Rachael Ray

So I've been trying some new recipes lately to add to our collection. Chad and I are more interested in eating healthier these days and he has opened himself up to foods that I would have never imagined him eating two years ago.
I decided to try some of Rachael Ray's recipes. Picked three out:

1. Spinach and Artichoke stuffed shells: Recipe here. I bought some jumbo shells, and used my own marinara sauce that I make on my own instead of her sauce recipe. I replaced the ricotta cheese and parmesan cheese with lite ricotta cheese and lite parmesan cheese, and instead of using frozen spinach and artichoke hearts, I bought fresh organic spinach and removed the artichoke hearts from organic artichokes from our local produce market. I also used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Lite instead of EVOO. After all was said and done, 5 stuffed shells with sauce came out to about 550 calories.
The verdict: WAY TOO MUCH CHEESE. We could have cut the amount of cheese in half. We couldn't really finish them either as the cheese was just hard on our stomachs. We might try this again in the future, but in the end it wasn't as good as I thought it would be.


2. Chicken and Wild Mushrooms in a Balsamic cream sauce: Recipe here. I made this using skim milk instead of heavy cream, and light butter instead of regular butter. I made linguini instead of orzo, but that is pretty much the same nutritional value. It was pretty gross. I don't think I'll be trying this again. There were way too many mushrooms and the "cream" sauce was not tasty at all, but instead tasted like sour mushroom water.

3. Chicken enchiladas: Recipe here. This is the recipe I plan on trying Thursday night. We both love Mexican food. I don't expect this to be like authentic Mexican or anything, but I'm hoping it will be tasty enough to where we might want to make it again. I'm going to use flour tortillas instead of corn (because neither of us really like the taste of corn tortillas), and omitting the cinnamom from the tomato sauce. Because that sounds disgusting and most of the comments suggest to do it. I'll use skim monterey jack cheese to cut the calories.
If this doesn't work out either, then I won't be trying anymore of Rachael Ray's recipes again. I'll probably start researching some Emeril recipes after this regardless.

I also have a cookbook from Jillian Michaels (thanks Eliz!!! :D). I tried two recipes from there already, one of them being this spinach egg white omelet with whole grain toast that was excellent! I also plan on trying more stuff from there. Sorry, Rachael Ray, but you just didn't work out for me.