Easy almond flour pie crust – gluten and sugar free!

Posted on August 8, 2013 by Rory

finished 1

I’ve been making mini cheesecake muffins for about a year now, and they are a-MAY-zing! (I’ll post the recipe soon.) Normally I just pour the cheesecake mixture into cupcake liners, but this time I decided to make them look like REAL mini cheesecakes – and that meant they had to have a pie crust on the bottom. After a little bit of “research” (Google) I managed to find a recipe that fit my two requirements – 1 – it had to be easy, and 2 – it had to use almond flour.

Why almond flour? Well, for one thing, I try to avoid carbs whenever I can, which means no regular flour. I also happen to have a five-pound bag of flour in my cupboard that I’m trying to finish.

I was sooo happy with the way this crust came out! Especially because I used regular almond flour as opposed to BLANCHED almond flour, which I mistaken bought. I only made six cheesecake “cupcakes” with it and I had a bunch left over, so I’m guessing that this recipe would net about a dozen cupcakes. I’m really looking forward to trying this recipe in a full-sized pie, maybe a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. I’ll keep you posted!

Easy Almond Flour Pie Crust

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup almond flour
  • 2 Tbs. butter, at room temperature or softer
  • 3 teaspoons of Truvia

Directions:

1. Preheat over to 350.

2. Mix all ingredients with a beater.

almond flour crust ingredientsmixed 13. Pat into whatever type of pan you’re using and flatten with a spoon or your fingers. (I used one tablespoon per cupcake.

scooppressbefore4. Bake for about 10 minutes. Careful not to let it burn.

finishedThat’s it! Just let the crust cool down a bit before pouring anything on top of it.

finsihed cheese cake, in liners

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Food, HCG, Personal, Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Healthy Fourth of July Recipes – Sugar-free Red, White and Blue Cheesecake-stuffed Strawberries

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Rory

finished red white and blue cheesecake strawberries3

Another ridiculously easy Fourth of July recipe. I posted the exact same recipe a few weeks ago, but it didn’t have the pretty blueberries and raspberries, which definitely take the presentation of this recipe to another level. I made this today at lunch, and as soon as I bit into one I asked myself why I don’t make them more often. The cheesecake filling is delicious, and the strawberries I bought last night were so perfectly ripe it was insane!

Click here for the “extended version” of this recipe.

Sugar-free Red, White and Blue Cheesecake-stuffed Strawberries

Ingredients:

  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 3 tsp. Truvia
  • 1 lb. of fresh strawberries, washed
  • A handful of blueberries (and raspberries, optional)
  • Walnuts (chopped or ground, optional)

Directions:

Beat the cream cheese, vanilla and Truvia for a minute or two, then spoon it into a plastic baggie. Cut off the stems of the strawberries and scoop out some of the insides. Snip off one corner of the baggie and squeeze the cheesecake into the strawberries. Sprinkle some walnuts over the cheesecake, and then top it off with a blueberry. Decorate the plate with the remaining blueberries and the raspberries.

That’s all there is to it. So easy!

fill strawberries with creamcheeseadd nutsfinished red white and blue cheesecake strawberriesfinished red white and blue cheesecake strawberries2

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Fitness, Food, HCG, Health, Life, Personal, Recipes | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Healthy Fourth of July desserts: Red, White and Blue Ricotta Banana Split – Sugar free!

Posted on July 3, 2013 by Rory

finished banana split with chocolate syrup

I was looking for a cute Fourth of July recipe to make when I stumbled on this recipe. The easy thing about the Fourth of July theme is that all you have to do is add fruit! Strawberries, raspberries, cranberries, cherries, blueberries, blackberries: All of them can make any regular dessert “holiday appropriate.”

But ricotta cheese? As a dessert?

Yes.

Most people are a little wary when I first tell them that you can, in fact, eat ricotta cheese for dessert. Even though it’s used in a wide variety of desserts, like cheesecakes and cannolis, people tend to associate ricotta cheese with savory Italian dishes, like lasagna and eggplant parmesan. Or maybe that was just me…

I first heard of ricotta as a dessert when I was doing the South Beach Diet a million years ago. I was taken aback when I saw it on their dessert recipe list, but I figured I’d give it a try. I’m so glad I did! Ricotta is pretty mild tasting on its own, but add a little bit of sweetener and some vanilla or almond extract and you’ve got yourself an extremely satisfying dessert. (You can even get fancy and add cinnamon, cocoa powder, coffee, whatever! Sky’s the limit.)

Notes:

I made this recipe in the kitchen at work, and EVERYONE who saw me carrying it from the kitchen to my desk thought it was an actual ice cream banana split. Among my favorite comments: “Don’t you think it’s a little early for ice cream?” “Oh my God that looks so good.” “Where’s mine?”

I decided not to add any sweetener to this recipe, figuring that the fruit would be enough to sweeten it up. For me it was, but it wasn’t for one of my friends, who decided to sprinkle a little Truvia on top.

I always say that sometimes all you need is a hint of a flavor to satisfy a particular craving. Well, one mouthful of ricotta mixed with banana, nuts and chocolate syrup DEFINITELY made me feel like I was eating the real thing.

Red, White and Blue Banana Split

Ingredients:

  • Handful of raspberries (or strawberries, cherries, cranberries)
  • Handful of blueberries (or blackberries)
  • One banana
  • 1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
  • Handful of walnuts
  • Sugar-free chocolate syrup or cocoa powder (optional)
  • One packet of Truvia or other sweetener (optional)

Directions:

Slice the banana lengthwise. Add two scoops of ricotta cheese, then top with berries, nuts, and chocolate syrup. This could not be any easier.

sliced banana and ricottaadd berriesadd nutsfinished banana split1

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Food, HCG, Life, Personal, Recipes | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Easy and HEALTHY Baked Eggplant Parmesan (gluten free, diet-friendly)

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Rory

eggplant parm with basil

Of all the healthy recipes that I learned how to make while I was on the HCG diet last year, this one is by far my favorite. Like I say in just about every single blog post, sometimes all you need is a hint of a flavor in order for a recipe to satisfy a particular craving. This recipe does that in spades. It’s got all the flavors of “real” eggplant parm, minus the breadcrumbs and the frying.

It’s also really easy to make. It is a little time consuming, though. From start to finish it usually takes me 45 minutes, so it’s definitely not my go-to meal when I get home from salsa class at 10 pm and I’m starving. But on the weekend, I’m all about it.

I haven’t even mentioned how DELICIOUS this is. It’s amazing. With all that cheese, how could it not be? You should definitely try this.

Sidenote: I’ve been working hard to improve the quality of the pictures in my posts, and I think the pictures in this post show a marked improvement! So I’m happy about that.

Easy and HEALTHY Baked Eggplant Parmesan

Ingredients:

Directions:

Preheat the over to 450F. Spray a baking sheet with olive oil spray (or something similar). Slice the eggplant into thin rounds, then place them on the baking sheet. Cook for about 15 minutes, flipping once about halfway through, until the slices begin to brown (I find that I prefer them when they’re crispier). Remove the eggplant from the oven and turn it down to 375F.

eggplant cooked halfway

eggplant cooked all the way

Take an 8×10 inch baking pan and spread out a thin layer of tomato sauce. (Why? I don’t know. My mom told me to do it, and I’ve since seen it in other recipes. Maybe it’s so the eggplant won’t stick to the pan?) Add a layer of eggplant. Over each eggplant slice, add some tomato sauce, then parmesan cheese (I do about one teaspoon per round, per layer), and then mozzarella cheese. Repeat until you’ve used all of the eggplant. I usually have three layers of eggplant.

first layer of eggplant

eggplant with tomator sauce and parmesan first layer close up

eggplant second layer with tomato sauce and mozzarella

eggplant third layer

Top it off with tomato sauce and cheese, then pop the pan into the oven for about 15 minutes.

eggplant third layer with tomato sauce, parmesan and mozzarella

All done! Garnish with basil if you’d like. I only added the basil for the pictures, but it actually tasted really good, so going forward I think I’ll continue to add it.

eggplant parm with basil 3

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Food, HCG, Health, Life, Personal, Recipes | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Healthy Sausage and Peppers

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Rory

finsihed sausage and peppers

Just like the Boy Scouts, my NUMBER ONE  rule when I’m trying to lose weight is: Be Prepared! I can’t even count how many times I’ve cheated on a diet because I was starving when I got home and I didn’t have any healthy meals in my fridge, forcing me to tear apart my cupboards in search of the microwave Easy Mac and Cheese that I knew was in there, somewhere.

Yes, temptation is everywhere, even in my own home. But I’m much less likely to cheat on a diet when I have my meals planned out – and cooked – for the next two or three days.

And that is why I found myself cooking sausage and peppers at 11 pm last night.

I got home from salsa class at 10 and I was starvinggggg. Fortunately I had curry chicken and cauliflower rice in my fridge from the night before. I INHALED it. So good. Anyway, I was sitting on my couch watching Futurama when all of the sudden I realized that I didn’t have any meals prepared for today. Shit.

To the kitchen! I already knew I would be making sausage and peppers: I had a green pepper in my fridge that needed to be used before it went bad, so that morning I had defrosted a pack of chicken sausage. I quickly cut up the onions and peppers, then I threw them into one pan while I cooked the sausages on my little cast iron grill. Twenty(ish) minutes later I was finished.

Healthy Sausage and Peppers

Ingredients (about two servings):

  • Sausage – I used Nature’s Promise Chicken Sausage for this one, which has 5 decent-sized links. You can use any sausage you want though (healthy or not).
  • 2 green peppers (which is how many I would normally use)
  • 3 or 4 onions
  • Olive oil
  • Optional: garlic, oregano, thyme, salt

Sausage and pepper ingredients

Directions:

1. In one pan, heat the olive oil, then saute the onions and peppers until they start to get tender, maybe 5 minutes. Add the garlic, oregano and thyme and cook for another minute or two.

cooked onions and peppers

2. Cook the sausages over a medium flame for about 10 minutes, rotating so they’re brown on all sides (I like the cast-iron grill because it gives the sausages will have the grill lines.)

cooking sausage and peppers

3. Cut the sausages into pieces and add them to the onions and peppers. (Cutting the sausages into pieces ensures that they are cooked on the inside. Mine were completely pink when I first cut them!)

pink sausages

4. Cook for another 10 or so minutes, until the sausages are completely cooked.

All done! Add some salt if you want.

I was gonna divide the sausages into two servings, but then I made the mistake of looking at the nutritional info on the package and saw that each sausage contains 620 mg of sodium! That’s a lot. So I split the vegetables into two servings and divided the sausages into three servings – meaning that I have some sausages ready to eat when I come home hungry on Friday night after an evening of drinking. Gotta be prepared!

sausage in tupperware

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Exercise, Fitness, Food, HCG, Health, Life, Personal, Recipes | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Rory

Angel hair with sauce

Over the weekend I decided that starting today I’m going to completely cut out carbs for the next two and a half weeks (until June 16, my cousin’s graduation party). For my “last meal,” which was last night, I chose to make angel hair pasta and tomato sauce.

I had several reasons for picking this meal:

  1. I love pasta.
  2. I wanted to finish the box of pasta that I’d opened the day before. (Yes, I ate a whole box of pasta in two days. By myself.)
  3. I wanted to eat it with tomato sauce. The day before I’d had it with garlic and oil and it was meh.
  4. I needed to make sauce anyway for this eggplant thing that I’ll be cooking this week.

So I made it. And it was great. Sometimes I forget just how delicious this sauce can be. Then I’ll taste it while it’s cooking and think, “Omg this is so good, why don’t I make this more often??”

This time I used fire-roasted tomatoes, because they were on sale. Initially I was only planning to use one can of tomatoes, but I accidentally poured out too much oil in the beginning so I decided to double the recipe. I learned awhile back that you should ALWAYS have extra cans of tomatoes when you’re making a sauce. That way, if you mess something up – too much oil or salt – all you have to do is add another can of tomatoes and Voila! Problem solved.

Quick and Easy Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

  • 1 28 oz. can of diced tomatoes
  • 3 oz. of tomato paste
  • 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 cloves of chopped garlic (I love garlic. If you don’t, use less.)
  • 1 teaspoon of oregano
  • Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Heat up the olive oil.

heat oil

2. Add the garlic and saute until light brown.

Saute garlic

3. Add the tomatoes, the tomato paste, and the oregano and mix well (mixing the tomato paste can be a bit of a pain). Add salt (and/or pepper) a little bit at a time so you don’t over-salt it (which I may have done once or twice).

cook tomato sauce

4. Cook over a medium flame for 5-10 minutes, until hot.

That’s all there is to it!

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Fitness, Food, HCG, Health, Life, Personal, Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Creamy Avocado Sauce with Miracle Noodles

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Rory

ingredients1

Avocados are such a huge part of my diet these days that it’s hard to believe that my first time buying one was just last year! I had gone to a Mexican place with friends, and when we ordered the guacamole the server actually came and prepared it tableside! It looked so easy that it inspired me to buy an avocado.

making guacamole rio

That was last June. Since then avocados have become a staple in my diet. I eat one or two each week. Yes, they’re fattening, but it’s the “good fat” so it’s okay. Right?

Here a link on how to cut an avocado that I found useful.

Initially I was just adding some avocado to my salad. But then one day I had two ripe avocados in my fridge that I needed to eat before I went on vacation. After a quick search for avocado recipes, I decided to make “spaghetti” with avocado sauce. The recipe was perfect because I had all of the ingredients in my fridge – avocados, lime juice, salsa, and Miracle Noodles.

I wasn’t totally satisfied with the way it came out. The taste of the salsa was so strong that it turned it into a Mexican-flavored dish, which wasn’t what I had been aiming for. But the texture – omg it was so creamy!!

slice avocado

I only ended up using one avocado before my vacation, so when I came back the one that was still in my fridge was super ripe. I decided to give the avocado sauce another try, this time following a recipe WITHOUT salsa. The result was amazingggg. I’ve made it a bunch more times since then, tweaking it a little bit (less lime juice), and it never disappoints.

The best part of this recipe is that it literally takes 5 minutes. In the morning before work I mix the garlic, cilantro and lime juice in a small plastic container. I bring the container, an avocado (which I usually pick up at the little Asian market by the train station), and a pack of Miracle Noodles with me to work and leave them in the fridge until lunchtime. At lunchtime I drain the noodles and soak them in water, and while they’re soaking I cut my avocado in half and mix it with the lime juice mixture. Then I drain the noodles and mix everything together. Easy peasy.

Creamy Avocado Sauce

Ingredients (one serving):

  • 1/2 an avocado
  • 1 teaspoon lime juice
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon cilantro
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • One bag of Miracle Noodles (or real pasta, whatever)

1. Mix the garlic, cilantro, and lime juice.

bringtowork2. Cut your avocado in half and mash it up.

mash avocado3. Mix the avocado with the lime juice mixture.

mixwithliquid

4. Add the avocado sauce to your noodles. You can heat it in the microwave for 30 seconds or eat it cold. I prefer it heated.

mix avocado sauce with noodles

Boom, done. Could it get any easier?

mmmmvib

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Food, HCG, Health, Life, Personal, Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sugar-free Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Rory

yummy strawberries and cheesecake

I had originally planned to make these cheesecake-stuffed strawberries on Saturday night so I could bring them to my aunt’s house for Mother’s Day on Sunday. But alas, things don’t always go according to plan: On Saturday around 7:30 pm I was driving to Home Depot and I got a flat tire! Fortunately I wasn’t alone, or I would have freaked out. But what was supposed to be a quick trip to Home Depot ended up turning into a several-hour ordeal, and by the time I got home I was exhausted.

So even though I had all of the ingredients ready to go, I did NOT end up making this recipe for Mother’s Day. Womp womp. But I did make it a few days later…while I was at work! On Tuesday morning I woke up early so that I could make the cheesecake mixture. Then I packed the ingredients into my huge purse, and when I got to work I put everything in the fridge until lunchtime.

The scene at my table during lunch was kind of funny. I had plates, knives, napkins, a tray, strawberries, nuts, and the cheesecake mixture laid out in front of me. As I sat at the table cutting and scooping out the insides of the strawberries, my friend commented that she felt like she was watching a cooking segment on tv.

lunch table

I would have been done with everything relatively quickly if I didn’t need to stop at every stage and take pictures for this blog! The “photo shoot” took a turn for the ridiculous when my friends started posing for pictures with the strawberries. I’m sure people in the lunchroom were wondering what the hell we were doing!

strawberries cheers

I had only used half of my cheesecake mixture, so yesterday I brought the rest of it with me to work, along with another quart of strawberries. This time I prepared the strawberries a little differently – after hollowing out the strawberries I turned them upside down so that any liquid would drain out. I also cut some of the strawberries at the tip so I could stand them up for pictures, and in a few I just made an X at the tip instead of slicing off the stem.

strawberries drained

Tips for this recipe:

1. Make sure to really hollow out the strawberries. Otherwise the strawberry flavor kind of overpowers the cheesecake flavor, which is the best part!

2. Make sure to dry the strawberries off really well. You don’t need to drain them for hours like I did – I’m sure using a napkin would have sufficed!

3. If you decide to make the “X” cut into the tip, don’t cut too low if you’re planning on cutting off the stem – otherwise the strawberry will fall apart:

strawberries cut with X

Sugar-free Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries

Ingredients:

  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened
  • 2 lb. of fresh strawberries, washed
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 3 tsp. Truvia
  • Chopped walnuts (optional)

Directions:

1. Cut off the stems of the strawberries and cut out some of the insides. (If you want them look pretty, like for a party or something, then cut off a little bit off the tip so you can stand them up.) Or, you can slice open the tip of the strawberry and fill it from that end.

hollowed out strawberries

2. Beat the cream cheese, vanilla and Truvia for a minute or two, then spoon it into a plastic baggie (or a pastry bag if you fancy – I’m not!).

3. Snip off one corner of the baggie and squeeze the cheesecake into the strawberry.

filled strawberries and nuts

4. Dip the cheesecake end into the chopped walnuts (or any nut, or graham crackers, chocolate, etc.)

That’s all there is to it! So easy.

P.S. – One of the ways I determine whether or not a sugar-free recipe is really delicious is by feeding it to my non-dieting friends. So I’m pleased to report that my friends all loved it.

Enjoy!

yummy strawberries and cheesecake2

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Food, HCG, Health, Personal, Recipes, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Miracle Noodles – are they really a “miracle”?

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Rory
mmmm

Miracle Noodles mixed with an Avocado Sauce

I first heard about Miracle Noodles a little over a year ago. Back then I was on the extremely strict HCG diet (only 550 calories allowed each day), and I was completely obsessed with finding ways to make low-calorie versions of the meals that I love…which, to be honest, is anything and everything. I love to eat. Anyway, I was reading some bulletin board and stumbled upon a thread about Miracle Noodles, a zero-carb and zero-calorie alternative to pasta.

No calories AND no carbs? Sold!

After doing some extensive research (a.k.a. Google), I learned that Miracle Noodles are made of a healthy natural fiber called Glucomannan, which is derived from the roots of the Konjac plant.  In addition to all of the health benefits of high fiber foods, fiber also keeps you feeling fuller longer, preventing overeating. Yada yada yada….

Honestly, it wasn’t the product descriptions or the reviews I read that convinced me to buy Miracle Noodles. It was the idea of making – and eating – a healthy version of Chicken Pad Thai, one of the dishes that I was missing the most. So I headed to amazon.com and bought a 6-pack of the angel hair noodles.

By the time they came in the mail, I had probably read over 200 reviews on the noodles. The negative ones mostly talked about the fishy smell of the liquid they’re packed in, which for some people seems to be overwhelming. I was expecting to be completely nauseated when I opened up my first package of the noodles, but that wasn’t the case at all! In fact, the “fishy” smell was so faint that I had to actually hold the bag up to my nose in order to smell it.

Nonetheless, the first dish I made using Miracle Noodles was a FAIL. Why? Because the Pad Thai recipe I had settled on turned out to be gross. The thing I’ve since come to learn about the noodles is that they don’t have any flavor when you eat them by themselves. So the success of the meal depends entirely on whatever you choose to mix your noodles with.

I tried again a few days later, this time following a recipe for sesame noodles that I found on the Miracle Noodles website. This time it was a complete success! The sauce was AMAZING. After 3 months on a super restricted diet, I thought I had died and gone to Chinese Japanese Thai Asian-food heaven.

Miracle noodles with peanut sesame sauce

Miracle noodles with sesame peanut sauce

So are Miracle Noodles really a ‘miracle’? I think that answer depends on your perception. They definitely don’t taste like pasta, so if you’re expecting them to then you will be severely disappointed.

But if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times: sometimes when you’re dieting all you need is a hint of a flavor to satisfy a craving. So if I use Miracle Noodles to make some Asian-inspired dish and that keeps me from going out and ordering some pork lomein from the Chinese food place, then yes, I would consider that a diet miracle.

Posted in Blog, Cooking, DIet, Dieting, Fitness, Food, HCG, Health, Life, Personal, Uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Time to follow through with my New Year’s Resolution

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Rory

I work at an accounting firm, and during our busy season (January to April 15) my company is constantly feeding us. Breakfast on Tuesdays, pizza on Wednesdays, and bagels on the weekend, with foot-long heroes, cupcakes, ice cream sundaes, ice cream cupcakes, and pretzels with cheese dip (yum) scattered throughout. Oh, I almost forgot the happy hours with platters upon platters of fried food. It’s ridiculous.

Not that I’m complaining. On the contrary, snack time during busy season is the best! But for someone like me, who has a really difficult time controlling herself when it comes to sweets, it makes eating healthy almost impossible. And since I generally have the mindset of “I’ve already cheated on my diet, so I might as well continue eating a bunch a crap today and start my diet fresh tomorrow,” starting the day with a bagel leads to a full day of indulgence.

Some of my favorite snacks from this past busy season:

busy season snacks

Yummy!

Obviously all of this eating had consequences, which I finally faced up to last Monday when I stepped on the scale for the first time in months.

Drumroll…..

I’m up seven pounds since December. SEVEN!

You know what that means, right? I’m back on a diet. What else is new?

At first I was going to cut out all carbs and sugar, because I lose weight super fast that way. But when I gave it some thought I decided against it. My New Year’s Resolution for this year was to figure out how to maintain a healthy weight so that I’m not yo-yo dieting for the rest of my life. I think the only way for me to do that is to stop all the drastic diets and instead focus on controlling my binging episodes.

Last week was my first full week of trying to eat “in moderation.” I did pretty good…until the weekend rolled around. Friday night drinking led to late night McDonald’s for dinner, which wasn’t really that bad, even though it was McDonald’s. I had a double cheeseburger and some chicken nuggets. But the rest of the weekend? Forget it. Carbo-loading on Saturday (to stave of a hangover) led to a day of overeating. There was a lot of cake involved.

But it’s fine (or so I keep telling myself). “What happened before doesn’t matter. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.” I just hope that’s not a mantra I find myself repeating every Monday.

Posted in Blog, DIet, Dieting, Exercise, Fitness, Food, HCG, Life, Personal, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 3 Comments