site (think Pinterest). Through that, I found the recipe for tonight's experiment - Nutty Quinoa Cakes over at Big Girls Small Kitchen blog. Made as directed, they're OK. It seems to be missing a little seasoning - maybe a bit more salt, definitely some black pepper, and maybe something else - perhaps a bit stronger cheese than Parmesan? Not completely sure what's missing, but it would be a good basis for further experimentation at some point. Though the recipe says it serves 2, I got 9 cakes out of it, and had My Food Diary calculate nutrition information on 9 servings. I plated two cakes for my dinner, and got about 1.5 of them in - was a bit too full to finish it off.
 

My Meals

Breakfast

• 1 cup Kashi Go Lean! cereal
• 1/3 cup whole milk

Snack

• 2 celery stalks

Lunch

• Left over spaghetti shells made of: 
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pasta (medium shells)
• 1.5 oz browned ground beef
• 1/4 cup prepared spaghetti sauce
• 1 tbsp parmesan cheese

• small salad of romaine, 2 radishes, and 1 tbsp Trader Joe's fat free balsamic vinaigrette

Snack

• Dannon Light & Fit raspberry yogurt

Dinner

• 3 oz beef tri-tip marinated in marsala, oregano, and basil, then broiled
• 1.5 nutty quinoa cakes (see recipe link above)
• 1/4 cup french cut green beans
• 1 tsp sour cream
• .5 tsp butter

Water - 80 oz (new record!)

Exercise - 20 minutes Zumba! on the Kinect, 4 sets of strength exercises w/4 lb weights: tricep kickbacks, lunges, bicep curls, and shoulder presses, plus two 30-second planks (estimated 406 calories burned)

Daily Totals: 892 calories, 30.4g fat, 97g carbohydrates, 31.3g sugars, 72.4g protein