Mini Peanut Butter Cookies

Ok...so the raisin cookies yesterday didn't meet the peanut butter craving I have been having so even with tons of cookies in the house I just had to make these cookies. I love peanut butter but the last cookies I made were pretty dry so I needed something different. These cookies were no drier than I would expect from a peanut butter cookie but they were made with Splenda and light butter which I think normally leads to drier baked goods.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 c all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• 1.5 tbsp apple sauce
• 1/2 c peanut butter at room temperature
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbs Splenda
• 2 tbs egg beater
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the Splenda and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly.
   
4. Use a teaspoon to measure out dough and roll into balls. Flatten slightly with the bottom of a glass. Bake for 8 minutes.

Makes 38 mini cookies - calories per cookie - 30

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I have done so much baking recently. I just love the smell of sweet things cooking in my oven. These cookies were the result of a bad day that I was hoping to make better with a little something sweet and homemade. These cookies fit the bill. Besides, while I really wanted peanut butter, Miles much prefers these cookies.

Ingredients:

• 8 tbsp light butter
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 cup egg substitute
• 3/4 cup Spenda
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats
• 1/3 cup raisins
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Soak raisins in warm water for 10 minutes.
   
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, butter flavored shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 8 minutes until light and golden. Do not overbake. Let them cool for 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheets to cool completely. Store in airtight container.
   

Makes 38 mini cookies: calories per cookie - 32

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

I have had a craving for peanut butter cookies for a long time. I haven't had peanut butter since I started losing weight 10 months ago. I love peanut butter but it has so many calories and while it is good fat it is still fat. Trust me, I get enough fat in my diet without peanut butter.

Earlier today I made little raspberry cookies for miles that had only 20 calories a cookie. I figured I could tinker this recipe a little to make it peanut butter chocolate instead of raspberry chocolate. It took a lot more tinkering than I imagined and this cookies have 10 more calories a cookie than the raspberry but when we are talking about 30 calories total that is a lot more. In the end they were totally worth it as they met my craving and now I can move on...maybe.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
  
• 3 tbsp Splenda
• 6 tbsp flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1.5 tbsp light butter melted
  
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp peanut butter
• 2-3 tbsp water
  

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Sift dry ingredients together. Add wet ingredients and mix adding more water if needed to get a crumbly but manageable dough. Dough will be very dry.
3. Smash into small flat disks. Bake for 7-8 minutes.
   

Makes 18 cookies - calories per cookie - 32

Everything Spaghetti Squash Pasta

I have been wanting to use spaghetti squash for awhile now but I wasn't brave enough to make it the base of a whole meal. With lots of leftovers in the fridge I decided to make a variation of a pasta Miles and I love because it is very filling while being about 550 calories a serving. This variation is lower in calories, has twice as much meat and makes even more food than the previous version.

Ingredients:

• 1 spaghetti squash
• 3 oz angel hair pasta
• 6 oz pesto chicken (from trader joes)
• 3-4 slices frozen turkey bacon
• 1 onion
• 2-3 handfuls cherry tomatoes
• 1/4-1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 4 tbsp Alfredo sauce
• 1 cup frozen green beans
• Salt, pepper, and garlic to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Cut squash in half and place cut side down on a baking sheet. Cook for 30-35 minutes or until a fork an be inserted easily. Allow to cool while following the next steps.
3. Place cherry tomatoes on the pan used to cook the squash. Add salt and pepper and cook until the skins burst.
4. Cut onion into slivers. Caramelize the onions in a large saute pan.
5. Grill chicken and cut into small pieces. Set aside.
6. Add green beans, salt, pepper, garlic, and turkey bacon to the saute pan. Toss in chicken and tomatoes. Cook pasta per the instructions on the box. When cooked drain and add to the saute pan.
7. Using a fork, scrape the inside of the squash to remove the flesh. Put the flesh of the squash into the saute pan with the rest of the ingredients (parm and alfredo). Mix well and serve.

Makes 2 servings - calories per serving - 500

Raspberry Chocolate Cookies

These little gems are adapted from 17 and baking - my new favorite teenage blogger. This girl is amazing. Not only is she from Seattle, my long last city, but she is in school, a teenager, and has a beautiful blog. She is very talented.

At only 20 calories a cookie these might be my new favorite cookie to make. Of course they had to give me some problems at first but I think I worked out the kinks. You should know that cooking with apple sauce and splenda as substitutes will result in much drier cookies. Next time I will use 1 tbsp light butter in place of some of the apple sauce to make these even better.

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp raspberry jelly
• 1/4 cup Splenda
• 1.5 tbsp apple sauce (next time I will use 1 tbsp butter and possibly make up the difference with a little extra jelly)
  
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• 6 tbsp flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar for dusting

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, Splenda, salt, and baking soda. Add jelly, apple sauce, and both extracts.
3. Mix until combined and move into the freezer to cool for 10 minutes. This step was not in the original recipe but it made the dough much more manageable.
4. Remove from freezer and roll into tiny, slightly larger than a marble, sized balls. Sprinkle with sugar. Sugar the bottom of a glass and flatten the cookies.
5. Bake for 8 minutes.

Makes 18 cookies - calories per cookie - 20

Cinnamon Bread - French Toast

This blog is really turning into a breakfast blog. I am not sure why I enjoy blogging about breakfast more than any other meal but I think it is partially because the pictures turn out so much better when taken in the light of day. Breakfast is really the only meal where most of what I make is made from scratch. Dinner often involves a pre-made sauce or pasta, or it involves a piece of meat that is seasoned and grilled. There just isn't that much that goes into dinner and meals that involve more difficulty are made so often that I don't really find them blog worthy. Trust me, I keep you from a lot of bad or boring meals.

So anyway, this post is about french toast but it is also about the bread I made to make the french toast from. I have been longing to have french toast. On the rare occasion that we go out for breakfast I ALWAYS order french toast. Of course when we do go out the french toast I order is always made from really interesting and wonderful bread. I didn't want to make my own french toast using regular wheat bread and then be disappointed but at the same time I have been looking for a bread recipe that isn't very high in calories, and that I could add yummy things to, for weeks without any luck. Well today I found something I figured I could alter.This recipe from Blissfully Delicious wasn't intended to be made into french toast but it looked so wonderful that I figured I would give it a try. I used light butter and substituted some apple sauce for some of the butter. I also used a combination bread flour and all purpose flour, egg whites only, and I used maple syrup instead of honey as that's that I had on hand. Oh, and I didn't wash it with an egg glaze. I guess with all these changes it isn't even really the same bread but the idea started with Blissfully Delicious so that's where the credit goes.

Ingredients for the bread:

• 6 tbsp warm water
• 3/4 tbsp granulated yeast
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• 6 tbsp egg whites lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp apple sauce
• 2 tbsp maple syrup
• 1 tbsp Splenda
• 4 tbsp light butter melted
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cups + 6 tbsp bread flour
• Cinnamon

Directions:

1. Mix water and yeast and allow to sit while you combine the next ingredients.
2. Combine egg whites, apple sauce, salt, maple syrup, butter, and Splenda in a large bowl. Whisk for about 1 minute to combine the ingredients and make the egg whites nice and fluffy.
3. Add the yeast and water mixture to the other wet ingredients. Then add the flour and mix with the whisk until combined. Do not over mix.
4. Cover and place in a warm location for 2 hours. The dough should double in size while sitting.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Lightly flour your working surface and move the dough to the work area. Add more flour if needed to make your dough manageable. Roll the dough into a large square.
7. Sprinkle cinnamon over the dough to your taste preference. Roll the dough into a log an place an a baking tray wrapping the sides of the log around until they touch on one side of the log.
8. Bake for 35 minutes checking after 30 minutes so as to not over cook.

Makes 12 servings - 100 calories per slice

Ingredients for French Toast:

• Bread from above recipe
• 2 tbsp flour
• 3/4 cup non-fat milk
• 3/4 cup egg beaters
• Cinnamon and nutmeg

Directions:

1. Measure flour into a large mixing bowl. Slowly whisk in the milk. Whisk in the eggs. Add cinnamon and nutmeg to taste. Whisk to combine all ingredients.
   
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium heat.
3. Soak bread slices in mixture until saturated. Cook bread on each side until golden brown. Serve hot.

Makes 12 servings - calories per serving - 125

Squash Gnocchi

Never having made my own pasta and not having a pasta maker I decided to try this gnocchi recipe from the Food Network. This recipe was very easy to follow but as I don't have a ricer I had to kind of fudge that step of the directions. My squash also took over an hour to cook instead of the 30-35 minutes I thought it would take.

I was very nervous about this creation but Miles gave it a big thumbs up so I guess it will be something I will have the opportunity to perfect. These didn't really taste like squash and as I enjoy squash I will probably make them with butternut squash rather than acorn squash next time. I also thought my gnocchi were to large so I will cut a smaller hole in the bag and pipe them more slowly into the boiling water next time I try this recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 pound acorn squash
• 1 1/2 cups flour (I actually ended up using more like 1 3/4 cup of flour to get a firmer consistency to my gnocchi)
  
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cut the squash in half or thirds and place on aluminum foil in the oven. Bake until tender when stabbed with a fork, usually 30 to 35 minutes. - Mine took over an hour but I only cut it in half - Remove from the oven and, when it is cool enough to handle, scoop out and discard the seeds and membrane. Scoop the flesh into a strainer placed over a large bowl. Place in the refrigerator so that the squash cools and the liquid drains away. Leave for at least 6 hours or overnight. - very little water drained from my squash so I absorbed a little extra water using a paper towel -
   
3. Add the eggs and salt. Stir well and add the flour, a little at a time, stirring to amalgamate all the ingredients. Using a hand mixer make sure the ingredients are well combined. The result should be soft but not runny.
4. Put the gnocchi into a zip-lock bag or a piping bag. Bring a large pot of cold water to a boil. Add a pinch of salt and allow the water to return to a boil. Cut a hole in the corner of the bag so you can pipe the gnocchi batter into the boiling water. Pipe a small amount of the gnocchi into the water cutting off the dough every cm or so cooking the gnocchi in batches.
   
5. Cook the gnocchi in the boiling water and cook until they rise to the top of the pot. Remove gnocchi and also to drain while cooking the next batch.\

Makes 4 servings - calories per serving -265