Red Dye Number 40, You are Dead to Me!

 Red Dye Number 40 has always been offensive to me. I don't know if it is the way it dyes your teeth or the way it can make a peaceful, hard working classroom of children go from 0-60 in the time it takes to eat a grocery store cupcake. Whatever it is, I finally found a solution...beets! No one can argue about the beauty of their natural color and their lacking  "red" flavor. We all know what "red" tastes like.

To make these fantastic Red Velvet Cheesecake Bites, I roasted and pureed two whole beats. I simply added them into the batter and crossed my fingers. After taking this treat to a "Red" Party (not Valentine's Day party, to be clear :-) I realized that I never have to use food coloring again. If you aren't yet ready to dump beets into a chocolatey batter, use raspberries instead, but they are more pink than red.

Recipe for Red Velvet Cheesecake Bites
*Gluten & Dairy Free, of course*
**Food Coloring Free!**
***2 Weight Watcher PointsPlus Each!***

2 Beets, roasted and pureed
3 TBS Butter or Butter Substitute
1 1/2 oz semi-sweet chocolate
3/4 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cups Pamela's Gluten Free Baking Mix
1 tsp salt
8 oz Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8x8 square baking pan. Line with parchment paper.

Wash the beets, then cut the roots and stems off. I peeled them and sliced them up into quarters for faster roasting, drizzled with olive oil (1 tsp), wrapped them in foil and roasted them at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes. Whole beets will take closer to an hour. While they were still hot, I tossed them in the food processor until they were nice and smooth. (At this point the color will be so rich you will be plotting your revenge on all of the food coloring you ever used and ate).

Melt the butter and chocolate together and set aside to cool for a few minutes. In the mean time, beat one egg and 1/4 cup brown sugar together. Once this mixture is fluffy, beat in 8 oz of cream cheese. Set aside to use for the cream cheese topping in a few minutes.

Combine the 2 remaining eggs and the 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Add vanilla and beet puree and watch your mixture transform! Fold in the chocolate and butter mixture. Combine the salt and flour mixture before slowly beating into the wet ingredients. When dry ingredients are well integrated, pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Drop dollops of the cream cheese topping onto the batter and use a spoon to swirl that gorgeous red color throughout the white. Bake for 45-50  minutes, until a knife comes out clean. Cut into a 25 pieces to stick with 2 point bites. Share it with your friends and family BEFORE you tell them their is a root vegetable in this fabulous dish you just made. Smiley cleverly as they dote over your baking brilliance. Ask them to rate the dessert on a scale of 1-10, a 1 being roasted beets and a 10 being Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. After they give you a score of 8 or more, tell them about the magic.

2 Point Banana Pancakes

 As you can tell from my previous posts, there is no meal I adore more than breakfast. Besides brunch, of course. I found the idea for Banana Pancakes on Pinterest.  They suggested 2 eggs and 1 banana, but I upped the ante and plugged the recipe into the Weight Watchers Recipe Creator. Turns out these bad boys, at 1/3 cup each, are worth 2 points each!

They were actually light, fluffy and scrumptious. I was surprised at the short amount of time they required for cooking. Now, for the answer to why "can't" I loose weight? I ate three of these bad boys, which was 6 points. No biggy for a brunch. THEN, I had a tbs. of butter (2 points) and a tbs. of maple syrup (2 points). I went from a 6 point breakfast to a 10 breakfast in 10 seconds flat. Instead of ridiculing myself for this decision, I am going to frame it in a positive way and say next time I will skip the butter and have a tsp of syrup.

Recipe for Banana Pancakes:

3 Bananas, ripe and mashed
3 eggs
1/3 cup Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking Mix
Cinnamon until the heart is content
1 tsp vanilla

Mix it all up until it has the consitency of pancake batter, slap and griddle in 1/3 cup portions and cook both sides until golden brown!

So Fresh and So Clean, Clean Chocolate-Almond Cookies

My sister and I have been "doing" Weight Watchers together since October. She is rockin' and rollin' in out in California while I sit stagnate at the same number every week. I decided it is time to step things up a notch...and so began my Valentine's Day Baking Marathon. Whoops. I did find the recipe tracker feature on the Weight Watchers website, though. Watch out...this feature will bring a rude awakening to your favorite recipes along with the realization that losing weight and looking good is hard work.

These Chocolate-Almond cookies are a delight, easy to make and only 5 points each, it is a delicious, satisfying fabulously clean treat. The semi-sweet chocolate is enough of the chocolatey taste to keep my taste buds at bay.

Chocolate-Almond "Cookie" Recipe

One box semi-sweet baking chocolates or one bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
75 Raw Almonds
Shredded Coconut (Optional)

Melt chocolate in a pan, stirring constantly. When melted allow to cool for about 3 minutes while you line a cookie sheet with wax paper. Use a tablespoon to drop chocolate onto the wax paper. Place 4-5 almonds on each dab of chocolate and lightly cover with a few more drops of chocolate. Sprinkle with coconut, if desired (but be sure to add one more point for every 2 tbs. of coconut). Place in freezer for at least 10 minutes and enjoy!

***Keep each cookie at 1 full tablespoon of chocolate to stay at the 5 PointsPlus value.

Brunch & Berries

Never have I lived in an apartment as small as the one we are residing in now. With one outlet in the kitchen, the food processor has found a new position in the ranks of kitchen equipment far lower than its old status of queen. Sadly, the Keurig has taken over the last speck of counter space available. Needless to say, not much cooking nor baking has occurred in the past 8 months between moving to Ithaca NY and my disdain for our living arrangements. As long as my husband steers clear, the microwave is unplugged and the spice rack is relocated, I found yesterday that enjoying my time is the kitchen is closer to possible than previously imagined. Lucky for that handsome man in my life, I actually fed us brunch yesterday. (This newly discovered acceptance of reality and my first world problem may have sprung more from the fact that we also put an offer on a house yesterday :-).

Very simple, but that is the name of my game. The Strawberry Crepes are adapted from a Weight Watchers recipe, all which I find to be simple and delicious. As always, this meal is gluten and dairy free.

Unintentional, but nevertheless cute monster plate :-)

Fresh Strawberry Crepes

PointsPlus® Value: 3
Servings: 8
Preparation Time: 10 min
Cooking Time: 32 min
Level of Difficulty: Easy

Crepes sound fancy, but don’t be deterred: if you can make pancakes, you can master these in no time.

Ingredients
5 large Egg whites
⅛ tsp Salt, table 

1 tbsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Vanilla extract
1½ Tbsp Smart Balance, melted
1 cup(s) Almond Milk, unsweetened
1 cup(s) Pamela's Baking mix
8 spray(s) Cooking spray
1 pound(s) Strawberries, fresh, hulled and sliced very thin (about 3 cups)
¼ cup(s) Sugar, powdered

Instructions
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together egg whites, salt, vanilla extract, Smart Balance, Almond Milk and Baking Mix, until just combined.

2. Coat an 8- or 9-inch skillet with cooking spray; set over medium heat. When pan is hot, add 1/4 cup of batter and tilt skillet to cover entire bottom of pan with a thin layer of batter. Cook for 2 minutes; flip over. Top with about 1/3 cup strawberries; cook for 2 minutes more. Fold crepe over and slide onto a serving plate; cover to keep warm. Repeat with remaining ingredients; sprinkle with sugar. Yields 1 crepe per serving. 

Bakedon and Eggs 

Brunch is my all time favorite meal, mostly due to the variety of food you can pair together that are only found appropriately matched on a weekend mid-morning. This may be the easiest brunch item I have ever prepared in my life. You will need a regular size muffin tin, either six or twelve. All ingredients mimic the number of muffin spots you use. I used a six banger, so all of my ingredients were six.

6/12 slices of REAL, uncooked Canadian Bacon 

6/12 Eggs

Small bunch of scallions, finely chopped

Salt & Fresh Ground Pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Pre-heat over to 400 degrees.

2.  Line each muffin spot with one slice of Canadian Bacon.

3. Crack one egg into each slice of bacon.

4. Sprinkle lightly with scallions, salt and pepper.

5. Bake for 12 minutes.

6. Serve. 

Because I can't stand to throw up vitamin packed egg yolks, I dropped of the yolks from the crepes into the muffin tins.  Any you don't eat can be refrigerated and warmed up the next day for breakfast.

Bouquet for Throwing...

My friend (and soon to be bride) came up with a brilliant idea for throwing the bouquet at her wedding.  She asked me to make a bouquet that was created with items that every lady in the room will want to take home.  Delighted, of course, to be involved, I got busy. This is what I came up with. I am still working on wrapping it in ribbon, but it is almost done (unless the bride objects!).

 Bouquet Includes:

• 2 mini B&B hand sanitizers
• A pack of gum
• Two Ghirardelli chocolates
• Three chapsticks
• Two mini nail files
• Two $1 lottery tickets
• 2 oz. bottle of B&B Sweet Pea lotion

Gifts for the Bride

My two best friends are getting married this year! Though I am thrilled about their upcoming nuptials, I am not so secretly delighted to craft and create for them. This was my first "Bride" hanger, so it is a little rough. Next time I will use much thinner wire.

My friend did the embroidery on this coffee/drink coozy for me and then I sewed it all together and added the button. Why, you might ask? Because you only get to do all of this once. If you do it a second time around, you should definitely elope!

My First Craft Show

I decided to set up a craft table at our school's Spring Festival this weekend.  This was a fun way to display my items, make a little bit of money and support Oak Grove.  This also meant I didn't have spend my day inside the confides of the smoldering gym and watch kids race through the bounce house. :-).  The rain held off, the kids were thrilled to run rampant in their own school building and the PTA was able to raise funds for the upcoming year.

I received some great tips from a fellow teacher who has been creating for about 5 years now.  She was very encouraging and gave me some new ideas that I am thinking about creating in the upcoming weeks.  I am hoping to get even more involved (maybe do some actual shows) after we move up to Ithaca, NY.  If nothing else, this process of learning and making has given me an outlet to make it through the winter with hibernating!