Universal Baked Oatmeal

I apologize in advance for lack of photos. You'll just have to trust me that they look beautiful. Back when I was in wedding weightloss mode I searched for anything that was low calorie and tasted good. I LOVE chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. I was very excited when I stumbled on a banana chocolate chip oatmeal singles recipe on Emily the Baker's blog! I baked this recipe religiously for months. I loved them.
 
Then I signed up for a CSA this summer. Sadly bananas don't grow well in the northeast so I found myself inundated with other types of fruit. After baking several cobblers (including a to die for plumb cobbler with these tiny red plums that I wish I knew what they were so I could buy my own tree to get as many as I can eat!). I decided that turning fruit into dessert was not the best idea for avoiding the post wedding weight gain. One week I sat staring at a pile of peaches and a belly grumbling for muffins and it hit me, put the peaches in the muffins!

After some yummy peach muffins I was on a mission. We moved into a bigger house this summer and before we moved my husband was on a mission to eat all the food we could in our house so we would have less stuff to move. I experimented with some frozen strawberries and dried coconut one week. Hubby seemed to like it (I'm not a coconut fan personally). After we moved I discovered that our new house had an apple tree that weighed down with lots of ripe apples so I made lots of apple oatmeal muffins :)
 
I've decided that this is a great universal breakfast muffin recipe

Ingredients:
1.5 cups old-fashioned oats
1.5 cups one minute or quick oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar or sugar alternative
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 ¼ cups skim milk or plain yogurt
¾ c mashed bananas or apple sauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¾ c semi-sweet chocolate chips or apples, peaches, pecans, strawberries, you name it! Or you can just skip this all together and get a super low cal muffin! When I swap out chocolate chips for fruit I like to add something with a little fat too like pecans with apples or the strawberry with coconut, something to make the muffins keep you fuller longer. I also like to replace the bananas with applesauce and add spices as I think fit. I love adding some cinnamon to apple muffins.

You can use all old fashioned oats but I found that swapping out half of the oats with quick oats gives you more of a muffin texture. With just the oats the muffins can be a little soupy when you put them in the oven, the quick oats absorb some of that excess liquid.

Directions:
1.    Preheat the oven to 350. Lightly mist 18 cups in a muffin tin with baking spray.
2.    Combine the oats, brown sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl and stir until thoroughly mixed.
3.    In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg whites, egg, mashed banana, milk and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until blended together. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4.    Spoon the oatmeal mixture evenly between the prepared muffin cups. Bake uncovered for 18-22 minutes or until oatmeal is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Here's 1 photo I found from when I baked them a few months ago...I needed something for pinterest :)

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Bananarama

The banana bread recipe is back and better than everrrrr! Today was an all out banana muffin experiment.

Awhile ago Pinterest presented me with this alternative for banana muffins. Super easy, right? And only 93 calories each even using real sugar? YES PLEASE. Well it turns out when you add an extra banana you add extra calories. I 'm pretty sure the calorie count quoted only included 1 banana in the calculation despite the fact that they recommend at least 2...I'm actually not totally sure how they calculated calories because I can't get the same number with 1 banana and real sugar. So to compensate I replace the sugar with baking Stevia. I also use pre-ground oat flour (we have a friend who has a magic machine that can turn grain into flour so he grinds our oats for us). So here's my recipe:

1 3/4 cup oat flour (or 1 cup oat flour, 3/4 cup whole wheat flour)
1/2 cup oats (old fashioned kind, not quick cooking)
1 single serving cup (or 1 cup) of plain low fat greek yogurt2 eggs
3/4 cup sweetener of choice or stevia equivalent
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 bananas 

Total calories: 118 (a few more if you use all oat flour). Since I use preground oats I don't use the food processor to blend, I just mix it all by hand. I left some oats whole to add texture. The original recipe is pretty good but today I decided to mix it up a little. 

Variation #1: Cinnamon Banana Oat Muffins 
Follow base recipe, add 2 Tbsp of cinnamon (this adds 3 calories per muffin).

Result: yummy

Variation #2: Chocolate Banana Oat Muffins!

Follow base recipe, add 4 Tbsp of cocoa powder (this adds 3 calories per muffin).

Result: om nom nom nom

Variation #3: The Elvis (Peanut Butter Banana Oat Muffins)

Follow base recipe, add 4 Tbsp of PB2 (Powered Peanut Butter) (this adds 6 calories per muffin).

Result: Not as pretty but tasty

So the peanut butter variation was trail #1 of the day. I also tried to cut out some of the flour since the oat flour is a lot more compact than whole oats so I figured when measuring them out I'd need less so I cut a whole cup. I can't decide if it was this or the fat in the peanut butter that made them flatten out and spread). Unfortunately I am obsessed with powdered peanut butter and used up the rest of it in this batch so I couldn't try a second batch with more flour. Worry not my friends, I'm getting a shipment of 12 jars tomorrow so I will try again because even though these don't look beautiful, they are tasty!

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BBB...Black Bean Brownies

I went to visit sissy a few weeks ago and while we were there we had dinner with my aunt and cousins. Since this post Christmas and therefore during calorie counting festivities I offered to bring dessert to dinner at my aunt's so I could control the most dangerous part of the meal. In preparation for making the dessert I scoured the intertubes for ideas for tasty low calorie desserts that weren't fruit salad. I ended up making a sorbet that was just frozen pineapple, mango, and banana thrown into a food processor with a dash of lemon juice and refrozen. So...kind of fruit salad but blended up so I could pretend like it was more than that...

While scouring the google machine I discovered some interesting recipes. One of which was black bean brownies. The boy loves black beans so we decided to try the brownies. They did not disappoint!

I started with this recipe. I've recently discovered that apple sauce can replace oil/butter in almost any baking recipe and it really doesn't make a ton of difference in the overall product except the amount of calories! Here is the recipe I actually used...

• Baking Pam, for greasing pan
• 3/4 cup cooked black beans
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applsauce
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2/3 cup baking stevia (the zero cal stuff)
• 1 teaspoon instant coffee or espresso
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, divided
• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

The end result is a brownie that is only 105 calories a serving (assuming 12 servings per pan). If you use real sugar instead of stevia the calorie per serving goes up to 145. If you use real sugar and oil instead of the apple sauce the calories go up to 205 calories per serving, which I'm sure is still less than 1/12 of a pan of Ghiradelli Brownies (240 a serving). Since I view the black bean brownies as a low calorie replacement for the real thing I'd rather go all out with cutting out the calories. 

So we ate a few before we remembered to take a photo...

For a low calorie replacement for a brownie it really hits the spot! They were chocolatey, super moist, and full of protein! We had a hard time not eating the entire pan...

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Blueberry Bran Muffins

Healthier recipe #1! Blueberry Bran muffins...

I've been messing with banana bread recipes for awhile. A few weeks ago I decided to switch it up a little bit  with bran muffins. My mom used to make bran muffins when I was little and I liked them despite the fact that they were supposed to be "healthy." And by healthy we all know the bran muffins are still muffins, filled with lots of calories, even if they have a ton of fiber in them...but maybe what makes them healthy is that you don't have time to really absorb any of the calories before you poop them out (is that TMI for a baking blog?).

I started with an online recipe. The only substitutions I made were to use a low calorie brown sugar blend (half stevia/half sugar so half the calories!) and all whole wheat flour. They were pretty good. The boy said he really liked them. I'm not sure I liked the half and half sugar blend...I think it tasted too fake with the real sweetener from the blueberries. 

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So I'm Getting Married

At the end of my last post I mentioned that I'm trying to lose weight for my wedding. I'm getting married, yay! My sister, my Matron of Honor, threw me wedding shower #1 at Christmastime for the ladies of my mother's side of the family. It was filled with tasty and creative, pinteresty treats...like...

These

Apparently if you cut a bunch of marshmallows diagonally and throw them into a bag of sanding sugar the sugar only sticks to the sticky part of the marshmallow that you cut through. Then you organize them all pretty and flowery on top of a cupcake!

And this...

A wedding cake made of rice krispie treats! And by rice krispie treats I mean made with extra brown butter so they were extra delicious.

While this event was fun, sadly looking at the photos made me realize how much weight I've gained since meeting the boy, and I was not happy, hence the effort to lose weight before the wedding. I'm trying to turn this into a healthier lifestyle, not just a push to lose weight. We are trying lots of new ways of cooking veggies and using new ingredients while going to the gym A LOT. I think when I'm done losing weight there will be less emphasis on the gym and the food will remain the sameish...maybe slightly larger portions or a little more room for treats...the next few recipes will be more low calorie focused. Still trying to bake despite the calorie counting!

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Slutty Patties

See the trend with the Oreo baked goods? I had to keep the Slutty from the original Slutty Brownie name...can you guess the limited edition Oreo included in this recipe? Did you guess Candy Cane (formerly peppermint)?

I missed the boat buying the Candy Cane Oreos from Target this year (I still can't get over the fact that they got rid of the Peppermint Oreos...the Cane Cane ones just aren't the same). It was heartbreaking because I had devised the Slutty Patty way back when I first made Slutty Brownies and I was just biding my time to get my hands on some Peppermint Oreos to try this recipe. Luckily my cubemate's friend bought him 2 bags of the Candy Cane Oreos...unluckily they got hungry and ate a bag and a half of them. He graciously gave me 12...but I had to improvise a little. So I came up with 2 recipes. Individual Slutty Patties using the Candy Cane Oreos and a whole pan using plain old Double Stuf Oreos.

The base recipe is the same:
Mint M&M Sugar cookie base
Oreo in the middle
Brownies with Andes mint chips mixed in. I like to use Ghiradelli brownie mixes.
(bonus for the pan version, a layer of toasted mint chocolate marshmallows!)
(bonus for the individual version, Pilsbury mint icing!)

First layer is this recipe only using mint m&m's (or Andes creme de menthe chips) instead of chips. You could make the sugar cookie from scratch but I was feeling lazy.

Minty cookie goodness

Add some Oreos and brownie!

Finished individual Patties (minus frosting)

Finished pan version!

Ooey gooey deliciousness

The individual brownies were superior to the pan version. The marshmallows weren't needed after all. Overall they were pretty tasty delicious. But so far nothing has matched the original slutty brownie. If I wasn't currently obsessing over every calorie in order to lose 40 pounds before my wedding I'd totally whip up a pan of slutty brownies. Don't worry, I'm not depriving myself of tasty treats, I just can't moderate my intake of slutty brownie...and I know that, so I won't tempt myself. But maybe I can make a pan for the dessert buffet at the wedding!

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Slutty Gingers

So it's been awhile. It hasn't been because I haven't been baking...I've done plenty of baking! Let's going back in history a few months...November to be exact. Remember Candy the Strippers, based off of slutty brownies? Well I decided to try to come up with some baked good based on every special flavor Oreo comes out with. Therefore, I present to you, the Slutty Ginger...I kind of suck as taking pictures so I'll include what I have.

Recipe:
1 box of Krusteaz Gingerbread mix
1 package of Gingerbread Oreos
2 boxes of Betty Crocker Gingerbread cake

Follow directions to make gingerbread and cake then layer! 

First the gingerbread

Then the Oreos

Finally the cake!

Side view

Sadly when I made these I didn't realize I'd need 2 boxes of the cake to cover the Oreos (one thing I've learned in the process of baking slutty brownies is that the Oreos must always be covered otherwise they'll end up getting blasted with the heat and tasting burned, even if they do eventually end up covered by the top layer expading as it bakes). So I poured the first box on and sent the boy out for another box. While he was out the Oreos absorbed a lot of moisture from the cake and the Oreos kind of just melted into the cake once it was baked and they just kind of disappeared. 

The final product tasted like gingerbread that was a little harder on the bottom and cakey on the top.

Not my best baking adventure but I felt it should still be recorded.

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