Memorial day treats

For Memorial Day I wanted a special appetizer to bring to a friends house and had a ton of these cute little peppers left over...they turned out great. I went with a mexican flare as everyone usually likes it, but you could use any combination of herbs and spices that you wanted.

Ingredients:

2 packages mini sweet peppers, yellow, red and orange

8oz fat free cream cheese

4oz neufchatel

1 small can diced green chillies (drained of liquid) 1/3C chopped cilantro plus extra for garnish

1 large tortilla

To taste:

garlic powder

onion powder

chipotle chili powder

salt

(could use packaged taco seasoning)

The night before the event is best to prepare the filling so that the flavors have time to meld. Set cream cheese out to soften for at least an hour. Place in bowl of stand mixer or large bowl. Begin beating the cheeses together and add in the chilies and all other ingredients. Mix until completely smooth, making sure to taste it as you go so that you get the desired spicy flavor. Put cheese mixture into a plastic container and store in the fridge.

I wanted to grill these to make them healthier and to have that great grilled flavor. First heat a stove top grill pan to medium heat. While its getting hot get the peppers ready. To prepare the peppers wash and dry them and remove a narrow diamond shaped strip that extends from just below the stem to just above the bottom. Using your knife or fingers remove any seeds or pith (these peppers dont have much of either and are generally not hot so you can handle the insides without fear). Coat the grill pan with non-stick spray (or oil) and lay the peppers cut side down and grill just until light char marks form. Flip and grill until char lines form there. The point is not to cook them fully so they dont become too wilted and shapeless. Let peppers cool before covering and storing until you are ready to prepare.

A few hours before the event take out the cheese mixture to allow it to soften slightly. At this point I scooped the cheese into a pastry bag to have a nice presentation, but a small spoon would work great too! Take your serving tray/plate and set the tortilla on it, sprinkle with some cilantro. Fill each pepper with cheese and place on plate in a pretty design. When they are all filled sprinkle the top with remaining cilantro. Makes as many servings as you have peppers...could be lots of smaller ones or fewer large ones. Any left over filling can be used as a dip for tortilla chips.

Enjoy!

Hungry-Girl

I just went to the Hungry-Girl cook book signing last night! What fun, Lisa talked to us a bit about the origins of Hungry-Girl, did some Q&A, and gave away great prizes. We got free mini bags of Fiber One, Fiber-One bars, and Krinkle Sticks! I was also on the "Hungry-Girl Cam" one of the H-G staffers was walking around and asked if anyone wanted to do and of course I did! So I told her I had tried a few recipes...and what I thought of them, that I loved HG and then she asked if I had any questions for Lisa or any tips and I did. I talked about how if you cook the Shirataki Tofu noodles in 1tsp olive or other oil it takes away the less than appealing taste/texture they can have. She said it was a "great idea" so I'm hoping they will mention it in an upcoming post. And when I had my picture taken with Lisa, she noticed I had the tote bag. Yay!

Fun with Cake Mixes: Chocolate Covered Cherry Brownies

So I know its less "gourmet" to use cake mixes but using them allows for easy calorie control! The recipe I'm posting uses the reduced sugar Pillsbury Chocolate cake mix.
Other ingredients include no sugar added cherry pie filling, 2 egg whites, and 3T mini chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 350 and sprau a 9 x 13 pan with butter flavored spray, set aside...lightly beat egg whites for easier incorporation into the mix. Add the cake mix to the whites, gently mix in the whole can of pie filling. When combined stir in the chips. Spread the mixture evenly into a 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for about 32min, or until a knife inserted comes out clean.

Cut into 24 pieces...they come out to 2pts each.

Nobody I gave them to had a clue they were low fat! They are so tasty and such an easy treat.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

As a St. Paddy's day tradition I will be making green treats! My choice is my all time favorite homemade cake: Grasshopper cake. Ingredients:

1 white cake mix
2T creme de minthe
3 egg whites
1/4C applesause or oil (following cake directions)
water

Preheat oven to 350 and preare a 9x13in pan or a 24 cup mini muffin pan lined and sprayed with butter spray.

Mix ingredients as suggested on back of box, and pour into pan or tins. Should be a lovely green color.

Topping, once cakes have cooled completely top with one jar of Hershey's chocolate fudge, but not melted, just spread it on like frosting. the second layer of topping is a container of cool whip mixed with 2T (or to taste) of creme de minthe. Keep these refridgerated at the cool whip will melt.

Am thinking of trying them with cool whip and pudding frosting instead of just cool whip. Like the white chocolate pudding with 1 C milk instead of 2 and then combine with the cool whip and creme de minthe. Will post pics soon!

Promotion Brownies

So the darling boyfriend is getting his promotion tomorrow to become a supervisor for UPS...and so to celebrate I wanted to make him a favorite of his; mayonnaise cake. However, we are planning on celebrating at a little pub all his work buddies go to. Bringing a moist crumbling cake to a bar is less than easy. So, we discussed the options and decided brownies would be the best. By the time I got home from work my internet still wasnt working so I had to go the old fashioned route and use cook books to find the recipe I wanted to make. This wasnt that easy as 90% of my cook books are for low fat items and I didn't want to bring something low fat to a bunch of guys at a bar. So I found "Cupboard Brownies" in my mom's FACES cook book. Cathy Null's simple brownie recipe called for 2C sugar (I used one white and one brown) 3 eggs, 1C melted butter, 1/2C cocoa, 2tsp vanilla that needed to be thoroughly mixed. To that 1 1/2C flour and 1tsp salt. I also added in 1C of chocolate chunks. I spread this into a prepared 9x13in pan and baked it at 350 for 28min. They're actually still baking so I will take some pics and post them along with the reviews of the guys.

update on Promotions Brownies...they are delicious and were a hit at the pub. I got a free shot of my choice (tequila rose...its PINK) and ended up with a free bottle of blackraspberry liquer. Scotty the owner loves it when I bring in homemade goodies!

Sugar Scrubs

So today I had a friend pick up some espresso for me at the shop near his place. And as it sits in my desk the aroma is wafting up and keeping me awake as this day drones on and on. While waiting for a timepoint in my experiments I became engrossed with the idea of making my own sugar scrub using a little bit of that espresso. What a better way to wake up than coffee with sugar...in the shower! So I found some awesome recipes online and will be trying them out very soon. Will post a picture of the scrub and let you know how it turns out!