Lemon sugar cookies

So I recently decided to try out a new, somewhat healthy version of a sugar cookie because I'm testing recipes for a Halloween cookie (more on that to come!).  I found a healthier sugar cookie on Eating Well and decided to give it a try.  The dough ended up puffier than what I had liked for my specialty shaped Halloween cookie idea, but was perfect just for making regular round cookies.  Here's my slightly modified version of their cookies.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 

1 large egg

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest (I used two little packets of True Lemon instead)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

A few more tablespoons of granulated sugar

Directions

Whisk flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt in a small bowl.

Beat sugar and butter in a mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add egg, honey, lemon zest, and vanilla extract, and beat until blended. Gradually add the flour mixture, beating on low speed just until combined. Cover and refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes or overnight. (Bolding because this is an important step to remember!)

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats.

Roll the dough into 36 balls (about 2 level teaspoons each) with your hands. Place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets.  Smash the balls down slightly and then lightly sprinkle each one with the remaining granulated sugar.

Bake, one batch at a time, until puffed and beginning to crack, 6 to 8 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Nutrition

Per cookie: 59 calories; 1 g fat ( 1 g sat , 0 g mono ); 9 mg cholesterol; 11 g carbohydrates; 6 g added sugars; 1 g protein; 0 g fiber; 36 mg sodium; 15 mg potassium.

This was from my first batch. Note that I made my dough balls a bit too big on this one so I ended up with far fewer than 36 cookies!  I'll know what to do next time...

Somewhat Healthier Tator Tot Casserole

Given that it's not very fun to eat steamed chicken breast and broccoli each and every day, I'm all about variety in the food I make and in recipe makeovers for things that starting out aren't very healthy but can be lightened up with just a few tweaks.  I was browsing recipe sites as I tend to do, when I came across this recipe makeover for tator tot casserole. I had never heard of such a thing, but it sounded obnoxious and delicious all at the same time.  I kind of think of it as Americanized shepherd's pie.  

I made some further modifications to the recipe, including going back to actual tator tots versus the "smiles" things that they used. I discovered that, for some reason, the extra crispy tator tots are actually lower in calories than regular tator tots, so I used them in the recipe (extra crispy: 12 tots for 170 calories versus 160 calories for just 9 regular tots). I also added more veggies.  Overall, it's a pretty easy recipe.  And so tasty!

Ingredients: 

1 tablespoon canola oil
frozen tator tots (I used extra crunchy)
8 ounces mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 pound lean ground beef or turkey (90% or higher)
1 large carrot, peeled and shredded (about 1 cup) (I just bought pre-shredded carrot and chopped it up some more)
One onion, chopped
Handful of peas (I used frozen)
A few garlic cloves, minced (I used 4, but I like garlic a lot!)
½ teaspoon black pepper
Kosher salt
One 10¾-ounce can 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup
One 10¾-ounce can filled with 1% lowfat milk (basically once you dump the soup into the pan, fill the soup can with an equivalent amount of milk and dump it in)
2 cups shredded reduced-fat Cheddar cheese, divided (I used Cabot's 75% light sharp cheddar cheese - it comes in a block, so I grated it extra fine) [Alternatively, you can use the pre-shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese.  When I did this, I just ended up using about 1 and 1/2 cups of cheese instead of 2.]

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add the turkey or beef and cook until no longer pink.  Remove the meat from the pan and reserve it.  Turn the heat down to medium.

3. If there is a ton of oil there, drain most of it away.  If only a little oil, leave it.  Then add the mushrooms, onion, carrots, and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, about 5-10 minutes.  You especially want to make sure that the carrot isn't still crunchy.  At this point, dump the meat back into the pan.

4. Season with salt and additional pepper to taste.

4. Stir in the soup, milk, and, 1 cup of the cheese (the mixture will seem very thin at this point, but don’t worry). Heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture comes to a simmer. Remove from the heat.  Add the peas at this point.

5. Pour the meat mixture into a 13-inch baking pan or dish.  Of the remaining cheese, sprinkle all but about 1/4 cup of it across the top and then arrange the frozen tator tots over this into neat rows. Bake casserole in a 350 degree oven for approximately 30 minutes.

6. Then, raise the heat to 420 degrees.  Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the tots and cook another 10 minutes, or until all cheese is melted and the tots are crunchy to your liking. 

The last time I made this recipe, I had pre-cooked shredded chicken left over so I used that instead of ground meat.  I have to say that I like the ground turkey better than the shredded chicken.  Because I used less meat, I had less filling so made this in an 8x8 pan.  It was still good though!

Banana Bread

As part of my effort to eat in a more healthy way, I've been trying to get more fruit in my diet. So, some weeks I'll buy a bunch of bananas and have a banana as part of my breakfast each day.  For some reason though, bananas ripen in my kitchen at an alarming rate (the AC is set to 72/73 so I am not sure why).  Sometimes by the end of the week, they inevitably get brown and nasty and not fit for consumption in their current form.  Enter...banana bread!  Banana bread is at its most awesome when it has really ripe bananas in it.  In fact, if you try to use unriped bananas it's bad news all around (trust me, I tried making muffins once with decidedly unripe bananas.  Not a good idea).

So without further delay, here is my recipe for banana bread, slightly adapted from this recipe from Cooking Light.  I adapted it to be even healthier than the Cooking Light people and I think it still tastes great.  (And my friend Joe agrees since he always eats it immediately when I make a batch!)

Ingredients 

1 cup all-purpose flour 

1 cup whole wheat flour (the last time I made it, I used 1/2 cup all purpose and 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat and it tasted great.  So feel free to vary this.  I would hesitate to go all whole wheat in case it turns out too chewy though).

3/4 teaspoon baking soda 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1 cup sugar 

1 tablespoon canola oil

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce (if you buy the little cups, they are 4 oz each and therefore 1/2 cup)

2 large eggs or the equivalent in Egg Beaters

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas) 

1/3 cup plain non or low-fat Greek yogurt (like Fage)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Cooking spray

Place sugar, canola oil, and applesauce in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute). Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add banana, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended. Add the salt and baking soda and mix well.  Add flour a little bit at a time; beat at low speed just until moist. 

Spoon batter into an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Or evenly distribute into a pan that makes several miniature loaves (I have one, and it's great for meatloaf too!).

Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

My mini loaf pan.  This is after I removed some loaves. 

Delicious mini loaf.  Good at breakfast or for a snack!

Chicken pot pie

When I made the decision to start eating things that were better for me, one of the first books I bought was Eat This, Not That!  Some people (skinny people who can eat whatever they want and not gain an ounce) are always highly critical of overweight people and the food options they choose. "It's not so hard to eat healthy, dumbass," they say, condescendingly.  "Just don't eat Big Macs and fries every day."  OK, yes, Captain Obvious, we all know that certain foods are most definitely bad for us.  But it's really hard, especially when eating out, to know sometimes how bad something is for you.  (I'm hoping that will change once all chains will be forced to put calorie counts on the menus!)  And some menu items are most definitely eye opening.  I read Eat This, Not That and was sick to my stomach at how obnoxiously high in fat some menu items are, even some that look innocent and healthy, like a grilled salmon salad.  Sometimes you really have no idea how much crap (usually, butter and cheese) they put in this kind of food. No wonder we are all fat.

After reading that book, I went and bought Cook This, Not That!, which basically offers healthy recipes you can make at home to replace those high calorie versions at restaurants.  Compared to some of the other eating healthy books I own, these authors are more likely to tell you to use full fat cheese, butter, peanut butter, and milk and just use less of it.  That's one way to go I suppose.  The recipes I've tries so far have mostly been great, with the mac and cheese the only disappointing one.  Totally not enough cheese in that.

Recently, I made the chicken pot pie out of this book for the second time and I think it came out even better than the first time.  Here it is below, with my alternations.  (Click the link if you want to see the original recipe from the book.)

Ingredients
2 Tbsp butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped into smaller pieces
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 cups stemmed and quartered white or cremini mushrooms
2 cups chopped cooked chicken (leftover or pulled from a store-bought rotisserie chicken)
1/4 cup flour (I used whole wheat)
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth, warmed
1 cup 1% milk
1/2 cup fat free half-and-half  (I used Land O' Lakes)
1 cup frozen peas

1/2 cup frozen corn
Salt and black pepper to taste
1 reduced fat version crescent roll tube (like Pillsbury)
2 egg whites, lightly beaten (I used Egg Beaters instead, which is basically the same thing)

How to Make It:
*Heat the butter in a large saute pan or pot over medium heat. When it's melted, add the onion and carrots,  and cook until the onion is translucent and the carrots begin to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, for another 5 minutes. Stir in the flour, using a wooden spoon to ensure the vegetables are evenly coated with flour.  Let cook at least one minute to cook the flour.

*Slowly pour in the chicken broth, using a whisk to beat it in to help avoid clumping with the flour (having the broth warm or hot helps smooth out the sauce). Add the chicken. Once the broth is incorporated, add the milk and half-and-half and simmer for 10-20, until the sauce has thickened substantially and lightly clings to the vegetables and chicken. Depending on your milk and half and half, this may take even longer.  Just be patient.  It'll thicken!  Stir in the peas and corn. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

*Preheat the oven to 375F.  Take the crescent roll dough out of the tube and break it up into four pieces. Roll out each piece to make a 6" square.

*Divide the chicken mixture among 4 ovenproof bowls* (I used my ramekins). Place the pastry square over the top of each bowl and trim away the excess with a paring knife; pinch the dough around the edges of the bowl to secure it. Brush the tops with the Egg Beaters and bake until golden brown, about 15-25 minutes.

Makes 4 servings
The original recipe has 350 calories per serving.  I'm not sure what it is with my alterations!

Fresh from the oven!  It'll be hot!

Mmmmm tasty

*if you didn't invest in ramekins like I did, just put the whole thing into a 8x8 glass baking pan and roll out the pastry to make one big crust for it, dividing it into four portions once cooked.

Slightly better for you strawberry cupcakes

People who know me probably know that I'm not big into desserts. That is, after I eat my entree I hardly ever have any desire to eat any more food.  But that's not to say that I hate sweets - quite the contrary, actually. I just prefer to eat my sweets as separate snacks, when I'm actually hungry.  But of course many sweets have the evil trinity of too much sugar, fat, and carbs, all in one delicious little package.  There are methods to decrease elements of this evil trinity, of course - using applesauce or Greek yogurt in place of oil, switching out all purpose flour for whole wheat, and using less sugar.  And I've utilized all of these with great success.  As I continue my journey to trying to eat better, I'm hearing "experts" on all sides telling me what's good and what's bad, to stay away from "processed" foods at all costs and that artificial sweeteners are bad for you.  It's all quite confusing and contradictory.  And personally, I say that even the unbiased, relatively objective research is still mixed on artificial sweeteners, not even to mention the highly biased research that's also out there.  So, in the meantime, I will continue to enjoy them.  If you are steadfastly against all artificial sweeteners, that's your choice.  And you probably should skip this recipe.

Hungry Girl is all about the artificial sweeteners but she's also about increasing fiber in your diet naturally and bulking up meals with vegetable "fillers" like cauliflower so that you can fill your plate and still eat less calories. For these second two reasons, I'm willing to give some of her wackier recipes a try.

One thing she is known for is taking regular old boxed cake mix and adding diet soda to it to make cake.  Just diet soda - no egg, oil, or water.  The diet soda you use should gel well with the cake you are making - apparently diet cherry Coke is great with chocolate cake.  She has several variations of these concoctions and I decided to take two of her variations and combine them into a new recipe that I just kind of made up: strawberry cupcakes with strawberry frosting.

Ingredients for the cupcakes

Half of an 18.25-oz. box (about 1 3/4 cups) moist-style yellow cake mix*
1/2 tsp. baking powder

8 oz. of sugar free Sprite

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 teaspoon of strawberry extract

red food coloring (optional, and really just to make the batter pink)

Preheat oven to 375.  Prepare a cupcake pan with 12 cupcake liners. Mix all of these ingredients together in a bowl and then pour.  It should make 12 cupcakes, more or less.  Bake about 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.  Let cool.

Meanwhile, prepare the frosting.  You'll need:
1 cup Cool Whip Free, thawed
3 teaspoons sugar free strawberry preserves

1 and 1/2 tablespoons Jell-O Sugar Free Fat Free Vanilla Instant Pudding Mix
More strawberry extract (optional, to your taste)

Mix these together in a bowl and then chill in the fridge, at least an hour.

Once chilled and the cupcakes are cool, lightly spoon the frosting onto the cupcakes.  Note that this frosting isn't very room temperature stable so you'll need to store the cupcakes in the fridge until you eat them.  They are quite delicious!

Note: since making this recipe I found this mysterious powder at the store that's meant to stabilize whipped cream used in frosting so it holds its shape at room temperature.  I wonder if it will work for this frosting as well?  I'll have to try when I make these again!

*or you know, you can just buy strawberry flavored cake mix.  I just happened to already have half a box of the yellow cake mix in the pantry.

Hot and Sour Soup

So the soup theme continues...

My successful hot and sour soup!

When Joe gets a hankering for Chinese food, there's usually just about 3 things I like on the menu: crab rangoon, Singapore noodles, and hot and sour soup.  Lately, while he gets a big entree of lo mein noodles and General's chicken, I'll just order a large hot and sour soup and make that my dinner (usually saving leftovers for lunch the next day!).  A few years ago, I decided to make the soup at home and so went onto my friend Google to see how it's done.  I quickly ran into a huge problem: every single recipe claimed to be the real deal and every single one had drastically different ingredients.  I went through pages and pages of results. Frustrated, I finally picked a recipe that seemed to have the largest number of ingredients mentioned in other recipes.  I made the soup.  And it tasted (and looked) nothing like hot and sour soup. Damnit.  Frustrated, I gave up.

That is, until I saw this recipe in our local Indy week newspaper.  The recipe came straight from a local restaurant, Super Wok, so it had to be better, right?  So after tracking down the ingredients, I made it. And damn if it didn't taste like the real deal!  So triumphantly, I present to you that recipe but with my modifications.

Super Wok's hot and sour soup recipe

200 grams (about a half block) soft tofu (got it at the Asian mart, but available in just about every supermarket)

100 grams (about 1 cup) canned bamboo shoots, precut into matchsticks, drained (again, most supermarkets carry this)

20 dried wood ears (i.e., ear-shaped fungi) (supermarkets often have these in little plastic containers hanging above the fresh mushrooms in the produce section)

15 dried arbol chilies (already had these from making chili powder. You can find them in the Hispanic section of your supermarket)

3 tbs. canola or vegetable oil

7 cups unsalted chicken stock, preferably homemade (I didn't want to use up all my homemade broth on one recipe, so I used one carton of store bought chicken stock and one carton of chicken broth)

1/2 cup white rice vinegar (again, Asian section of grocery store)

1/3 cup soy sauce, preferably Kikkoman brand

1 tbs. dark soy sauce (I had to go to the Asian mart for this)

2 tbs. Shaoxing cooking wine (I had to go to the Asian mart for this)

1 tbs. sesame oil (supermarkets have this)

2 tsp. MSG, preferably a quality Japanese brand like Ajinomoto (I actually picked up a small bottle of this at the Mexican mart El Superior)

2 tsp. chicken bouillon powder (I had cubed chicken bouillon so I just used this)

1 tsp. Chinese white pepper powder (I used regular black pepper)

5 tbs. tapioca starch (found at the Asian mart, but Joe claims you can get this at the regular grocery)

5 tbs. room-temperature water

2 large eggs, well beaten

Kosher salt (to taste)  (my soup really did not need any extra salt at all so don't even think of adding this until the soup is completely done and you taste test)

Place the chilies in a bowl of boiling water. Soak for three hours, letting the water gradually cool. Drain and finely chop. Heat a pot of oil to 350 degrees and add 3 tablespoons to the chopped chilies. Set aside.

Hydrate the wood ears in a bowl of water for one hour, drain and roughly chop. Cut the tofu into inch-long rectangular blocks.

Bring the stock to a boil. Add the vinegar, soy sauces, wine, sesame oil, MSG, chicken bouillon powder, white pepper powder, wood ears, tofu and bamboo shoots. Add 1–2 tbs. of the chili and oil mixture (1 tablespoon gives a kick, 2 is super spicy). Return to a boil.

Fully dissolve the tapioca starch in the water and stir into the soup. The soup will quickly thicken and assume an attractive sheen.

Drizzle the egg into the soup in a thin, steady streamlet, forming concentric circles. Allow the egg to set for about 15 seconds and give a gentle clockwise swirl with a spoon or spatula to produce attractive ribbons. I thought that 2 eggs was a good amount for the soup but Joe thought it was too much.

Taste and add salt as necessary (in all likelihood, no salt will be necessary). 

As I said, it turned out great.  It tastes just like the real deal you get at restaurants. 

I'm wondering if the method for the chiles is really necessary.  There's plenty of other ways to add the spiciness to the soup.  Also, one local restaurant I frequent doesn't even use wood ear mushrooms - they use regular button mushrooms!  And the soup doesn't seem worse for wear because of it.  I make this point only because if you eliminate those soaking steps for the chiles and wood ear mushrooms, the soup could come together in 20 minutes... of course, I can't say at this point if it will really still taste the same.

Minestrone soup

Let me start this post by saying that I love soup.  Absolutely love it. I could eat soup each and every day of the year.  The only thing that weirds me out is a cold soup. Gazpacho. Vichyssoise.  Ugh.  Now don't get me wrong - if you took those same soups and served them to me hot I'd have no complaints.  But I guess I'm a bit unusual in that even when it's 100 degrees outside I still love a good hot bowl of soup.

So that brings me to this recipe.  It's July and it's in the 90s but to me hot soup is heaven.  With my surplus of squash I decided that minestrone would make it into the rotation.  I've made minestrone many times and what I like is that like some other dishes - chili, lasagna, etc. - it's more of a method than a recipe.  You throw in what you like and what you have until it's delicious.  So my recipe below should be seen as more of a suggestion than anything.  I tend to err on the side of plentiful veggies and go light on the pasta and beans but if you love the pasta and beans, by all means, change up the proportions.

Ingredients

2-3 pieces center cut bacon (I use center cut because it's real bacon but has 40% less fat than regular bacon)

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium carrot, small diced (I used a small package of baby carrots)

2 stalks celery, diced

1/2 of a large zucchini (or all of a small one), diced

1/2 of a large yellow squash (or all of a small one), diced

1 cup chopped cabbage (I was lazy and bought pre-chopped cabbage this time - see pic below)

3-4 tomatoes, chopped (or you can use a can of diced tomatoes)
Parmesan cheese rind (optional)

1/4 cup dry pasta of your choice (I used whole wheat elbow macaroni)

1/2 to 3/4 cup cooked chickpeas (or the bean of your choice)

3 cloves garlic, chopped

Around 1 cup of chopped fresh spinach leaves

2-3 sprigs thyme

2 bay leaves

1 sprig of oregano (if you only have dried, use around 1/2 teaspoon and add more to taste)

1/2 cup chopped basil leaves (if you only have dried, use around a teaspoon and add more to taste)

1 cup vegetable broth

2 cups chicken broth (keep more around in case you need to add more as the soup thickens)

1/2 cup dry red wine

1 small can tomato paste (I used 2 tablespoons of the double thick kind in the tube)

Salt and pepper

Red pepper flakes (optional)
Parmesan cheese

Cook the bacon pieces in a dutch oven or stock pot.  Once they are nice and crunchy, remove them and keep them on a paper towel lined plate.  Throw the onion, celery, squash, zucchini, cabbage, and carrots into the pan and cook them.

Yay for veggies!

Normally I buy a whole cabbage for recipes but this time I decided to be lazy and instead opted to buy the pre-shredded kind.  I figure I'll use it for other recipes too.

Does anyone have ideas for other recipes where I can use this up?  Besides coleslaw, obviously.

Saute the veggies on medium heat until they begin to soften, 5-6 minutes.  Add the garlic. Break up the bacon into little pieces and sprinkle it back in to the pot.

At this point, go ahead and add the tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, vegetable and chicken broth, bay leaves, thyme, and oregano.  If you happen to have the rind from a hunk of Parmesan cheese, add it now.  I didn't have one at home and couldn't find one at the store but I've heard it adds amazing depth of flavor.


Let the pot come to a simmer and turn it down to medium/low.  Let it continue to simmer on low, stirring occasionally.  Basically let it cook until the veggies have tenderized to your liking. This could take 30-60 minutes.  Continue to add chicken broth if the soup thickens too much.  Close to the end of cooking, add in your pasta and chick peas (or whatever beans you are using).  Cook until the pasta is softened.  At this point, add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste.  Remove the bay leaves, oregano, and thyme (if you used whole sprigs of oregano and thyme like I did).  Stir in your chopped basil and chopped spinach.  Cook about 1 minute, or until spinach wilts.  Serve immediately.  Sprinkle the Parmesan cheese over the soup and serve with warm bread.

I should note that you can also make this soup completely vegetarian by omitting the bacon and chicken broth.  You can also amp up the meat aspect by adding sausage, but I think that really puts meat too much in the forefront.  In my eyes, this is more of a veggie forward soup.

I also should mention that I happened to have fresh oregano and basil in my garden, and fresh bay leaves and thyme sprigs in my fridge. If you don't have a garden, or are making this in the dead of winter and don't feel like buying a bunch of the little fresh herb containers, by all means, use dried herbs in this recipe. But I will say to make sure your herb jars aren't more than a year old.  Italian herbs like these can really start to smell and taste like nothing at all once they get too old.