Spinach Artichoke Dip

For anyone who knows me this one is my "signature" recipe. And for anyone who does not know me, trust me when I say this one is the best! It is perfect for any group gathering served right in the bread bowl with the sourdough pieces & veggies. It is also absolutely fabluous warmed on the next day on toast. Our favorite day-after-holiday breakfast is eggs benedict with a poached egg on top of the toast & dip. And because I use low fat ingredients you don't have to feel guilty for indulging.

Ingredients
· 2 lbs fresh spinach leaves, washed and chopped
· 2 Tablespoons butter (Smart Balance buttery spread)
· 16 oz. low fat cream cheese
· garlic and pepper to taste
· large can artichoke hearts, chopped
· 8 oz. carton low fat sour cream
· 8 oz. shredded low fat mozzarella cheese
· 1 large round sourdough loaf
· assorted veggies for dipping (Cancels other calories)

Preparation
· Place spinach in microwave safe bowl and heat about 2 to 3 minutes until just wilted.
· Melt butter in a skillet.
· Add spinach.
· Stir in cream cheese, garlic & pepper. Stir until cream cheese melts.
· Fold in artichoke hearts, sour cream and 3/4 mozzarella cheese. Allow cheeses to melt.
· Cut top of loaf & pull out inside into cubes for dipping.
· Pour mixture into bread loaf on a cookie sheet. Top with remaining mozzarella cheese.
(This can refrigerated at this point if desired.)
· When ready to serve, place in a preheated 350 degree oven. Bake 25 min until hot & bubbly.

Pumpkin Pie Cookies

An unusual twist on a traditional holiday treat. And, a healthy option for desert.

Ingredients
1 1/2 Cup Butter (Smart Balance buttery spread)
1 Cup Splenda
3 Eggs
1 Can (15oz) Pumpkin
1 Tablespoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
1 1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
Craisins & toasted pecan pieces

Steps
1 Grease cookie sheets and preheat oven to 350.
2 Mix butter and sugar with mixer until well mixed (will be light and fluffy).
3 Add eggs, pumpkin, spices & vanilla; mix well.
4 Sift dry ingredients together & gradually add to pumpkin mixture, mixing by hand.
5 Mix in Craisins & pecans
6 Drop onto cookie sheets & bake 10 to 15 minutes - or until slightly browned.

* Note: Dough will be sticky and wet.

(Makes 3 to several dozen cookies, depending on size and shape.)

Mac & Cheese

This was one of my favorite foods growing up that my mom made straight out of the Kraft box... just like everybody's mom did. I got the idea for this recipe from an article in the L.A. Times Food section reminiscing about this comfort food and how restaurants today have strayed from its original form. I too appreciate the traditional mac & cheese without any dressing. Keeping with a healthy take, my version watches those extra calories and fat.

Ingredients
8 oz cooked elbow macaroni
1 can (10-3/4 oz) cream of mushroom soup (any cream of ... soup works)
8 oz fat-fat shredded cheddar cheese (1/2 horseradish cheddar, 1/2 mozzarella is wonderful)
4 oz whole-wheat crackers mashed into crumbs

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Spray 9 X 9 baking dish.
2. Mix macaroni, soup, and cheese in baking dish.
3. Top with cracker crumbs.
4. Bake until top is golden, about 25 minutes.

To kick it up a notch, we added some leftover chicken-apple sausage to the mac & cheese.

French's fried onions are also wonderful insted of crackers. Add a layer to the top about 5 minutes before you take it out.

Carot Cake

For Marc's birthday I wanted something that said elegant but still healthy. I found this recipe in a copy of Weight Watcher's September/October 2006 magazine and for a Fran-first didn't change the recipe... well okay, I added cranberries and pecans and used Splenda instead of sugar but that's it and the cake looked absolutely professional. Of course the cake box Whole Foods gave me also helped with the store-bought look. But nothing beats homemade and knowing every delicious bite is low calorie and healthy.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups Splenda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 package diced dried apricots
3 tbsp hot water
2 eggs
2 egg whites
2-1/2 cups shredded carrots
1/2 cup apple butter (next to jams)
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup cranberries
12 oz fat-free cream cheese
7 oz jar marshmallow cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Steps
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray 2 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick spray, line the bottoms with wax paper and spray the paper with nonstick spray.
2. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Put apricots and hot water in a food processor (or Magic Bullet) until blended but a little chunky. (It's nice when you bite into a piece of apricot in the cake.)
4. Beat eggs and egg whites. Add carrots, apple butter, oil and apricots until blended. Add flour mixture until blended. Add cranberries.
5. Spread batter evenly in the pans. Bake until the cakes are browned and center of each bounces back when lightly pressed with a fingertip, 30 - 32 minutes. Let cool in pans on racks, 15 minutes. Remove cakes from the pans, peel off the paper and cool completely on the racks.
6. For frosting: mix cream cheese, marshmallow cream and vanilla until smooth. Frost top of cake then place other cake and frost top and sides. Sprinkle top with hopped pecans.

Pizza Bread Pudding

I tried this recipe once before and FAILED. When I say failed I mean Marc, my husband who had eaten every one of my creations up to this recipe, even made a face when I put this one in front of him. Granted, I made the mistake of adding roasted garlics to the already garlicy-rolls. But I swore to him if there hadn't been so much garlic it would have tasted wonderful.

Well as luck would have it, we had Stinking Rose (the garlic restaurant) for lunch at work today, and as such an opportunity presented itself. And there's always Plan B for dinner tonight if this ones fail (leftover pizza).

Here's the recipe:

8 Garlic Rolls
3 eggs
1-1/2 cups non-fat milk
2 diced tomatoes
low-fat mozerella cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Tear rolls into smaller pieces. Combine eggs, milk and tomatoes. Add bread and soak for a couple of minutes. Pour into a small greased baking dish and sprinkle top with mozerella cheese. Should be done after 60 minutes.

Ok, I'm now writing this after we have gone back for seconds and can vouch this recipe is a saver!

Healthy & Sweet Breads

This makes an amazingly healthy bread that tastes sinnfully sweet and moist because of the pumpkin. It may seem a bit heavy but I love that it uses no oil. You just need to be careful to cook the bread long enough without overcooking it. I cut a small piece to be certain. This recipe is the same for making Zucchini-Walnut and Carrot-Raisin.

Zucchini-Walnut Bread &
Carrot-Raisin/Cranberry
Makes 2 loaves

2 cups shredded zucchini
or 2 cups shredded carrots
3-1/2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp baking soda & baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup applesauce
1 cup Splenda
1 cup canned pumpkin

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour 2 loaf pans.

Clean the zucchini or carrot, cut off the ends, and shred using a grater.

Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Set aside.

With a mixer (or the amazing Magic Bullet) beat the eggs until frothy. Add the applesauce a little at a time. Gradually add the sugar and pumpkin.

Add the dry ingredients. Then add add zucchini or carrots. Slowly mix in the nuts and/or raisins and cranberries. I'm a little partial to zucchini with nutty walnuts and carrots with the sweet raisins and cranberries but this is just good with any combination!

Pour into prepared pans. Bake at 350 for at least an hour. Insert a toothpick in the center to check it comes out clean. Place on a rack to cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pans and cool completely. Then slice a piece and say to yourself you got your daily vitamins.

WARNING: this is moist in the middle because of the pumpkin.

Comfort Corn Pudding

This past Friday Marc (my dear husband) stocked up our fridge, inlcuding fresh corn on the cob. On Sunday I took a spill while biking. Okay more like crash landed on my face chipping a tooth, biting my tongue and getting stitches to my upper lip. With said mentioned injury, biting down on bbq'd corn wasn't an option. So as the resourceful cook that I am, and having now reached Friday and becoming BORED with my bed rest, I came up with a corn alternative.

Ingredients:
3 beaten eggs
3 tbsp Splenda
2 cups non-fat milk
pinch of salt
ground black pepper to taste
2 cups fresh corn (exactly 2 cobs of corn)
slightly old, cubed bread*

Steps:
1. preheat oven to 350 and grease a 9 x 13 baking dish
2. mix eggs, sugar, milk, salt and pepper
3. add corn
4. place cubed bread in baking dish and pour over mixture
5. bake about an hour; done when center is set and top is golden brown

*Challah was supplied by my sister who also bombarded our fridge with food.

Plum Good Loaf

This month's word is PLUMS which are in season and in abundance from our plum tree (well, actually our neighbor's tree but they don't mind). With so many plums I decided to make a plum good & healthy cake that I could share with others. I'm waiting to hear what my parents and my sister & her husband think, but my husband said give me seconds which I take as a good sign. And you could not tell I used healthier substitutes.

(Makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients:
1 cup butter (I used Smart Balance "light" butter spread)
1 cup Splenda
3 eggs (I used an egg substitute)
2 cups all-purpose flout
1/2 tsp each baking soda and powder
sprinkle cinnamon
about 1/2 cup plum puree (I used our "Magic Bullet")
plum slices
Glaze (steps at the end)

Steps:
1. Preheat oven 300 degrees and grease & flour loaf pan.
2. Mix softened butter & sugar.
3. Add beaten eggs.
4. In new bowl, mix flour, baking soda & powder and cinnamon.
5. Slowly combine the dry mix to the creamed mix. (I recommend using a wooden spoon.)
6. When nicely mixed, add in the plum puree.
7. Spread 1/2 the batter in pan, single layer plum slices skin side down, then rest of batter.
8. Bake 70 min (or until toothpick comes away clean).
9. Transfer to cooling rack for about 15'ish minutes.
10. Use a knife to loosen loaf from pan and glaze the finished loaf.

For Glaze: Heat on the stove over med-high heat 1-2 sliced plums, 2 tbsp water & 1/4 Splenda. Take off stove when glaze has only a few small plum pieces and let cool for a few minutes. Drizzle on top while loaf is still warm.

Here I am pouring the remaining batter into the loaf pans.

The finished plum cakes.

Maple Planked Citris Salmon

This is so simple I don't know why we haven't done this before. We bought a maple cedar plank at Whole Foods and tried it out on the barbie with salmon that had been marinating in a citrus sauce. The obvious advantage to grilling with a plank is easy clean up and a taste to die for. The salmon was buttery moist with a slightly nutty flavor that complimented the citrus marinade divinely.

Ingredients:
1 cedar plank and spray bottle
1 salmon (a cut that covered the plank served about 6 people)
crushed garlic
olive oil
a few lemons
(Or you can do what I did and use a citrus garlic dressing - I used Paula's Roasted Garlic fat-free dressing - and add a couple of lemons from your backyard or the store to look like it was made from scratch.)

Steps:
Soak the plank in water for a minimum of one hour.
Combine crushed garlic, oil and lemon juice including the pulp in a deep dish.
Rinse salmon and marinate - I like to let it soak a couple of hours in the fridge.
Slice salmon in sections without cutting all the way through to make serving easy.
Place lemon slices on top of the salmon for presentation.
Pre-heat the bbq on high 350-400 degrees.
Put the plank on the hot grill, close the lid and heat 3 min.
Turn plank with tongs, close lid and heat another 3 min.
Place food on plank, close lid and grill to your liking (about 15-20 min).
Spritz water while grilling to keep the plank from flaring up.
If plank is not too charred it may be used again.

Here we are enjoying a cool evening in our backyard with our friends Matt & Sandi and my sister Rachelle and her husband Andrew while the salmon is grilling. Marc our "griller" is standing in the back with a homemade brew Matt & Sandi brought over.

The salmon was sereved with a simple salad tossed with walnuts, jack cheese and dried fruit, along with fresh-squeezed lemonade from the extra lemons.

Walnut Raisin French Toast

French Toast using walnut rasin bread from the The Baker. We added grilled slices of banana, non-fat vanilla yogurt and warm syrup (coffee-flavored) that we had on-hand. This is a perfect, ready-in-minutes, breakfast for weekends at home.

Before.
During.
After.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

This is the simplest, healthiest and according to my husband one of the best puddings yet. As you can see from the ingredients, this desert is for the diet-conscious. And because the ingredients are good for you, you won't feel guilty getting seconds.

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1-1/2 cups non-fat milk
1/2 cup water
1 cup Splenda
1 tsp cinammon
15 oz pumpkin mix
loaf of whole wheat french bread
1/2 cup orange cranberries (you can also use raisins)
non-fat vanilla yogurt

Steps:
1. Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a medium-size baking dish.
2. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs and add in the milk, sugar and pumpkin.
3. Tear bread into cubes and add to mix. Make sure bread soaks up the liquid.
4. Spread 1/2 the bread into baking dish, add most of the cranberries, then add the remaining bread and remaining cranberries.
5. Give the top another dusting of cinammon and pop in the oven for about 60 minutes.
6. Serve warm, topped with the yogurt.

Healthy Rice Pudding

I have finally discovered nirvana and it comes as a warm, easy to make dessert. Get sick of it? No problem, just add whatever items you have at hand in your kitchen and you have something different each time.

Here's the basic recipe:

healthy rice pudding
2 cups water
1 cup brown cooked rice
1/2 cup Splenda
1 tsp cinnamon
fruit - fresh or dried

1. boil the water.
2. lower heat and add rice (30-45 minutes stirring occasionally).
3. when water is mostly absorbed, add Splenda, cinnamon and fruit (cook another 10 minutes).

I like brown rice but you can also use white. If you don't have cooked rice, use uncooked and add a little more water.

That's it. For fruit I like cut up banana, pears or apples. For dried fruit everything works. Your typical raisins, cranberries, mixed diced fruit and apricots. And mixing them up is ok too, like bananas and cranberries. Note the longer you cook the dried fruit, the more the fruit expands back to its undried former state. This is ok, but if you're using cranberries this will eventually liquefy (like cranberry juice) and start to turn your rice pink. I know because this has happened.

To serve, I like to layer cool plain non-fat yogurt in between the warm rice pudding in a small glass goblet or wine glass. Then, I add a dollop of the yogurt and sprinkle a little granola, fruit or chocolate bits (I like white chocolate or yogurt) on top. And viola! A decadent masterpiece people will think you slaved over.

Ok, because people say I'm crazy (which they're right about), I also have a couple more variations I like that you may want to try.

roobius tea rice pudding
Add a few teabags to the water being boiled. When the water has been absorbed remove the teabags, before adding the fruit. This adds a hint of the tea to the rice pudding and gives it a nice rich color. I tried a vanilla roobius tea to give it an added hint of sweetness.

apple crumble rice pudding
Saute some apple slices with a bit of Splenda and cinnamon. Add the warm rice pudding on top (this is great when you have leftover rice pudding, just nuke it a few minutes first to warm it up). Then sprinkle on top granola.

carrot raisin rice pudding
Add shredded carrot while the rice cooked and golden raisins at the end. Add a little more water or milk at the end to make this creamier. Serve with vanilla yogurt. By the way, this is a great way to get your young'n to eat veggies.

peanut butter & jelly rice pudding
Add crushed peanuts to the end and layer the pudding in the glass with jam.

what's next?
seasonal variations - this spring/summer I'm planning to try strawberries, plums, pineapples and peaches. Hmmm, maybe strawberry/banana rice pudding.

espresso rice pudding - instead of tea substituting coffee. I think cinnamon and diced hazelnuts will play off the coffee flavor nicely.

banana nut rice pudding - adding chopped walnuts nuts to the bananas at the end.

zuccini nut rice pudding - adding shredded zuccini to chopped pecans at the end.

pumpkin spice rice pudding - with the cinnamon and raisins, add pumpkin spice. Top with vanilla yogurt.

pina colada rice pudding - mixed fruit like papaya, pineapple, raisins and cranberries and shredded cococut.

s'mores rice pudding - mix in some chocolate pieces so that the rice pudding gets good and chocolaty. I think dark chocolate might work the best. Mix in crumpled graham cracker pieces. Adding marshmallows may be even too wierd for me, so I'd probably try topping the pudding with a couple miniature ones first just to see.