A Healthy Snack Idea with Fage

I love Fage Total 0% Strained Greek Yogurt. It's thick, creamy, and packs a surprising amount of protein into few calories and 0% fat. Being plain yogurt, it can be mixed with many different flavors if you're just looking to eat a flavored yogurt, or it can be subbed for a variety of less health-conscious ingredients in many recipes. I've used it as a sub for part of the ricotta in lasagna, as the mayo in tuna salad, and as the sour cream in tacos. It can also be made into a variety of dips and added to a basic vinaigrette to make a creamy version.

Here's a recipe that requires just three main ingredients, can be whipped up quick anytime, and is good. It's crunchy, creamy, dip-y, and healthy enough that you can chow down without guilt. Try mixing up the seasonings to create your own favorite flavor.

All you need is:
-half a cucumber
-Fage Total 0% Strained Greek Yogurt
-lemon juice

1) Slice one half of a fresh cucumber.
2) In a small bowl or dish, combine 1/4 c greek yogurt, 2 T lemon juice, and a dash of salt and pepper. If you like a little more kick, add a dash of red pepper flakes or Tabasco. Stir to combine.

That's it! Now dip and crunch away.

Calories - 54.6
Fat - 0.2g
Carbs - 7.3 g
Fiber - 1.2g
Protein - 6.8g

Lime Green Tea Detox Drink

Recipes for "detox drinks" are all over Pinterest right now. The one that recently caught my eye was for Iced Green Tea with Lime, by FitSugar.com, because I had the ingredients on hand and ready to go. Usually when I see these recipes, that's not the case. Now truthfully, I don't like green tea. I know it's packed full of good stuff and is supposed to make our insides wonderful, but it just doesn't taste right to me. By itself, I think it almost tastes fishy. I love lime, though, so I was willing to give a green tea and lime mix a try.

 This was really yummy! The lime took the fishy taste out of the green tea, and drinking it iced was really refreshing. As far as being detoxifying, well, I made enough trips to the bathroom that The Big One asked, "Are you serious?" when I got up to pee again. So I guess that counts as detoxifying.

Here's how you make it.

The first step is to make a big ol' pot of green tea. I didn't measure, but filled a 1 1/2 quart saucepan about 3/4 of the way full and set it to boil. In the meantime, I took four green tea bags (I used Tazo's China Green Tips Green Tea) out of their packages and tied the strings together.

Once the water had come to a rolling boil, I removed the pot from the stove top and dropped the tea bags in. You can let them steep 5-10 minutes, or do like me and walk away, completely forgetting what you're doing, letting them steep for a good half hour before you remember. While the tea is steeping you can wash and quarter a lime or two, and squeeze their juice into a 2 quart pitcher.

Once my tea water was nice and green, I removed the tea bags and gave them a good squeeze to get the "tea juice" out. I'm not really sure what else to call it. Then I poured the brewed tea into the pitcher with the limes, carefully and over the sink. I topped off the container with lots of ice, and gave it a good shake. I didn't add any agave or sweetener like the Fit Sugar recipe calls for, but you may want to if you like it sweeter.

If you're like me and just can't do green tea straight, here's an alternative way to get those antioxidants.

My favorite chocolate chip cookies

I love cookies. Of all the sweet baked goods, they are easily my favorite. No offense to cake, brownies, and pastries. They're all nice, too. But there's just something about cookies.

Of course, the queen of all cookies is chocolate chip. Who can say no to a chocolate chip cookie? I can't even imagine offering one to someone and having them say no. Reason of allergy excluded, it's just not within the realm of possibility.

This is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I've been making the same one for years. I don't remember where I got it from originally. While I've pinned a million "best chocolate chip cookie" recipes on Pinterest, and looked at pictures of what the ideal cookie is "supposed" to look like (not like mine), I haven't tried another recipe or technique. I just like these. And I like them just the way they are.

These cookies are soft and not overly chewy. They don't crumble and they practically melt in your mouth, especially if you're getting one just off the cooling rack. If you manage to not eat them all immediately, they can be frozen and later thawed out to be almost just as good a fresh. They are easy to take to a party or give as a gift. And if all that's not enough, they also are simple to make and bake up quickly. The Little One has mixed them up before with just minor assistance, and I've made them with a class of 5 nutty six year old boys. So even if you are not baking inclined, don't be afraid to try these. I'm even including notes, in parentheses, in case you've never baked a cookie before in your life.

Ingredients:
1 c butter, softened (Leave the two sticks of butter out on the counter for about an hour, or until reaching room temperature. You should be able to dent the butter with your fingers, but it shouldn't be melted.)
1 c white sugar
1 c light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 t vanilla extract
1 t baking soda
2 t hot water
1/2 t salt
3 c flour
2 c chocolate chips

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars.
("Creaming" means mixing butter and sugar up very thoroughly until they are fully combined and light and fluffy. Use both sticks of butter and both the brown and white sugars. This is best done with an electric mixer, but can also be done by hand with lots of beating with a fork. Watch as the mixture changes, and once it gets to light yellow and fluffy stop mixing. Over mixing can make butter and sugar separate, but this takes awhile so I wouldn't stress over the possibility of over-mixing very much.)

3.  Beat in eggs, one at a time.
(Crack an egg, pop in in the bowl, then stir it up until combined. Repeat.)

4. In a tiny bowl or measuring cup, mix hot water with baking soda and salt. Add the mix to the large bowl, along with vanilla extract, and stir to combine.
(This is a tiny amount so I usually use a 1/4 cup measure to combine the water, baking soda, and salt. Just make sure to measure carefully and mix thoroughly.)

5. Mix in flour, one cup at a time, to make a dough. Stir in chocolate chips.
(This is pretty self explanitory. Dump a cup of flour into the bowl, mix it up, and then repeat x2. Same thing with the chocolate chips.

6. Drop rounded tablespoons of batter onto a greased cookie sheet.
(There is such a thing as a cookie dough scoop, which will help make nice, evenly sized cookies, but it's not needed if you don't have one. Just use a tablespoon or even a kitchen spoon to scoop out a ball of dough, and plop it on the pan. Leave the dough as balls. It will flatten and spread into a cookie shape as it bakes, so there's no need to smoosh the balls into circles. Also, because of the baking and spreading, make sure to leave space around each cookie so they don't end up baking together into conjoined twins. I usually space my cookies in rows of three and two, like the super-sophisticated drawing below.)

7. Bake in preheated oven for 10-11 minutes. Remove cookie sheet from oven and let cookies cool on pan for 5 minutes, then move to cooling rack to finish cooling.
(This step is key. Only bake them for 10-11 minutes. They will not look done, and you're going to be tempted to put them back in the oven. Don't. Trust me. The cookies will continue to bake from the heat of the pan for those 5 minutes they are sitting there, and when they are finished cooling you will have something that is soft-baked and delicious.)

8. Enjoy.

Makes approximately 4-5 dozen cookies.
(The exact yield is going to depend a lot on the size of your dough balls and how much dough you eat while baking. Obviously, smaller cookies = more cookies. Now, the dough does have raw egg so you probably shouldn't eat it and all, but, I've eaten a lot of raw dough and haven't died even once.)

Nutrition Information:
(For a yield of 4 dozen, from CalorieCount.About.com)

I'm labeling these as an "under 200 calorie" recipe because each cookie is under 200 calories, but clearly they are not a health food and have no redeeming qualities beyond taste. And happiness.

Philly Cheese Fakes on Homemade Hoagies

Oh man. Oh man.

I made these hoagie rolls last night, and they were the bomb. Yes, I just broke out the 90's because they were so good. Cliff Huxtable would have been happy.

Hello. I am tender and delicious.

I've been trying to bake all the bread and roll type things that go with our meals lately, with varying results. Everything's been edible, and most things have been decent, but these hoagie rolls were really good. I used to them to hold one of my favorite vegetarian sandwiches, Philly Cheese Fakes. I didn't think to take pictures of the roll making process, but I definitely want to share the recipe, which I slightly modified from a Food.com recipe.

The number of servings you get out of your filling is really going to depend on how you pack your hoagies. The original recipe lists it as 4 servings, whereas I think I could get 8 out of it. Also, you could make fewer, larger rolls, but I was happy with the size that dividing into 8 provided. I was plenty full with just one sandwich the way I made it, but Matt had two.

Philly Cheese Fakes

Recipe for filling from Taste of Home Magazine, as submitted by Veronica Vadakan

Recipe for hoagie rolls from Food.com

Ingredients for filling:

1/4 C lemon juice

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 T olive oil

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1 # sliced mushrooms

2 medium green peppers, sliced

1 small onion, thinly sliced

Ingredients for hoagie rolls:

1 package yeast

1 1/2 c warm water

2 T honey

1/8 c vegetable oil

1/2 T salt

2 c all purpose flour

1 1/2 - 2 1/2 c whole wheat flour

Instructions:

1. In a large bowl, combine 1/4 c warm water, yeast, and honey. Let stand 5 minutes.

2. Add remaining 1 1/4 c water. Beat in oil, salt, 1 c whole wheat flour, and 1 c all purpose flour. Slowly add additional 1 cup all purpose flour. Add remaining whole wheat flour (approximately 1/2-1 cup) slowly until a soft dough forms. (I used my kitchen-aid mixer with the dough hook.)

3. Lightly flour a clean surface using whole wheat flour, and knead the dough until smooth and elastic, approximately 6 minutes. Be careful not too add too much flour while kneading - the dough should be just slightly tacky when finished working.

4. Place the dough in a greased bowl, turning to coat (or spray with cooking spray). Cover and place in a draft-free area to rise, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. 

5. Punch dough down. Divide into 8 even pieces (use a kitchen scale if you want to be exact) and roll into sausage shaped loaves. Place 2 inches apart on a greased baking sheet. Slash each roll down the center (not the way I did in the pictures, the long way), approximately 1/8-1/4" down.

6. Place shaped rolls back into a draft-free area to rise for 20-30 minutes.

7. Bake at 400 degrees F for 13-15 minutes.

For the filling:

1. Combine first six ingredients in a small bowl to make a dressing.

2. Add mushrooms, peppers, and onion strips to a large bowl. Pour dressing over veggies and toss to coat. Spread coated veggies evenly over two greased baking sheets.

Veggies ready to cook.

3. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring veggies and rotating pans halfway through. 

And finally:

Slice open a freshly baked roll. Pile in cooked veggies and top with desired amount of provolone cheese. Wrap loosely in aluminum foil, leaving the top exposed, and bake at 450 degrees F until cheese is melted and browning.

Serves 8.

Yum.

Nutrition Facts for Filling

Calories - 41

Fat - 2g

Carbs - 4.7g

Fiber -1.4g

Protein - 2.3g

Nutrition Facts for Rolls

Calories - 276
Fat - 4.1g
Carbs - 52.4g
Fiber - 1.9g
Protein - 6.8g

I had mine cheese-free, so it was very close to being vegan (except for that honey in the rolls). That brought the calorie count to 317 calories. So close to being under 300!

Tortilla Pizzas

The Little One's dinner choice for this week was, as it almost always is, pizza. When she says pizza she really wants Pizza Hut or a boxed kind from the store, but those don't really fulfill my goals of healthier, cheaper, and homemade. Last week I had made some pretty stellar tortillas, as based on a recipe from The Cooking Actress, so I thought why not try to make them into personal pizzas? In addition, I wanted to make my own sauce.

Here's what I came up with. I thought they were pretty tasty, and I even managed to sneak some spinach into The Big One (The Little One, of course, did not eat hers). They were so tasty, in fact, that I started tearing into mine before remembering to get a picture, hence the ragged edge shown in the pictures here.

For these pizzas, you will be making the tortillas and the sauce, and topping with whatever you'd like.
Start with making the sauce, which is super easy and can be made ahead.

Pizza Sauce

Ingredients:
2 tomatoes, diced
8oz tomato paste
2T extra virgin olive oil
2 1/2 tsp dried basil
1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c baby spinach, finely chopped
2/3 c water

Instructions:
Mix everything together in a bowl or seal-able container. Add more water for a thinner sauce or less for a chunkier sauce, depending on your preference. Let the sauce sit in the refrigerator for an hour to allow the flavors to blend and mellow, then use to top your pizzas. Store leftover sauce in an air-tight container in the fridge.

Makes approx 3 cups of sauce.

Nutrition information per tablespoon
Calories - 10
Fat - 0.6g
Carbs - 1.2g
Protein - 0.3g

Tortillas and Pizzas
Adapted from The Cooking Actress

Ingredients:
2 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
5 tsp butter
1 c water

Instructions:
1. Pulse flours, baking powder, salt, and butter in a food processor fitted with the dough blade, until crumbly. (The dough blade is important. I forgot this time and used the regular blade, and they weren't as puffy and tender this time. The blade is the only part that was different, so stick with the dough blade.)

2. With the food processor on, slowly add the water until the dough forms into a ball. If the dough becomes too tacky, add more flour. (Though I've never had to do that.)

3. Remove the dough and divide it into 12 evenly sized pieces. Roll the pieces into balls and cover them with a clean kitchen towel. Let rest for 10 minutes.

4. Heat a large frying pan or griddle over medium heat. Remove one dough ball from the towel and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. Roll it, then left completely and give a quarter turn, and repeat until you have a flat circle approximately 8" across.

Dough ball ready for rolling.

5. Spray the heated pan with cooking spray and plop the dough disk onto the pan. Quickly top with sauce and whatever toppings you desire (cheese, veggies, etc.). Cook until the edges are lightly puffed and soft but dry, and cheese is melted - approximately 2-3 minutes. Remove to a plate and serve immediately.

Pizza station assembled and ready for quick working.

Makes 12 tortillas.

Nutrition information per tortilla
Calories - 129
Fat - 1.9g
Carbs - 24.2g
Fiber - 0.9g
Protein - 3.2g

Finished pizza, minus a side because I am impatient.

One tortilla with 3T sauce and 1/3 cup low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese is 266 calories.

Mini Honey-Mustard Meatlessloaves with Roasted Sweet Potatoes and Green Beans

Every week we let each person in the family pick out a dinner they want to have that week. We round out the list with one more, and usually with leftovers and all five dinners worth turns out to be enough for the week. This is not always an easy thing. The kids rarely want anything to do with what we want to eat. I try to eat mostly vegetarian and am also trying to eat generally healthy, so some picks make it tough on me. I also try to use up things we already have, so as to save at the store. This week I put a lot of thought into how to tweak things to fit what we had on hand.
 

Here was Matt's pick for this week. I edited it to be vegetarian. The TVP held up well as a beef substitute here. While it's not the most shining example of a healthy meal (yes, I know about TVP being processed and all), it is relatively high in fiber and protein without an exorbitant number of calories. The cheese and honey mustard could easily be left out if you wanted to improve on those aspects, as well. Or throw in a nice salad instead of the sauteed green beans.

 

Mini Honey-Mustard Meatlessloaves with Roasted Sweet Potatoes with Green Beans

Adapted from www.marthastewart.com

Ingredients
2 T olive oil
2 T honey mustard
2 T organic ketchup
1 1/2 C dry TVP reconstituted in 1 1/4  C vegetable broth
1/4 C egg substitute
1/2 C bread crumbs
1/2 C low-fat cheddar cheese
salt and pepper
1/4 tsp dried sage
1/4 tsp onion powder
1# sweet potatoes, scrubbed and cubed
2 C green beans, washed and ends removed
garlic powder, to taste

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees, with racks in upper and lower thirds. Spray a rimmed baking sheet with oil. In a small bowl, mix together 2 T mustard and the ketchup.

2. In a medium bowl, combine reconstituted TVP, egg substitute, breadcrumbs, 1/2 C cheese, sage, onion powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Form into four roughly 2x4-inch loaves. Place on baking sheet. Brush with mustard mixture. Top with remaining 1/2 C cheese. On another rimmed baking sheet, toss potatoes with 1 T oil. Season with salt and pepper if desired.

The naked loaves are not too pretty.

3. Transfer meatloaves to upper rack of over, and place potatoes on lower rack. Bake for 10 minutes, then rotate sheets and turn potatoes. Bake until loaves are cooked through, an addional 5-10 minutes. Remove loaves from oven. Continue to cook potatoes until tender, about 5 minutes.

Going into the oven.

4. Meanwhile, heat remaining 1 T olive oil in saute pan over medium heat. Add green beans. Sprinkle with garlic powder and pepper. Saute until crisp-tender.

My favorite way to cook green beans.

Serves 4.

Nutrition Facts (from caloriecount.about.com)
Calories - 523
Total fat - 19.2g
Total carbs - 68.2g
Fiber - 13.2g
Protein - 28.7g

Nutrition facts are for 1 loaf, 1/4 of potatoes, and 1/4 of green beans.

Teaching Earth Science with Food - Rock Cycle Shortbread

This month we've been working on Earth Science, and last week we talked about the three main types of rocks and the rock cycle. What better way to bring our week's discussion to a close than with food? I saw a couple examples online of edible rock cycles, but they generally involved making three separate kinds of things for the three different kinds of rocks. The Big One was understanding the types of rocks, but was a little sketchy on the cycle of one type of rock becoming another, so I wanted to come up with something to put it all together into one cycle. What I ended up with was a science baking demonstration I'm calling Rock Cycle Shortbread.

Ingredients 
1/3 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour

Step One - Igneous rocks

To demonstrate the creation of igneous rocks, we used chocolate. I started by melting the chocolate chips in a double boiler. The melted chocolate served as our lava, which we then poured onto a piece of greased aluminum foil, and then let cool into a "rock".

Step Two - Sedimentary rocks
 
Before starting this step, I set our "deep Earth" (oven) to preheat to 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

To demonstrate the creation of a sedimentary rock, we added various kinds of "sediment" to a large bowl. First, we subjected our igneous rock and our stick of butter to erosion via a grater, making some nice chocolate and butter sediments. We then measured out our granulated sugar sediment, brown sugar sediment, and flour sediment. I let the kids get nice and messy, using their hands to simulate the movement and compaction of sediment by rivers and streams. After rolling the mix all around, we came up with some flaky sedimentary rocks. 

Step Three - Metamorphic rocks

Finally, to get a metamorphic rock, we needed some heat and pressure. I explained that while the real rocks would be heated and pressurized at the same time (we'll save the classes of metaphoric rocks and different formation mechanisms for a later lesson), we would have to do it in parts for our demonstration. We started with pressure, simulating the pressure of being deep in the Earth by pressing our sedimentary rocks hard into an ungreased 8"x8" baking pan. We then put the pan in our preheated "deep Earth" and allowed the pressurized rock to bake for 30-35 minutes.

I scored the rock into squares while it was still hot, then once it was cool we broke it apart to see if we could see any layers or textures in it. 

In the end, while they were no culinary masterpiece, these shortbreads were pretty darn tasty. Cutting the 8"x8" pan of shortbread into 16 pieces makes each final metamorphic rock equal 108 calories, which is not overly terrible, either. Best of all, of course, is that The Big One was able to explain the demonstration accurately to a number of family members, so I think he really got it this time.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes

I like making things from scratch. I may not have the most amazing top-quality ingredients in my house, or be a classically trained chef, but making things from their simplest parts (or those available at the grocery anyway - I'm not even close to self-sufficient) just tastes better than pre-mixed boxed things.

Here, for example, we have pancakes. The boxed powder stuff has its purpose, sure. It's quick and easy and hey, it's not bad tasting. But it's not real pancakes. This weekend I made the kids these Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes, which is just a basic pancake recipe very slightly doctored up, and they were delighted. They told me it was "much better than the old recipe", which was not so much a recipe as it was a panel on the side of a box. It's true, they are better. And guess what? They don't take that much longer, either. You might get a few extra measuring spoons dirty, but it's totally worth it.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes

Ingredients
1c buttermilk (or 3/4c milk + 2 T vinegar or lemon juice)
1c flour
2T sugar
1t baking powder
1/2t baking soda
1/2t salt
1 egg
2T melted butter (or vegetable oil)
1t vanilla extract
chocolate chips
cooking spray

Steps
1. Measure buttermilk and set aside. Or, if using regular milk, mix with vinegar or lemon juice and set aside to sour.
2. In a large bowl or measuring device with spout, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl or measuring device with spout, whisk together buttermilk or soured milk, egg, melted butter or oil, and vanilla extract.
4. Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients and whisk until all lumps are gone.
5. Heat a griddle or frying pan on medium heat. Spray with cooking spray. Pour pancake batter onto pre-heated griddle to desired pancake size. Sprinkle desired amount of chocolate chips onto upright side of pancake. Cook until edges begin to dry slightly and small bubbles form in middle of top. Flip with spatula. Cook pancake until underside is brown.
6. Remove from pan. Serve!

Yield - about 8 medium-sized pancakes
(Adapted from "Fluffy Pancakes" by Kris on allrecipes.com)


I made 8 pancakes with this recipe, using 2% milk soured with lemon juice, vegetable oil, and a total of 16 grams of mini chocolate chips. Putting this into the LoseIt! app on my phone gave me a count of 136 calories per pancake.

Right after I made them, I thought I should have experimented with subbing brown sugar for some of the white sugar. I bet that would have given an even more 'cookie' taste. I will play with that next time, and update with how that went.

Now, the steps in pictures. I know my pictures are not great, but I can't get better if I don't practice, right?

The making of Chocolate Chip Cookie Pancakes

If you are prepared enough to have buttermilk on hand- good for you. I was not, and didn't have vinegar, either, so I used milk soured with lemon juice.

Dry ingredients assembled and my helper whisking them up. That's the souring milk sitting to the side, there.

Liquid ingredients assembled, my helper whisking them up, and the final batter. I had pulled out butter to use, but ultimately measured out vegetable oil instead, simply because I was too lazy to melt the butter.

Preheat the pan and spray it with cooking spray. We like to call the first batch the 'tester batch', as they usually end up ugly while we wait for the pan to heat.
Have your chocolate chips at the ready while you're preparing your pan. I used mini semi-sweet chocolate chips because I had them handy, but regular sized or whatever you like will do.
See how nicely light browned the first side is after flipping? I find that looking at the bubbles can be a little deceiving - these seem to bubble a lot! - but waiting for that slight drying around the edge is more helpful.

Pancakes!
I like to eat them plain, as the chocolate is plenty of sweet, but you could add syrup, fruit, whipped cream, powdered sugar, or whatever you typically enjoy on pancakes.

The Big One is asking me if he can have them again this morning.

Update:
I tried them wit half brown sugar and half white and didn't really notice a difference. So, use whatever you'd like.