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Monday, February 21, 2011

Turkey & Apple Paninis

Shaved Turkey Breast
Red Delicious Apple sliced horizontally
Provolone Cheese Slices
2 slices of whole grain bread of your choice
Butter (yes real butter!)

Butter one side of each slice of bread.

Heat grill pan (or frying pan) on medium-lo heat and place one slice of bread butter side down in the pan.  Top with turkey, apple slice(s), provolone, and last slice of bread (butter side up).  Grilled until golden brown.  Carefully turn and press with spatula or if you have a cast iron or other heavy pan place on top of sandwich to squish (like my technical terms? lol).  Continue grilling until 2nd side of sandwich is golden brown.  Enjoy!!  SOOOOOO YUMMY!  A new favorite!!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

In place of flour.....

Use ground Fiber One Original cereal!  I tried it this morning with blueberry muffins and they were so yummy and I didn't feel guilty eating them.  However, I may regret feeding them to 4 kids today.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Ham and Corn Chowder

This is another one of my infamous recipes and it is sooooo yummy!  GREAT recipe for leftover ham (Christmas or Easter ham overload anyone?)

Diced Ham (please buy a ham and cut it yourself.  It's way yummier than the pre-diced lunch meat style ham)
Approx 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese
4 cans of Cream Style Corn
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder
Ground Black Pepper
Milk

I do VERY little measuring in this recipe so bear with me and modify to fit your family.

Pour corn in to large pot.  Heat over medium heat.  Add ham, onion powder, garlic powder, and black pepper to taste.  Pour about 1/4-1/2 cup of milk at a time in to the pot until the chowder reaches the desired consistency.  Add the cheddar cheese, one handful at a time stirring VERY often.  You may need to turn the heat down.  If you cook this recipe on too high heat it will make the cheese separate and you'll end up with a very odd texture, so take your time and let the cheese melt gradually.  Once cheese is melted, the chowder is ready to serve :)

Enjoy!  I'd love to hear your opinions on this one.

Yummy New Discovery

So last night I was looking for a little treat.  Something a little new, but needed to be a tad sweet and maybe taste like dessert.  I look in my fridge and of course I have an over abundance of yogurt and it seems to be a staple in so many of my snacks.  Right next to the yogurt was what was left of the canned pumpkin from my breakfast cookies I made last week.  I thought...hmmmmm pumpkin + yogurt + pumpkin pie spice = Yum??  oooooooooh yeeeeeeeeah!  It was soooooo good!  So give it a try.

Approx 1/2 c of pumpkin, 1 c vanilla yogurt, and a generous amount of pumpkin pie spice.  Mix it all together :)

I also topped mine with a handful of Fiber One Original cereal (a new favorite even though it has trace amounts of Aspartame)  Added tons of fiber, no sugar, and left me satisfied.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Snacks and such

A girlfriend of mine and I got in to a discussion about all the little things I do with snacks, etc that I don't really think of sharing....so here are a couple.

Pina Colada Parfait - combine vanilla yogurt and a few drops of coconut extract.  Layer in a bowl with banana slices and crushed pineapple or pineapple tidbits!  YUM!!

Creamy Apple Pie Ala Mode - 1 cup of vanilla yogurt, 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce, a generous amount of cinnamon

Apple Dip - Vanilla yogurt, cinnamon, and a handful of granola

Any Fruit Sorbet - your favorite type of frozen fruit tossed in a food processor or blender with vanilla yogurt (my favorite is a mixed tropical fruit combination)

I <3 frozen Mango thawed just by itself (or with yogurt of course)

I'll add more as I think of them :)

Breakfast Cookies!

The kids won't believe you are letting them eat cookies for breakfast, but you'll be happy to know this recipe contains fruit, oats, and all kind of yummy warm goodness!

Original Recipe: Pg 18 of the Hungry Girl 200 Recipes under 200 Calories Cookbook

"Grab and Go Breakfast Cookies"

1/2 c regular rolled oats (NOT instant)
6 Tbsp Whole Wheat Flour I used regular all purpose white flour (I didn't have wheat)
1/4 cup Fiber One bran cereal (original)
1/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetner (granulated) I used regular white sugar
1/3 cup pureed peaches (basically baby food peaches)
1/4 cup canned pure pumpkin
1/4 cup fat free liquid egg substitute I used 2 eggs in place of the "substitute"
1 Tbsp golden raisins I used regular raisins (Great Value Brand) instead of the "golden" variety
1 Tbsp Ocean Spray Craisins (original) I used Great Value dried cranberries because they're MUCH cheaper
2 Tbsp brown sugar (not packed)
2 tsp Coffee-mate Sugar Free French Vanilla powdered creamer  I completely skipped this part
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon didn't measure
1/8 tsp salt didn't measure

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Chop raisins and craisins into small pieces.  Set aside.

In a food processor or blender, grind Fiber One to a breadcrumb-like consistency.

In a large bowl, combine, oats, flour, Fiber One crumbs, Splenda, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt until mixed well.

In a medium bowl, dissolve powdered creamer in 2 Tbsp hot water.  Add all other wet ingredients (pureed peaches, pumpkin, and egg substitute) and stil until mixed well.

Add liquid mixture to dry ingredients and stir until completely blended.  Slowly sprinkle chopped raisins and Craisins into the batter, making sure they don't all stick together.

Spray a large baking sheet with nonstick spray and spoon batter into 4 evenly spaced circles.  Spread batter out a bit with the back of a spoon.

Bake in the oven for 12 - 14 minutes, until tops of treats are just slightly crispy.  Allow to cool slightly on the cheet.  Grab 'n go!

Makese 4 servings

Per Serving (1 cookie): 154 calories, 1.5 g fat, 166 mg sodium, 32.5 g carbs, 5 g fiber, 10.5 g sugar, 5 g protein

My variations:

When I put the Fiber One in the food processor to grind to crumbs, I tossed the raisins and dried cranberries in there with it.  It chopped them to slightly smaller pieces AND gave them a light dusting of the cereal to keep them from sticking together.  Two birds with one stone? lol.

I also doubled the recipe to make enough for 5 kids, plus myself.  So my doubled recipe was only divided in to 6 cookies instead of 8, because my math skills seem to be lacking today.

The other thing I did differently was combined all the dry ingredients in my Pampered Chef (amazing) Batter Bowl and then added the wet ingredients one at a time to save on dishes.  I thought my recipe was a little too sticky when I had everything combined so I added about 1/4 cup of extra flour at the end and mixed it in well, but the consistency was still not that of regular cookie dough.  Because of my math skills deficiency I had today my cookies were bigger and thicker than I believe they were meant to be, so they DID take a little longer to cook, but still not bad.

These are definitely cake-ier cookies than the traditional bad for you cookies, but VERY tasty.  I even ate one and thought they were delicious!!  The kids absolutely LOVED them too and thought it was so cool to eat cookies for breakfast!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Apologies

My apologies to my followers, I've really been slacking on sharing recipes.  I promise to get back at it THIS week!