Zen #4: The Zen of Baking August 17, 2009

I think this is number four; I honestly lost count somewhere along the way. Isn’t it funny how life seems to be ruled by numbers? There’s the numbers on the scale (or your BMI), your cholesterol numbers, your bank account numbers, your GPA numbers, your SAT numbers, and so on.

It has always astounded me that someone would actually CHOOSE a career in which most of what they do is add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers. Yes, I know math is a lot more than that and, yes, I do actually enjoy discrete mathematics and fractal planes and different dimensions and what not, but that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is sitting around all day adding and subtracting numbers. I would shoot myself. Or give my kitty a cyanide pill and then take another myself. That’s the way the great men die, right?

Okay, no, this post is not going to talk about Hitler, although I do seem to have this ongoing obsession with the psychology of deranged (yet brilliant) figures in history. This post is more about the “funks” you get yourself into, and how to get out of them. Yes, I admit it, I was in a funk, and still am, but at least now I know I have to work on it.

I’ve been eating mostly processed foods because of the insane amount of work that goes along with taking 20 credits. And then I’ve been beating myself up, counting calories, and the like. That’s a funk. That’s not how you achieve balance. BALANCE comes from moderation. Things that should be common sense like: don’t exercise if you have the flu or don’t starve yourself because you overate or don’t procrastinate when you have a paper due in a few hours (ahem, me right now, ahem). Basically, I’d been feeling bad for being really inactive because I was focusing on WRITING 20 PAPERS!!!! Yes, I counted, with the wonderful invention that is numerology.

So I felt like some muffins the other day (I know, why crave homemade spinach (saag) when you can have muffins, right?) and decided I would try to make some. I looked in the fridge and realized I probably had most of the wet ingredients, but then, looking in the pantry, I realized I had none of the try. So I invented (yes, WITHOUT exact measurements) a blueberry muffin recipe that is actually quite delicious (although, I must say it could use a little more punch, and a little more sugar).

Blueberry Muffins (a.k.a. Craving + Creativity = Food!)

2 weeks of blueberry season, and I make muffins!

• 2 cups oat bran cereal or oat flour or combination of the two (I ran out of the bran after about 1 1/2 cups so used 1/2c. of flour)
• 1/3 c. splenda (or brown sugar or white sugar or whatever)
• 2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t baking soda
• 2 t. spice (cinammon, cardamom, pumpkin pie, allspice, etc)
• 1/2 c. sweetened yogurt (non-fat, low-fat, full-fat, homemade, self-sweetened, whatever)
• 1/2 c. of something to temper the sweetness (think orange or pineapple juice, a little tang but still sweet)
• 1/2 c. egg substitute (or whole eggs beaten but NOT only egg whites because they have no binder in them)
• a tablespoon or two or mild oil (or applesauce or melted butter MIGHT work, but just use a healthy oil)
• 1 c. fruit or chocolate chips or peanut butter chips or chopped nuts or anything else you crave (I made blueberry)

→Freeze the blueberries (or you’ll have a blueberry puddle on the bottom of each muffin).
Preheat oven to 350*F and coat a 12 regular size muffin tin with cooking spray.
Mix dry ingredients (not blueberries).
Mix wet ingredients separately (not blueberries).
Add wet to dry and stir well.
Fold in frozen blueberries.
Spread the mixture evenly between the 12 sections of the muffin tin.
Bake for about 15 minutes (until you can break one open and it’s not soggy anymore.
Enjoy.

Thank you, Alton Brown, for your food science.

Zen #2: Nut Butter August 6, 2009

Ah, I’ll have to combine two days now!
Yesterday was okay. My sleep schedule’s still way off (4am-1:30pm), so I end up eating at really odd times and then sort of bingeing every night. Breakfast is pictured below, then I had class (which I hate), during which I ate all the veggies off of the pizza my prof brought and a pb/diet jelly sandwich (2 light bread, 1T Naturally More pb and diet jelly), had the stir-fry I made the day before (recipe and picture tomorrow, PROMISE) and then, the binge: 100 Nutter Butter bar, 70 calories of cookies, a pack of melba toast (100 calories), 100-150 calories of the peanut butter I made w/.5 a kangaroo pita, and a spiru-tein s’mores protein shake. THAT’S a binge, right?
Calorie Total: about 1450-1500

Hummus sandwich and a boca burger w/ketchup (a 4pm!)

Today was mostly okay, got up, lifted weights, had “breakfast (a low-carb yogurt, 2 light bread and 2 laughing how light cheese with some veggies), did some homework, had my “nutella” (recipe below) with a pita, went for a walk, binged when I got home. I don’t know if it’s really a binge though. I ate about 1/4c of the hummus I made, a slice of low cal bread and a kashi frozen tortilla, maybe about 1/4c of pumpkin seeds. Is that a binge?
Is that even too much?
I’ve still planned the banana split for dessert/bedtime snack (at 2am probably!).
~Calorie total (after banana split is about 1500)

Okay, enough of the food journaling, on the Zen (I DO want all of you to comment on what you think though….I’m getting so scared my PCOS/blood sugar issues caused by the Zyprexa will get even worse and I’ll gain weight/develop full-blown diabetes! It’s making me count calories again and just obsess, but I want to be normal about my weight loss, not OBSESSED!

Last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I did a remake on my “Nutella” recipe. This one actually had roasted hazelnuts in it! By the way, if you’ve never roasted hazelnuts before, it’s a real pain, but well worth it when you reap the culinary masterpieces it creates. I wanted so desperately to measure, but I thought about the zen. Really, I thought about how I measured every little ingredient the first time and how the nut butter was un-spreadable: yummy, but un-spreadable nonetheless.

So, what am I supposed to do? I stand, staring at the empty vita-mix container. I know how to make it yummy, but how to I make it SPREAD? I knew the answer, but didn’t want it and, as happens with most of the answers I have that I don’t want, I pushed it away saying the task of making spreadable, healthy nutella was impossible.

Then I heard the voice of my dearest friend and only angel, Julie (I would go as far as to post her last name but I don’t want to compromise her security). I met Julie when I switched schools my senior year of high school and she immediately reached out to me. I was an anorexic mess at the time, refused to speak to anyone at my new school and forced everyone who TRIED to be kind to me away. I missed my old school so much, I would dream of going back, just for a moment, to be with the same “smart, funny, nice” prep-school kids.

Julie was different. She wouldn’t have been my first choice for a friend (she was, what I considered back THEN, extremely obese and a Jesus-freak), but she has taught me that appearances are deceiving and, sometimes, what you think makes a person different and bad is what makes them your life. Now, I am even ashamed to ADMIT that I would EVER think of anyone (much less HER) in that manner. My deranged 90lb mind couldn’t even comprehend her beauty, but she managed to find mine (even though the first words I ever said to her were exactly that-”leave me alone. I want nothing to do with a fat Jesus-freak”). A shiver runs up my spine thinking about how she could have gone to the administration and demanded my expulsion, my heart skips a beat thinking of how any other person would have reacted and a tear falls down my face with the sheer guilt of what I had done.

She was taken aback, but not deterred. The next day, she came to me again, and offered to go for a walk around the building with me after school and show me the best hiding spots for a quiet moment. Then, I was a little taken aback. Who is this girl? Who just won’t let me be? I decided to go with her, thinking, if nothing else, it would make her leave me alone. It didn’t and, after that first walk, I didn’t even want it to. Ever since the moment when I gave her every reason to hurt to me till the moment I write this statement, she has been my strength.

Not only has she tolerated me through all my breakdowns and torture (I won’t elaborate here, once again for her security), she showed me other people who could be my friends and she gave me what little hope I have. She believed in me.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get better, Mekkie,” she would say with a big smile, “I know you will. You can’t die, now, Mekkie. You have to live long enough to be happy. You deserve it.”

No one else had ever said this to me. Not even my parents. Not even when I was 5-years-old. I had never EVER deserved anything. I had always had to earn. I always had to be strong. I was always the big sister, the child on the pedestal, or the one with no friends. I was always criticized: even to this day my mother (who I will still say had no bad intentions and loves me with all her heart despite her numerous shortcomings as an Indian immigrant) will tell me that she did right because a mother’s job is to “fix” their kids and “train” them so that they can become “right” people. When I had an eating disorder, I was inherently wrong and, until I came out of it, I would be criticized and criticized. Her voice still echoes in my head.

Julie’s voice is there too. All the time, I can almost feel her arms around me, telling me that I DO matter and that she won’t LET me die. I almost bought a WWJD bracelet once, NOT because I can or ever will believe in God, but because I wanted to say to myself at every possible moment What Would Julie Do? That’s not appropriate though because I really don’t care what Julie would DO-I care what she would SAY to me. Unfortunately, they don’t make bracelets for that.

As I pushed the nutella thought away, Julie hung on to it. I thought of what she would say. She would tell me (in kinder words) that I was being an idiot and that I should buck up and realize she promised me I would get better and she’s sick of waiting! (Okay, so it’s not really HER voice, it’s the voice of my mother + Julie, but at least it’s there!)

So, here it is, no you my little French friend, a perfect Nutella!

Nutella

Chocolate Almond-Hazelnut Spread

• flaxseeds (about 2T)
• 4-5 splenda, or 4-5t of brown sugar/white sugar
• 1/2 scoop Vanilla WHEY protein powder (make sure it doesn’t act as a THICKENER, i.e. make liquids into a shake)
• a small spoonful or two cocoa powder
• a handful (about 1/4c.) of wheat bran (you can toast it first if you want but I wasn’t about to toast anything after I got done with the hazelnuts)
• 1 3/4c. Emerald Cocoa Roasted Almonds
• a handful (about 15-30) of ROASTED hazelnuts

→It’s really simple. Put the ingredients into a food processor container or very high-quality blender (I have a vita-mix) in the order listed and whiz away! SO much better than the store bought Nutella which is 99% sugar.

Uh-oh…I think the melatonin I took is starting to kick in. I’ll have to do the stir-fry later.

Another Banana Split (and homemade ice-cream) August 1, 2009

I’m in posting deprivation! Well, to be honest, it’s more like cooking deprivation due to excessive procrastination of the academic nature. Hopefully, I’ll make some progress in the food invention field when my summer classes are over.

I made this last night for dinner when I couldn’t think of anything else. I went out for a walk, not realizing it was 80 degrees outside (in Michigan?!!), and came back dying for something cold, creamy, juicy and cold. I swear if I had the 90-calorie/scoop brownie fudge ice cream from Wal-Mart in my freezer I would have just dug right in to that with my index finger. (I have modified the Weight Watchers core plan to include ice cream provided it has roughly the same nutritional content of prepared sugar-free/fat-free Jell-O pudding and some other food items that hard-core dieters would abhor me for….more on that later). To be fair, I didn’t actually end up eating it till midnight because I realized that I hadn’t taken my online exam which was due AT MIDNIGHT, but it was even better then.

This recipe has two parts: the first is the ice cream and the second is the banana split. I wish I would have taken a picture of the ice cream part because, in the final picture, it got covered up with all the delicious chopped fruit (as did the banana). Ah well, just use your “i-ma-gin-a-tion” (mental image of Spongebob Squarepants drawing a rainbow over his head) to see the three big scoops of vanilla “ice cream” that are under all the delicious fruit.

No room for cereal....

Banana Split (Part II)

See recipe notes for amounts.

• Fruit of choice: banana (obviously), strawberries, blueberries, pineapple, kiwi….yes, I’m a tropical fruit gal
• Cereal of choice (optional)
• Yogurt (I made vanilla ice cream so I used vanilla yogurt)
• Jell-O pudding mix (always sugar free/fat free), flavor of choice (mine was vanilla again)
• Milk (to make the Jell-O)

→Make the “ice cream”:
First, make the pudding (just follow the package).
Add yogurt to the prepared pudding (NOTE: the yogurt is optional…I dumped it in to add nutrition and bulk for fewer calories. Think about how much you want here: mine was a meal, so I used 6oz of yogurt and 2 servings of pudding, which was A LOT).
Stir the two together vigorously until well blended.
Put it in an ice cream maker or use the freeze-mix-freeze method described earlier.
Construct your banana split once the ice cream is ready:
Cut the banana in half lengthwise, so you end up with two strips. Put them in a dish and glob the ice cream in between.
Top with the toppings. Yummy!

Side Note: I know I tagged this with “quick” (even though it took ME 4 hours to make it). If you have an ice cream maker that you can figure out how to work, it’ll take less than 15-20 minutes. Plus, the hands-on time is really only about 5-10 minutes (depending on your chopping dexterity).

Nutty Quinoa Cake July 12, 2009

No, there’s no actual nuts in this. I have found, though, that if you rinse the quinoa like you’re supposed to and toast it like some people suggest, it really does taste like something that’s half way between almonds and hazelnuts.

Sorry I haven’t been posting all that much. I’ve been kind of depressed these past few days (it’s been coming on for a few weeks), so no real experimenting in the kitchen. Lots of sleeping though, which I hear tends to happen.

Anyway, here’s the recipe (I just realized all the pics I had for this came out really blurry. I guess I’ll have to figure out how to make my camera work since my phone’s finally lost it).

Nutty Quinoa Cake

Quinoa Cake

• 1 cup dry quinoa (rinse it in water until the water runs clear and toast it on a (non-oiled) pan over medium-high heat until it’s lightly browned)
• 6 cups water
• 2 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 1 cup milk (soy-milk or fat free will do just fine)
• 2T. powdered milk (skim/fat-free)
• 1t. vanilla
• 3/4 c splenda (I used about 3/4 of the 3/4c in the actual batter and then decided to sprinkle some on top)
• 1/8t. salt

→ Simmer quinoa UNCOVERED for about 13-15 minutes on medium heat (not like pasta where you boil it). Drain.
Preheat the oven to 350 F and spray a 9″X9″ dish with cooking spray. Put the drained quinoa in the dish and spread it out evenly.
Mix the eggs, egg whites, milk, milk powder, splenda, vanilla and salt. Pour this mixture over the quinoa (you should be able to see the liquid, but not so much that it’s soupy).
For an extra little bit, I mixed some pumpkin pie spice and the rest of the splenda together and sprinkled it over the top.
Bake it for 40-50 minutes.
Enjoy.

The recipe above it the one in the picture, but I did this again a little differently. I did the same thing up until the sprinkling. I put it in the oven for 35-40 minutes. Then, I poured a wet mix that was similar to the original over the top of the dish. The new mix used chocolate soy milk and a splash of sugar-free torani syrup, with extra powdered milk and about 1/4 packet of a jello singles sf/ff pudding mix to make it a thicker consistency. I did the sprinkling (splenda with cocoa powder) and put it back in the oven for about 5-10 minutes at 300 F. It came out with a nice creamy layer between the crumb and cake. Mmmmmmm…

Mangoes: like better bananas (and an Indian drink recipe) June 20, 2009

A recent statistic I read somewhere stated that the U.S. population eats a startlingly large amount of bananas each year (yes, I read a lot of random (and usually pointless) “statistics” and what not), which kind of bothers me because, well, I’m not really too fond of them. Although I do think one of the doctors I know makes up for the whole lot of us that aren’t particularly fond of the fruit.

It’s not really so much that I don’t like the taste, or the texture but it’s really more of a calorie/water content thing. When I think of fruit, I think of something that is a) water in chewable form (yes, I do love to eat plain crushed ice) and b) something that is sweet and filling, with hardly any calories for the amount of fullness. Bananas, because of their starchiness, are more like bread to me and, therefore, I always considered them more of a treat than a fruit.

Enter the mango: just as sweet as the banana but more refreshing, more colorful and, unfortunately, so much more messy. Equally saddening is the fact that, while bananas are available in abundance year round for a fairly cheap price, mangoes are a much rarer commodity but most definitely worth the hunt. So, in the spirit of the hunt (or, in most cases wait), I bring you my favorite mango smoothie, straight from India.

Mango Lassi Ice Cream

Mango Lassi pronounced la(like the note)-si (spanish)

• Mangoes (I used three medium ones, which gave me about 3 cups cubed)
• 1 cup plain yogurt (I used fat-free)
• 1/2 cup milk (I used 8th continent light soymilk)
• sugar to taste (about 3-4 splendas) *see note*

→Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend on high until smooth. I used my Vita-Mix so I didn’t need to do anything to get it going, but if you’re using a regular blender, you might want to puree the mangoes in a food processor first.
 

Note: The proportion of sugar/splenda can be varied according to taste. I wanted a more mango-y flavor to my drink (because I love those mangoes oh so much), but you could easily increase the sugar and use less mango. The typical Indian drink uses close to 6T sugar (depending on who’s making it). If you’re not to fond of mangoes (is it possible?), you can eliminate the mangoes all together and make plain LASSI, but that will require quite a bit of sugar.

ALSO, don’t even think about using sweetened yogurt. Part of the charm of this drink is the sweet goodness playing off of the tang of the yogurt. Dare I reference a certain frozen yogurt chain in California….

Brownies (Or cake if you prefer) June 19, 2009

So, this Weight Watchers core thing has really made me crave chocolate for some reason. This is odd for the following reasons:
a) I don’t usually like chocolate. I’m a vanilla or white chocolate kind of person.
b) I don’t even know what triggered the craving or when exactly it started.

Anyway, since someone told me yesterday that you really don’t lose weight on core if you use the extra “points” allowed, I’ve been really paranoid about eating non-list foods and only do it when I feel I can’t live without it. The only exception to this is bread/wraps, which I still have in moderation because they are, for me anyway, REALLY very filling.

So I went and bought some cocoa powder and, after some studying of the food list and a quick visit to Cook’s Thesaurus, I determined that something cake-like would be the best option. I also found a container of really old oat flour in my fridge when I cleaned it out for the switch last week, which I wanted to at least begin to use.

So here are the yummies!

Mmmmm Brownie

Choco-Monkey Brownies

• 1 cup oat flour (I used Bob’s)
• 3T unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup instant nonfat dry milk (I used meijer brand)
• 1/2t. baking soda (for cake)
• 1/2t. guar gum (or replace 1T of the oat flour with all purpose)
• 1T hot water
• 2 overripe bananas (I used a really big one and a small-medium one)
• 1 cup Splenda for baking (not the blend, just the kind that measures the same)
• 3 large eggs (I used 1/2 cup egg substitute and one egg) 
• 1t. vanilla

→Mix the first five ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, mash the bananas with the water. When they are nice and pulpy, add the splenda, followed by the eggs and then the vanilla. Make sure to mix well after each addition.
Add the other dry ingredients to the wet mixture and stir (tip: don’t stir it too much if you want cake because baking soda is quick acting so all the bubbles will come out during the stirring if you overdo it).
Bake in a well-greased 8″ square pan at 350 degrees F for about 20-25 minutes. Make sure to preheat the oven

With ingredients given, 1/8 of the pan has about 115 calories

Ice Cream-less Banana Split (with a cherry on top) June 16, 2009

So I came home from work yesterday (around 8:30) and, the moment I stepped in the door, I had this incredible urge to be thin and binge all at the same time (I used to have these a lot when I was really overweight). It’s a strange feeling to stand there, with a million things on your mind, and be able to think about nothing more than being thin and eating a cookie.

I realized pretty early on in my life that “being thin” was never going to come easy for me. I figured that, school was easy and I was smart and creative, skinny being easy would just make life too boring.

The reason I tell this story, now (and here), is because a) it really was the feeling I experienced as I walked in the door and b) it is what led to the creation of what was to later become the first “like-substance” (I never thought to call them that originally). And. following the eternally cyclical form of the natural world, led to the creation of this one (which is highly adaptable).

Sadly, I didn’t have any cherries (I used all my no sugar added cherry pie filling on the Cherry Cheesecake “Jell(at)-o” I made awhile back, but I would have most definitely put a cherry on top had I had one (because it was just that kind of day).

 

Banana Split (without the cream)

 

Banana + Yogurt + Mmmmmm
1 banana (sliced lengthwise)
Yogurt/thickener of choice (see note)
Toppings (I used sugar free chocolate sauce and Fiber One)
1 cherry
→Put the banana in a dish. Blend the yogurt and thickener (see note) and, using an ice cream scoop (or spoon) glob a few scoops of that in between the two halves of the banana. Top as desired.

Note: This is highly personalize-able. I didn’t have very much on hand, so I mixed some Greek yogurt with Spiru-tein protein powder (cookies and cream flavor). It came out okay, but not the best, so I added one container of pre-made Jell-o sugar free pudding (for the middle two scoops) which helped a little. There are really two “best ways” to make this dessert and still have it be nutritious enough to count as a protein/dairy serving instead of a sugar serving (which would be the case with ANY type of store bought “low-calorie ice cream”:
1. If you have time: instead of the filling above, take any flavor of “light” yogurt (whatever you think sounds good in a banana split) and dump at least two to three 6oz cartons into a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth (you can usually find most of these at the local grocery store or mega-mart). Place the sieve (or cheesecloth) over a container so there’s something to catch the drippings and put the whole thing in the fridge (covered) for a few hours to overnight (depending on how thin your yogurt is). If you do this with plain yogurt, it’ll actually be cheaper, homemade “Greek yogurt”. Advantage: all you need ingredient-wise is the yogurt. Disadvantage: unless you start keeping this stuff around (which I might start doing), it takes a long time to get to the yumminess.

2. Find an extremely thick variety of yogurt (preferably a healthy one) and pick three flavors you like (they can all be the same or any combination). Freeze them just a little bit (unopened, in the carton) until you hear a tiny bit of cracking when you squeeze the outside of the containers (as if there’s a ring of frozen yogurt around the inside of the container). Open the yogurts, hold them upside down over the dish with the banana halves in them and squeeze gently. The entire container of yogurt should fall out at once, forming a container shaped mound. If you do it with all three, you’ll have three “scoops” of frozen yogurt.

You could also make your own yogurt from scratch, but that’s a whole different post.

Easy Freezy “JELLatO” May 30, 2009

Now that that’s taken care of, on to the recipe of the day. Apparently, heat waves don’t spur great ice cream renovations in the kitchen, “cold waves” do. It was most definitely noticeably colder yesterday, and…I discovered the perfect fat-free, sugar-free ice cream recipe. Well, okay, TECHNICALLY, there’s no such thing as “fat-free, sugar-free ice cream,” because ice cream is defined at being high in sugar and fat (some etymological thing). Who cares, though, right?

So, as I was cleaning (yes, I know, I know…me? cleaning?!) my pantry yesterday, I found a bag full of evaporated milk cans lying on the floor. I must have gone a little “evaporated milk happy” last Thanksgiving when I first discovered the plethora of uses for the stuff. I pick one up: “Best if used by 6/09/09″. Oh great, there’s like *counts* FIVE cans of this stuff. And most baking recipes call for only half a can if even that. So the itty bitty wheels in my head start turning, albeit slowly, and I move from evaporated milk to refrigerated milk to yogurt/cheeses to creamy substances in general to ICE CREAM. Yay. It’s summertime too and the Blue Bunny ones at Wal-Mart are getting expensive.

Yadda, yadda, yadda. Add other ingredients: stabilizer, thinner, flavor….would it work? My god! It did!!!!

Just so you know, I gave up on my ice cream maker after wasting an entire half gallon of soymilk and half a container of peanut butter ($3.50-$4.00 worth of ingredients!) on a very botched batch of peanut butter gelato. Not to mention the huge mess I had to deal with afterward as I tried to salvage the doomed treat. So, from now on (unless I somehow acquire a semi-decent ice cream maker (does such a thing exist?)), all my “ice cream” recipes will be made using the “mix, freeze for awhile, mix again, freeze again, mix again and so on” method. I’m sure it would be better if you had an actual functioning ice cream maker that doesn’t annoy the shit out of you, so………..(I forgot what my point was), uh, always keep that in mind? I guess.

I’m beginning to think there may have been some brain damage in that car accident….
Anyway, on to the recipe whose secret ingredient, as I’m sure you’ve already deduced, is JELL-O!!!! pudding. Yay!!!!!

Cheery Cherry Cheesecake

Basic Recipe
1. 1.4 oz container JELL-O sf/ff instant pudding and pie filling mix
2. 1 cup milk
3. 1 12oz can evaporated fat free milk (NOT CONDENSED MILK)
4. sweetners to taste (for the basic vanilla, use about 2T of sugar and 2T of sugar substitute…the real sugar will help eliminate ice crystals and give it a better mouth feel).
→Simple: Mix well, chill and freeze by following your ice-cream maker’s directions or using the “freeze/mix/freeze/mix…” method described above.

Some Flavor Suggestions
1. Cherry Cheesecake: use cheesecake flavored pudding mix and stir in about half a can of no sugar added cherry pie filling (only 105 calories for 1 cup) before you began the freezing process.

2. Chocoberry: use chocolate fudge (or white chocolate) pudding mix and stir in some sugar free berry flavored jam as close to the end of the freezing process as you can (so it makes swirls). This one works a little better with an ice cream maker because you can add the jam in while the machine is turning.

3. (Orange) Chocolate Chip: use vanilla pudding mix and stir in sugar-free chocolate chips (the same way as in the chocoberry). Or, for an orange version, mix in some sf orange drink mix with the pudding mix.

4. I don’t know! I’m all out of ideas. But I bet you could turn any of your favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavors into a “Ben and Jerry’s like substance”!

Cheesecake May 1, 2009

So, at the request of one of my coworkers, I’m going to post a recipe for cheesecake. The filling is actually stolen off of the Jello website, but the crust is all my own.

Cheesecake Crust
1. 1 cup bread crumbs (the trick her is to use a low-density bread, any of the light varieties will do, or some kind of low carb product…don’t make the crumbs too fine and you’ll end up with a little bit of a courser crust but with a LOT less calories)
2. flavorings and/or splenda (be creative: if you decide to make the crust with cocoa powder and splenda, add some mint extract to the filling, which I’ll get to in a minute).
3. 2.5T I can’t believe it’s not butter LIGHT (or other low calorie butter-like substance) plus enough water to make it stick.
→Mix crumbs and flavorings. Mix in melted butter and press into a springform pan. Cool. Or don’t. Doesn’t really matter

Cheesecake Filling
2/3 cup boiling water
1 pkg. (3 oz.) JELL-O Sugar Free Gelatin
1 cup Low Fat Cottage Cheese
1 tub (8 oz.) Fat Free Cream Cheese
2 cups thawed Fat Free or Sugar Free Whipped Topping
→Add boiling water to gelatin mix; stir 2 min. until completely dissolved. Cool 5 min.; pour into blender. Add cottage cheese and cream cheese; blend well. Pour into large bowl. Gently stir in topping. Pour on top of crust. Refrigerate for awhile.

Okay, that filling was copied mostly from the Jello website, but, here’s my take on it. That cheesecake is good, for something simple that, unfortunately, tastes just as simple.

If you want to mix it up, replace some of the cool whip with jello sugar-free, fat-free instant pudding + milk–more flavor combinations, and less calories depending on the milk. If you really want to take control, use unflavored gelatin and just go wild. Whatever. Add fruit, add nuts, use lowfat cream cheese and fat free cottage cheese, do it without the crust, pour it in muffin tins, use the filling as a face cream…really, it’s your cheesecake, do what you want with it (unless, of course, it’s for someone else, in which case you should do what THEY want with it).

Everyone’s Favorite Snap, Crackle, Pop April 7, 2009

Since I slipped on the icy pavement the other day and hurt my back, I’ve been homebound and, my five to ten minute periods of standing have basically involved…well, cooking. I guess that’s what I get for living in Michigan: wear your snow boots-even in April.

Anyway, as I was standing in my kitchen last night, I had a nostalgic craving for something sweet and gooey that can only be attributed to my horrendous lack of inactivity these past few days. More troublesome was what the craving was for-it was those demons of the snack world, the “almost fat free” crunchy, marshmallowy bites of our childhood: Rice Krispie Treats.

Before I go on, let me make something clear: “fat free” does not equal healthy (no, “almost fat free” doesn’t equal healthy either). Again, FAT FREE DOES NOT EQUAL HEALTHY!!! I cannot stress this point enough. Before everyone runs off and dubs me as “one of those low-carbing people that believes in ingesting my own weight in saturated fat for every meal,” remember that a) I am a vegetarian and b) I am extremely fat phobic. HOWEVER, as one of my high school friends felt the need to yell into my ear, sugar equals bubbling fat. And desserts that are fat free, are basically sugar + liquid + flavoring. NOT HEALTHY.

Okay, now that I’m done ranting, let’s move on to one of sugar’s other undesirable properties-addiction. It is because of this horibbleness that snack food companies like it so much and I wanted it so much. You see, even after years of only mild sugar consumption (in the forms of fruit and other naturally occurring sugars and, yes, cereal), my desire for that taste-bud maiming sweetness was only dormant, not dead. So I had to find a relatively healthy way to satisfy it…sort of.

Stir, Crunch, Perfect Serves 16
1. 2T light buttery spread
2. 4.5 cups mini marshmallows (I like the fruity ones)
3. 4 cups either Kashi GoLean or Special K Protein Plus
4. 2 cups puffed wheat, kamut, etc cereal
→You know the drill…melt the butter, add the marshmallows and melt those too, then stir in the cereal and press into a nonstick spray coated 9X13 pan.
For a little variation, try decreasing the marshmallows and mixing in some peanut butter, then dip in melted chocolate after cutting.
Enjoy. SPARINGLY