Low Fat Monte Christo, Seafood Pasta and more!

I've been working on healthier eating so I decided to cook a trio of recipes from Clean Eating magazine. First up was a low fat Monte Christo sandwich.

The traditional version of this is a sandwich piled high with meats and cheeses, dipped in egg batter and fried, then dusted with powdered sugar and served with jam for dipping. Can you say heart attack on a plate? Though I've made plenty of unhealthy choices, I was always too embarrassed to order one of these at a restaurant.
The healthy version was sliced turkey, dijon mustard, spinach leaves, thinly sliced pear and low fat swiss cheese on whole grain bread. You then make a batter of egg whites mixed with a little low fat milk and spices. I dipped the sandwich in this and fried it in a little cooking spray. Then I used organic raspberry jam as a dip for the sandwich, it is fat free after all. This was soooo delicious! I had middling expectations, but the flavor just bursts out of this sandwich. I loved the complexity of tastes: sweet, savory, tart, sweet, spicy. I'll make this one again.
Mid-afternoon, I decided to try a dessert recipe from the magazine. I like that Clean Eating's desserts are low fat and sweetened with agave nectar, a low glycemic sweetener. I made the sweet potato brownies.

First I mixed up flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Then I added the mashed sweet potato, agave nectar and oil. Then I whipped several egg whites until frothy and folded them in. While this baked, I made the frosting, which consisted of low fat cream cheese, cocoa powder, cinnamon and agave nectar. The result?

They are okay. If someone told me these were low fat spice cake squares, I would find them acceptable. They taste pleasant and have a nice texture. But brownies? As brownies, they're a bit of a fail. They aren't fudgy or even very chocolate-y. I won't make these again.
For dinner, I made the seafood ragu.

This is a whole grain pasta topped with a seafood ragu sauce. The sauce recipe was quite complex, involving onions, garlic, diced carrots and celery, diced tomatoes, chicken stock, bay leaves, chopped parsley, lemon juice and other spices. The original recipe called for white fish, but I wasn't in the mood to wait in line at the ghetto grocery store I frequent, so I subbed in canned salmon and tuna. The end result was decent. This pasta dish is very comforting and homey tasting, especially since there are white beans in it. But I'm a guy who likes a lot of flavor and I found I had to keep adding in salt and pepper as I ate. This seafood ragu needs a bit more "wow" factor for me. I might cook it again, but I'd have to be in the mood for something very comforting and simple, and I'd add a lot more spice.

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