Low Fat Banana Muffins

I've been making this low fat banana muffin recipe for years every time I have bananas that are beginning to turn. For about 150 calories per full muffin, or under 40 for one of these mini muffins, you can't really go wrong! Mini muffins will yield a large batch, over 3 dozen muffins. As you can see, I made some small banana breads as well with the extra batter!

 

2 bananas, mashed

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup margarine or butter spread

2 eggs

1/8 cup water

1 1/2 cups flour

1 Tsp baking soda

1/4 Tsp baking powder

1/2 Tsp salt

 

In a stand mixer, cream the margarine or butter until soft and then add in the bananas, mashing completely. Add in the eggs and water, mixing gently. While the mixer is turning, add in the sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. Lastly, fold the flour into your batter.



 Fill up muffin pans or paper liners about 1/2 to 3/4 full and bake in a 350 degree oven until a toothpick comes out clean. Mine usually take about 20-25 minutes for regular muffins and 15-20 minutes for mini muffins. You can also make banana bread loaves with this batter. Baking time will be about an hour.

Cool and store in a Ziploc bag on the counter for several days or in the fridge for a week or more.

Banana & Egg Flourless Pancakes

This is another recipe that I came across again and again, trending on Pinterest and it caught my attention. Who wouldn't want to try flourless diet pancakes? Well, as usual, I tweaked the recipes I found and came up with my own winning combination because I really didn't think that there was much pancake in the original "pancakes". I also like flavor, which I thought they lacked, even with adding some maple syrup.

 

2 bananas

3 eggs

1 Tbsp flour (if you want it gluten-free then don't use it, but I find that this tiny bit went a long way!)

1 Tsp cinnamon

1/2 Tsp vanilla extract

1 packet of sweetener (Splenda)

 

Recipe Adapted from Blogilates



Mash the bananas well using a blender or mixer and add eggs, whisking them. Slowly sprinkle in flour and add in the spices. I used a batter dispenser to form my pancakes and cooked them on a non-stick pan with a spray from my Misto. The batter is pretty runny! I did manage to cook two silver-dollar pancakes at once in a large pan, but I wouldn't go much more than that. They cook fast, about a minute or two only on each side.

Banana and egg are still the predominant flavors in these, not pancakes. In the future, I would forgo the maple syrup route and have them with butter, a small amount of peanut butter, some caramel, or a bananas foster topping that I make sometimes (will share at some point). All in all, it was a different thing to try but I wasn't totally sold on them. Give me my flour I suppose...



Cauliflower Crust Pizzas

I try to pass healthy things off on my husband and people all the time. In fact we have the same conversation every night, yet it never stops him from trying to get it out of me what he's getting served.

Husband: "What's for dinner?"

Wife: "Food!"

Husband: "What kind of food?"

Wife: "The kind you eat!"

Husband: "I love that kind!" (Starts lifting pot lids and peeking in fridge)

This happens EVERY night in our house, I kid you not. So when I tried to pass this off on him, I was pretty convinced he would not go for it. He was outside working so he didn't see me making it at all and I brought it out to him so we could enjoy it on the patio. After eating one, he clearly knew something was up and I admitted what it was. He was pleasantly surprised. He knew it wasn't pizza crust but couldn't even attempt to put his finger on what it was. After devouring his plate, he exclaimed, to a very stunned wife: "That was great! Is there more?". I think we found a winner in this house! It's picky husband approved!

Crusts:
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups pizza cheese blend
1 grated cauliflower head
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup fresh chopped parsley

 

Combine ingredients and spoon out crusts onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and sprayed with nonstick spray. Don't use wax paper because it will be hard to pull the crusts off. Shape them into squares and they will stay together remarkably well. Bake in a 500 degree oven for 15 minutes. I liked them crispier. Don't be worried if the oven smokes a bit, it's just the spray baking off.

 

Recipe Adapted from Fat Girl Trapped In A Skinny Body

 

Top with whatever you like. I used some tomato sauce and turkey pepperoni with extra cheese on top. Then I baked it for 5-7 minutes more until the top cheese melted.



Hindsight:

What is it about cauliflower that is SO smelly? The first night I went to make this, I realized I didn't have eggs so I hung onto it in a bowl in my fridge. My house smelled like farts for DAYS! If I have one complaint about this versatile vegetable, that would be it!

I still haven't found a great and quick way to grate the cauliflower. The first time I made it, I used a cheese grater. The second, I tried a food chopper but it didn't do a great job and you had to load it a little at a time so it took just as long. Either way, it's going to make a mess. I'll update this if I discover a better way and if anyone else finds one, please comment and share the knowledge!

Caramelized Zucchini

I've seen pin after pin claiming this as the holy grail of cooking zucchini. I certainly wouldn't go that far, but I liked it alright. I used my Misto for the first time and loved that! I'll never buy Pam ever again. Like a ton of the recipes you'll find out there say, you can use any spices you like on these because the key is the cooking. Caramelizing anything helps bring out flavors and sugars in the food. I honestly preferred the ones cooked more (sliced thinner, more oil?) that were closer to chips. I used my favorite staple spices of onion and garlic powder on these but use whatever you prefer.

 

Lay parchment paper on a baking sheet

Spray the parchment paper with oil

Lay down veggies

Spray with oil again

Sprinkle with garlic powder, onion powder, rosemary, salt, and pepper

Bake in the oven at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or more

Healthy Cake Batter Ice Cream

We've had our KitchenAid for about 7 years now and although I have almost every attachment for it, I haven't tried them. I live by this thing for holidays; couldn't live without it. Admittedly, the ice cream attachment has been in my freezer taking up space for that long and had never been used. When I came across this recipe, I had to try it.

I've been on a huge Almond Milk kick lately. I love it in cereal and I can honestly say that I'm never going back! I don't use it for cooking and haven't tried it in coffee but, I never noticed a difference at all when I switched to it, except of course in calories! Literally it's a fourth of even skim milk and better in every aspect! I'll give you a quick comparison.

 

Skim Milk: 110 Calories, 2.5g Fat, 13g Carbohydrates, 8g Protein, 276mg Calcium

Almond Milk: 30 Calories, 2.5g Fat, 1g Carbohydrates, 1g Protein, 455mg Calcium

Almond milk is free of dairy, soy, lactose, cholesterol, peanuts, casein, gluten, eggs, saturated fat, and MSG. It's vegan and has a low glycemic index.

I prefer to buy the vanilla anyways since, like I said, I don't cook with it yet and it only adds 5 calories. I tried this about 10 years ago, at someone's insistence, when it barely existed and certainly was not mainstream. Back then it was hard to find, tasted much more like crushed almonds, and was much creamier and thicker. It couldn't have won me over back then though, since I forgot all about it.

So, I tried this recipe. Here is what I can tell you. I loved the maker! It wasn't a quick thing (20-25 minutes). You really have to push the auger on! I honestly thought mine didn't fit and had to google it. It goes all the way up on my model, past where you'd ever think and goes on with an audible click. Here is a link to help you out if you're having the same problem.

 

1 Tsp vanilla extract

1/16 Tsp salt

1 Tsp rainbow sprinkles

2 cups vanilla almond milk

2 Tsp coconut extract



Recipe Adapted from Chocolate Covered Katie

Throw everything but the sprinkles into the bowl, these go in about 30 seconds before you are done with the ice cream. Make sure the auger is moving when you add anything to the bowl.

 

The end result was...okay. I mean, what do you want for 40 calorie ice cream I suppose? It had an aftertaste. I'm not quite sure if it was the extracts or the milk. Next time I'm gonna try a different recipe with the chocolate flavor. My husband LOVES ice cream! He'll eat any flavor, anytime, in a blizzard, and lots of it! Even he looked at me a bit funny when I presented him with this. He did eat it, but next time I'll surely try another recipe. This is as close to a Pinterest fail as I've gotten. Maybe you can try it out for yourself with some minor adjustments and come up with more of a winner!

What's with the needed salt in ice cream by the way? Every recipe says very strictly: do not omit! Salt somehow magically makes ice cream like fairy dust? Well, I looked it up, and the answer is: the salt lowers the freezing temperature of liquid. So, you shouldn't omit that minuscule amount of salt.

The skinny on cooking Spaghetti Squash

 Well, my self administered goal of publishing one blog per day has been broken. My husband took a "staycation" this week so I have been enjoying time with him and cooking up goodies instead of posting about them. So, I wanted to do a more in-depth blog today and share everything I've recently learned about my newest diet obsession: spaghetti squash!

 

I don't really know how I've gone so long without trying such a versatile food. I recently just tried it with a bit of Parmesan cheese and fake butter and I was like "Oh my GOD, this is like awesome fake pasta!" In the past year, I have lost over 40lbs by writing down everything I eat and I've definitely discovered that carbs are my weakness. I try not to sit down once a week now and indulge in a recipe that is generally a big plate of pasta. I try not to down the huge shaker of Parmesan cheese that I've grown accustomed to buying. So, when I discovered this, I was mentally doing cartwheels! I have tried a bunch of recipes since then, which I will share in later blogs. For now, I want to share what I have learned about cooking it since I've read so much conflicting information out there and also seen my friends post spaghetti squash fails!

 The first way is to cut it first and then roast it in the oven. It is HARD to get through so please try not to slice off any appendages and cut it lengthwise through. Then, scoop out the seeds with a spoon until it's clean. Then place them cut side DOWN in a casserole dish with a half inch of water or broth. Why would you use water though, when you can infuse your food with flavor? Get creative! Vegetable broth, beef broth, chicken broth; compliment the end recipe! Then roast them in a 375 degree oven for an hour.

 When they come out, flip them over to cool. Then, when they are cool enough to handle, scrape the insides with a fork and the magic that is spaghetti squash will amaze you!

 The second way to cook it is to roast it first and then cut it. To do so, poke holes in the squash or it WILL explode on you when you pierce it after it's roasted. Poke several holes all the way through and roast it in a 375 degree oven for 30 minutes on one side, then flip, and 30 minutes on the other. When it comes out, let it cool. When it is cool enough to handle, cut it lengthwise. Scape out the seeds, careful to not scrape too much of the vegetable with it, and discard. Then scrape it with a fork to make your strands.

 I have to say that the second method was certainly easier at first, but I was not a fan. First of all, there was much more waste. Just look at the top left corner of the above photo and see for yourself. So, lets compare the end result.

The photo on the left was the clear winner for me (the first method). The squash was crisper, more flavorful, and held up better. I think the second method could certainly lead to a recipe fail if you mixed it a lot! But this is just my experience, so take my advice or learn for yourself.

Either way, you should definitely try the spaghetti squash in all it's low carb awesomeness!

 

Note: I didn't try microwaving it, but you can. Poke it and microwave it for 10-12 minutes, turning every 3 or 4 minutes. I just don't cook foods in the microwave, especially vegetables. It just seems wrong to me, although it is certainly quicker and uses less energy. You can decide but I'm just not a microwave girl as you may have already discovered, hence the blog name.