Diet Books--Peanut Butter Dream Bars

So I have a whole bunch of cookbooks in my collection that promise to help you cook yourself skinny, and since I'm always looking for healthy recipes so I can keep my girlish figure I wanted to give some a try. This dessert sounded delicious and easy, and perfect to pack for work to have as an afternoon snack. I love the combo of peanut butter and chocolate, so I thought this would be perfect. What I didn't scrutinize was the amounts of each ingredient the recipe called for to reach the enviable amount of 150 some odd calories per bar. Let's say to create something like what was pictured took a few more ingredients than was listed.

Ingredients:
1/2 c 100 calorie Oreo Thins
1/2 c Old-fashioned Rolled Oats
1/3 c confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbs whipped light butter melted then chilled
1/4 c creamy natural reduced sodium peanut butter
1 1/2 oz greek yogurt cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbs semi sweet chocolate chips (this is doubled from the original)

I actually bought a loaf pan--for this and for the bread I've started to make, and for this dish it is lined with wax paper.

So the recipe says low calorie thin chocolate wafers--not sure what they were thinking of, and the only low calorie option I saw were these 100 calorie packs. So I used 3 packages--ground them fine in the blender. Then combined the resulting powder with the oats, the powdered sugar, and 1/4 tsp salt. Once that was mixed, I added the melted butter and stirred it to make sure all of the dry ingredients were moistened, then mixed in a tablespoon of peanut butter.

That went into the wax paper prepared pan, and is spread thin across the bottom to make a crust. It is a pretty thin layer in the loaf pan I had, and was a struggle to get it across the whole pan. Once that was down, the pan went into the fridge to chill for about 10 minutes.

While that chilled, the cream cheese was supposed to be beat with an electric mixer. That is the approximately two tablespoons of cream cheese are supposed to be whipped with a beater--only it is such a small amount that it mostly just spread it around a lot. Not really helpful or useful. It is supposed to get smooth and fluffy--only there is so little I abandoned the beater and mixed it with my spoon. Once it was smooth, I added the rest of the peanut butter, vanilla, and salt and tried to get it smooth and fluffy with the beater--but it still wasn't much for the beater to work with, so I used the spoon. It was supposed to double in size, but didn't really work so well. By the time I'd finished this, the first layer was chilled enough to spread the peanut butter on top. It actually was the layer that covered the best--the only one that there was actually enough to cover the whole pan bottom. That went into the freezer for 10 minutes to get firm

Once that was out, I went to spread the melted chocolate chips on top. Unfortunately it didn't cover even half of the pan, and I ended up melting more to cover the whole thing. Partially this was because the frozen layer made the chocolate freeze up, but mostly it was because there just wasn't enough chocolate. This is a re-occurring theme in this recipe. In order to get the calorie count down low they didn't add enough of each ingredients to cover the whole pan. This is sort of ironic because the portion size is really big--I'd rather have more of each item in each bite, then a ton of sad bites.

Once the chocolate was spread, it went in the fridge until it was all set. Then I cut it into 8 slices--as the recipe suggested. The chocolate shattered, and didn't stick well to the layer below it. Once I saw how big the slices were I cut them in half again, to make 16 portions. With the peanut butter and butter, it is plenty rich in the half sized bite.



The Verdict: The flavor combination is great, but the texture was off. I think if I were to make this again, I'd not grind the wafers as small and not freeze it in between the peanut butter layer and the chocolate layer. As it is the top is crunchy chocolate and the bottom is chewy and soft--where it should be more crunchy. Still it is a peanut buttery dream flavor--like a little candy treat!

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

Last week it was all cornbread all week long--someone else even made some and brought it into work! So this week, to counterbalance all that savory baked goods, I thought I'd make some thing really decadent and delicious. But healthy, of course, still healthy. When I saw this recipe in the Weight Watcher's 2005 cookbook, I knew I had to make them. There aren't a lot of ingredients, and most of them I have, and there is a HUGE amount of chocolate to everything else.

Ingredients: 

1/2 c light butter
1 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup regular oats
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
dash salt




Chop the unsweetened chocolate into fine pieces and melt with the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds until the chocolate starts to melt. The butter melted quickly, and I had to stir a while to get the chocolate to melt. There seemed to be a lot of butter--next time I plan on reducing the amount of butter to see if that would work. There aren't a lot of ingredients, and there is as much butter as flour here! Anyways, into that I added the sugar and cocoa and stirred until smooth. I let it cool a little and then added the two eggs after lightly beating them.

I tossed the oats, flour, salt, and baking powder together in a bowl, before folding them into the chocolate mixture just until blended. Then they are dropped onto a greased cooking sheet by heaping teaspoonfuls. These are pretty small cookies, but they are SO chocolatey that you wouldn't want more. They do expand, so don't place them too close together.

They go into a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes until just done in the middle. One pan was underdone at 8 minutes, the other was just on. They need to stay on the pan for at least 5 minutes so they don't fall apart when you move them--though if you eat them from the pan it probably doesn't matter if it is in pieces.

The Verdict: 

This was a win for me, though my family members liked them quite a bit less (They wont say to my face that they don't like them, but one of them only ate half--I wish people would tell me what they really think, I'm not offended, I'm learning!). I love the chewy, chocolatey, dreamy quality. They are soft and cakey, not crispy, and so rich I don't worry about eating too many at once. They almost taste a little like brownies! I think the quality of the chocolate really matters here, so I may invest in some higher quality chocolate when I make them again.

Breakfast Bowls

Since I changed my diet last year, I have tried to eat real breakfast foods in the morning. I know that nutritionally it doesn't matter what you eat when, and that cake in the morning is just as healthy as cake in the evening. But I think eating a proper meal in the morning gets things off on the right foot for the rest of the day. I rotate between cheerios and yogurt, cheerios and fruit and rice milk, and an egg mug of some sort with a multi grain thinwich.

During the summer, I ate a lot of fruit--strawberries, peaches, raspberries, blueberries--in my cheerios, and I still get veggies in my egg bowls. Sometimes I use leftover veggies from the night before in my eggs in the morning, but lately it has been harder to get my fruit and veggies in my morning meal. I miss fresh berries, but I'm not willing to pay 6 dollars for a small thing of berries that will not last few mornings.

This morning I was out of bread and had nothing to eat my cheerios with, so I found another bowl meal and gave it a whirl. It is sort of a dish in between the eggs and cereal and should be easy to experiment with different variations. This recipe comes from the author of the Make Your Someday Today blog, though I couldn't find the recipe there--he posted it on the lose-it forum. So go read Trevor's blog, this isn't the first yummy thing I've made from him--his zucchini pancakes are a favorite of mine!

Ingredients:
1/4 cup rolled oatmeal (not instant)
1/4 cup berries (any type, fresh or frozen0
1 tablespoon milk
1 whole egg
1 teaspoon brown sugar
Cinnamon



Just like with an egg mug, you really need to start by spraying your soup bowl or mug with cooking spray. Otherwise it will stick and be hard to clean up later--unless you let your dog lick the bowl. Which never happens. Never. Like I let her do anything.

Mix together all the ingredients--you could also add peanut butter, or chocolate. I substitute honey for the brown sugar when my brown sugar was too hard.Once it is combined, it goes in the microwave for between 90 seconds to 2 minutes--or until it is set and not liquidy. I've found adding too many berries can make it more liquid, and if they break can give it a grey cast--but that is easily disguised with some whipped cream. You can eat it in the bowl, or turn it over on a plate and top it with goodies.

It comes out like a very soft pudding cake--less mushy than regular oatmeal, which I hate the texture off, and more like a proper breakfast. I think it would be good with some fresh fruit on the side as well!

The Verdict: A nice hearty breakfast that is lower in calorie, while still providing protein, whole grains, and some fruit as well. It really hits the spot--though I just calculated this as under 200 calories per serving, so I may increase the quantities so I'm fuller longer. This will be joining my other breakfast bowls in the morning rotation!