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.

Getting Back on Track - Day 3 & 4

Didn't have a chance to post anything last night. I passed out around 1030pm and just didn't have the energy to write anything. Having little to no energy is definitely a drawback to losing weight. Anyway...yesterday was again pretty good. I was really hungry around lunch time and the afternoon. I ate the lunch I brought but an hour later was hungry again so I got a skinny Starbucks that was about 130 calories. Not too bad and it curbed that hunger. I was craving salty food last night and I was really proud of myself that I didn't give in and go get fast food. I actually went to the grocery store after work and made tacos at home. I made it with lean ground turkey so it was healthier than beef and I just put avocado on my taco and no cheese. It was a really satisfying meal and I was actually really full afterwards. I also made a couple skinny cheesecake pies last night that have less that 200 calories a slice. I had the regular kind last night and it was delicisous. Another successful, but definitely a little more difficult day.

Calories: 1266

Carbs: 183

Fat: 36

Protein: 64

Weight: 222.4 (no change)

BMI: 40.7 (no change)

Today was a really good day in terms of eating in my calorie range and not feeling hungry at all. (Work related, it was a shitty day). I did eat out for lunch and dinner though but I made sure to order things with no mayo and no cheese. I didn't give in to "chip temptation" twice today so, go me! I don't love chips like some people but they are definitely tasty. I had another slice of that skinny pie tonight and it was exactly what I was craving without the guilt! I'm starting to think I can actually do this!

Calories: 1154 (I know my calories look low today but I accounted for the fact that I ate out two meals and couldn't be 100% sure of the nutritional information)

Carbs: 163

Fat: 39

Protein: 39

Weight: 222.4 (no change)

BMI: 40.7 (no change)

Skinny No-Bake Pies

So, the reason for making these pies came about because of two reasons. The first was that I had 3 packages of cream cheese from my sister's bridal shower in my fridge and I needed to use them up. The other was that I was craving something sweet and didn't want to go over on my daily calories. I had to find a recipe that could solve both problems. So of course, I went trolling on Pinterest. Soon enough I found two recipes for Skinny no-bake pies. One was a traditional cheesecake and other was pumpkin pie cheesecake. Both were around 150-200 calories a slice.

Here are the ingredients you'll need (minus the pie crust, I forgot to take a picture of that)

Basically, you throw all of this in a bowl and whip until smooth, pour into the pie crust and it will look like this! You do have to refrigerate for a few hours so it sets. I had this one tonight and it was really good. I would never have guessed it was low cal/low fat. Even Harrison wanted a bite!

 The cheesecake from Pinterest is from the following website: http://www.skinnytaste.com/2009/04/no-bake-cheesecake.html

No-Bake Cheesecake

Gina's Weight Watcher Recipes

Servings: 8 • Size: 1 piece • Calories: 239 • Old Points: 5.25 pts • Points+: 6 pts

Ingredients:

8 oz whipped topping (I used Cool-Whip Lite)

8 oz 1/3 less fat Philadelphia Cream Cheese

9 inch reduced fat Graham Cracker Crust

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

Directions:

In a large bowl, whip cream cheese, lemon and sugar for a few minutes until fluffy.Add whipped topping and whip until smooth. Spoon mixture into pie crust and chill for a few hours, until firm.

For the pumpkin pie cheesecake, here are the ingredients (again, minus the pie crust)

And again, super easy; throw all the ingredients in a bowl and stir until smooth. Refrigerate for a couple hours and you have a skinny Fall treat :)

I LOVE easy recipes. These are definitely worth making. It took me about a half hour to make both of these pies. I would definitely make these again!

The pumpkin pie cheesecake from Pinterest is from the following website: http://skinnymom.com/2011/11/15/skinny-pumpkin-cheesecake/

Prep Time: 10 minutes, Fridge Time: 2 hours, Servings: 10

One 15-ounce can pure pumpkin, not pie filling

One 8-ounce container Cool Whip Free

One 8-ounce container reduced-fat cream cheese (room temperature)

1-cup fat-free sour cream

1 low fat graham cracker crust

1 cup Splenda no calorie sweetener (granulated)

1 tablespoon lemon juice

3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine cream cheese, Cool Whip, sour cream, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and Splenda. Stir until blended. Add pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice. Mix well until blended. Spoon mixture evenly into graham cracker crust. Top with crushed graham crackers, nuts, or whip cream (optional).Chill in the fridge for a few hours and serve.

Per Serving: Calories: 133, Fat: 3g, Carbs: 29, Fiber: 1.5g, Sugars: 8g, Protein: 5g

Getting Back on Track - Day 2

So I just weighed myself and to my surprise, in one day I lost almost 2 pounds! Now I know that is probably water weight or something like that, but hey, I'll take it! Today was again a little difficult but not too bad. I had a Jimmy Dean turkey sausage breakfast sandwich this morning which was pretty filling and some coffee. I have to learn to drink coffee with skim milk. That is the one thing I was never able to change. I drink skim milk and use it in every other area but coffee. Coffee just doesn't taste good without half and half. That's a habit I need to start breaking. Not sure if I can do that one. If I had used skim milk instead of cream this morning I would have saved myself almost 60 calories (I only drank half my small coffee). Anyway, lunch was a yummy salad from Panera with chicken that was only 330 calories. As delicious as that salad was, it was completely not filling. I was still really hungry. Unfortunately I didn't remember to pack a yogurt or fruit today so I ended up eating a Nature Valley protein bar. The calories on that weren't too bad but the fat was terrible. I picked it because it was high in protein and I knew it would fill me up, which it did. Mental note to stock up on yogurt or low fat cheese at work. Protein bars are not that great for you. Lots of sugar and sometimes lots of fat. I treated myself a little today too and had a mini kit-kat. The chocolate was exactly what I needed at 3pm but it was about 50 calories for that tiny little thing. Still, it did the trick. Dinner was surprisingly not bad again. Dinner has always been my weak link. I manage to do really well all day but then I'm so hungry by dinner I tend to overeat. Today I did well again. I had another salad and another nutrisystem entree. It filled me up and then I had a nutrisystem snack to top it off. All in all, I can't really complain; another successful day!

Calories: 1497
Carbs:  177
Fat: 59
Protein:  82

Weight: 222.4 (still yuck)
BMI: 40.7 (still ugh)

Getting back on track

So, today begins my quest to get back on track to eating healthier and exercising more. It occurred to me yesterday (after pigging out on fries and wings) that I have exactly 10 weeks until my sister's wedding. That's right people, 70 days to lose as much weight and inches as possible. I had every intention of using this entire year to work on my weight but as so many other things, I just got too busy, too lazy and lacked motivation. So now I find myself in somewhat of a panic mode. I don't want to be the fat bridesmaid, not to mention that I'm the maid of honor. I'm pissed at myself beyond words that I've let myself go this long. I could come up with a hundred excuses right now as to why I couldn't do it or why I put it off but that would be futile at this point. The funny thing is, is that I know HOW to lose weight; I have all the tools and skills. I've tried Nutrisystem and have been to a nutritionist twice with some results but somehow or another, I always go back to my old ways. I need to get focused and motivated, STAT!!! So from here until November 3rd, 2012, my blog will focus primarily of keeping track of my weight loss. I'll track how many calories I eat each day, weekly weight-ins and take pictures of my progress along the way. I'm going to keep my calories between 1200-1500 a day like I did when I was seeing a nutritionist. If I can get down 20 lbs by my sister's wedding I will be happy. I start going back to Zumba tomorrow and the plan is to go at least twice a week. I've never been much of a gym person so I will do some strength training at home and crunches every night. NO EXCUSES! I need all the motivation I can get so if you read my blog, feel free to post comments to help me along. I know I can do this!

Day 1

Surprisingly, today wasn't so bad. But, my head was in the game today too. I have some leftover nutrisystem meals from earlier in the year so I had nutrisystem cereal this morning for breakfast. I went to Isaac's for lunch with my Dad but because I knew he was coming up and where we were going, it was easier for me to plan ahead. I eat out a lot. Partly because it's easier and partly because there is no point cooking for one person. Anyway, there are always some good choices at restaurants to today I went with half a turkey and bacon sandwich with no mayo and no cheese. I substituted chips for a side salad with dressing on the side and ate half my cup of tomato soup. It was actually really filling. I didn't eat a snack until around 3 or 4 which was a banana and a small Greek yogurt. Dinner was a nutrisystem hamburger and a big yummy salad. All in all, today was pretty good. I'm a little hungry now and could definitely go for something sweet but I'm holding back. If I ate anything else I would go over my 1500 calories. I'm going to do a little strength training now with my dumbbells but I don't really burn a ton of calories doing that at home so I can't justify eating anything else. All of that said, I'm calling today a win. Go me!

Calories: 1363

Carbs:  153
Fat: 58

Protein:  60

Weight: 224 (yuck)

BMI: 41 (ugh)

Avocado & Poppy Seed Summer Salad

I have been dying to put this recipe on my blog! This is without a doubt my favorite salad in the whole world. My mom started making it a few years ago and almost every time we had a family function after that, there was this wonderful salad. I've made a few changes to suit my preferences and I think the result is fantastic.

 Here are all the ingredients you will need. Spring Mix, roasted almonds, mandarin oranges, avocado and of course poppy seed dressing. (Any salad green will do by the way. I've used spinach and it's just as tasty)

Now the most important part of this salad and the pièce de résistance, if you will, if Brianna's Home Style Poppy Seed Dressing. It is my favorite dressing. It's creamy and a little sweet but has a nice light flavor. (I actually made this salad for my sister's bridal shower a few weeks ago and almost everyone there asked me not only for this recipe but what dressing I used). 

After I stop drooling over the dressing, I assemble my salad: about 2-3 cups of salad (or half a bag), 1/2 cup of drained mandarin oranges (I like them cold so I put the can in the fridge for about an hour before making this salad), and 2 tablespoons of sliced almonds. I used Almond Accents because they are sliced nice and thin and oven roasted and have a no salt version.

Next I get my avocado ready. Now, I'm something of an expert on avocados. I love them. I seriously would put them on anything if people didn't think I was having some sort of pregnant craving. I got the avocado above today at the market. The thing you want to look for in avocados is firmness. Color of the skin has nothing to do with a ripe avocado. If I'm going to use the avocado today, I go for an avocado that has just the slightest give when I squeeze it. If it's too soft, it's usually over-ripe or possibly even gone bad. If you're not going to use the avocado right away, you can get a firm avocado. Just let it sit a day or two until you're ready to use it or until you feel the slight give when you squeeze it. Then it will be perfect.

I use a whole half avocado on this salad because, like I said, I seriously love avocado. If you're not as big of a fan, use whatever amount suits you. The trick I use is to leave the avocado in the skin and slice it right in there. I slice it long-ways and then across, leaving me with nice little squares.

Then, all you have to do is get a spoon and run it along the back of the avocado, near the skin and the perfect little squares will fall right into your salad bowl.

 Yum!!

 So now I'm ready to add the amazing dressing.

2 tablespoons are really enough of this dressing. It coats the salad well so no need to lather on the dressing. Trust me, in this case, less is more. I give it a good toss with a fork or tongs to coat all of the salad and voila! A super yummy, light, tasty, and filling summer salad is at your fingertips! The mandarin oranges pair really well with the creamy poppy seed dressing and the almonds give the salad a nice crunch. The avocado adds this great creamy, buttery texture to the salad. This can definitely be served on the side of a meal or eaten all by itself. That's what I'm doing tonight :) This salad is also great for large crowds. It's easy to double and triple. Enjoy!!


Ingredients:

2-3 cups of spring mix
1/2 cup of mandarin oranges (in sections)
2 TBSP of sliced almonds
1/2 ripe avocado, cut into cubes
2 TBSP of Poppy Seed dressing

Toss everything into a bowl and mix well.

Calories: 444, Fat: 31 grams, Carbs: 38 grams, 7 grams of protein

**To make a lighter version of this recipe, substitute Brianna's Poppy Seed Dressing for a fat-free version. Maple Grove Farms makes an excellent fat free poppy seed dressing that works well with this salad. Another substitution I've used is sections of grapefruit instead of mandarin oranges. It gives the salad a more tangy flavor.