Tag Archives: Chocolate chip

Real Life Diary Recipes

Day 79: Favorite Quick Bread Recipe

May 11, 2010 – 10:26 AM

Here’s my favorite baking recipe!…with some healthy modifications :)

Monica’s “Whatever you have In the House” Semi-Healthy Quick Bread

-4 eggs (substitute 4 egg whites & beat them separately before adding to the rest of the wet ingredients)

-16 Oz. Fruit or Vegetable puree (use a can of Pumpkin for Pumpkin bread, or 4 mashed bananas for outstanding banana bread – or whatever you want…see below for more suggestions)

1 ½ C. Vegetable Oil (use Canola)

2 C. Sugar (use Splenda in the bag – it works perfect and cuts your calories down by a landslide!)

2 t. Baking Soda

2t. Baking Powder

1 t. Salt

3 C. Flour

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and mix the eggs, puree, oil and sugar well.   Next, add the rest of the ingredients and mix each in well.   If you want an impressive dessert like muffin (or make it in a bunt tin with glaze) – then add chocolate or butterscotch chips.  Of course, this is NOT healthy…but will make this recipe unbelievably YUMMY!!!!  Here’s the exact measurements:

1 ½ C. Chocolate Chips (if you are making Pumpkin bread) OR 1 ½ C. Butterscotch Chips (for Banana Bread…I have used chocolate with Banana before and butterscotch is 100% better)

I have also served these muffins at events as a dessert because they are fast, easy, not messy, and delicious.  Frosting muffins with a cream cheese frosting offers a nice combo as well.  They present as an impressive dessert because it is surprising to bite into and see it is not just yellow or chocolate cake.  Plus an added bonus is that no one would guess that the “secret ingredient” was actually Butterscotch chips!!  These melt into the mixture and add more moisture – wowing your taste buds with flavor!  Even people who claimed to “hate butterscotch chips”, loved these treats!

Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes and lower this to 375 if you are making traditional bread loaves.

Now…here’s the best part about this recipe:

You can literally use just about any fruit or vegetable you want – and it still comes out wonderful!  I have used canned pumpkin, blended apricots and pineapple with bits of dried cranberries, shredded zucchini and raisins, shredded carrots and dates, peaches and raspberries, poppy seed paste, almonds and coconut milk pureed, and more!… I use a food processor for ingredients like apples or carrots and really knock them down so they are like chunky applesauce – or carrot puree), and then I add some extra cut up apples or shredded carrots. Etc. to give it a little more texture.  Nuts go excellent with this as well!

From what I can figure, estimate about 100 calories for one large muffin (without frosting of course!).  Enjoy :)

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Diet Diary Recipes

Baking Day

May 10, 2010 – 7:46 PM

I love to cook, bake and try my hand at creating delicious foods via “healthier” – recipe alterations. My success rate is about 8 out of 10…at least for cooking; but when it comes to baking, that is an entirely different story.

When I think of baking, I can almost taste the yummy smell of rising bread dough, chocolate chip cookies or my favorite, Rum Bunt cake with Bavarian glaze…this is a real diet doozy! Just one peek in the oven sends a shiver to your senses! Delish!

But as far as baking something on the healthier side (granted, the very word “baking” is usually something to avoid completely – for those trying to strictly follow a healthy diet)…nonetheless, one of my favorite baking recipes that I have altered successfully, is a quick bread recipe that can be modified to compliment virtually ANY flavor (zucchini, pumpkin, banana, coconut/pineapple, carrot, – you get the idea!). Today I made carrot-pineapple-apricot bread with cranberries and it turned out amazing!

With baking, as opposed to cooking, it is much harder to tweak ingredients because it’s the unhealthy stuff that accounts for the core ingredients (carbs, fat, sugar). There are a few nice things about quick breads though – and reasons why I haven’t scratched them off my list completely: 1) they’re fast (good to make with your kids), 2) they’re flexible (you can use ingredients you have left over, etc.), and 3) they make great muffins (so you have your portions pre-set). I recommend using the mini-muffin tins because they still give you that great muffin top – but in a two-bite serving size. I make a batch, keep a few at home, and throw the rest in a basket for the neighbors or the office J (it is a nice way for the kids to experience making something for others – and a great way to keep any extra helping temptations away from me!) – Tomorrow I’ll write the recipe…too late and going to get some sleep

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Diet Diary

Day 67: Stress = Bad Day

April 26, 2010 – 6:06 PM

I have reached the conclusion that the single hardest barrier to staying on a good diet and resolving to “stay healthy” (not just thin) – regardless of how “easy to follow” your diet and exercise plans are…is STRESS.  Someone told me a long time ago that good (and bad) things always happen in threes. Today was proof positive.

It all started when I opened up a letter from the hospital and nearly had a heart attack over the fact that my insurance company was refusing to pay for the birth of my daughter from November of last year!

Envision opening your mail over your morning tea, subconsciously planning out your semi-relaxing day when your mind is jerked full-throttle to the present after reading a legal threat over “nonpayment of your bill” (emphasis added). This 9:00AM  “wake-up call” demanded that I send the hospital over $7500 in two weeks. Thirty minutes later, one bag of crackers gone, and still on the phone with the so-called “help desk” (anything but), I finally resolved to wait for another claim submission (note to self:  don’t hold your breath).

By noon I had settled down and resolved to have a good day after all, by restricting myself to plain salad for the rest of the day….Remember that kid in grade school who was always chewing on the collar of his tee shirt? Well, by 2:30 my collar was looking pretty tasty! The mere thought of having yet another helping of PLAIN salad (I mean, let’s face it, we all know that the only reason we even EAT salad is so we have one more excuse to eat nuts, bacon bits, cheese and dressing) caused a complete physical revolt.  Well, sad but true, I lost control (again).  This time, I would add about 600 calories of leftover fried chicken (which, by the way, didn’t even taste good).  But the icing on the cake was the ice cream cone I added because I knew that my breast-feeding infant daughter would “want one” (good reason, right?).

The day had all but been ruined and I was just feeling awful, waiting for it to end.  So there I was, waiting, and waiting, and … waiting …

My husband was late coming home – so since the house was clean and a “healthy dinner” was already made…I agreed to let Mia watch her favorite “Veggie Tales” – which we can both recite word for word….so, despite yesterday’s efforts, I slipped back into “boring mode”. Yes. I got bored. I wasn’t really even aware that a stay-at-home mom could BE bored, but it happened anyway.  I didn’t want to read a story  -  I was too tired.  I didn’t want to get out anything that would take effort to put away – I was too tired.  I didn’t want to make a phone call – I was too tired.  How then, I ask myself now, was I “not too tired” to find the “energy” to snack on a couple handfuls of chocolate chips (that I was saving for baking cookies next week!)?  The answer?  I wasn’t really “Tired”, I was merely over-stressed and my healthy coping system had totally shut down for the day. When that happens, without fail it’s “off to the pantry/freezer/fridge/snack bar we go” My only saving grace is that tomorrow is a new day, and I DID make it through this one in one piece (even if the “pieces” are somewhat larger as a result).

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Diet Diary

Day 59: Are you Enduring or Enjoying?

March 30, 2010 – 8:10 PM

I was just remembering my life before children…To imagine I actually thought I was busy (most of the time).  Trying to balance the no-me-time with the not-spending-enough-time-

playing-with-the-kids problem is challenging, to say the least. I’ve found that most of the time, this balancing act quickly becomes an internal battle with guilt as the heavy artillery.  Funny, when I was single and childless, if I was late somewhere, there was no excuse.  In fact, there really were VERY few “excuses” that were acceptable reasons for me not following through with anything.  But once you become a parent you get automatically enrolled in the “fail-safe excuse” benefit program (simply stated:  the ‘kids’ excuse never expires and works every time – even with weight loss goals…but make no mistake…you do pay a price :) .

Winston Churchill once wrote:  “You make a living with what you get.  You make  a life with what you give.”  So, while giving the gas pedal a workout this morning I ran errands in between the non-stop whining of two little girls and Mia doing her near-perfect flubber imitation. We finally finished our errands and arrived back home for ‘nap time’.  Two hours, ten stories, fifteen chases, and countless times answering the same ‘why’ question – I took one hour of ‘me time’.  And for a minute (okay, a little longer) :) I caught myself wishing I was alone on an island with big, fluffy feather pillows, cool white sheets on the bed and only the sound of the fresh breeze outside my room. No kids, no husband, no phone, no obligations, no responsibility. . . nothing but me and a bed and a cool breeze crossing a blue sky. Then the thought struck me…Am I just enduring my kids, or really enjoying them?

I can barely remember when my three year old was a baby.  Now her and I have actual conversations. Of course most of these involve her asking me why she shouldn’t suck on her little sister’s pacifier – but that’s beside the point. Life is short. As I’m writing this, craving some Sorbet and a peanut butter-chocolate chip sandwich (something I discovered during one of my pregnancies) I am struck with another insight – I am definitely guilty of self-medicating with food. Think about it, how many times do you use food as a way to just get through a stressful day?  Well when you can find a way to put all that stress aside and decide the most important thing is not necessarily ‘enduring’, but ‘enjoying’…everything seems to change :)  ….now that’s food for thought!
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