Skinny No Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Don't you love the word "Skinny" in front of a recipe. It either makes you really scared that it's going to taste fake and all fat-free-ish and gross, or you are super excited because you get to eat something you love and still feel "skinny" after you eat it.

This recipe is a nice little feel good treat. I have literally never heard of this stuff called Better-n-peanut butter, but I found it here locally at Mama Jean's, but I hear that Trader Joe's and even Target carry it. Well, there ya go. It has less than a 1/4 of the fat of regular peanut butter which is BONUS! The recipe said that you could use fat free Cool Whip or you could use TruWhip which I also found at Mama Jean's. It has no hydrogenated oils and is a lot healthier than the other options.



I made this for company on Friday night and I savored every single little bite. It has a true peanut buttery-chocolate flavor and I loved it. The group seemed to give it 2 thumbs up as well. Total score.



Here's the Recipe from Skinny Taste Blog.

Parents Review: I've already bought the ingredients to make it again. Love.

Kids Review: The kids each had a piece and asked for more.

Banana, Caramel and Pecan Muffins

These were the little yummies that I added to the food brigade I brought to my new mommy friend. I sampled one before I sent her the rest - just so I knew I was giving her adequate quality.

Ummm......they were amazing - at least I thought. I believe she mentioned they enjoyed them too. Wow was all I could say. Muffins to me are wonderful little creations, but sometimes they turn out dry and boring. They lack so much in comparison to their cousin the cupcake that has mounds of sugary frosting atop the bread-y cake below. But, in my opinion, these were indeed a treat and I had trouble only eating the one that I allowed myself before giving them away.

Hello Caramel. Hello Banana. Hello buttery pecan and brown sugar and cinnamon topping.

Perfect.

I found these muffins right here over at Dwell on Joy's Blog and I'm so glad I did! She actually showed it with a caramel drizzle over the top, which I think would be absolutely amazing, but I didn't want to make an ooey-gooey mess for the tired mommy. It was still great even without the caramel on top.

You have to try these! I feel like I have said that about every single recipe I have posted this week, but it's true. We have ate so well this week. It's not very often that I have 5 new recipes all hit it out of the park and plant themselves a position in my consistent rotation, but this one made the cut too!

Another fun treat is the slice of banana you lay in the middle of the batter and it's this soft surprise when you bite into your baked muffin. Yum.



Parents Review: Heaven. I wish I would have taken a pic of it sliced in half. The caramel balls (which are easily found at Target) were awesome!

Kids Review: It has sugar, so they were all about it.

Crockpot Barbacoa Beef w/ Cilantro Lime Rice & Corn Salsa

David may or may not have professed his love to me all over again after he took a bite of this dinner tonight.

I completely felt the same way.

Have you ever had the shredded beef at Chipotle? I actually never have, but apparently this is a recipe that is modified based off of that one. It's from none other than my new favorite blog - Skinny Taste - and it gave me my Weight Watcher points and everything.

I made the barbacoa beef this morning in my crockpot and it smelled so amazing all day. I used "eye of round beef roast" for my meat and I only used 2 chilis in adobo sauce so that it wasn't overly spicy. It was perfect. I am going to give you the link for the Barbacoa beef recipe, and then she has a link to both the cilantro lime rice and the corn salsa. You HAVE to make these two things with it. The rice was absolutely amazing. I used white Jasmine rice because I thought it would work well and it did. The corn salsa was so yummy on top of it all. As you can see in the pics - I just made it like a burrito bowl. I scooped David's into corn tortillas, but I liked mine all piled on top of each other on my plate.

I can promise you if you like Mexican food - this will make you happy in every way! Please try it and please tell me if you did and what you thought. I love to hear feedback!



I hope your night is a great one! I can't wait to have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. :-)

Crockpot Creamy Potato Soup

Hello, and welcome to my horrible iPhone pictures that do absolutely NO JUSTICE to this wonderful soup. I haven't made potato soup in so long because, well, the carbs!! But - I've absolutely never made it in a crockpot and it was so easy that I may never go back to my stove - for this soup, that is.

I stumbled upon this soup on Pinterest (and, by the way - don't you love how you never feel like you have any original "findings" any more because you say you saw something on Pinterest and everyone you talk to tells you they saw it too and was getting ready to try it? Just me? I have pride issues.) So, I did see this on "P" (new code name) and I really wanted to give it a try to take to my life group friend that just had the most beautiful baby girl named Emily just a week ago. I had also seen this cute little site that gave you ideas of foods to take to new moms and I nabbed that idea as well and packaged her up the following grub and delivered it this afternoon.

I made her this lovely Crockpot Potato Soup.
A tub full of fresh blueberries, strawberries and grapes
Some fresh baguette rolls
and the BEST banana, caramel and pecan muffins I've ever had - well, if I do say so myself. I ate one to make sure I was only giving my friend the very best of course. :-) Recipe to follow this week!

I could've eaten my weight in this soup, but limited myself to 2 small bowls. It was windy and cold out today, so the day just seemed perfect for this soup. The crockpot part of this dish was so easy and a huge WIN in my book.

Parent's Review: We loved it. Loved the tangy-ness of the cream cheese in there and I simply added packaged crumbled bacon to the top out of laziness, and I actually liked it.

Kid's Review: My kids don't do potatoes unless they are a fry or a hash brown or a potato wedge. Something is wrong with them. They missed out.

Here's the recipe again if you missed it up top.

Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

These wraps. Wow. So amazing. I found these from the Skinny Taste blog - the one I am currently obsessed with because it gives me my Weight Watcher points and the recipes look so delicious AND nutritious. Can you beat that?? I think not!

Here's the recipe for this lovely main course dish.

I actually got some strange, but huge thrill out of sticking those chicken thighs in my food processor and turning it into ground chicken. Am I crazy? I always wondered how in the world they made the chicken so itty bitty at places like P.F. Chang's and Tong's when I ordered chicken lettuce wraps. Now I know. So fun.

I don't like mushrooms at all, but I bought the sliced baby portabella's since that is all my grocery store had. I chopped these super fine, along with the water chestnuts and they just added to the thickness of the chicken mixture. To me, they didn't add any flavor at all, which is fine by me.

The spicy sauce that I poured over them was really good. It was a little strong for me in one sense, but in another - I totally dug it. I only added a little of the spicy sauce they mentioned and then used a little of my Thai Sweet chili sauce I had from Trader Joe's. I didn't want it to be overly spicy.

It was a fun and different dinner for us. Here's the reviews.

Parents Review: I ate 3 lettuce wraps and added some steamed jasmine rice on the side and some peas for a veggie. Wonderful. Amazing. Will make it again soon!

Kids Review: I served there's just scooped on their plate (no lettuce wraps for them). They loved it with the rice and the peas and gobbled it up telling me I did good. Perfect. :-)

Have a great night

Cheesy Chicken Shells

This was another Weight Watchers recipe I tried this week. I am enjoying the variety right now while I am getting myself back in gear with both my eating and my exercise. I know what kind of eating I'm going to be doing at the Superbowl party this Sunday, so I am being a good girl Monday through Saturday. :-)

Don't these little guys look yummy?


Here's the recipe in case you want to give it a whirl.

The only thing I tweaked on this recipe was where it called for just plain tomato sauce - I used this beautiful stuff instead.


It is some expensive stuff, but we like it enough that I will spend the money for it. It is all natural - no sugars - super wonderful for many, many diet plans. We love it.

I served up the Cheesy Chicken Shells with this yummy salad. I only do salads with like 100 ingredients. No bag of lettuce and some dressing thrown on top for me. I want a ton of veggies!

This particular salad has mixed greens with baby spinach, feta cheese, cranberries, red and orange bell peppers, cherry tomatoes and red onion. I made a dressing that is made up of balsamic vinegar, a little water, canola oil and 2 Tbsp of maple syrup. It is SO yummy!

Parents Review: We liked it, but I think the oregano was a bit overpowering. I would lessen this ingredient to almost half of what they called for. The spicy tuscan tomato sauce gave it all the flavor, so we would only make it again with this!
Kids Review: They had pizza. A little too spicy again for them.

Spicy Beef Tacos

Photo Source

I forgot to take a picture of our awesome dinner last night, but I grabbed the Weight Watchers site picture so you could see what they looked like.

This was my first time trying this recipe and David's words were, "those are the best tacos you've ever made. Please do those again!"

Score!!

You will want to try these - and soon!

Here's the recipe.

Parents Review: We loved it! The cumin was nice. I didn't have any coriander, so I just added a little dry cilantro. So, so good!

Kids Review: I made them chicken nuggets. They don't do spicy. :-)

Skinny Chocolate Chip Cookies

I HAVE NO PICTURE!!

But, I promised to post these tonight, so I am putting the recipe up anyway. My friend Cheri made these for me and all the life group girls (from our church) and wrapped them up all cute and included the recipe. I typically don't DO low fat desserts. No thank you. I would rather skip a treat or eat one with all the fat and calories so I can enjoy it. However, this one does not disappoint in taste, texture or the fact that they are only 2 weight watcher points for me each! Woo! Hoo!

The reason I have no picture for you is because when I made mine today, they turned out super flat and all melded into one another-ish. That's not what Cheri's looked like. The flavor was still exactly the same as hers, so I can only imagine I needed more baking soda or something? I don't know. I know I added it in according to the recipe, but I am going to try it again and cross my fingers.

They are not cakey or weird like a lot of the low-cal stuff you can eat. These taste like a true treat and I will make them again. When I do - I promise to post a good picture with this recipe.

But - here it is. Go make it and tell me how yours turned out! I'm excited to hear!

Skinny Low-Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 C granulated Sugar
1/2 C Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp melted butter
1 egg white
2 Tbsp applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C. Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (for local gals - I just went to Mama Jean's and bought a little bit for the recipe from the bulk section. Perfect!)
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 C mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350, Line (2 cookie sheets) with parchment paper

In Large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; sitr to blend. In another bowl, whisk the sugars, butter, egg white, applesauce and vanilla until light and fluffy.

Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in two additions until batter is well blended. If batter looks crumbly, not smooth, add a drop of water (I didn't have to do this)

Fold in chocolate chips

Drop by level spoonfuls 1 inch apart

Bake 8-10 minutes.

Transfer to wire rack after cooling on sheet for 5 minutes.

Parents Review: Yummo!
Kids Review: It's chocolate! The loved it!

Chocolate Granola Bars

I love making stuff for my kids that taste really yummy and are at least "healthy-ish" and so much better for you than the preservative filled items at the grocery store. I want them to feel like I give them treats and that it's something I made for them with my own two hands. I found this recipe over at a blog called Marathon Mom.

These taste similar to a no-bake cookie and have a similar texture. BONUS!!!!!


They were so easy and there was no oven involved. I liked that you put them in the fridge to set up and then sliced them into bars. The recipe didn't say if you were to leave them in the fridge after they've set up, but I like them that way.


Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Granola Bars

1/2 cup natural peanut butter (our favorite is Maranatha's creamy with sea salt)

1/3 cup local honey

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup oats (not quick oats)

2 tablespoons wheat germ

1/2 cup coconut

1/2 cup chocolate chips (Mini work best, but it doesn’t really matter.)

What to do:

1. Melt the butter, peanut butter and honey in a pot over medium to low heat, stirring constantly. Turn off the burner when melted.

2. Pour in the cup of oats and the wheat germ. Stir til combined.

3. Wait til it cools and stir in the coconut and chocolate chips. Or, if you’re impatient with things like this, like I am, go ahead and dump it all right in. The result will be a more uniform chocolate taste.

4. Pour into foil-lined 8 X 8 pan and stick in the fridge.

5. Once cooled, flip out (the bars….not you) onto cutting board and cut to the size you like.

They’re now ready to eat.

Parents Review: We loved these and enjoyed them as a snack with our coffee.

Kids Review: I packed them in their lunches today and they gobbled them up!

Mini Corn Dog Muffins

My computer has a new hard-drive and I am inspired by the New Year. I plan to be back on here and blogging fun recipes and sharing the food that we eat here around our home. I hope you will keep reading and comment along the way. Thanks for letting me share my life with you on my two blogs - here and over at Me-Moddy.

On to the food.

Most of you have heard of the lovely Pinterest site. Well, I had seen these little guys floating around on there and then my BFF Julie sent me over the recipe and raving reviews that "I must try them!".

Mini Corn Dog Muffins



The recipe calls for a box of Jiffy mix, but her and I both happened to have some Trader Joe's Cornbread mix on hand and used that instead. They looked so fun and cute. I couldn't wait to try them.



Well, here's the verdict.

Parents Review: We loved them and dipped them in mustard just like we would a corn dog and they tasted EXACTLY like a Fair corn dog. Sweet and yummy and poppable right into your little mouth. Super great.

Kids Review: Little Girl (who doesn't like her food co-mingling) ate a couple but shredded the muffin off the hot dog and ate it in a huge mess. Bummer. Baby Boy on the other hand - ate 5. Huge hit!!

Enjoy!