Pumpkin Butter: The Taste of Fall

Me and my aunt made this yummy treat. It makes quite a bit, so we canned the rest and gave them to our neighbors as a fun treat!

Ingredients
Serving Size: 1 Tbs
Calories: 39 Calories per serving
1 (29 ounce) can pumpkin puree
3/4 cup apple juice
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Combine pumpkin, apple juice, spices, and sugar in a large saucepan; stir well. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until thickened. Stir frequently. Transfer to sterile containers and chill in the refrigerator until serving.

It tastes like pumpkin pie! It is so good, I love to eat it with toast. In fact, I had a peanut butter and pumpkin butter sandwich for lunch today...super awesome!

Apricot Oat Bars

My Aunt first made these a couple of months ago after watching the food network (one of my favorite channels ;) ). Giada De Laurentiis was making these for her friends as a gift for running in a marathon. As an athlete, I love these because I know exactly what is in them, because I made them. Unlike the other granola bars out there, I know exactly what I am putting into my body. Of course we used the original recipe the first time with the massive amounts of horrible stuff in it for you, but I switched it around a bit and made some of my own substitutions.

What is great about these is you can interchange what type of preserves or dried fruit you use. We have tried apricot, mango, and triple berry. All three were really good. You can also interchange the type of nut being used, just in case you don't like walnuts. Interchanging ingredients may change the calorie count, but not by a significant amount.

Ingredients
Serving Size: (1 Bar), Yields 24 Bars
Calories: 140

Vegetable oil cooking spray

Filling
1 (13-ounce) jar apricot jam or preserves (about 1 1/4 cups), use no sugar added
8 dried apricots, chopped into 1/4-inch pieces (about 1/3 cup)

Crust
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, I do a mix of half of whole wheat and half white flour
1 packed cup light brown sugar, I use splenda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup (4 ounces) coarsely chopped walnuts
1 cup (2 sticks) I can't believe its not butter, melted
1/4 cup egg beaters
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9 by 13 by 2-inch metal baking dish with vegetable oil cooking spray. Line the bottom and sides of the pan with parchment paper. Spray the parchment paper with vegetable oil cooking spray and set aside.

Filling: In a small bowl, mix together the jam and the apricots. Set aside.

Crust: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Stir in the oats and walnuts. Add the butter, egg and vanilla and stir until incorporated. The batter should be a little thick. If its not, add a little bit more oats to get a thicker batter (we had trouble with this, the bars end up not sticking together in the end.)

Using a fork or clean fingers, lightly press half of the crust mixture onto the bottom of the prepared pan. Using a spatula, spread the filling over the crust leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge of the pan. Cover the filling with the remaining crust mixture and gently press to flatten. Bake until light golden, about 30 to 35 minutes. Cool for 1 hour. Cut into bars and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days or store in the freezer.

New Supermarket Finds

From Suggestions from blogs/emails/in person, I have found 4 new buys that are pretty much awesome!


Aunt Jemima's Confetti Pancakes/Waffles
These are super cool. I had the pancakes this morning for breakfast! they are Made with love, not preservatives. Good source of 6 vitamins and minerals. The nutritional stats are 3 pancakes for 260 Calories or 2 waffles for 160 Calories. They taste like the traditional funfetti cake! I can now feel like it's my Birthday everyday! ;) I had my pancakes with sugar free syrup and a side of melon for breakfast! (I will in the near future try my own version of these with Heart Smart Baking Mix!)

Fiber One 90 Calorie Brownies
Let your taste buds be your guide! I had one of these for the first time last night during my C++ programming class. My wonderful friend Sherin brought one for dessert for class, but we swapped desserts that night (I gave her a piece of peach upside down cake). These taste really good and are of relatively large size. What's great about Fiber one is that it allows you to get 20% daily fiber value, and it tastes like chocolate. They come in two different flavors, chocolate peanut butter and chocolate fudge brownies (and they are only 90 calories and taste amazing!)

Chobani Champions
I have done a post before about Greek Yogurt, and I recently discovered these and they are awesome! They smaller packs of yogurt (4 to a pack), but are only 100 calories. They are meant for kids, but I think they are great. They come in two different varieties, VeryBerry (filled with strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries) and Honey-Nana (bananas and honey). Both are really fantastic and are packed full of protein, which leaves you feeling full longer!

Wrigley's Extra Dessert Delights Mint Chocolate Chip
So I lied, this one actually isn't all that new. I have been chewing the different flavors of the Dessert Delights for over a year now. My favorite is the Mint Chocolate Chip. It tastes like a York Peppermint Paddy! Each stick of gum is less than 5 calories, which saves those empty calories you would be eating if you had a giant bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. This gum always takes the edge off of me when I'm feeling really hungry, but don't have time to eat right away because I'm busy at work. This is my favorite gum of all time and I carry it around with my in both my backpack and my purse!

Strawberry Short Stack

I just came back from a wedding in Sedona this weekend. It was absolutely beautiful. My amazing friend Karlyn married her best friend Jon and I couldn't be happier for them. Although the time change has thrown me off, and my busy underpaid graduate student life and lack of sleep has been keeping me pretty busy, here is a breakfast I made right before I left for AZ. Super amazing in every way. Again, its like dessert for breakfast! Who wouldn't like it!

Ingredients
Serving Size: Entire Recipe
Calories-289
1/3 cup whole-wheat flour
2 tbsp. old-fashioned oats
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 no-calorie sweetener packet (like Splenda)
Dash salt
1/4 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original)
1 tbsp. light vanilla soymilk
2 tbsp. sugar-free strawberry preserves
1/2 cup sliced strawberries
1/4 cup Cool Whip Free, thawed
Optional: Fat Free Reddi-wip, sugar-free pancake syrup

Directions:
To make the batter, combine flour, oats, baking powder, sweetener, and salt in a bowl. Add egg substitute, soymilk, and 2 tbsp. water. Mix well and set aside.

Place preserves in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke for 20 seconds, until softened and warm. Stir into pancake batter until thoroughly integrated.

Bring a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium-high heat. Add half the batter to form a large pancake. Cook for 2 - 3 minutes, until pancake begins to bubble and is solid enough to flip. Gently flip and cook for an additional 1 - 2 minutes, until both sides are lightly browned and inside is cooked through. Plate your pancake and set aside.

Remove skillet from heat, re-spray, and return to medium-high heat. Repeat with remaining batter to make a second pancake, and then set that aside as well.

While pancakes cool slightly, combine strawberries with Cool Whip in a bowl and lightly stir. Spoon this mixture evenly over one pancake, and then place the second pancake lightly on top.

If you like, add a squirt of Reddi-wip and a drizzle of pancake syrup. Woohoo!

Pizza-fied Grilled Cheese

This will be my last post for a little while. I am going to a wedding in Sedona, AZ this weekend, and need a break from the technology world/research, its been a long 2 months without a break from work/training. Moving on...this is one of my favorite things to make. It's a twist on the grilled cheese, and I always like to eat this with a bowl of tomato soup. Who doesn't like their grilled cheese with two cheeses and turkey pepperoni?

Ingredients
Serving Size: (Entire Recipe) 1 Sandwich
Calories-185
2 slices light bread (around 45 to 50 calories each)
1 wedge The Laughing Cow Light Creamy Swiss Cheese
2 tablespoons canned crushed tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
4 slices turkey pepperoni
1 slice fat-free American cheese
1 teaspoon light whipped butter or light buttery spread, room temperature

Lay bread slices flat and evenly spread the upward-facing sides with cheese wedge. Evenly top one cheese-covered slice with crushed tomatoes, Italian seasoning, pepperoni slices, and American cheese. Top with other slice of bread, cheese-covered side down.

Evenly spread the upward-facing bread slice with 1/2 teaspoon butter. Place in a skillet with buttered side down. Evenly spread remaining 1/2 teaspoon butter onto the upward-facing slice of bread.

Bring skillet to medium-high heat on the stove. Cook until bread is lightly browned and cheese has melted, about 2 minutes per side, flipping carefully.

If you like, season some additional crushed tomatoes with Italian seasoning and serve as a dip. Enjoy!

Go Picnic!!!

Decided to buy these after a suggestion from a fellow Riddle Sister!

I had done a post before about Oscar Meyers lunchables for adults (they aren't really called that, but I think that's what they are). I then got an message from a fellow Riddle sister who suggested these. They are all natural to go lunches, and they taste really good! I have been trying to eat as organically as possible. Food tastes better when it is organic and it seems to make me feel better all around.

What really counts is what’s packed inside each handy, compact GoPicnic box. Every nutritionally balanced, shelf stable meal combines a satisfying mix of protein, fiber, and fruit, and each bite, from crackers to hummus to applesauce to delectable dark chocolate, is full of wholesome ingredients. That means no trans fats, no high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), no added monosodium glutamate (MSG), and no artificial flavors and colors...whatsoever.

Now here's the really cool part: GoPicnic meals need no refrigeration - they're shelf-stable entrees. As long as an individual food item is unopened, it's good until its individual expiration date kept at room temperature. These boxes contain tasty, portable, high quality food on-the-go with clean ingredient labels...the closest thing you can get to fresh food, in a box!

Also, GoPicnic meals are easy to eat -- everything in GoPicnic meals are ready to eat with no extra preparation required. Just open and enjoy, no need to heat anything up or add water. Which means you really can enjoy GoPicnic anytime you're hungry, anywhere you go!

Each item in a GoPicnic ready to eat meal is individually packaged, so you can eat at your own pace – some now, some later, or everything together – whatever you’re in the mood for or your schedule can handle (and let’s face it, sometimes you only have a minute for a bite!). The rest will wait for you. As long as an individual food item is unopened, no refrigeration or preparation is required, just open and enjoy when you’re ready to go.

GoPicnic has a bunch of different boxes. They are: Hummus, Tuna, Salmon, Peanut Butter, Salami, Turkey Stick, and Turkey Pepperoni. Each meal comes with crackers or pop chips, cheese (with the meat ones), Fruit and Nut Mix/Edamame/gummy snack, Applesauce, and a dessert (which is normally a dark chocolate bar).


Since I don't really eat meat, I have only had the Hummus, Tuna, Salmon, and Peanut Butter. The Peanut butter ones are my favorite. It comes Peanut Butter & Co. Natural Peanut Butter, Late July Organic Crackers, Sweet Perry Orchards Unsweetened Applesauce, Annie's Homegrown Cheddar Bunny Crackers and Surf Sweets Gummy Bears. Although it doesn't sound like a lot, I always feel full after eating the entire box (which is around 430 calories). The Salmon, Tuna, and Hummus were also extremely delicious (they put a bunch of spices in with the fish and hummus, like cilantro and lime).

These boxes are somewhat expensive. They are about $3.99 a box at Wegmans, but can also be found at World Market or another whole foods/organic stores. You can even order these from the GoPicnic website (PB and Salmon ones are on sale currently ;)). Although they are pricey, the quality of food is worth the investment.

Overnight Banana Fosters French Toast

Another breakfast recipe. I'm telling you I can eat breakfast anytime of the day and for any meal. I made this for my family yesterday for breakfast. This can also be used as dessert as well, its so good!

Ingredients
Serving Size: 8 Servings (French toast and foster topping)
Calories: 290

French Toast
cooking spray
10 oz Challah bread, sliced 1 inch thick (Hawaiian or Brioche would work)
2 large eggs
1 cup egg substitute
1-1/2 cups fat free milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup agave or white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp Meyers rum or rum extract (optional)

Banana Topping
1 tbsp light butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp Meyers rum or 1 tsp rum extract (optional)
4 medium ripe bananas, sliced


Spray a 13 x 9-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Arrange bread slices in one layer in baking dish, squeezing them slightly to fit.

In a large bowl whisk together eggs, egg substitute, milk, vanilla, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, agave or sugar, salt and rum until combined well and pour evenly over bread. Cover and refrigerate at least 8 hours or overnight for best results.

Preheat oven to 350° F. and bring bread to room temperature.

Bake uncovered, in middle of oven until puffed and edges are pale golden, 40 to 45 minutes.

Meanwhile while it's baking, in a large deep sauté pan melt light butter over low heat. Add brown sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and rum and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add a few drops of water if needed and let sauce simmer about 2 minutes. Add sliced bananas and remove from heat. Keep covered until french toast comes out of the oven.

When french toast is cooked, divide among 8 plates and top with bananas. Enjoy!! The foster topping for this is so good! I'm personally going to try to implement it in other recipes!