Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Awesome Whole What Crepes

Usually when I make whole wheat recipes, they taste meatier than I'd like, so I expected a meaty and hearty crepe, which is totally opposite of what a crepe should be; HOWEVER, I really liked this crepe. It was light, not meaty, delicious and versatile. It's super simple, classy and healthy.
1/3 cup of whole wheat flour
2/3 cup of milk
3 eggs
a BIT of salt.

1. mix together dry ingredients.
2. create a mini well and add in the milk
3. mix in the eggs and whisk thoroughly
4. heat up a wide and large pan. Place a bit of olive oil at the bottom of the pan and let it heat up on high then when it's gotten nice and hot (BUT not hot enough so that the oil begins to steam up) then turn your heat onto medium and carefully ladle the batter into the pan. Use your ladle to maneuver the batter around in a circular motion so that you can spread out the batter. Careful not to rip the crepe, but it's easy to fix :) Make your crepe nice and thin and then you'll know it's ready to flip when you start seeing tiny little holes in your batter. Don't flip too early or else your crepe will rip! It'll have an almost tortilla appearance when you flip. It should flip perfectly. You shouldn't have to re-grease your pan after one crepe. Maybe after every 2 or 3 crepes :)
This recipe yields about 4-5 crepes, depending on the size of your crepes. These crepes are relatively small for crepes.

I like to serve this in several ways....
1. Cinammon, agave nectar (or honey) and cottage cheese recipe with strawberries topping.
2. Pesto, smoked salmon and french beans
3. Turkey breast, thousand island dressing and arugala

This is a no fail recipe! Good Luck :)

Chewy Granola Bars

Homemade Healthy Chewy Granola Bars
I guarantee that this recipe will be chewy and delicious. I initially didn't want to add peanut butter to this but I noticed it tasted much better with peanut butter and it was more gooey with peanut butter. It was really yummy. I decided to make this recipe because I didn't like how sweet the granola bars at the store was, so I made my own. Here we go!

You'll need...
2 cups of old fashioned oats (NOT INSTANT)
1/3 cup of honey
1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
1/4 cup of peanut butter
1 tablespoon of canola oil
1 cup of unsalted peanuts
1 cup of raisins
1/3 cup of cranberries
What Germ (to your liking)

1. I toasted my oats for about 10 minutes on a dry skillet on medium heat.
2. While the oats were toasting, I roughly chopped my peanuts to prepare for the epic mixing.
3. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees
4. I first mixed together the oats, flour, raisins, peanuts, and cranberries. (add your wheat germ now! I couldn't find it so I didn't get to put it in for extra nutrition.)
5. I then mixed together my peanut butter and honey in a separate bowl.
6. mix in your wet ingredients with your dry ingredients.
7. Your mixture shouldn't be too wet but it should be considerably wet... It should be pretty wet though.
8. Pour your yummy mixture into an 8x8 pan and bake for 30min.
9. You'll get super yummy and chewy, sticky half inch tall granola bars.

**add honey to your liking; I don't like mine terribly sweet but this bar was pretty sweet :)

Orange and Strawberry Smoothie

Orange and Strawberry Smoothie
I love smoothies at Juice it Up and Jamba Juice, but their drinks are always full a zillion calories and their prices are really jacked up. So I figured I can create a super simple smoothie recipe that won't burst my budget but quench my thirst. Shall we begin?
A handful of whole frozen strawberries (about 1 1/2 cup)
Fresh juice of 3 whole oranges (about 1 cup)
1 to 1/2 teaspoons of organic agave nectar

1. Take out your strawberries to let them soften for about 10-15 min while you juice your oranges.
2. I juiced some oranges that weren't really that sweet so I added agave nectar to sweeten things up. A little low glycemic agave nectar went a long way for me. I recommend that you don't add more than 1 to 1/2 teaspoons of agave nectar, it'll get too sweet.
3. Blend it all together for about 20-45 sec.

It's that quick! I like to switch it up by adding different frozen fruits. I like to add unsweetened raspberries, mangoes, pineapples. But the more frozen fruit you make, the longer it'll take to blend and the more frozen it'll get. So try to keep it to a 1 to 1.5 orange juice to frozen fruit ratio. The good thing abut this smoothie is that it doesn't melt that easily because it doesn't have any ice cream or yogurt, but it's really smooth!
So good. Try it! It's much healthier.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Double Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes


My little brother had a soccer game I planned on attending, but had to skip out of it last minute, so I decided to make up for it, by making him cupcakes! I knew he liked chocolate, A LOT of chocolate, so I made a double chocolate cupcake, with oreoes, his favourite. I wouldn't have thought of this if I had a choice, but whatever he likes!
CAUTION: this is a VERY sweet recipe, but I've gotten a good response to this :)
Double Chocolate Oreo Cupcakes
What You'll Need:
1. Duncan Hines Cake Mix (Chocolate)
2. Cupcake liners
3. Milk
4. Oreos
5. Butter
6. 12-tin cupcake pan
7. 1 pie pan (opt)
8. Chocolate Frosting

Let's Begin!
1. Line your pan and grease your pie pan, and then preheat your oven to 350!
2. Prepare your cake mix according to the directions, and substitute the water with milk. I substituted a little of the oil with butter. That's optional! :)
3. When you're done preparing your cake mix, quarter the oreos. :) I added too much into the batter, but the amount you want is entirely up to you!
4. I ended up quartering about a third of the oreos and mixing them into my batter.
Add Image
5. Then spoon in the batter up to about a third of the way up the cupcake tins. (Ice cream scoop portions!)
6. Bake! for 350. Then remove from the oven and let it cool for 40-50min. The baking time should be shorter and rotate the pan for the last 5 minutes of baking. After 20 minutes in the oven pass, check every few minutes or so! :)
7. While they're cooling, mix the frosting with another third of the oreos. While you're at it, take the rest of the oreos and crumble them for a secret surprise in the cupcakes later.

8. Is it cool? Great! Shave off the tops of these suckers now! But keep the tops, :) They're still good to munch on!
9. Take a teaspoon and carefully spoon out a little bit of the cupcake to make room for MORE OREO!
10. Spoon in the crumbled oreos into the nice little space you just made and then seal it off with frosting!

11. Let the frosting set for about 15 minutes and enjoy!
-----EXCESS BATTER GOES INTO THE PIE PAN TO BAKE AND WHATEVER ELSE YOU DO IS UP TO YOU! I ended up making one big version of this preceding recipe. :)

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Mother's Day Cake (PtI)

Mother's Day Cake!
I'm very close with my mother, so I knew she liked cake with fruit in it, or red velvet cake. I figured I'd challenge myself and make some yellow cake! This is my very first time making a legitimate cake so I figured I'd share this experience with you. :) (This isn't the cake I'm presenting her, however, this is just a test cake!)

What You'll Need..
1. 1 Cup of sliced fresh strawberries
2. 1 cup of sliced ripe bananas. (this will end up being around 2 large bananas)
3. Whipping Cream
4. about 2-3 Tbsp of powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you like your whipped cream)
5. 1 Package of Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix (or whatever brand you prefer)
6. 2-3 Kiwis (opt)
7. Frosting (opt)

Lets Begin!
1. First prepare the cake mix the way you'd like it. Some people like to add some butter, or substitute the water with milk. I find that substituting doesn't make a significant difference. and Bake! Don't forget to liberally grease your pan! I used a nonstick pan but still oiled it down with some extra virgin olive oil, as always :)
2. Begin slicing your strawberries, and bananas, and prepare your whipped cream!
3. I had a big Kitchen Aid mixer that I set on 2 then as it got thicker, I set it on 3 then eventually to 10 when I began mixing in my powdered sugar.
4. Sift the powdered sugar in when the whipped cream reaches the consistency that you desire. Carefully sift the powdered sugar in batches, so the whipped cream doesn't deflate.
5. Is the cake ready? Take it out!! It shouldn't take long. It baked in about 20-30 minutes for me. :) I did the dishes while waiting! So about half a load of hand-washed dishes should do it! I pulled it out right when it was lovely and moist! I managed to easily slip a knife in and out cleanly.
6. Let it cool, for at least 45 minutes. Make sure it's ENTIRELY cooled before you take it out of the pan. To prevent breaking :)
7. Carefully (make sure you DON'T scratch your pan!) cut the cake in half and then take one slice out :) I wasn't so careful with taking it out because the cake was so delicate, But I thought it was okay because I hid the faults with whipped cream! hehe.
8. Layer on a nice layer of whipped cream.
9. In whatever pattern you'd like, place the strawberries on. I made alternating rows of thinly sliced strawberries and bananas. They were pretty even :) Don't worry about appearance too much in this step, it'll just end up getting covered with another layer of cake :) Hehe, I accidently forgot to alternate rows, hense the messiness, I just covered the errors with some whipped cream, my mother's favourite!
10. Cover this layer with the cake and layer the cake with some whipped cream. Try to be a little neater this time, but the whipped cream is pretty good about being a great concealer to error! Now, pick a pattern, any pattern! If the cake is big enough, maybe you can make a fruit-border! That was my initial idea, but I was pretty spontaneous and went with whatever :)
11. Enjoy! or in my case, Refrigerate! I will enjoy this cake tomorrow! But, I couldn't help but take a little nibble, It was delicious :) The fragrant banana was delicious.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Reese Cup Pie



Materials:
1 box of Chocolate Grahm Crackers
2 Tbsp of butter
1 (12oz) Bag of Reese Miniatures
1 Cup of Peanut Butter
2 (12oz) Tubs of Cool Whip
1 Pie Pan
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup

Begin!
1. First crush the grahm crackers finely in a bag to make the grahm cracker crust. Usually a third of the crackers in the box.

2. Microwave the butter for about 10-15 seconds until it becomes completely melted.

3. Whisk together the melted butter and the grahm crackers then press the mixture into the pie pan nicely, to make it into a crust! Make sure the crust stays still so you can easily pour and even out the mixture when you are done.

4. Place a cup of peanut butter in the mixing bowl and whisk (or mix) it with two thirds of a tub of Cool Whip. (I know peanut butter is VERY sticky and it's difficult to mix but it will be SO worth it!)
5. Fold in the rest of the Cool Whip! (Taste it here, just so you make sure you like it, and you get a hint of how AMAZING this will be at the end!)

6. Then roughly chop up all the miniature Reese's Cups. I quartered them and reserved about 7-8 for garnish.

7. Carefully fold in the quartered Reese's Cups and then pour the mixture into the crust.

8. Remember the reserved Reese's? Quarter those babies up! and spread them nicely on the top.

9. For a professional look, artistically drizzle some chocolate syrup over the finished pie! (I used fudge my first time in the image below, it didn't turn out so well!)

10. Ready for it? FREEZE! Freeze the pie for about an hour and you should be ready to enjoy!

Monday, April 12, 2010

No Bake! Oreo Cheese (cup)cakes


No Bake Oreo Cheese(cup)cakes

Materials:

- Softened Light Cream Cheese (recommended: Philadelphia Soft Fat Free Cream Cheese)
- No Cal Sweetener (recommended: Splenda)
- 12 Cupcake liners
- 1 package of Sugar-Free Oreos (or Reduced Fat Oreos [18oz] or Oreo Minis, or 100 calorie Pack Oreos) Just make sure you get 18oz of whatever you choose.
- 1 Tub of Cool Whip Free (or Cool Whip Lite)

Begin!
1. First you line a 12 tin muffin pan with liners and then on the bottom of every liner, place 1 oreo at the bottom, they will serve as a "crust"


2. Get out a cutting board and prepare the rest of the Oreoes for mixing! What you want to do is roughly chop the Oreoes so they mix in nicely with your cheesecake filling. Leave out 6 for garnish.

3. Prepare the cheesecake filling by making sure the cream cheese is ready to mix by softening it. You can do that by either leaving it out on the counter for at least 30 minutes, or simply microwaving for a mere 15 seconds or so. Just make sure it's easy for you to mix!

4. Place the cream cheese in the mixing bowl and then add the sweetener (or sugar if you wish). This is now completely up to you. Add enough sugar so that you're comfortable with the taste. I personally don't like my cheesecake too terribly sweet so I add about a half of a cup of sweetener, but if you like yours sweet, a cup should suffice. Just taste as you go.

5. After mixing in your sweetener to your desired sweetness, you can mix in the cool whip. You should mix in half the tub and then fold in the second half so your cheesecake is lighter and not so dense.

6. After mixing everything together, you should carefully fold in your oreoes that have been roughly chopped.

7. After they are well mixed, you carefully spoon them into your cups and smooth them out. I like to garnish them with the remaining Oreoes. :)

8. Freeze them for 1.5-2 hours and enjoy!

What's great about this recipe is that it can be almost completely guilt free! Or it can be a delicious diet breaker. I hope you enjoy!
A video can be made upon request.