Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Appetizer and Christmas Dinner Recipes

When I was growing up {and before I moved to Florida}  we would goto my aunt's house every year for Christmas Eve.  There was always a big spread of munchies on the table.  Christmas Eve dinner has now become a spread of appetizers that everyone can choose between.  You can find all the recipes HERE. I'm adding crab rangoons to the table, per Kaylee's request.  And I'm not doing a crust on the spinach pie.  

Crab Rangoons
Note:  This would also possibly make a good filling for jalapenos!

Ingredients
1 package wonton wrappers
16 oz crabmeat {real not imitation.  But imitation would work too}
16 oz fat free cream cheese
4 - 5 green onions, minced


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425
2. Combine crab, cream cheese and green onions
3. Place about 1 T mixture into wonton wrapper, fold wonton wrapper over filling and pinch closed
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.

We always plan our Christmas dinner after my parents get to my house.  It's always a production.  We go back and forth debating on what we should have.  Every year it gets easier though.  They got here Friday nite and it only took us only an hour to get the menu put together.  Here it is:

Family's Main

Roast Chicken

My Main Dish:

Stuffed Pumpkin or Squash
I'm going to use this recipe as my base. How to make Suffed and roasted squash. {the Kitchn}  The vegetables are going to be onions, carrots, celery, and mushrooms.  I'm going to skip the proteins and grains and add more vegetables.  

Sides

Green Bean Casserole
Alton Brown's Best Ever Green Bean Casserole


Corn on the cob
Mashed Potatoes
Mashed Sweet Potatoes
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce
Rolls

Dessert

Christmas Cake
Christmas Cake {The Fat Free Queen}

Christmas Cookies

Until last year I never did Christmas presents for the girls' teachers.  I don't know why but, I just didn't.  {Does that make me a horrible parent?}  But, last year I decided to do cookies for them. I figure that I would want edible gifts if I was a teacher.  {I mean seriously, how many "World's Greatest" or "#1 Teacher" mugs and knick-knacks does a teacher need?!??}

Last year I made "traditional" cookies, loaded with butter and sugar.  After the fact I decided that I wasn't being true to me by making them like that.  A vegan wouldn't buy eggs to make cookies with.  Someone who follows the Paleo diet probably wouldn't make non-Paleo cookies.  Why am I going to make cookies that I wouldn't even feed my kids??  I decided to alter all the cookies, except 1, to be low fat.  People love the flourless peanut butter cookies so I make them every time I need to bring cookies somewhere.  

Peanut Butter
From Martha Stewart
makes 16

Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter
.75 cup sugar
1 egg
.5 t baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  
2. Mix together all ingredients
3. Roll 1 Tablespoon of dough into balls and place on cookie sheet
4. Bake for 12-14 minutes.  Rotate halfway thru.
5. Cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to cookie sheet. 

Chocolate Chip
From: Happy Herbivore Light & Lean
Makes 16

Ingredients
.33 cup plain applesauce
.5 cup brown sugar
1 t vanilla
.25 cup nonfat milk
1 cup flour
1 t baking powder
1 T cornstarch
.5 cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Grease cookie sheet
2. Combine all the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients (except chocolate chips) in another.
3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet
4. Fold in chocolate chips
5. Drop on cookie sheet and bake 7-10 minutes.  Rotate halfway through.  

Oatmeal Raisin
Quaker Oatmeal "Raisin" Cookies
This recipe originally calls for chocolate chips but, I substituted raisins and dried cranberries for the chocolate chips
makes 5 dozen

Ingredients
2 cups pureed zucchini
1 cup brown sugar, packed
.5 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 T milk
2 t vanilla
1.75 cup flour
1 t baking soda
2.5 cup oatmeal
4 cups dried fruit (I used raisins and cranberries)

Directions

1. Heat oven  to 375
2. Mix zucchini puree and sugars together
3. Add eggs, milk and vanilla
4. Mix in flour, baking soda, and oatmeal.
5. Fold in fruit
6. Drop by the tablespoon on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 9-11 minutes.

Banana Bread

Adapted From:  Cook This, Not That 350 Calorie Meals

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas (about 2 cups)

.75 cup Greek yogurt 

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

.75 cup sugar (I start with .25 cups and figure out how sweet it needs to be)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.  (I used a 4 loaf mini pan)
2. Puree bananas, yogurt, eggs and vanilla in a blender or food processor
3. In a separate bowl mix together the remaining ingredients
4. Fold banana mixture into flour mixture
5. Pour into pan and bake for 50 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.  The mini loaf pans take about 35-40 minutes  (if the top starts to brown before the inside is. done then put tin foil over the top) 

Do you have any good healthy cookie recipes?  Do you alter normal recipes to make them healthier?

New Month, New Me

Happy December 1st everybody!  I'm so happy November is over!  It was really not a good month for me.  I mentioned most of the things that went wrong during the month in my last post but, here's a quick recap.

• Sick for the first 2 weeks of the month
• Stressed-induced ulcer
• Depression
• My body refused fish of any kind.  The only animal protein I could tolerate was eggs, yogurt and cheese
• I only made it to the gym a handful of times
• The family's diet was seriously horrible due to everything that was going wrong with me

I'm happy  to say that I'm physically and mentally better, and I have reduced my stress by half.  My body is now allowing me occasional fish, I'm changing the family's diet back to normal as of today, and I'm headed back to the gym on Tuesday {I would be going back tomorrow but, Christmas doesn't shop for itself}

I don't know if this is happening everywhere in the world but, where I live, many of the fat free foods are being taken out of the local supermarkets.  My local Publix no longer carries light soy milk.  I could understand if they only carried the Greenwise Market {Publix's brand} brand light soy milk and no longer carry Silk or any other company's light soy milk but, they have taken every brand off the shelves.   I also have difficulty finding fat free coffee creamer {I buy it when I want to treat myself and don't want to pay coffee shop prices.}  I think it's interesting that while everything you read is talking about how unhealthy Americans are and how much we need to reduce our fat and calorie intakes, Publix is taking the healthier options OFF the shelves.  Does this make sense to you??!!??

So, in short, I now shop at Wal-Mart for my light soy milk and I make my own coffee creamer.  After Publix upset me by not carrying any flavor other than French Vanilla in the fat free creamers I started searching the internet for how to make my own.  Every website had the same basic recipe.  This would probably be a great gift for the coffee aficionado in your life.  

Ingredients
1 14 oz can fat free sweetened condensed milk
2 cups skim milk

Directions

1. Whisk together

You can add flavorings to it.  Here are a few links that have a bunch of flavoring ideas.  

Mrs. Happy Homemaker: 20 Different Flavors
Deliciously Organic: Homemade Coffee Creamer
She Knows: Fall Flavored Coffee Creamer 

Another great thing about this recipe?  The calorie count!  1 tablespoon {without any flavoring added} has 21.3 calories and 4.6 grams of sugar.  It makes 3.75 cups/ 60 tablespoons.  

For my first rial I made a pumpkin chocolate creamer since I am currently obsessed with Dunkin Donut's Pumpkin Mocha iced coffee.  Add .25 - .5 cup pumpkin puree and 1-2 T sugar free chocolate syrup to the base recipe.  You can also use cocoa powder but make sure to heat a bit of milk and mix the cocoa powder into the heated milk before mixing everything together.  

Christmas Photos

Christmas Eve Dinner

The girls on Christmas Morning

Here are some of the photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  The girls made out like bandits.  Actually everyone in the house did!  All my gifts were either food related (cake pop mold, waffle iron, cookbooks) or workout equipment (a new set of dumbbells), which I LOVE!  The girls received a ton of cool toys.  They have been busy playing and exploring all their cool stuff for the past few days.  Mr. Amazing was given a heavy bag, a new grill cover and tools.  It was a great day.  

How was your Christmas?  Did you get everything you wanted?

Merry Christmas!!

I hope your day is wonderful!  I know mine is going to be!

I'll be back soon with a Post-Christmas Post!

Christmas Recipes

Okay, here's a little known fact about my family.  Christmas dinner takes FOREVER to decide on in this house.  I have no clue why but it takes us about a week to figure out our menu.  Christmas Eve is a no-brainer.  We do a "munching spread".  But, Christmas dinner, we have serious sit downs to decide on what we're going to have.  We normally start talking a few days after my parents get here and finalize the menu a day or 2 before Christmas Eve. 

But, here it is.  My Christmas Eve and Christmas dinner menus

Christmas Eve

Jalapeno Poppers 

Fat free and my fave!!

(adapted from Cook This!  Not That!)

1 cup mushrooms, diced
1/2 onion, minced
1/2 cup of fat free shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup fat free cream cheese
12 jalapenos

1. Spray a skillet with pan spray.  Sautee onions and mushrooms until soft.
2. Heat oven to 400 degrees
3. In a separate bowl, combine the onions, mushrooms, cream cheese and cheese
4. Slice the jalapenos in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds (leave them in if you want it super spicy)
5. Fill each half of jalapeno with the cheese mixture. 
6. Place them on a baking sheet and bake for about 15-20 minutes until the peppers are soft and the cheese is brown and bubbly. 

Spinach Pie

(Adapted from SkinnyTaste)

(You can find the crust recipe HERE) 

Ingredients
10 oz frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 cup green onions, chopped
1 T dried dill
1 T parsley
1 cup fat free feta
2 T minced garlic
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
2/3 cup fat free milk
1/2 cup egg substitute (equal to 2 eggs)
 1/4 - 1/2 pizza dough recipe

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2.  Spray a pie pan with cooking spray
3. Roll out pizza dough to about 1/8" thick.  Cut it out so it's a bit bigger than your pie pan, lay it inside and crimp the edges
4. Mix together the spinach, green onions, dill, parsley and feta
5. In a seperate bowl mix together all the other ingredient.
6. Mix both mixtures together.
7. Spread in the crust
8. Bake for 28-33 minutes until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
9. Let it rest for atleast 5 minutes before cutting it.

(If you use 1/4 of the pizza dough recipe it will add about 51 calories to each slice of pie)

Sliced Fruit
Strawberries
Grapes
Pineapple
Cantaloupe
Apples
Bananas

Sliced Veggies
Mushrooms
Carrots
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Celery
Radishes
Cucumber
Grape Tomatoes

For the fruits I use a yogurt dip:  

Ingredients
2 cups fat free vanilla yogurt
1/2 cup honey (more or less to taste)
1 tsp cinnamon (to taste) 

1. Mix it all together
2. Chill until ready to use

For the veggies I use a simple  

Ranch Dip 

(I found it on the back of the ranch powder container):

Ingredients
3 T ranch dressing powder
16 oz sour cream

1. Stir it all together, cover and refridgerate

Per Mo's request we are having  

PIGS IN A BLANKET

Ingredients
1 package Hillshire Farms Lit'l Smokies
1/2 batch of pizza dough

1. Roll out pizza dough and slice into long strips about 1" wide
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
3. Drain the liquid from the packages of sausages and dry them off
4. Wrap dough around sausages  
5.  Place on a baking sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown

ON TO CHRISTMAS DINNER!!

Gramma's Christmas Cake
This cake has been a Christmas tradition for many, many, many years.  I can't imagine Christmas without this cake.  When I got sick I had to doctor the recipe to make sure I could eat it.  This cake is my mom's Christmas version of a Jello Poke Cake.

White cake  

(taken from CalorieCount.About)

2 c all purpose flour
1 1/3 c sugar
2/3 c cornstarch
4 tsp baking powder
4 egg whites
1 1/3 c skim milk
2/3 c Karo syrup
2 tsp vanilla

1. Grease 2 9inch cake pans
2. Preheat oven to 350
3. Mix together dry ingredients
4. In a separate bowl whisk the liquid ingredients together
5. Add wet ingredients into the dry and mix well
6. Pour into greased pans
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes
8. Remove from pan and cool (Keep the pans though, you'll need them for the next step)

Ingredients to put the cake together
1 box cherry gelatin
1 box lime geletin
2 C boiling water
8 oz whipped topping (Cool Whip, Dream Whip or fresh whipped cream)
  

1. Place the cooled cakes back in the pans.  Poke holes into each cake using a chopstick, skewer or knife.
2. Dissolve cherry gelatin in 1 cup of boiling water, do the same with the lime.
3. Slowly pour the cherry over one layer of cake and the lime over the other cake.
4. Place the pans in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours to set.
5. Take the cakes out of the pans and  use the whipped topping to frost the cakes.
6. Dig in!

Honestly the rest of my Christmas menu is quite simple

Salmon

Ham

Potatoes, Green Beans and Onions

Ingredients

Petite Red Potatoes (or creamer potatoes)

Frozen or Fresh Green Beans

FROZEN Pearl Onions (Mr. Amazing made the mistake of getting me fresh pearl onions for Thanksgiving, they are a pain in the neck to peel!  But, if you can't find frozen, fresh will do)

Directions

1. Clean your potatoes and green beans 
2. If you're using fresh green beans then trim the ends
3. Put potatoes in a pot and fill with water.  
4. Bring the potatoes to a boil and let boil for 15 minutes
5. Add the green beans and onions, bring back to a boil, and boil for approximately 5 minutes.  
6. When everything is done, drain
7.  Serve

 

Rolls

You can either make your own or, if you're lazy like me, you can purchase them.  The only company that makes fat free rolls is Alexia.  Their French Rolls are fat free and very delicious.  

  

Corn 

We're just going to do frozen corn on the cob.  Nice and simple.

Squash with Wilted Spinach 
(The same one from Thanksgiving, ditch the dressing, I'm using butternut and acorn squash and sweet potatoes, and roast some garlic with the potatoes, after you put it on the plate, throw some feta on top)       

Well, there it is, my Christmas dinner and Christmas Eve spread.  Hopefully I've given you some ideas.  If you try any of my recipes please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!