Portobello Mexican Pizzas

I think this has to be my favorite new thing because it is so easy, and seriously has to be only about 200 calories or so depending on your salsa and cheese. I love portobello mushrooms, but topped with salsa, green onions, mozzarella and sprinkled with garlic salt--yum!

Preheat oven to 400. Remove the stem AND the gills from the Portobello mushroom. I just peeled back the stem and removed the gills with a paring knife. Place mushrooms, upside down, on a baking tray and top each one with salsa, green onions and cheese. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Cranberry Lime Salsa

I loved this recipe! My cousin Joy made this for one of our recent family parties, and it was so tangy and delicious. She is an amazing cook and published a cookbook recently called Bliss. She was even featured on Good Things Utah a couple of times.

Anyway, this is a raw salsa, is very tangy, and is something totally different than the normal salsa. She served it over a brick of cream cheese, which of course is delicious, but it is great plain as well.

Isn't it beautiful? I love the colors.

Here is the recipe:

1 bag cranberries
1 handful cilantro
1 or 2 serrano or jalepeno peppers
1/2 red onion
1 clove garlic
1 T grated lime peel
1/2 t salt
1/2 cup agave nectar (she uses sugar, I use agave because it has a lower glycemic index and doesn't spike your blood sugar levels)
2 T lime juice

Wash and remove the seeds of the peppers. In a food processor finely chop the cranberries, cilantro, peppers and red onion.

Stir in agave and lime juice, then cover and refrigerate for four hours or more to allow the flavors to mix.

Whole Wheat Veggie Chicken Sausage Pizza

I saw this pizza on the cover of Clean Eating and had to try it. It is delicious! They had no crust recipe, and instead basically just said to buy the frozen crust from Trader Joes. Well, I have no Trader Joes within about 400 miles. So we found a recipe online and followed that.

It turned out sooo good. I loved the toppings. Pizza is my favorite food by a long shot, but it makes me feel sick and puffy after I eat it. I wake up all swollen and it just isn't worth it most of the time. This one doesn't do that.

I think the key is that it has a healthier crust, and isn't so salty. The crust makes it very filling. One or two slices will fill you up, where many other kinds, I can really eat about four slices. I ground up my own flour in my Blendtec, but you can just use whole wheat flour if you don't have a grinder or wheat.



Here is what is in the crust:

1 T honey or sugar (any simple sugar that will feed the yeast will do)
1.5 C warm water (110 degrees F)
1 T active dry yeast
1 T Olive oil
3.5 C Whole Wheat flour

Toppings we used:

Fresh mushrooms
1 small can sliced black olives
1 Amy's Apple Gouda Chicken Sausage (refrigerated deli foods from Costco)
Sliced red onion
Bell Peppers
1.3 cups Mozzarella Cheese/pizza
3/4 C Marinara Sauce

In a large bowl, dissolve honey or sugar in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top and let stand for about 10 minutes until foamy.

Stir the olive oil and salt into yeast mixture, then mix in the whole wheat flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining flour, and knead until all flour has been absorbed and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 10 minutes. Place dough in oiled bowl, then turn to coat surface. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.



When the dough is doubled, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 2 pieces for a thin crust, or leave whole to make one thick crust. Form into a tight ball. Let rise for about 45 minutes until doubled.

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Roll a ball of dough with a rolling pin until it will not stretch any further. place on a well oiled pizza pan or seasoned baking stone with a bit of cornmeal. Top pizza with your favorite toppings.


Bake for 16-20 minutes depending on thickness. When the crust is crisp and golden at the edges and cheese is melted on top, remove from the oven.

My pizzas were 12" in diameter, and sliced into 8 pieces were about 170 calories per slice.

No Sugar Lion House Wassail Recipe

I love wassail during the holidays! This one is very good, and has no sugar. The original Lion House recipe calls for 2 1/4 C sugar. I changed this to 1 cup agave nectar which made it plenty sweet and cut out about 775 calories to the batch. Another idea is to use Stevia. Stevia has no calories and is derived from the sweet Stevia leaf. It works well in drinks, but has an aftertaste. I prefer the taste of the agave nectar.

In a small pot combine:

1 cup water
1 slice fresh ginger root
2 cinnamon sticks
8 whole allspice berries
1 T cloves
1 slice fresh ginger root (I just used two drops ginger oil)

Or if you have mulling spices, use 3 T of those instead of cinnamon, allspice and cloves.

Boil spices in 1 cup water for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, cover and let stand in a warm place for 1 hour.

In a large pot combine:

1 cup agave nectar
3 cups water
2 cups lemon juice (I used the juice of four lemons which was only about a cup)
4 cups Orange juice
8 cups apple juice

Strain spice liquid into the larger pot.

**Tip: I just poured the water and spices into the blender and blended them up. Then added this through a cheesecloth into the large pot of juices. It was very tasty! not too spicy or grainy.

Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and serve.

Makes 36 half cup servings. Each serving has 64 calories.

Cranberry Orange Cheesecake Pears

I was making a list of all my favorite healthy treats and realized that I had no replacement for cheesecake. I really love a little slice of cheesecake.

The same day, I was checking out the magazine aisle and saw the newest copy of my favorite food magazine Clean Eating. And right there on the cover it had this recipe. It is mostly healthy ingredients--low fat cream cheese is really the only one that would qualify as bad for you on my list, but for a treat, I'll take it. The cinnamon and cranberry makes your house smell sooo good and is fun to do with the kids. Miles said "Thanks mommy, this is the best cake ever." I had to agree, it is delicious and would be a beautiful Thanksgiving pie replacement.

So here it is, in all its 208 calorie per serving glory:

Serves 10
Ingredients:

Pears:

10 bosc pears (really only five total pears, then you half them and have 10 halves. Bosc pears are brown and have longer necks than the others)
2 cinnamon sticks
2 cups 100% cranberry juice
2 cups orange juice
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise (I omitted this since I don't have any, but I am sure it makes it extra delicious)

Cheesecake Stuffing:

1 cup light cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp dried ground ginger
1/8 tsp almond extract
1/3 c dried unsweetened cranberries
1/3 c unsalted, sliced almonds toasted

Instructions:

1. slice pears in half and peel. Trim bottoms so that they lay flat. Using a small spoon or melon baller, scoop out and discard cores. Place pears in a very large, wide, heavy bottomed saucepan. (I just used my big covered skillet). Add cinnamon sticks and juices. Scrape out seeds from vanilla bean and stir in; add scraped bean husks too.

2. Bring to a boil then reduce heat. Cover and simmer, occasionally turning pears over (I didn't do this and they were fine) to carefully ensure even cooking until almost tender but still a little firm, about 20-25 minutes.

3. In a bowl, stir cream cheese with vanilla extract, ginger and almond extract until mixed. If the mixture is too thick, asdd a few spoonfuls of hot pear cooking liquid. Stir in cranberries and almonds.

4. Carefully spoon pears onto a large platter. Cover and refrigerate to cool completely. Boil remaining pear liquid in pan, stirring often, until it reduces to 1/2 cup. The sauce will foam and bubble toward the end of the cooking, so be sure to stir often. Remove from heat and discard cinnamon sticks and vanilla husks.

5. To serve, fill pears with cream cheese mixture. Place on plates and spoon sauce over top.

Calories: 208
Total Fat: 6 g
Carbs: 38 g
Fiber: 5 g
Protein: 4 g

Fruit Baby Carriage

We had a baby shower at my house and I'd mentioned that I wanted to do something fun and festive with fruit. Turns out my friend had a picture of a cute shower idea.

So this is how it turned out! It was fun--my kids thought it was so cool. Kinda like pumpkin carving but with a watermelon.

I have some good friends that are awesome at decorating cakes. But I can't have that much sugar around or I will eat nonstop. So--fruit carving is a great alternative! Fills that need for creativity.

I love those fruit flowers on skewers too. I'd love to do those for Easter, Mother's Day or the Fourth of July.

Greek Salad (Pasta Optional)

I love this salad! It is one of my favorites. Very light, fresh and lots of flavor. I use this Athenos dressing, but there are lots of other great homemade greek dressing recipes that are wonderful with lemon juice, olive oil, and herbs.

The ingredients are:







2 chicken breasts grilled with lemon pepper and sliced
4 cups spinach
2 English cucumbers (no peeling necessary)
3 tomatoes
a few slices of onions
roughly 1/2 cup Kalamata olives, 28 to be exact! (also from Costco)
roughly 1 cup artichoke hearts, or 12 (the marinated ones from Costco)
1/3 cup Athenos Greek Dressing with Feta cheese (Wal-mart)
Pasta optional--not included in servings, calorie and nutrition info.


If you need a good pasta salad, you can add pasta to it. I put the pasta in for my kids, but I like it better without. I do not recommend the brand that is pictured--Hodgson Mill--I think it tastes terrible. But there are other great whole wheat pastas out there. Wal Mart has one that is better than this stuff and it is really cheap. Its called Heartland.

First, we grilled the chicken on our little indoor grill then sliced it. We chopped the onions, tomatoes and cucumbers in a bowl, put everything else in a bowl and mixed it up. It was very quick and easy. I cooked the pasta separately and added it to the kids servings.

Without the pasta, this makes six large servings.

Each serving contains:
208 calories
12 g fat
11.5 g protein
4.2 g fiber

Walnut Chicken Salad

This is another version of a salad I loved from Real Foods Market in Orem. It was so delicious, I tried it out at home. My pictures are too dark this time. Sorry!

My version contains:



2 cups grapes cut in half
4 stalks celery sliced
2 large cups cooked diced chicken (about eight chicken tenders)
3/4 cup of yogurt ranch dressing
1/4 cup walnuts broken into small pieces
1/4 cup chopped green onions

Yogurt Ranch Dressing:
1 1/4 cups yogurt
1/3 cup milk
1 Hidden Valley Ranch dressing packet

You will have about a cup of dressing left over.

Makes 6 1 cup servings. Each serving has 166 calories, 19 g protein, 1.5 grams fiber and 4 grams fat.

I roughly doubled the grapes and chicken from what is pictured. I found that when I put it all together, I wanted more chicken and grapes. I also added walnuts. I love the ranch dressing made with yogurt.



This Straus yogurt is my favorite! It is so creamy, the texture is delicious. I was buying other brands like Dannon, etc and we pretty much never finished the cartons. They were nonfat, which I am sure contributed to me not liking the flavor. But this stuff tastes really great. My kids love it over mixed berries with agave nectar or honey. When I use it in recipes, I feel like I am getting something yummy, not a nonfat diet food.

Also, this is great for pita pockets or sandwiches. I like it plain too. These are the pitas I've been buying from Wal-Mart. They are sold in the Deli section in front of the sandwich meats. They are pretty good, cheap, and the ingredients are not too long:

Fiesta Salad

This recipe is very simple, filling and low calorie. There are lots of variations too. You could substitute tomatoes for the peppers. Avocadoes would be wonderful too. I actually bought this salad at Real Foods Market the other day and went home to try it on my own because it was so tasty! I love bell peppers, and so do Miles and Monet, but Elise and Jared would have preferred it with tomatoes instead. The picture above is of the recipe doubled.

Here are the ingredients:

1 can of Kidney Beans

1 cup rice

1 cup corn

small amount of green onions

cilantro

2 bell peppers diced

Taco seasoning. I use the kind pictures that Vita Mix sells at Costco when they do their demonstrations. You could use regular taco seasoning.

Juice from 1 lime

This makes 5-6 1 cup servings.

Each serving is 127 calories, 5.5 grams protein, 6 grams of fiber and 0 g fat.