Corn Bread and Apple Pies!

Apologies for the lack of recipes/posts these last few days! Thanksgiving kind of set me back a bit! Tuesday we had to clean out the fridge to make room for the turkey and all the leftovers. Wednesday I had to do prep for the big day (aka Thanksgiving) and Thursday was well, Thanksgiving.

Turkey day was just the boyfriend and I (my first holiday not with the family) so I had to make some wise choices! I decided (besides the turkey) I wanted a Weight Watchers Thanksgiving. Mike wanted a regular full-fat dinner. So we compromised. He picked two side dishes to have “regular” style (plus deviled eggs, but I don’t eat those anyways so that was easy) and I did the rest of the menu low-fat Weight Watchers “style”. I found a few great Hungry-Girl recipes that made perfect additions to make brand new Turkey day traditions!

First was Corn MegaMuffins! (Click the link for the recipe)

Holy Cow! These are NOT baked yet! Look how gigantic they are!

Yup, these ginormous MegaMuffins are only 3 weight watcher points each! Woot! Woot!

A close up, because I think its fun! (Apologies for the blurriness)

Taste: I love cornbread! I also haven’t eaten cornbread in over 5 years because they are so ridiculously high in fat and calories! These big guys are the perfect replacement for my favorite bread item! I honestly couldn’t even tell they were low-fat! 10 thumbs up! (What? I have 10 thumbs, so what?)

Texture: My first suggestion; make sure you let them cool down completely before consuming. When they were still hot they were a little gummy and seemed to be undercooked even though you could tell they were done. Second suggestion: Eat them the next day reheated for a few seconds with a little I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray! YUM! Loved the bits and chunks of real corn in them! Perfection!

Satisfaction: Needless to say throughout the course of the day I ate 3 of them!

I also wanted to make an apple pie for Turkey day (Since I don’t like pumpkin pie) and found: Awesome Apple Pie-lets! Whoops, I forgot to take pictures of this one! I was too pre-occupied with eating them and preparing the rest of our feast. If you click on the link you’ll get the idea of what they look like :)!

Texture: Using an egg roll wrapper as the shell: BRILLIANT! My only complaint is the crust edges, once the wrapper is rolled over to seal it, it gets a little tough and chewy. Just a little too much! Other than that, it was awesome!

Taste: Apple pie filling was so easy and fragrant and delicious! It really really did taste of apple pie! A little apple pie pocket! Best dessert we had at dinner! (Probably because I don’t like pumpkin pie.) Top it off with a little frozen Cool Whip Free and it’s Apple Pie A la Mode!

Satisfaction: 2 Weight Watchers points; yeah I’m sold! Holy wow, really? Only 2 points for a pie?

In slightly other related news: I lost 3.4 pounds last week! Yay! For a total of 8.4 pounds in 3 weeks! I’m hoping that I can keep this up. I’m also so super excited about the new Weight Watchers Points program to roll out on Monday. I’ve heard through rumors on the net that all fruit is gonna be zero points. And that they are actually going to take protein into account on calculating the points! This is so exciting! I am a protein junkie!

I should be back to doing recipes again on Saturday. I just need to find some fresh Ahi tuna. This is going to be a tough one. I don’t even know where to begin! Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving and that you got to spend it with the ones you love!

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Softies

It’s FUN-DAY MONDAY again! Today is a special fun-day monday because both Mike and I decided we wanted a super special dessert! I’ve only done one dessert so far from the Hungry-Girl book, and it was from her other cookbook “200 under 200“. I wanted to stay true to this particular cookbook so I searched and searched for a perfect fun-day monday dessert! This is what I found:

THE RECIPE:

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Softies

PER SERVING: (1 medium-large cookie): 170 calories, 6.25g fat, 169mg sodium, 23.5g carbs, 2.5g fiber, 7.5g sugars, 5.5g protein

Few quick side notes: It is 3 weight watchers points per cookie, but it also say that the average peanut butter cookie this size has more than 300 calories and 18 grams of fat. Ok, that makes me feel a little better!

Second side note: HG Alternative, If you can find Better ‘n Peanut Butter, use it! If you do, each Softie will have 140 calories, 3.25g fat and 2g fiber. I honestly didn’t think I was going to find this product, never even heard of it! I FOUND IT! So stinkin’ excited, and it’s a fantastic low-fat peanut butter for all my peanut butter and banana sandwiches! Woot!

Third side note: The recipe previous to the Peanut Butter Oatmeal Softies is Oatmeal Raisin Softies. It calls for all the same ingredients minus the raisins sub peanut butter and they’re the same. (This was actually the one I was gonna make until I found the Better ‘n Peanut Butter) It says “These are 50 percent cookie, 50 percent muffin top, and 100 percent delicious!) So, my point, don’t expect a full on cookie swap! K? K!

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1/4 cup reduced-fat peanut butter, room temperature

2 tbls. Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated) (you know, the non-packet kind)

2 tbls. light whipped butter or light buttery spread, room temperature (I used I can’t believe it’s not butter light)

2 tbls. no-sugar-added applesauce

2 tbls. fat-free liquid egg substitute

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/3 cup whole-wheat flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

Dash salt

3/4 cup old-fashioned oats

 

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, combine brown sugar, peanut butter, Splenda, butter, applesauce, egg substitute, and vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly with a wire whisk.

Add flour, baking powder, and salt, stir until completely mixed and smooth.

Add oats and mix until they are thoroughly coated with the batter.

(Fyi, I find taking step by step pictures of cookie baking a bit boring looking, so I honestly didn’t take any pics except the final product)

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. (I used aluminum foil, parchment paper is so expensive and I”m kind of cheap) Spoon batter onto the sheet in 6 evenly spaced mounds. Using the back of a spoon, spread and flatten batter into circles about 3 1/2 inches wide. (My estimating skills are CRAP! I totally don’t know how big they were!)

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cookie comes out clean.

Remove from the oven, and allow cookies to cool for 1 minute. then slide parchment paper onto a cool surface, and let cool COMPLETELY! Really, they taste best once they’ve totally cooled. Enjoy! (This was not easy to do, they smelled so good!)

Makes 6 servings!

 

Kinda look like they could be burgers.

Close up of a Softie!

 

THE REVIEW:

My first bite reaction: UUUHHHH…..ick! I don’t like this at all! (I actually spit it out!)

Mike’s first bite reaction: It has a funny taste. (Ha! He didn’t say I like it!)

Taste: I really don’t know what happened! All I tasted was the wheat flour! Don’t get me wrong, I like wheat flour, I use it all the time, I just don’t want it to be the only thing I taste when I’m expecting something a little more peanut buttery! Such a shame, they smelled so good! (And the dough was tasty too, yeah, I licked the bowl!)

Texture: Just as Hungry-Girl said, 50 percent cookie 50 percent muffin top! I liked the texture, just couldn’t get past the taste!

Satisfaction: I will not be making these again, hell I didn’t even eat more than one bite (that I spit out) satisfaction gets a big thumbs down! I wanted a cookie damn it! HAHA

Creativity: Good try Hungry-Girl. It was a good try! Fail, but nice try!

Instead, we went with these pumpkin shakes/smoothies I threw together:

3/4 cup vanilla light soymilk (yes, use soymilk it’s thicker)
4 tablespoons canned pumpkin (not canned pumpkin pie mix)
2 splenda packets
3 dashes of pumpkin pie spice…
3 ice cubes (ya know, the kind you get when you make them in a tray)
pulse in a blender till blended!
top with a little cool whip if your feeling up for it! 🙂

Any failure stories to share? I know they happen to the best of us!

Red Velvet Insanity Cupcakes

Sorry boys and girls I don’t have a whole heck of a lot of time to write a full post. It was a wild and crazy day today, it’s Mike’s birthday tomorrow (11/10/2010 if you’re not reading this today) and the only time we had to celebrate was today! Because I spoiled his gift and told him what it was ahead of time (my bad) I was told that I needed to surprise him with a dessert! A cake to be exact, any type as long as chocolate was involved! I scoured my Hungry-Girl cookbook and just couldn’t find anything that screamed “birthday cake”! I almost gave up and went with a store-bought or box cake (non-weight-watchers) And then I realized DUH! Hungry-Girl has more than one cookbook and I own both of them! Flipping through “200 under 200” I found it! I found the recipe that said: Birthday cake that doesn’t ruin your diet/waistline! Red Velvet Insanity Cupcakes! (click on the link btw, no time to write a full review)

My cupcakes seem to have way more frosting then the ones pictured in her recipe! Yum, frosting!

Look how wonderfully beautiful that is! Mmmmmmm.............

My only negative comment about these: The recipe makes 12 cupcakes at 3 weight watcher points each! How am I gonna not eat more than one?

Mike’s first bite reaction: Happy Birthday to me! (ok he really said, “I like it”)

My first bite reaction: Oh.My.God!

I’ve actually made these before awhile ago but didn’t have the food coloring. I don’t know why (I’ve never made actual red velvet cake before) but the red dye really does make it different! So beautifully moist, chocolatey, yummy (yes that is an official adjective to describe food) and perfect for this special occasion!

On a quick side note, today was also my first weight in after doing weight watchers for a full week. I lost 7.5 pounds! Woo, go me! Now I just need to keep up the momentum….(I think I can, I think I can!)

How do you celebrate birthdays while on a diet?