Oh My, Healthy Apple...Cobbler

So, I love apples. i love apple crisp.i love hungry girl. i love fiber one. So, after getting the recipe for HG Apple Cobbler. (And after going apple picking and needing a few ideas to use up those apples) I dove right into trying out this yummy sounding desert. The email challenged anyone who normally didn't like Fiber One to try out this recipe and ensured a change of heart. Since I already heart Fiber One I thought this was a no lose trial!

I think part of the reason I so love apple cobbler is the topping, because it's always so oaty and crunchy and just delicious. I quickly noticed that there was not any oats in this recipe so of course I threw some in on my own! I will say that the serving size was quite large (a 1/4 of that pan!) and there was alot of topping to go around...however the consistancy of the crumble didn't totally impress me :(. I liked the flavor (very healthy as erin would put it), but it just wasn't the same crunchy, oaty goodness that I come to expect from Apple Crisp.

All in all I must say that its a great swap if you are looking to have a really really large portion of desert and keep it super low cal/low fat. I also put it with a bit of Fat free frozen yogurt the next night (i obviously liked it enough to have 2nds...) and that really spruced it up for me! I threw it in the microwave for 15 secs. and then put a few scoops of vanilla FF frozen yogurt on top, and mixed. That was really really tasty.

The 2nd round definitely made me rethink making it a 2nd time!

Pizza Pie and Pumpkin brew

Erin and I love to watch travel shows and the food network and often times the travel shows include food too! We were watching a show last night and Bon Appetit magazine was listing the best bar food in the country. One of the items that constantly made an appearance was of course Pizza! In my perusal of Trader Joe's I had come across 99cent whole wheat pizza dough, how can you beat that. Erin and I also have very different taste when it comes to pizza, so making our own personal pies is always a great option.

I have lofty ideas to make a goat cheese/fig pizza but I ended up just picking up a can of artichokes hearts (which erin and I both are HUGE fans of) and I knew I had some shallots that needed to be used up, and also some homemade pesto that was on its last leg. I opted to make a pesto/shallot and artichoke pizza with a sprinkle of Fat free Parmesan cheese and a few lone peppers. Erin decided to use up some monterey jack cheese/pesto and artichoke hearts on hers.

My oh my how homemade pizza fills a void in someone!

The pizza was delish! I think pizza can be such comfort food and can take on so many different forms depending on your taste.

Since the travel show was about bars we of course had to partake in our favorite fall beer as well! We live near an amazing package store (this is what they are called in MA because they don't sell beer in a grocery store like NY) and it offers so many local breweries and interesting beers. Erin and I have decided to try and taste all the pumpkin/fall beers and determine our favorites. The two we tried that night were Shipyard Pumpkin Ale and Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale. They were both great and different. I started with the Smuttynose but switched with erin for the Shipyard. I guess it depends on your mood. (erin said she was secretly hoping we would switch). I can't wait to go back and try some of the other ones as well.

Fall is here. Fall food is amazing...not to mention the fall beer. Get ready for some fun posts (if I can stay sober :)

Whole Wheat Banana Bread

I have had three black, ripened, frozen bananas in the freezer for about two months now just dying to be made into bread. I actually use to have about six but little by little I used them up in oatmeal when the fresh bananas were all gone. I knew it would be overwhelming to narrow in on just one banana bread recipe (just try googling healthy banana bread), the options are endless. Thankfully in my daily blog reading I had come across rave reviews for Fitnessista's homemade whole wheat banana bread.

Here we go:

100% Whole Wheat Banana Bread

Servings: 48 Makes: 2 loaves
• 4 medium ripe bananas, mashed

• 1 cup plain nonfat yogurt

• 1 egg

• 1 1/4 cup Sucanat (or brown sugar of your choice)

• 1 cup golden raisins

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray glass loaf pans (2 - 8.5 x 4.5 x 2.5) with cooking oil spray.
Mix the dry ingredients, then add the wet. Stir until blended but don't over mix. Pour into loaf pans. Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack for 5 - 8 minutes. Remove from loaf pans and cool completely. Slice and serve. Wrap with plastic wrap keep moist.
Per Serving: 71 Calories (maybe less because I omit the oil the original recipe calls for) 2g Fat 1g Protein 13g Carbohydrate 1g Dietary Fiber trace Cholesterol 79mg Sodium

So now for my minor changes (mainly due to my lack of supplies). I thought that I had a full cup of nonfat yogurt, but I only had about 1/2 :(. I opted to make up the difference with fat free sour cream...this subsitution completely worked! Also I had to leave out the golden raisins because we didn't have any in the house. I thought about adding in walnuts, which we did have in the house, but erin isn't a huge fan of nuts in bread. I did go ahead and add a bit of ginger to the spices just to add a bit more flavor (i was feeling adventurous haha). The mix was quite thick and I added a few splashes of skim milk just to make sure all the flour was fully incorporated.

This bread turned out really great! I thought about freezing one loaf but the way that baked goods go around this house there really was no need! I always worry with whole wheat baking that it will be too dense, or lose any moisture overnight, but three days later and it is still really yummy.

I couldn't believe that the calories were so low for this bread, especially because the flavor was so good. I think you could also choose to add in raisins, nuts or other dried fruit of your liking. The possiblities are endless. This will be a must bake again for me.

baking chocolate chip bars

sometimes subsitutions DO work out! I wanted to start off with that bold statement because after my skinny cookies let me down I was determined to bake something good to statisfy my sweet tooth. I work from home on Thursdays and normally I hit a lull in the afternoon and need something to fix my boredom. Since I always find so many great looking recpies in the blog world I decided to try and attempt one each thursday afternoon. This week it was a great looking chocolate chip cookie bar recipe for none other than Eating Well!

really how can you go wrong with a little bit of flour, chocolate chips and an oven. these sure didn't dissappoint. I couldn't seem to find the recipe again online when I searched so I listed it below:
Chocolate Chip Bars:

• 2/3 cup of flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 Tbl of Butter (I used Brumel and Brown)
• 1/4 cup of Fat Free Cream Cheese (the recipe calls for less fat cream cheese but I always use completely fat free and it never seems to effect the outcome)
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 1/2 cup of white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 tsp. of vanilla
• 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chopped up

Pre-heat oven to 375 and spray a 8x12 pan. Stir together flour, bk soda, salt. Melt butter in a sauce pan and then add to cream cheese, sugars and mix well. Add egg and vanilla. Add together with dry ingrediants and stir in chocolate chips. (the batter at this point was very thick) Pour into pan and spread out to cover the pan. Bake for 20-25 mins.

After them came out of the oven and cooled I cut them into bars for all to enjoy. These were a mix of chocolate chip bread and cookies. Erin and her family really enjoyed them, so I guess they passed the test.

Pumpkin Spiced Coffee

it's here...fall is almost here. To prove it this morning after my workout, and on my way to over an hour commute to work, i stopped and got a pumpkin spiced coffee. YUM. I tried to take a picture during my commute, but I am still working on figuring out my camera phone.

As I was drinking down that Honey Dew goodness (that's right not everyone in New England is obsessed with DD) I started to thinking about all the recipes I cannot wait to blog about this fall. Not to mention the beverages that have similar fall flavors. (after starting this post erin and i had a surprise visit from my parents for the weekend and they bought Shipyard pumpkin ale at the local, amazing, liquor store...yes!!!).

When I started this blog last year I had just come off from a pretty inspiring season of cooking. Needless to say this fall will hopefully be a repeat of last year with lots and lots of blogs!

skinny cookies...skimpy taste

I have been adamant about reading food blogs lately because it really keeps me motivated to keep cooking, blogging and trying new recipes. With that in mind I was working from home the other day and came across Tina's blog entry for Skinny Cookies! Now how could I pass up an amazing tasting cookie with hardly any fat?! Since I was working from home it was easy to take a thirty minute break and attempt...they seemed easy enough!

So she calls for a pureed peach in the mix, which I didn't have, so I opted for applesauce (someone had commented that it would probably be the same basic ingredient...it's a pureed fruit). Also, and I think this was the downfall, but I was all out of normal sugar...so I had to use Splenda. Now I know most people have strong feelings about this one way or another...but baking splenda (which I used) is suppose to have the EXACT same effect on recipes as sugar. I also added a little bit of oats because i just love them so much....

Mine did not turn out as expected. The first indication that they were "different" was the fact that unlike Tina's cookies mine didn't expand outward but more upward. They were thicker than her picture and cooked a bit faster too. So when my taste tester came home (erin)and I made her try them she said she liked them (not love though)! Her mom and dad also thought they were good. Me, not so much. It's not that they tasted bad...just seemed to lack taste to me. They had a cake like consistency and just didn't seem to be quite delish enough.


back to the baking board...

Homemade Quesadillies, OLE

I love Mexican. I have said that enough in this blog yet?


Erin and I were grocery shopping and I have been wanting to try these wraps that have 12 grams of fiber and after a bit of brainstorming I thought about making our own Quesadillas. Not only do we both love those, but it allows us both to add whatever we want to our own! It also seems that every time we are done grocery shopping I am so unmotivated to cook...maybe i just have too many options at that point.

When we got home I decided to saute a whole bunch of veggies up with a little garlic, salt, pepper and chili powder to soften them before using them in my quesadilla.
My Filling included:
-onions
-green peppers
-purple cabbage (i love the texture this gives everything)
-portabello mushroom cap
-broccoli
-low fat Mexican cheese

Erin opted for just cheese and jalapenos, she would add jalapenos to everything if she could :). We made use of our George Forman Grill and just pressed the wrap in half with our stuffing until they were golden brown (about 3-7 mins). Erin worked the grill as I finished cooking my veggies.

I had made WAY too many veggies for one wrap so erin added the ones she could and I just topped off the quesadilla with the remainder (like a closed, open faced ques.). We also served Fat free sour cream and salsa on the side.

This dish was super simple and super tasty. (we even repeated it two nights later!) Of all the Mexican meals I have tried to create we were both surprised we hadn't attempted these earlier!