“Clean” Banana Bread

 

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup melted Smart Balance buttery spread
• 1 cup ripe banana, smooshed or mashed
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup Egg Beaters
• 1/3 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon Stevia powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup nuts, chopped

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9×5 loaf pan.
• In a large bowl, mix together Smart Balance, bananas, vanilla, Egg Beaters, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
• In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, soda, stevia, salt).
• Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients until just combined.
• Fold in the nuts.
• Pour into pan and bake for about 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Let cool in the pan for a couple minutes to set, then remove from the pan and cool completely on a rack.

Pink Lemonade Poundcake, made healthier

Sandra Lee’s semi-homemade cooking philosophy really resonates with me.  I love the idea of tweaking pre-packaged convenience items and making them into something extra special.  To me, it strikes the perfect balance between being Suzy Homemaker and the Drive-Thru Queen.  I no longer get to watch Sandra Lee on TV because I only subscribe to basic Cable, so imagine my delight when I learned she was publishing a magazine!  I signed up right away and recently received my first issue.  It was jam-packed with good items, one of which was a yum-o-licious Pink Lemonade Poundcake. 

I decided to make it for my friend Jen’s birthday party.  Naturally, I had to modify the recipe a touch to make it healthier.  I also had to come up with a glaze.  The picture in the magazine shows it drizzled with some sort of icing, but the recipe doesn’t list it.  I created my own using a store-bought tub of frosting and adding some drink mix and almond milk.  It came out great!

Ingredients

• 1 package white cake mix
• 1 cup fat-free sour cream
• 1/2 12-ounce container frozen pink lemonade concentrate, thawed
• 2 tubs sugar-free pink lemonade drink mix (1 1/2 tubs for poundcake, 1/2 tub for frosting)
• 1 package fat-free cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup egg substitute
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tub vanilla frosting
• a few tablespoons of unsweetened vanilla almond milk

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
• Mist two 8-inch loaf pans with nonstick baking spray.
• In a large bowl, combine cake mix, sour cream, pink lemonade concentrate, drink mix, cream cheese, eggs and vanilla.
• Beat at low speed for one minute. 
• Increase to medium-high speed and beat for two minutes.
• Pour into prepared pans, smoothing the tops.
• Bake for one hour or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
• Let cool.
• While cooling, mix frosting with 1/2 tub of drink mix and a tablespoon or two of unsweetened vanilla almond milk (toget the consistency you want).
• Drizzle over cooled poundcakes.

Spiced Apple Raspberry Smoothie

 

I recently discovered Alpine sugar-free cider packets (from Krusteaz) and have been enjoying them immensely at work, at home and when I travel.  There’s a nifty little recipe on the side of the box for Spiced Apple Raspberry Smoothie, and I finally had a chance to make it for my fiance when I brought him breakfast-in-bed this morning.  I modified it slightly by using Greek yogurt, so I balanced the extra thickness and tang by including a bit of unsweetened vanilla almond milk and some sugar-free raspberry syrup.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup chilled club soda
• 2 pouches Alpine Sugar-Free Spiced Cider Mix
• 6 oz. Fage 0% Greek Yogurt
• 1 frozen banana, cut into pieces
• 1 cup frozen organic raspberries
• 1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• splash of sugar-free raspberry syrup

Directions

• Place all ingredients in a blender jar.
• Blend until smooth.

Makes 2 servings with approximately 150 calories each.

Supersizing hits home

 The enormity of restaurant portions is well known, and countless strategies have been developed for dealing with them: ordering only appetizers, immediately putting half your meal in a to-go bag, even staying home rather than going out to eat.

Now, it turns out that eating in may be as dangerous to your waistline as dining out.  A study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that cookbook recipes have significantly higher calorie counts than in the past.

“The study, which looked at how classic recipes have changed during the past 70 years, found a nearly 40 percent increase in calories per serving for nearly every recipe reviewed, about an extra 77 calories.”

Although the trend has been noted in other cookbooks, the study focused primarily on the classic “Joy of Cooking” cookbook, first published in the 1930s, discovering that…

“Only the chili con carne recipe remained unchanged through the years. The chicken gumbo, however, went from making 14 servings at 228 calories each in the 1936 edition, to making 10 servings at 576 calories each in the 2006 version.”

“And changes in “Joy of Cooking” have been going on for a while. Increases in overall calories per recipe have been gradual, but portion sizes tended to jump, first during the ’40s, again during the ’60s, and with the largest jump in the 2006 edition.”

Add a decade, expand a portion.  A brownie recipe that yielded 30 brownies in the 60s now delivers 15 brownies.  A chocolate chip cookie recipe that made 100 cookies initially now provides only 60.

So what do you do about it?  Unfortunately, being aware isn’t enough.  You have to be as vigilant at home as you are on the road.  Make smaller cookies or brownies.  Or, adapt your restaurant strategies for home: don’t eat a full portion, saving the extra for another meal.

Talk about pork barrel!

 Yowsa!  The meaty monostrosity that is the Bacon Explosion is all over the web, having caught fire online like pork drippings in a BBQ pit.

The Bacon Explosion has developed a cult following, becoming so popular that it was recently written up in the New York Times.  We Americans are nutty sometimes in our rebelliousness.  Tell us to eat healthy, and we’ll laugh in your face while creating a flab-o-licious carnivorous treat like this one, “containing at least 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat.”

I’ll probably be banned for the planet for good, but I suggest that we could create a healthy version of this decadence by using turkey bacon, vegetarian sausage, bacon bits, and low-carb/low-calorie BBQ sauce.  I may just have to give it a go myself and see how it comes out.  You never know; it may develop its own cult following.

Insanely Interesting Food Fact!

“Milk Duds got their name when the manufacturer repeatedly failed to produce a perfectly spherical candy; each lopsided piece was pronounced a ‘dud’.”  Many thanks to Mental Floss’s e-newsletter for sharing this tasty tidbit!

Here are some other fascinating factoids about Milk Duds.

• 1928 – Milton J. Holloway took over F. Hoffman & Company of Chicago, the original manufacturer of MILK DUDS chocolate-covered caramels.
• 1960 – Holloway sold the business to Beatrice Foods.
• 1986 – Leaf purchased the business.
• 1992 – Production of MILK DUDS candy moved to Leaf’s Robinson, Illinois, plant.
• 1996 – Hershey Foods Corporation acquired the Leaf North America confectionery operations from Huhtamaki Oy of Helsinki, Finland.
• 13 Milk Duds have 170 calories, 6g fat, and 1g protein.
• Milk Duds, like most bite-size candies, are great in desserts. For something funky and unexpected at your next party, try making Milk Duds Chip Cheese Balls or Pumpkin Spice Torte with Milk Dud Glaze.

More fun with PB&J

 You all know how much I love, love, love PB&J.  Heck, I even threw a PB&J party a few months ago in which every single item was made with both peanut butter and jelly (or some form of preserves)!  I try to keep it healthy, so I use Smart Balance Omega PB and sugar-free jam as my foundational ingredients. 

Steph at Noshtopia offers another spin on the healthy PB&J sandwich.  She uses Ezekiel Bread, Whole Foods 365 Organic Peanut Butter and 365 Organic Fruit Spread.  Looks health-o-licious to me!

Fruity Quick Bread

 I found a couple of nifty mixes at the Ross down the street the other day and decided to give one of them the Sassy Chef treatment.  So, instead of Louisiana Banana Bread, I created a Fruity Quick Bread using ingredients I already had on hand.  I figured the combination of the baby food and the fat-free ricotta cheese would nicely approximate the texture and consistency of mashed bananas, and I was right.  The bread came out moist and lightly sweet.  The flavor isn’t strong, though, so next I might change up the baby food fruit I use – substituting something with a more robust taste – or I’ll add some seasonings like Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend. 

Although this isn’t a clean eating bread per se, it’s a lot cleaner than it would have been had I stuck with the standard ingredients.  The almond milk is super low-calorie… only 35 calories for a cup, and this recipe calls for a mere 1/3 cup.  The Smart Balance Omega Buttery Spread Light delivers heart-healthy Omega 3s along with fewer calories than butter.  The Apricot and Mixed Fruits baby food includes apples and pears as well as some banana, providing a broader range of nutrients than just the bananas alone.  And, the ricotta cheese adds protein without bumping up the fat.

Fruity Quick Bread 

Ingredients

• 1 box Dassant Louisiana Banana Bread Mix
• 1/2 cup Egg Beaters® Original (equivalent to 2 eggs)
• 1/2 cup melted Smart Balance Omega Buttery Spread, Light
• 1/3 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk
• 2 containers Gerber Apricots with Mixed Fruit baby food
• 1/2 cup fat-free Ricotta Cheese

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Mist a 9×5 baking pan with non-stick spray.
• Combine Egg Beaters, Smart Balance Buttery Spread, almond milk, baby food and ricotta cheese.
• Stir into mix.
• Fold together until batter is smooth.
• Pour batter into pan.
• Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Allow to cool before removing from pan.

Sassy Chef Cookbook?

As I’ve mentioned before, cooking has not historically been my strong suit.  I’m just recently coming into my own in this regard, cooking for myself and my BF, developing my own recipes or modifying others. 

I finally decided to figure out exactly how many recipes I’ve created since January, so I copied and pasted them into Word files, breaking them out into categories like breakfast, appetizers, entrees, and desserts.  Lo and behold, I’ve developed 29 recipes!  And, I’ve created recipes in every category, although there’s a greater concentration of entrees and desserts.

I’ve been thinking about what I should do with these recipes, if anything.  Looking back over them, there are a couple that are really good.  The others are simple and tasty, but definitely not gourmet fare.  Do they all warrant compilation into a cookbook?  Would I create the cookbook just for my family and friends, or would I try to sell a PDF of it online?  Or, do I continue to flex my Sassy Chef muscles by creating and refining ever better recipes (with full nutrition stats for each one, btw) before I even contemplate a cookbook?  There are so many bloggers out there offering fantastic recipes for free.  Are mine good enough in comparison?

It’s a lot to think about, and it’ll be fun to have an excuse to keep cooking in the meantime!

Turkey Pot Pie

  Turkey Pot Pie

The Sassy Chef strikes again!  I decided to try my hand at my own version of Turkey Pot Pie.  Wow!  It came out great.  I can’t wait to try it with beef sometime soon.

Ingredients

• 1 refrigerated pie crust
• 3/4 pound ground turkey breast
• 1 bag frozen stir fry vegetables
• 2 cans Campbell’s Southwest Style Pepper Jack condensed soup

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Roll out crust into 9-inch pie plate.
• Spray a fry pan with nonstick spray and brown ground turkey breast until thoroughly cooked but not dry.
• While browning ground turkey breast, microwave vegetables according to package instructions.
• Mix vegetables into ground turkey breast.  Drain off any excess liquid if necessary.
• Mix soup, in its condensed form, into turkey breast and veggies.
• Spoon mixture into pie crust in pie pan.  Top with second pie crust, cutting vents in the top.
• Bake for 30 minutes.
• If necessary, increase oven temperature to 400 degrees and bake for 10 more minutes to brown crust.

Serves 8.