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Recipe Tuesday – Almond Joy Oats

This is one of my favorite breakfasts to have on a no-added sugar day because it is only sweetened by banana!

Ingredients:

  • 1 small banana (about 6 inches)
  • 1 cup of water
  • 40 grams of rolled oats
  • 5 grams of cocoa powder
  • 1/4 cup liquid egg whites
  • 1 tablespoon of slivered almonds (toasted if you like)
  • 1 tablespoon of unsweetened coconut (toasted if you like)

Really mash the banana into a small pot.  Mash it this much:

Add one cup of water to this and bring to a boil over medium high heat.

Measure out the oats and cocoa powder so it is ready to go:

When the water/banana mixture comes to a boil, add the oats and cocoa powder and then turn the heat to medium.  Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring well.  I find the more I stir, the creamier the oats get – so don’t just let it sit and boil.  Make friends with your breakfast!  It’s worth it.

After about 3 minutes of cooking, now is the time to temper in the egg whites.  Slowly drizzle in the eggs with one hand while stirring constantly with the other.  For this reason, I really like the liquid egg whites because you don’t get ‘blops’ of egg going in like if you use fresh separated eggs.

You want to stir constantly and go slow in order to avoid cooking the egg white into chunks.  The first time you do this, you can always take the pot off the heat just to get the hang of it.  Once the egg whites are incorporated, cook until the mixture comes back to bubbling and thickens up.  Maybe 30 seconds.

Pour into a bowl and top with the coconut and almonds:

Voila – Almond Joy Oats!

The riper the banana, the sweeter your bowl will be.  Also, the bigger the banana, the more sweet it will be.   Of course, you don’t have to use unsweetened coconut.  I just happen to like it.  You can certainly sweeten this bowl as your tastebuds desire.

This entire bowl is about 360 calories with a good amount of protein and fiber.

Quinoa Cakes

Okay, this is a super duper easy recipe that is customizable in many ways and a great way to use up leftovers.  It’s gluten-free, too!

Quinoa cakes.

Are you ready for a basic 2 ingredient recipe? Cooked quinoa and an egg.  How easy is that?

If you don’t have cooked quinoa already made, just boil 2 cups of water and add 1 cup of quinoa.  Cook on medium heat until the liquid is absorbed.  Voila!

Here were my sweet potato quinoa cakes:

  • 1-1/2 cups of cooked, cooled quinoa
  • 1 egg
  • 4 oz of cooked sweet potato, mashed.

Preheat the oven to 450.

You want the quinoa cooled, as you don’t want to cook the egg.  In a bowl, mix together the egg, quinoa and sweet potato:

This is the ‘batter’

Line a baking sheet with either parchment paper or a silicone mat.  Divide the batter into 4 equal portions and form into a patty.  Place on the baking sheet.  These are wet, so you can mush them in place a bit.

I sprayed the tops with cooking spray thinking I was going to flip them, but I didn’t.

Cook for 15 minutes or so.  The patties will firm up and hold their shape.  Let cool for several minutes before removing from the mat so that you don’t break off the bottom.

This is a very neutral-tasting cake.  I made it this way because John likes his sweet potato anything sweet, and I usually go savory.  He dipped his in maple syrup.

I spread mine with a bit of jam:

Each cake as made above comes out to about 125 calories.

Here is the fun part – leave out the sweet potato and add whatever you want to these!

– Mix in chopped spinach and feta cheese.

– Cook up some diced peppers and onions and add that to the batter.

– Using the sweet potato, add cinnamon, a bit of brown sugar, and some chopped pecans.  This would be a good pancake substitute for breakfast.

– Dice up some cooked ham and shredded cheese.

See how endless the possibilities are with this?

A couple things to note – precook any other ingredient that you add, as they only cook for a short time.

You could also try pan frying these if you want a real crispy crust on them.

What would you put in the quinoa cakes?

Apple/chicken panini without a machine!

Okay, this is probably more of a technique post than an actual recipe post because you can do whatever in the sammies.  I love pressed sandwiches, but don’t want to shell out the $$ for a press or give up any counter space for said machine.    So what is a girl to do?  Improvise!

The key to a pressed sandwich filling is to have something that will glue the halves together.  I chose to use the following fillings in my sammie:

  • Cooked chicken
  • Thinly sliced granny smith apple (used a mandolin)
  • A laughing cow wedge
  • Honey mustard (mixed myself – about 1 tsp)

You will also need 2 frying pans.  One for the bottom cooking, which can be whatever.  The other pan needs to be heavy or you could alternatively put a weight on it.  A cast iron skillet is ideal for this.

While you are assembling the sandwich, put the heavy pan on high heat as you want it very hot:

This is my baby cast iron skillet, since I was just making one sandwich.

You want to heat up the other pan on medium or medium-high heat.

Spread the laughing cow cheese on the whole slice, then layer apples on one side and chicken on the other:

I put the honey mustard in between these layers for the “ooze factor.”  Close the sandwich up and press lightly together.

Spray the cooking skillet with non stick spray and drop the sandwich on:

Spray the top of this sandwich with cooking spray and then put the very hot 2nd skillet on top.  It will sizzle. Please note that if you use cast iron, the handle will be hot – so use a hot mitt.

Side note – you can see the peanuts I was munching on last night in the background LOL! 😳

You can either press down on the handle or put a heat proof weight on this pan if you don’t have one heavy enough.   (I pressed on this because you can see it was a little lopsided). The idea is to meld everything together and heat through.  This is why you don’t want the first pan to be too hot or the bottom half will burn.  Cook for several minutes.  It might depend a bit on what you have in the sandwich and how cold the ingredients are.

If you lubed up the sandwich enough on top, the pan shouldn’t stick to it.  Plate up and enjoy!

The sandwich gets nice and crusty on top.

The key to the panini is “less is more.”  Thinner sandwiches are better so all ingredients get hot.

Alton Brown does a grilled cheese sandwich this way using shredded cheese.

Another favorite combo of mine is cooked turkey/chicken, laughing cow wedge, and cranberry sauce!

What would you put in your panini?

Tuesday Recipe – Pumpkin Cranberry Oat Bars

Pumpkin Cranberry Oat Bars

This is not a new recipe, but I made this up a couple years ago and it may have gotten lost (which it shouldn’t be), so I wanted to give it some love!  These are super duper easy.

Ingredients:

  • 28 grams of whey protein powder (I used unflavored, but you could try a flavored one)
  • 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup lowfat yogurt (plain or vanilla– I happened to have vanilla on hand, just don’t use fruit)
  • 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 2 1/2 cups of rolled oats
  • 40 grams of Craisins (or dried cranberries).

Preheat oven to 350.   Line a 9×9 pan with a parchment paper sling. This will really make it easier to get these out, trust me.

In a bowl, mix together the protein powder, pumpkin, eggs, yogurt, spices, brown sugar with a whisk.

You want to make sure the protein powder is really well incorporated and the mixture is smooth.  Chop the Craisins smaller and add to the mix.

Then stir in the oats.

Press the mixture evenly into the 9×9 pan and bake for 35 minutes.

These won’t really get brown, they will just firm up – so don’t over bake. Remove from the pan right away and cut into 9 squares.

It’s much easier to cut these when warm.  The pizza wheel – multitasker extraordinaire!  The picture at the top has been cut into 18 pieces, but I normally do 9.

Store in the fridge (if they last that long) and warm up in the microwave for 10 seconds.

Stats with my ingredients for 9 bars:
Per bar: 157 calories, 3 grams fat, 27 grams carbs, 3 grams fiber, 8 grams protein, 54 mg sodium.

I think I will try adding some chopped pecans to this (obviously altering the stats), as I think that crunch would be awesome.

May sprinkling some yogurt chips or white chocolate chips on top after coming out of the oven would be pretty awesome as well!

Easy Carrot Salad

This is a quick salad that I made up, sort of Moroccan inspired a bit.  Instead of having a mayo-based salad, this used Greek yogurt!

For 2 large servings:

  • 10 grams of raisins soaked for 5 minutes in hot water
  • 2 oz of Greek nonfat plain yogurt
  • 1 tsp of frozen orange juice concentrate
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon
  • 6 oz of matchstick cut carrots
  • 2 tsp of toasted slivered almonds

Drain the raisins.  In a large bowl, mix the yogurt, orange juice concentrate, cinnamon, and the raisins together.  Add in the carrots and mix well.

Top each serving with 1 tsp of the almonds.  If you make ahead, don’t add the almonds until just before serving.

This is lightly sweet from the raisins and OJ.  It’s an interesting combo.  I actually liked it better after it sat overnight as the raisins soaked up some of the yogurt and got even softer.  I can see this amped up more with chopped apples or grapes (or both), and dare I say a wee bit of bacon for a savory aspect?

Stats for each serving (makes 2):

Calories: 81

Fat: 1.2 g

Carbs: 16g

Fiber: 2.5 g

Protein: 4 g

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Scones

These turned out great!  Don’t be afraid of the butter in these.  It’s just really hard to get good scones without some solid fat, but there really is not that much per scone.  I reduced the butter in a typical recipe and changed some of the sugar to brown sugar to help keep in moisture that removing the butter might cause.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of white whole wheat flour (240 g)
  • 1 tablespoon of baking powder
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 stick of cold butter (4 tablespoons)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup of canned pumpkin
  • 1 tablespoon of milk.

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  In a large bowl, mix together the flour, both sugars, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.

Dice the butter into small pieces.  Make sure it is very cold butter.

Add the butter to the dry mixture.

You can use a pastry wire cutter to mix in the butter, but I find that clean hands are your best tool for this job as you get a much better mixing.  You want the mixture to look kind of sandy when finished:

You can put this mix in the fridge to keep cold while you mix the wet ingredients (or are waiting for your husband to return with the milk that you forgot you were out of).

Combine the eggs, pumpkin and milk together and mix well.

Add to the dry ingredients.

Mix until everything is just moistened and turn out onto a floured surface.  Keep some flour nearby for dusting, as the dough may be sticky.

Using your hands, press and form into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick.  You probably could use a rolling pin, but why dirty another piece of kitchen equipment?

Cut this in half the long way.  Cut each half into 3 equal pieces, then cut each of those squares on the diagonal so that you have 12 pieces (each half of the above dough will make 6 triangles).

Do try to make them even 😀

Bake at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes.  Do not over bake.

Makes 12 scones.  Nutritional info per scone

Calories: 151
Fat 5 g
Carbs: 23.6 g
Fiber:  2.3 g
Protein:  3.9 g

Topping ideas:

– You can mix together 1 tbsp of neufchatel cheese with 1 tbsp of powdered sugar to make a cream cheese frosting and add only 70 calories and 3 grams of fat to each scone.  Compare 220 calories  to Starbucks Pumpkin Scone at 480 calories.

– Or do like Debby and mix a wedge of Laughing Cow with cinnamon Splenda to top (which would be 35 calories)

– Make fat free glaze by mixing powdered sugar with a little milk.

– Sprinkle the scones with large sugar crystals before baking.

We topped with a sprinkle of crystallized ginger, too.  Awesome!

Enjoy!

Honey Fluff Recipe

Finally – the Original Honey Fluff Recipe!  This stuff is amazing!

I experimented with making homemade marshmallow fluff, because the ingredients are only egg whites, corn syrup and sugar on the jar.  It was really easy! Well, after making some – I wondered about a substitute for corn syrup and realized honey would work just as well.  You can use any type of honey you want, but I used Buckwheat, which has a strong flavor and aroma.

Ingredients:

  • 1/3 cup of liquid egg whites (or 3 egg whites)
  • 1/4 tsp of cream of tartar (probably optional)
  • 2/3 cup of granulated sugar
  • 1/4 cup of water
  • 3/4 cup of honey (I used strong buckwheat honey)
  • 1 tsp vanilla

In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until soft peaks form.

While these are beating, put the sugar, water, and honey into a saucepan and bring to a boil.

Clip on a candy thermometer and cook until the firm ball stage (246 degrees F), about 5 minutes or so. Remove from heat.  Turn the beaters on low speed and sloooowwwllllyyy drizzle in the honey mixture into the egg whites.

Make sure you go really slow or you will cook the egg whites.  Once all of that is in, turn the speed to high and beat the mixture until light and fluffy – like marshmallow fluff! Probably 5-10 minutes is how long I did it for.

Makes a perfect frosting for cakes or on sandwiches.

Top oats with it:

Make S’mores with it.

I won’t tell if you just lick it off your finger! It’s life changing.

This has a wonderful honey aroma to it.  Nutritional stats are very similar to regular fluff, which is approximately 40 calories per 2 tbsp.

Recommended to refrigerate this.  If you don’t,the honey will start to separate out at the bottom.

Hills and more hills!

I decided on a rest day today.  My insomnia seems to have made a reappearance lately.  I was up at 5 a.m. today.  I came down and did some work, then just went out for a walk when it got light.  Normally I wouldn’t snack before a walk, but my tummy was growling, so I had a graham with fluff before leaving.

I had thought about running or biking, but realized I hadn’t taken a rest day in a while.  I love biking so much that I forget to not do it on occasion.  Rest days are so important.

We did not go for bagels this morning because of the window installers coming today too early for us to make it out and back.  I know you were all wanting to see a bagel picture almost as bad as I want to eat one :mrgreen:   We will go tomorrow.

Instead, I made protein waffles.

We didn’t have enough cottage cheese, so I subbed yogurt.

  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup of oats
  • 1/3 cup of yogurt (low fat vanilla)
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon

They came out definitely different, but still yummy.  More soft in texture without the crispness of waffles.  I think I would reduce to 1/4 cup of yogurt next time, or use greek, as the batter was very liquidy.

Working away today while the window people worked.  They were upstairs today and I didn’t notice them very much.  I already notice the house much cooler because the glass blocks the heat from coming in.  Technology is amazing!

Lunch break.  Not much protein, but super colorful!

So I found the route for my charity ride next weekend.  I’m not going to lie – I am a bit skeered of it!  I know I can do it, but it will be tough, check it out:

😯 😯 😯   Who is the crazy nut that signs up for 62 miles of hills? Oh wait… it’s me….  Miles 25 to 30 are going to be really, really hard!  Not sure which I am more scared of, the climb up or the free fall down.  I might go scope out the course this weekend, but I almost do not want to see this hill in person before I have to go up it or I will have nightmares…  If you want to check out the route in full size glory, you can click here.

Afternoon snack break (there is a little chocolate under there) –

No coffee today.  Just wasn’t feeling it.  How weird is that?  I just wanted to chew versus drink.

They worked hard on those windows!  It’s neat to look out and not see the world ripply.  Pixie watched them intently when they worked in her favorite window:

Not quite finished yet, though – as they still need to cap most of them on the outside, but all the inside work is done:

17 windows needed to be done in this house.

Little by little we are doing nice things to this house.   I think it has been a long, long time since it was really loved by its owners.  I’ll post a picture of the outside tomorrow per request.

Dinner time and I needed some protein, so that meant pork!  Another burger.

I assigned John to make bread tonight since we are now out.

Done with job #1 for the week and just 4 hours tomorrow.  Even though I backed down to part time with both jobs, I still do 6 days a week.  But that is okay.  We just do what we need to, right?  At least until I open that coffee shop….

Off to buy a couple new window treatments.  New windows deserve new blinds and not the ones the are broken because the cat keeps going through them 😀

Lifting and Team Challenge ride

Yay – my Broncos won last night and looked pretty good! Can’t wait for the real season to start. I biked to the gym today, where I decided on lifting only for a cardio break.

Operation endurance is still going:

Exercise Set/rep/weight Muscle worked
Barbell squats 3 sets of 10 with 45# bar Lower body
Dumbbell pullover 3 set of 12 with 20# DB Back
Chin ups 2 sets 2 Upper body
Decline sit ups 3 sets of 12 Core
1-leg deadlifts 3 sets of 12 with 15# DBs (30# total) Hammies and balance
Seated calf raise 3 sets of 10 at 110# Calves
Push ups 3 sets of 10 Chest
Lower Back extension 3 sets of 12 at 80# Low back
Front Raise 3 sets of 12 with 5# DBs (10# total) Shoulders
Cable pull down 3 sets of 15 at 30# Triceps

I tried chins again for the first time in a few months. I lost some strength there, which is annoying. I stopped doing them because I didn’t want to concentrate to much on them, plus I was getting a little bored doing them each workout.  Then lookie what happens 😀

Quick bike home. It’s going to be a hot one today! Not humid, though, which is always good in my book.

Are you tired of the oats yet? I have really been on a super kick lately. This blog should be called finding oats and broccoli…. (which ought to bring in a lot of readers).

This is the size banana that I use for my banana custard oats (I know there is a joke in there somewhere).

I don’t like using half a banana, so we just find the smallest ones possible.

I cannot tell you how great it feels to be back down to a single job’s worth of hours.   Yay!  I’ll have my new bike paid off next week, so that is a good thing.  I might just keep the 2 jobs as part time instead of moving to 1 only, as I am afraid that there won’t be enough work with one company (it’s feast or famine in my industry).  Plus job #1 has eased up a little on the constant berating of employees – or a lot of them left at any rate.  I’ll just play it by ear.

Lunchtime involved something different.  I made a protein crepe using egg white protein powder.  I am not that fond of it, but we must use it up.

  • 15 grams of egg white protein
  • 1 whole egg
  • 1/4 cup liquid egg whites
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 2 tbsp of whole wheat flour
  • stevia

Whizzed up in the magic bullet and cooked in a skillet.   Filled with blueberry sauce and a dollop of vanilla greek yogurt.

This was tasty, but a little on the tough side, thanks to the egg white protein.  I have tried this with brown rice PP and kind of had the same result.  I need to try it with whey and see what happens.  Definitely in the keeper file, though.

I now have the donate button for my charity ride if anyone wants to use it in the sidebar (or below).  😀  I’ll be getting the recipe book out to people this week.  It’s about a 50 page booklet!
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I am getting excited about the ride.  I just need to find out what the course is like.  I imagine hilly because it is in the Adirondacks, but I am prepared for that.  I did 100 miles this summer, so I know I can do 62 with hills. The only thing I won’t be prepared for is rain.  The ride is rain or shine, so I am going to have to suck it up and ride if it is bad weather LOL!

Snack time included one of these:

Plus some of this:

I am starting to have cereal snack issues again, so this box is going to go up high tonight.

Finished up with work by dinner time, which is so awesome!  It’s so great to know I don’t have to log back in after dinner and do more.  It’s also great to see a man cooking:

Although, truth be told he was cooking some shrimp for himself LOL!

I had a baked crab cake and finally some red pear!  They are back around now.  Red pears are my favorite.

Now I have a whole evening with no work to do, but a lot of other things to do.

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway of  “I’m With Fatty!”  Recipient will be chosen on Tuesday.

Easy apple cranberry topping

Okay – this was very tasty and really easy to make:

Ingredients:

  • 1 medium apple (your favorite), chopped
  • 1 tablespoon dried cranberries
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp butter
  • 1 tablespoon of water
  • 1 tsp cornstarch
  • 2+ tablespoons cold water

In a small skillet, melt the butter and brown sugar together over medium heat:

Add the apple, cranberries, and cinnamon.

Saute for a couple minutes, then add the 1 tablespoon of water and cover.  Cook for 2 to 3 minutes.

In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with 2 tablespoons of cold water.

Add to the skillet.

Stir constantly for about 30 seconds until the sauce becomes clear and tightens up.  You can add a little more water if it seems too dry.

Top waffles or pancakes with this!

Other ideas:

– Substitute some chopped fresh cranberries for more tartness when they are in season.

– Experiment with different types of apples

– Use raisins instead of cranberries

Calories for this dish will depend a little on the size of the apple.  On average, an apple is 60 calories for a medium, 1 tbsp of dried cranberries (10 g) is 30 calories, brown sugar 15 calories, butter 15 calories, cornstarch 10.  So you can figure about 130 calories or so for this batch.  I consider it one serving.