Skinny Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

My favorite time of year is Fall. I love when the temperature starts to get cooler and the air is crisp. Fall always means that Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas (and my birthday) are right around the corner. And it's the perfect time to start baking warm, sweet pumpkin bread. Pumpkin bread is my favorite type of bread but because it's decadent and I associate it with the holidays, I only make it once a year. Every year after Thanksgiving I make a loaf of my pumpkin chocolate chip bread and give it to my Dad as an early Christmas present. He says he looks forward to it all year long (so much apparently that he never shares "his loaf" with the family). My Dad says his favorite thing is having a slice of pumpkin chocolate chip bread with a cup of coffee in the morning around the holidays.

This year I wanted to try a different version of my classic pumpkin bread. Both my Dad and I have been trying to lose some weight this year and I thought, hey, I'm sure I can make a "skinny" version of this bread. I opted to swap out the eggs and oil in my regular recipe for applesauce and Greek yogurt. The results were better than I expected. The bread tasted exactly like the regular version! The only difference was the consistency was a little chewier. The bread still had the perfect pumpkin spice taste and was complemented by the sweetness of the chocolate chips. I was in pumpkin heaven.

As with all recipes I love, this one is also really easy to make. Here are the ingredients you will need:

 First, stir together all the wet ingredients

Then, sift together all the dry ingredients and stir into the wet ingredients. Add the chocolate chips last

Bake for about an hour in a 350 degree oven until the toothpick comes out clean

This recipe says it will make one 9x5x3 inch loaf but I've always found the recipe makes enough for two loaves so I always make two.

If you make two loaves you can get about 8-10 slices out of each loaf. Each slice will be about 200-240 calories depending on the width of your slice. This is about half the calories of pumpkin bread from Starbucks! Dive in and enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

1 2/3 cups sugar

2/3 cup applesauce

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

3 cups Gold Medal all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (usually I add an extra teaspoon for flavor)

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon all spice

First:

Move oven rack to low position so that the tops of pans will be in the center of the oven.

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 ½ x 4 ½ x 2 ½ inches, or 1 loaf pan 9x5x3 inches, with shortening.

Then:

Stir together pumpkin, sugar, applesauce, vanilla and yogurt in large bowl. Sift dry ingredients and stir into the wet ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into pans.

Finally:

Bake 8 inch loaves 50-60 minutes, 9 inch loaf 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days. 

Dining-Out Tips

Did you know that there are tons of apps out there these days that can help you track calories and other nutritional values when you're dining out?

I eat out a lot. Way more than I should. I justify it by the plain fact that cooking for one person is pointless and I am not a big fan of leftovers. But my spending problems are for another blog. Back to dining out tips! The app I use most often is actually from a website called SparkPeople.com. It's a free online community that offers nutrition, health, and fitness tools, support, and resources that are 100% free. Seriously, 100% free! No catch. I've been using the website for years! SparkPeople has a huge database of food that they update daily. Their database also includes pretty much anything you can find in the supermarket. Along with the database of food they maintain, you can always find off-the-beaten-path foods that other sparkpeople members have added. Plus, you can add your own foods if you are really stuck. It's the best website out there for tracking all your nutritional information and getting support while you're at it. All of this great information is on their app as well. Their app is easy to use (and FREE) and has all the functions of their website. If I'm going out to eat, I often look up something I want to eat beforehand on the app so I know exactly how many calories I'll be consuming. It's a great tool and it's fast and easy.

The other app I've found for dining out that is really helpful is Restaurant Nutrition. It's also a FREE app. The database is pretty comprehensive considering all the restaurants there are out there today. You can find nutritional values from anything from A&W to Wawa. I found this to be a great tool when I go out to dinner unexpectedly and don't have time to plan my meal ahead of time. One drawback is that this app won't update daily so if you want the most up to date information you'll have to check for updates by going into the app itself or syncing with iTunes or whatever app store you use. You can buy the upgrade for this app for $3.99 and it will give you WeightWatchers points for all the menu items in it's database. Another great tool.

My last 2 tips for the day: When dining-out, ask your waiter/waitress to have the kitchen prepare your food "dry". This basically means that the kitchen should not cook your food in butter or oil. You can also ask for all sauces on the side. This is a huge help in saving calories and will also lower the sodium count (which is always much higher when dining-out). The other thing I do often is if I'm really craving something like creamy pasta or a burger, I order what I want, dry of course, and just eat half and get a salad on the side. More often than not, I'm perfectly satisfied in just eating half of the thing I'm craving.