So, I managed to try a new recipe, Lemon Ricotta Pancakes!  

There are a lot of recipes online for this, and all are basically a variant of below (like this one).

Ingredients:

• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour   
• 1 tsp baking soda   (I made an oops and used baking powder, so I guess either will work)
• 1/2 tsp  salt   
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk   
•   2 large eggs, yolks and whites separated   
• 2 Tbsp sugar   
• 1 Tbsp lemon zest, or increase to taste  
• 1 Tbsp of lemon juice 
• 1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese   

In a small bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. In a larger bowl use an electric mixer to whip the egg whites into soft peaks.  I got to use my fancy copper bowl that my in-laws gave me for Christmas to do my egg whites!

In another large bowl, mix together the buttermilk, sugar, egg yolks, lemon zest, lemon juice and ricotta cheese.  Stir in the flour mixture until moistened.

Then fold in the egg whites.

You don’t want to stir this too much. Just incorporate the egg whites by folding the batter over and over.

Now heat up a griddle or frying pan on medium heat (you could do this while stirring the batter).  You definitely want medium heat to cook these as if you do it higher, the outside will overcook while the middle will be raw.  It’s a dense batter.

Use a 1/4 cup measuring cup and deposit 1/4 cup of batter into the pan after you have sprayed with cooking spray.

These will bubble some, but not like regular pancakes do. Just lift the bottom and check for doneness. It took 2-3 minutes on each side for my cakes.  You should get pretty much exactly 12 pancakes out of this batch.

And serve topped however you would like:

I topped mine with my favorite blueberry topping, which goes really well with lemon anything.

The verdict?  Very, very tasty!  They were definitely heavier than regular pancakes and have more of a velvety texture to them. Two pancakes are surprisingly filling.  These also make good leftovers. I just stored them in the fridge and popped them into the toaster oven to reheat.

Nutrition: Each serving of 2 pancakes (without any topping) has 214 calories, 36 grams of carbs, 4 grams of fat, 9 grams of protein and 1 gram of fiber.

Tips:

– If you don’t have buttermilk, just add about 1 tsp of lemon juice to 8 ounces of milk. 

– This recipe makes a fair number of dishes and time to cook all the batter. It’s great to do on a day off because the leftovers are easy to reheat.

– Don’t overwhip the egg whites and make stiff peaks or the batter will be too thick. You can thin it out with some more lemon juice or water.

I have been wanting to make this recipe for a while, but couldn’t settle on one in particular. I love tamales and a lot of the recipes had cornbread on top, which isn’t quite a tamale to me.  I made a mishmash of a several recipes and then made it vegetarian so that John could partake in it as well. You could sub ground turkey or beef.

For the filling:

• 1 tablespoon of oil
• 1/2 cup of chopped bell peppers
• 1/4 cup of chopped onions
• 12 ounces (1 package) of Grillers Crumbles or ground turkey/beef
• 1 can (15 oz) of petite diced tomatoes, drained
• 1 can (2 oz) of diced green chilis
• 1/2 cup of corn kernels (fresh or frozen)
• 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• salt and pepper to taste

For the tamale topping:

• 3/4 cup of cornmeal
• 2 cups of water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp of chili powder
• 1 tablespoon of butter
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese (hold for later)

Preheat oven to 375 F.  In a large saute pan, saute the onion and pepper in the tablespoon of oil until soft. Then add the veggie crumbles (or meat).

If you are using meat, you would want to brown it at this stage. I just needed to heat up the crumbles since they are precooked.  Then add the diced tomatoes, diced chilis, corn, oregano, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne pepper.

Stir to combine and simmer over medium-high heat while you prepare the cornmeal.  No pictures of this step (John was making this while I did the filling), but just bring the water to a boil in the saucepan, whisk in the cornmeal, the salt and the cayenne pepper. Remove from heat and stir in the 1 tablespoon of butter. Set aside.

Now you have a bubbly filling:

Taste this for salt and pepper seasoning and adjust.  This is actually pretty good itself just to put in a bowl and sprinkle some cheese on it 😀  Pour this into a 9×9 pan sprayed with cooking spray.

Pour the cornmeal on top:

Now it is ready for the oven:

Bake at 375 F for about 30 minutes.  It will be bubbling hot. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the shredded cheese on top and let it sit for about 10 minutes before eating to thicken up – and cool. It’s very hot!

This will let it thicken up just a bit.  Then serve!

The verdict? This was pretty tasty!  What I really liked about it was that the cornmeal was still soft like a tamale is and not like cornbread.  Although I think that would be an interesting variation to try.

The nutritional stats are good on this as well.  Of course, this is using the veggie crumbles, which are a little bit less than turkey.

If divided into 6 servings (shown above): 246 calories, 25 grams of carbs, 11 grams of fat, 15 grams of protein, 5 grams of fiber

I was actually pretty hungry, so I had another half serving with this and now I am full 😀  I bet the leftovers will be really good, too!

Here is the potato-crusted quiche recipe that John made. He made it for the family dinner and he also made it this week for the two of us.  The nice thing? While he was making it he took some pictures so that I could put them on the blog with the recipe.  What a good husband 😀

I really like quiche, but I am not a huge fan of the pie crust. The crust is usually the part that is problematic in quiches – or fruit pies, for that matter.  The solution? Use potatoes!  This also makes it gluten free. Anyway, this is the recipe that John based his version on from Food Network.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium-sized russet potatoes, peeled
• 3 tablespoons  oil
• salt and pepper
• 4 whole eggs
• 1.5 cups of milk
• 1/2 cup of half and half
• Pinch of  nutmeg
• 6 ounces of smoked gruyere cheese (or cheese of choice, but smoked is awesome!)

Preheat the oven to 450 F.
Using a mandolin (or you could use a knife), slice the potato into thin rounds. I also realized that you could use the spiralizer on the chipper blade to make these as well.

Add the oil to the bowl and coat the potato slices.  Arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until the potatoes are soft. You don’t want them crispy.

While the potatoes are cooking, whisk together the eggs, milk, half and half, nutmeg, salt and pepper.

Then stir in 3/4 of the  shredded cheese (reserving about 1/2 a cup):

Set aside while you make the crust.  Once the potatoes are soft, use the potatoes to line a 9 inch pie plate with overlapping slices to look like a pie crust (sorry, no pic of this part).  *Reduce oven to 350 F at this point*

Then pour in the egg mixture into the pie plate and top the mixture with the remaining cheese. Place the pie plate onto a baking pan and bake in the oven (set at 350) for 40 to 50 minutes until the center is set (test with a knife – if it comes out clean, you are done.)

Let this cool for 15 or 20 minutes before serving if you can.

This is really, really good. I actually don’t know if I would do the potatoes over the edge of the pie plate again as they get a little hard during baking, but I love, love the potatoes as crust.

Here was the other one he made and the potatoes were crispier.

If cut into 6 slices, this is about 300 calories. Cut into 8 slices and it is about 250 per slice. Of course, this will depend on the type of cheese you use and the milk.  The picture at the top of the page is about 1/8th. Leftovers are great with this as well. This is definitely going to be in our regular meal rotation – and it is officially John’s job now 😀

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Cuteness!

I really wanted Shepherd’s pie today, and since John isn’t eating meat, we thought we would try the Morningstar crumbles in place of the ground beef.  John found this recipe on All Recipes for Zippy Shepherd’s pie. We converted it to a veggie recipe and made the changes below:

1 pound potatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon canola oil
3/4 pound Morningstar Crumbles
1/2 large onion, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 (14 ounce) can veggie broth
2 tablespoons ketchup
2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon mild curry powder
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1 can of petite diced tomatoes (15 oz)
7 ounces of diced carrots
1/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup shredded extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cut the potatoes. Place into a pot with water and boil for about 10 minutes until fork tender.

Now we used raw carrots instead of the frozen peas and carrots the recipe called for, so we cooked the carrots in the microwave for about 10 minutes with some water to cook them since the stove time is really short on this.

In a large pan, add the oil, the veggie crumbles, the onions and peppers and the garlic. Cook for several minutes until heated through. Then add the broth, curry powder, ketchup, worchestershire sauce and bring to a boil. Mix 1 tablespoon of corn starch with about 1 tablespoon of cold water and add to the pan. Stir well until the mixture starts to thicken.  Then add in the tomatoes and cooked carrots and simmer.  We cooked this for probably 10 minutes or so while we got the potatoes mashed.  This thickened up the sauce nicely. If you don’t do this, you might want to do another round of  cornstarch/water.

After draining the potatoes, mash together with the butter, milk, salt and pepper.

Turn on the oven broiler. Take a large casserole dish and pour in the ‘meat’ filling.  Spread the mashed potatoes on top.  There really aren’t a lot of potatoes in this version, so the top layer is a little thin.  Then top with the cheddar cheese and broil for a couple minutes until the cheese is melted.  We almost burned ours LOL!  I had to take off the really dark part of the cheese.

Verdict? This was quite tasty!  I would definitely make it again. It’s pretty filling, too.

Nutritional information:  This is calculated with our changes above. Obviously if you use real meat, it will be different.

This makes 6 servings. Each serving has 293 calories, 32 grams of carbs, 11 grams of fat, 18 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber.

Cold weather and chili just go together, don’t they?  We were waiting for all the snow to materialize, but it come until Tuesday. However, it is still really cold. I like to make chili, but wanted something vegetarian for John and I stumbled across this recipe using Morningstar veggie crumbles on the website Full Plate Living.  It’s called Last Minute Chili because you can make in about 10 minutes!

I scaled the recipe in half and added some tomato paste to help add a more long-cooked flavor to it.  The ingredients are simple and we had them all, so that worked out really well.

• One 15 oz can of beans, drained and rinsed (whatever bean you like)
• One  15 oz can of petite diced  tomatoes
• 1 cup (110 grams) Morningstar Farms Grillers crumbles (or use ground beef/turkey)
• One 4.5 oz can diced green chiles
• Two tablespoons of tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon chili powder 

Drain and rinse  the beans.  Add everything into a sauce pan. This means using the juice with the canned tomatoes as that is the only liquid you add:

Mix well and heat over medium high heat for about 5 minutes until thoroughly heated. Adjust seasoning to taste. We found it just right and since we didn’t use low-sodium beans or tomatoes, we didn’t add any salt.

Then serve:

This was quite good. I think the tomato paste was key to giving it deeper flavor. That stuff is amazing.

We divided this into 3 large servings, but you could get 4 out of it. It’s pretty filling.

Calories when divided into 3 large servings:  397, 80 grams of carbs, 6 grams of fat, 30 grams of protein. Stats will vary a bit depending on the bean you use and whether you use real meat or veggie substitute.

We tried this and liked it so much we made it twice! The first time we did it with cheese tortellini and the 2nd time with plain pasta.

This recipe is from Damned Delicious. I didn’t want to use 1-1/2 cups of heavy cream, though – so I substituted 1 cup of evaporated milk for 1 cup of the cream and I think it was fine.  I think you could probably use all evaporated milk and do away with the cream all together if you wanted, but it sure tastes good!  I also left out the garlic. John and I are not big garlic fans, so go ahead and add some to the oil before the tomatoes and spinach if you want.

You might even have all of these ingredients on hand!

• 12 ounces tortellini or 8 ounces of dried non-filled pasta.
• 1 cup evaporated milk.
• 1/2 cup  cream
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 (15-ounce) can diced tomatoes, drained
• Several handfuls of fresh baby spinach
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan

Cook the pasta according to directions on package.  In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, cream and flour.  In a large saute pan, add the oil over medium high heat. Then add in the tomatoes, spinach and spices and cook for several minutes until the spinach has wilted down.

Add in the milk/flour mixture and stir constantly while it comes to a boil.  

 Cook for several minutes until the sauce thickens. Then stir in the pasta.  I wasn’t sure it would all fit in this pan LOL!

Then serve!  It takes about 20 minutes from start to finish. Fast and easy.  I do like the tortellini version better, but you can eat more of the regular pasta since it has less calories.

I feel like we hae finally turned a corner as far as the craziness goes… I hope!  Getting back into routines and not shuttling back and forth between houses is nice.  

Work is just about complete on the dining room – we even got a picture up!:

We will be getting our living room couch and chaise this week, finally!  We have had a trundle bed set up as a couch in the living room for now. Shades of dorm rooms LOL!  It’s beginning to feel more like our house now, little by little. 

Anyway, back to donuts – or getting to the donuts… I had bought a box of Bisquick for a recipe that I can’t recall now, but we needed to use of the rest before we moved and I found recipes for Bisquick donuts to use it up. We liked them so much and they were so easy that we bought another box after we moved LOL!

Here is one of the recipes from the Betty Crocker website

This is a half recipe and it makes 6 or 7 small donuts.

Baked Chocolate Donuts

Makes 6 mini donuts.

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (120 grams) of Bisquick Heart Smart
• 1.5 tablespoons of sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup of milk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

In a medium bowl, mix the Bisquick, sugar and cocoa powder to blend. In another small dish, beat the egg, add the milk and vanilla.  

Then add this to the dry mix.  Mix until just moistened. Overmixing can make tough donuts, and you don’t want tough donuts 😀

Spray the donut pan with cooking spray and spoon into the pan.

This is a little full, actually – so keep that in mind. I just didn’t feel like doing another pan for 1 donut (lazy).

Bake for 6-7 minutes.  Check with a toothpick if you want, but they will spring back to the touch.

See how I got this pan just a little full? Turn over to the pretty side on a cooling rack 🙂

Here are the stats for just the donuts:

Calories (per donut): 106, 2.7 grams of fat, 18.2 grams of carbs, 3.3 grams of protein, 0.4 grams of fiber.

Top with any glaze that you want.  This glaze is 1/3 cup of powdered sugar with a tablespoon of milk and 1/2 tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter.

The donuts are not too sweet, which is nice and so easy and fast to make. You can have donuts in about 20 minutes from start to finish.

It’s funny how I bought a donut pan kind of on a whim and we actually use it fairly often.  John loves the baked donuts, as do I.

New boiler for our furnace tomorrow and the new furniture!  I also have a product review and giveaway for this week, so stay tuned!

Finally getting around to making some of the pins I have!  I love Pinterest and pin way more than I actually do.  Anyway, I have been eating more protein bars lately and decided to make more of my own.  This recipe is based on Sahar’s from Fat Fighter TV with a couple modifications.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup of natural peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
• 5 tablespoons of honey (100 grams)
• 45 grams of whey protein (I used unflavored whey protein isolate) – approximately 1/2 cup
• 2 tablespoons (26 grams) ground flax seed.
• 40 grams of rolled oats – approximately 1/4 cup

These are so easy to make, too. It takes 15 minutes.  In a small bowl, add the honey and peanut butter.

Microwave for 30 second to one minute so the mixture becomes more liquid.  Stir well. I needed a minute because we keep the peanut butter in the fridge.

In a larger bowl, add the protein powder and flax meal and mix.

Then add the peanut butter and honey mixture:

Mix well and then add the oats:

This will be a stiff batter, so keep mixing until all ingredients are thoroughly incorporated.

I then weighed the dough and decided how many calories I wanted each bar, which was approximately 200 (like a normal protein bar).  That meant I needed to divide my dough by 7, which was about 45 grams per bar.

Then roll into ball shapes.

I also formed one ball into a bar shape, but didn’t bother with the others. Lazy, I guess.  You can do whatever shape you want – even a pyramid!

Verdict?  These are pretty tasty! Almost like a peanut butter fudge.  Now, these are caloric like a protein bar, so use them wisely. These are perfect for my evening snack.

Nutrition info dividing recipe into 7 bars:

211 calories per bar, 20 grams of carbs, 10 grams of fat, 11 grams of protein, 2 grams of fiber. Your mileage may vary depending on the type of protein powder you use.  This is a good base recipe to do other flavors or use other nut butters.