P.B. Banana Dream

Apparently I'm on a banana dessert kick because that's what I have for you again today! Actually, at work we are doing a fruit and veggie challenge. We are challenging all of our clients to get at least five servings of fruits and/or veggies each day. Afterall, that's the minimum recommended amount of fruits and veggies you should eat a day. But do most people get that? No. Do you???

So I've been a little more aware of my fruit and vegetable intake each day. I do a pretty good job of getting at least 5 servings in each day but THE MORE THE BETTER! So lately when I've been craving something sweet, I'm reaching for a piece of fruit instead of thinking about making cookies.

This recipe is a variation of a recipe that is in one of the weight loss programs I administer in groups with my clients. It's always raved about by the clients so I thought I should give it a try. It is pretty tasty! I don't typically like vanilla yogurt but I found that I prefer Dannon brand over Yoplait. You could also try Greek yogurt for a little extra protein.

P.B. Banana Dream

2 small bananas, sliced in half lengthwise
2 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
6 oz container fat free light vanilla yogurt

On a microwave safe plate, spread banana slices thinly with peanut butter and sprinkle with cinnamon. Cover with a paper towel. Microwave for 15 to 45 seconds, until banana is cooked and peanut butter is melted.

Top with vanilla yogurt and serve immediately.

Makes 2 servings. Per serving:

240.8 calories
8.7 g fat
37.2 g carbohydrate
4.0 g fiber
7.6 g protein

Chocolate Banana Soft Serve

It was a hot summer when I was pregnant last year. I swear it was in the 90's every day - at least it felt like it to me. One way that I found effective to cool off was to eat ice cream (every night). Needless to say, this did not help with my pregnancy weight gain. Even though I have all the nutrition training I could possibly need, I still over-indulged a little while pregnant.

Thankfully, after I had Finley I dropped the daily ice cream habit. I saw a post on Muncher Cruncher a few weeks ago on making Banana Soft Serve. I admit, I was a little skeptical. Really??? Its going to be like soft serve ice cream just by sticking a frozen banana in the blender? Right....

Well I tried it. And it worked! I did find that trying to make a single serving with just one banana didn't blend up too well. So I added a second banana and shared with my husband. It was the perfect evening sweet treat. DELICIOUS :) I also added a tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder to almost make it like chocolate soft serve.

I decided to compare it to another Chocolate/Banana ice cream. Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey ice cream provides the following per serving:

300 calories
18 g fat
30 g carbohydrate
1 g fiber
5 g protein

This provides

110 kcal
0.7 g fat
28.2 g carbohydrate
3.1 g fiber
1.3 g protein

Not a bad trade....

So what do you do?

Stick two frozen peeled bananas in your blender. Begin blending. Add 1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder (if desired). Blend until smooth and creamy. Divide into two servings and ENJOY!

Impossibly Easy Vegetable Pie

I forgot to take a picture, this is from the original recipe

Every other Sunday night we have a small group Bible study at the home of one of the families in our church. It is supposed to be potluck style but I noticed more and more bags of chips, 2 liters of soda and packages of store bought cookies appearing and less and less main dish options or foods of any nutritional value. I don't know why, but I always get irritated when someone regularly brings one of these easy-way-out foods to a potluck. Is that just me?

Anyway, I try to make something a little more substantial and a little bit more healthy each time we go. This week I had a drawer full of produce begging to be used up and I had to come up with a recipe that used them all. I also had a bunch of eggs so I figured there had to be some kind of Bisquick recipe that would work for my needs.

I found this recipe on Bisquick's recipe site. It got pretty good reviews and looked like something I could easily cut into small portions for a crowd. As originally posted, this recipe provides:

170 calories
10 g fat
11 g carbohydrate
1 g fiber
10 g protein

I decided to used the Heart Smart version of Bisquick, skim milk, 2% cheese and substitute one of the eggs with 2 egg whites. I also added in a cup of chopped spinach and upped some of the veggie portions. It was delicious! There wasn't a big turn out at small group and we had plenty leftover for lunch the next day - Bonus for me!

Impossibly Easy Vegetable Pie - BETTER

2 cups chopped frozen broccoli
2 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup raw spinach, chopped
1 cup shredded 2% Cheddar
1/2 cup Heart Smart Bisquick
1 cup skim milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 whole egg
2 egg whites

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a 9 inch pie plate with nonstick spray. Eat frozen broccoli in the microwave until no longer frozen (it doesn't have to be pipping hot).

Layer broccoli, green onions, peppers, and spinach in pie plate. Sprinkle cheddar on top. In a separate bowl, mix together bisquick, milk, salt, pepper, egg and egg whites in a bowl with a wisk. Pour over veggies in pie plate.

Bake in preheated oven for 35-45 minutes. Allow to set for 5-10 minutes before slices.

Makes 6 servings

Per serving:
119 calories
3.1 g fat
13.4 g carbohydrate
1.5 g fiber
10.3 g protein

Lean Mean Green Spud

As a coach's wife, I am often left to defend for myself for dinner with late evening practices, weekend meets, etc. I don't like making big meals but I also don't want to just stick with pizza rolls either. Enter the loaded up baked potato....

Tonight I made this beauty....



That, my friends, is a baked potato loaded up with 1/4 cup 2% cheddar cheese, 1 cup fresh spinach, 3/4 cup steamed broccoli, 1 green onion chopped and 2 Tbsp reduced fat sour cream. I top it all off with a little black pepper and garlic powder.

Then I mash it all together and it looks like this....


But the beauty of it all is that this is like taking a multi-vitamin in a single meal. Here's the nutrition stats:

200 calories
4.3 g fat
30.1 g carbohydrate
5.0 g fiber
12.8 g protein

80% Vitamin A, 124% Vitamin C, 21% Calcium, 38% Folate

Not bad, huh?

What are your favorite baked potato toppings?

How does your garden grow?

Almost one year ago we moved into our "long term home". The home that we built to how we want and where we hope to live for our child-rearing years. One of the major benefits of our home is that we live on the same cul-de-sac as 3 families that we are friends with. We call it the college dorm life for adults. Another benefit is that (at least in my mind) it is out in the country. I have cornfields in my back yard (although its just a 1 mile jog to reach town). But, with the balance of country and suburbia we are able to have a nice size yard for a development.

When we moved it I was all gung-ho about growing a vegetable garden but the 100 other projects that had to be done plus being in my 2nd trimester kind of put my vegetable garden on the back burner. This year, however, we have time! I decided to do a raised bed as there are many benefits such as soil quality, less weeds, higher temp of soil, etc. We built a 4 x 16 foot raised bed in our back yard but started the little seeds indoors a few weeks ago. I have been using the Farmers' Almanac as my reference guide. Apparently in Michigan my last chance of frost is May 5th so I can't really plant outdoors until then but we have our own little greenhouse growing in master bathroom window.

Here are our seedlings a week ago...



Here they are when we came back from CA....




Our seedlings are tomatoes, green/red/purple/yellow/orange peppers, cucumbers, and lettuce. We will additionally be planting carrots, snap peas and green beans straight to the ground. If all goes well this year, I plan to add an additional raised bed next year with fruits and berries and maybe a couple pear or apple trees (??)

So whats the point in growing your own produce?

Aside from the fact that I like to do things homemade, the faster your produce goes from the ground to the table, the more nutrients you are eating. The longer the transit for your produce, the more nutrient losses you will incur. For example, here in Michigan I try to buy at Farmers' Market or local produce as much as possible from about May - October. In the winter months I know that any "fresh" produce found in the grocery store was actually shipped from Guatamala or who knows where and likely was picked under-riped, artificially ripened by chemicals and lost a ton of nutrients in transit. For this reason, I often choose frozen vegetables in the winter since they are typically picked at the peak of their ripeness and flash-frozen, thereby retaining most of their nutrients.

I also enjoy canning fresh produce. In the past I have canned local peaches, homegrown tomatoes and made homemade applesauce and apple butter. This year I hope to venture into canning my own green beans, salsa, spaghetti sauce, etc.



Do you grow anything in your garden?

I'm Baaaack

I'm back from a 5 day trip to California. My husband took one of his athletes to the Mt. SAC relays to compete in the heptathlon and Finley and I came along for the ride.

It was a nice week of nice weather but no cooking on my part :( So no new recipes... I am making up my grocery list now so I'll plan out a few new recipes for everyone to try.

On the way home, we were sitting in Cinnabon in LAX. My husband ordered a bun and said "This is the best 880 calories I've eaten all week." I said, "Make that 860 calories and give me a bite." Just as I was doing that, I looked up and noticed skinnyrunner sitting behind us! Check out her post of the same place / same time. You can see my husband's head in the one picture ;)

Chicken Tacos

The Pioneer Woman is one of those blogger empires... she cooks... she photographs...she homeschools and somehow manages to blog about all of them. I'm not quite sure how it all gets done! All of her recipes look delicious. She uses the real deal ingredients and makes no excuses for how to make a recipe taste awesome. Unfortunately, some her recipes look incredibly sinful!

Although I'm not aspiring to become an awesome photographer and I don't plan on homeschooling my kids, I figured I can still try to healthify her recipe, right? This recipe for Her Brother's Chicken Tacos looked like the perfect specimen. I didn't know how to figure out the nutrition facts since they are deep fried. How do you calculate the amount of oil absorbed by the taco? One thing is for sure... I'm pretty sure they are awesome tasting...but not awesome for you.

I made a couple changes. First I didn't deep fry them. Second, I used La Tortilla Factory High Fiber/Low Carb tortillas (the 50 calorie size). Lastly, I used reduced fat cheese, sour cream and spinach instead of lettuce. They turned out great. My husband asked for a repeat performance - which is an awesome sign.

Chicken Tacos - BETTER

2 Tbsp olive oil, divided
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup salsa
1 Tbsp taco seasoning
6 La Tortilla Factory High Fiber/Low Carb tortillas (50 calorie size)
1/2 cup 2% cheddar cheese
2 cups chopped spinach
1/4 cup reduced fat sour cream

Preheat oven to 425. Heat 1 Tbsp oil over medium heat in skillet. Add chicken pieces and cook until lightly browned. Add salsa and taco seasoning, stir well.

Brush remaining olive oil onto a cookie sheet. Put equal amounts of chicken filling in each tortilla. Fold tortilla in half (like a taco) and place one side down on oiled sheet. Brush the up-sides of tortillas with oil. Bake for 13 minutes until tortilla begins to brown. Add remaining ingredients and enjoy!

Makes 3 servings of two tacos each.

Per serving:
346 calories
17.8 g fat
26.1 g carbohydrate
15.1 g fiber
33.6 g protein