Shrinking Daisy

Kick Back with Your Old Friend Popcorn

Monday, June 15th, 2009 | Food Finds, Recipe | No Comments

Where on earth have I been? Well, let me tell you it has certainly been a crazy couple of weeks! I’m back online now, and we’ve got so much catching up to do!!! To start off, I’ve got to get back to telling you all about things that I love!

Popcorn has always been one of my favorites.  When I was a kid it was a special treat when my Dad was travelling for business to get to eat popcorn, cheese, and apples for dinner… usually in front of the TV, something we NEVER got to do growing up!  Popcorn feels like a treat, but it’s healthy for you too! After All, what is popcorn but just a whole grain! Of course, it’s easy to rack up the calories if your popcorn venue of choice isn’t carefully chosen, that movie theater stuff can be diabolical!!! A large popcorn (without butter) from AMC movie theaters is over 650 calories, and adding butter can double that! But… have no fear, you can make perfectly fabulous popcorn and popcorn treats for a lot less than that! (How on earth do they cram that many calories into the poor popcorn kernels anyway???) 

First of all, it’s all about how you cook the popcorn, I have a great microwave popcorn bowl that doesn’t take a drop of oil and pops perfect kernels, and there are of course some great low calorie microwave popcorn choices at the store, but you can do it yourself for cheaper. (I’m all about the cheapness!)  All you need is a brown paper bag.  I must attribute t his method to Alton Brown on the Food Network.  I’m a food TV junkie, and I’m always picking up ingenious tips from random shows.

Brown Bag Microwave Popcorn

Servings Per Recipe: 4

In a cup or small bowl, mix together the unpopped popcorn and oil. Pour the coated corn into a brown paper lunch sack, and sprinkle in the salt. Fold the top of the bag over twice to seal in the ingredients.

Cook in the microwave at full power for 2 1/2 to 3 minutes, or until you hear pauses of about 2 seconds between pops. Carefully open the bag to avoid steam, and pour into a serving bowl.

Calories: 137, Total Fat: 3.1g , Sodium: 389mg , Total Carbs: 24.6g , Dietary Fiber: 4.9g , Protein: 4.1g

So now you have great healthy corn… eat it up! What’s that you say, you want more excitement? Plain old popcorn just doesn’t do it for you?? Ok, ok, well, I know how you feel, so I’ve got a few low calorie, healthy yet zesty toppers for you that I like to add, and a total hit of a popcorn cookie square recipe to send it over the edge!

Toppers:

• Mexicorn: 1 T taco seasoning (from the packet)
• Texicorn: 1 tsp chili powder + 1/2 tsp cumin
• Mafiacorn: 1/2 tsp dried basil + 1/2 tsp oregano + 1 Tb. Parmesan Cheese
• Buffacorn: a few shakes of hot sauce + a sprinkle of bleu cheese
• Corney Ranch: 1 Tb. dry ranch seasoning
• Cinnacorn: 2 Tb. Splenda + 1 tsp. cinnamon
• Currycorn: 1.5tsp curry powder
• Cocoacorn: 1 packet “diet” (25 calorie) hot cocoa

Totally Awesome Chocolate Peanut Butter Popcorn Squares (18 servings)

These are little brother tested and approved:

• 8 cups of air popped popcorn
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I like natural)
• 1 Tb butter
• 3 cups mini marshmallows
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 ounce semisweet or dark chocolate

Melt butter, chocolate, and peanut butter together in a medium saucepan over low heat.  Add marshmallows and stir until melted and incorporated.  Stir in cocoa.  Put popcorn in a medium-large bowl, pour marshmallow mixture over popcorn and stir gently until combined.  Press into a 9×13 inch pan that has been sprayed with nonstick spray and let cool.  Cut into 18 squares. Enjoy!!!

Nutrition Facts
18 Servings
Amount Per Serving
Calories		103.1
Total Fat		5.4 g
	Saturated Fat	1.7 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	1.1 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	2.3 g
Cholesterol		1.7 mg
Sodium		45.4 mg
Potassium		86.7 mg
Total Carbohydrate		13.2 g
	Dietary Fiber	1.5 g
	Sugars	6.2 g
Protein		2.7 g

Tags: dessert, Fiber, healthy cooking, microwave, popcorn, popcorn balls, Recipe, recipes

Worth Getting Out of Bed For

Sunday, May 31st, 2009 | Food Finds, Thoughts | No Comments

Are you kidding me? I was just looking through old posts, and I realized that I have never posted about breakfast… really??? It’s totally my favorite meal of the day.  It’s the highlight of every morning, and I love it so much that sometimes I have breakfast for dinner or lunch too! Are you on the breakfast bandwagon yet? It really gets your metabolism going , boost weight loss, and is in general a happy way to start your day!  What are your favorite healthy breakfasts? Here are a few of my ideas:

Omelet made with 1 egg and one egg white, tons of veggies and low fat sharp cheddar cheese, yum!!!

Old fashioned oatmeal with combos of my favorite mix-ins:  (lots of great oatmeal ideas here)

• pumpkin
• banana
• grated apple
• applesauce
• frozen berries or cherries
• cocoa powder (the baking kind)
• cinnamon
• nutmeg
• syrup
• brown sugar, or raw sugar, or splenda
• honey

and toppings:

• fresh berries, apples, pineapple, peaches, nectarines, plums or any fresh fruit
• 2 Tablespoons crunchy cold cereal like Kashi Go Lean Crunch
• 1 Tablespoon of peanut, almond, cashew, or hazelnut butters
• 2 Tablespoons of dried fruit
• 1-2 Tablespoons of chopped nuts
• 1 teaspoon chocolate chips or coconut
• 1  tablespoon all fruit jam

Whole wheat cream of wheat made with skim milk, cinnamon, sliced banana, maple syrup (or honey, or sugar free syrup), and almond butter  (give cream of wheat a chance!!! it’s awesome!!!)

Hi fiber pancakes, like Fiber One or Krusteaz Fat Free brand with sugar free or maple syrup (or peanut butter) and fruit (freeze extra pancakes and pop them in the toaster tomorrow, or use them to make homemade McGriddles)

Eggs in a basket (cut wholes in light or whole wheat bread with a cookie cutter, lay bread in a nonstick pan, crack eggs into the whole of the bread, and flip after 2 minutes, I like over medium, but you could cook until yolk is set)

Slices of polenta (either the prepared tubes or homemade) pan fried in a nonstick skillet or baked on a cookie sheet until crispy with maple or sugar free syrup - this sounds weird, but taste like french toast sticks!!!

Omelet muffins (scrambled eggs and muffin fixings in muffin tin baked at 350 until browned on top and set - 15-20 minutes) you can fridge these and have breakfast all week

Hi fiber muffins like southaven farms or vitamuffins with fruit and yogurt

Yogurt Parfaits - yogurt (greek style is super yummy!) layered with hi fiber cereal, and fruit…eat with your eyes this one is gorgeous!

I have so many more ideas!!! What do you eat in the morning?

Tags: breakfast, cereal, cream of wheat, eggs, Fruit, muffins, oatmeal, pancakes, yogurt

Hey, What’s Quinoa?

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 | Food Finds, Recipe | No Comments

In the spirit of adventure, and exposing the world to foods that I love, love, love… I’m unveiling the awesomeness of quinoa (keen-wah)! Ok you say… what is that, and why is it so great? Well, you just have no idea what you’ve been missing. 

Quinoa is a grain… ok, actually it’s a seed, but you use it as a grain.  It has a delicious nutty flavor and it cooks super fast.  You can use it anywhere you would normally use rice. It’s from the Andes mountains in South America, and was a favorite of those oh-so-healthy Incas. 

So… why wouldn’t you just use rice you ask? Why go for the weirdly spelled grain nobody’s heard of? Well, this is no ordinary grain, it’s jam packed with protein, in fact it’s the only plant based food that is a complete protein, so it keeps you really full and satisfied.  I love the flavor, a lot more interesting than rice.  It cooks up in just 15 minutes too! It’s great for people who have gluten issues (gluten free), and since it’s a seed, you can eat it during religious holidays that ban grains.  And… here’s a good one, it’s cheap!!! Buy it in the bulk bins in the natural/whole foods section of your grocery store and the price is a lot lower than if you find it in a box.

The basic recipe is 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa (so if you have 1 cup of quinoa, use 2 cups of water) , bring it all to a boil and then cover and simmer on low for about 15 minutes.  You’ll end up with a pot of slightly al dente (not mushy) grains, with little curly-q tails attached (that’s the germ), they’re super cute. You have to make sure you rinse the quinoa off first before you cook it, because theoretically it could have a bitter taste if you don’t (this has never happened to me).  You can also cook it in a rice cooker.

I think qunoa (like a lot of other things) tastes even better if you cook it in chicken or vegetable broth instead of water.  More flavor without adding a bunch of fat or calories, woo hoo!!! You can make a quinoa veggie pilaf, stuff peppers with it, put it in soup, make a cold salad with it (great for potlucks), and just basically be the inventive person who introduces your friends to a great new food.  You can also make a stellar filling breakfast by adding fruit, nuts, and milk, and treating it like oatmeal.  This will definitely hold you until lunch! 

Well, are you convinced yet? Are you going to try it? How about a recipe to give you a kickstart? Here’s a spicy black bean and corn one pot quinoa meal that has been a hit everywhere I’ve taken it:

Spicy Black Bean and Corn Quinoa

• 1 cup dry Quinoa
• 1 15oz can black beans
• 1/2 cup chopped bell peppers (I like red, orange, and yellow)
• 1 jalepeno pepper diced (or feel free to up the volume if you’re braver than me)
• 1 1/2 cups frozen corn
• 1/2 cup chopped onions
• 2 medium diced green onions
• 1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano
• dash of salt
• pepper
• cooking spray

Rinse quinoa in a colander or sieve under running water. Get out a medium saucepan, saute onions, and all peppers with the dash of salt in cooking spray over medium heat.  When the onions and peppers have softened, add quinoa and toast with veggies, while stirring.  Add in broth, spices, corn and beans; and bring everything to a boil.  Cover with the saucepan lid and simmer over low heat for 15 minutes.  At the end add in the  green onions, and salt and pepper to taste.  Enjoy humongous servings!

Nutrition Facts
4 Servings
Amount Per Serving
Calories		314.9
Total Fat		6.2 g
	Saturated Fat	0.5 g
	Polyunsaturated Fat	0.7 g
	Monounsaturated Fat	0.8 g
Cholesterol		2.5 mg
Sodium		837.6 mg
Potassium		452.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate		82.7 g
	Dietary Fiber	12.7 g
	Sugars	9.0 g
Protein		18.3 g

Tags: Food Finds, healthy cooking, quinoa, Recipe, recipes, weightwatcher recipe

What’s the Deal with Greek Yogurt??

Friday, April 10th, 2009 | Food Finds, Recipe | 1 Comment

Greek Yogurt… it’s advertised in all of the weight loss magazines, everybody talks about it on weight loss message boards, it comes up in weight watcher meetings but… what is it, why would you want it, and what makes it Greek exactly???

So… here’s the deal, Greek yogurt is yogurt that has been strained so that it is less liquidy. Those crafty guys over in Greece figured out how to make creamy yummy goodness out of a low fat or fat free milk, yay! It’s more the consistency of sour cream than yogurt. People like it because it’s thick and creamy even when it’s fat free! You can use the plain one as a stand in for sour cream in any recipe or on tacos/potatoes etc, and it has less fat and calories. (This is the perfect ingredient for something like low calorie scalloped potatoes, or a creamy dip.) Another great use is… if you have an ice cream maker/freezer, you can mix fat free Greek yogurt (2 cups) with a box of any flavor of fat free sugar free pudding, and have a great  low calorie home made frozen yogurt!

As for the nutritional side of things, since it’s denser than regular yogurt is has more protein per cup so it should keep you full, the downside is though that some of the calcium is lost when the liquid is strained out… bummer.

You can buy it at most grocery stores, and there are many brands. I’ve seen it at Hy-Vee, Price Chopper, and even Wal-mart, but… it’s usually a little more expensive than regular yogurt.

If you’re super cheap like me, you can make it yourself, here’s what you need:

• A strainer,
• a container of regular yogurt (Plain or flavored, whatever you want to end up with, the fit and active brand from Aldi works great, but note, some yogurts have weird ingredients like gums, they may not work, check and make sure there isn’t anything like “guar gum” in your yogurt before you start.)
• coffee filter,
• a bowl,
• a little plastic wrap

Put the strainer over the bowl, put the coffee filter in it, dump in the yogurt, put the plastic wrap on top, and put the whole thing in the fridge for 6-8 hours (overnight is good). When you come back the yogurt should be about half the volume it was, and there should be clear liquid in the bowl. Throw out the liquid. Voila! You’ve got Greek yogurt. Store in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Now… for even more fun, you can leave the yogurt in the strainer in the fridge longer (12 hours) and it will become the constistency of cream cheese. Why would you want yogurt cheese you ask? Because it’s a low calorie tasty swap for cream cheese, with a little more tang.  You can even stir in some garlic and herbs before you strain it, and come up with something that many have mistaken for Boursin cheese! Here’s an awesome recipe for herb yogurt cheese spread from the Food Network that got me started down this path.  Yogurt Cheese Recipe

Tags: Cheese, Frozen Yogurt, Greek Yogurt, recipes, Yogurt Cheese

Bread!!!

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 | Food Finds, Recipe | No Comments

Ok, so I’ve been striving to eat more cleanly this year, trying to weed some of the junk out of my diet and eat more natural, “real” foods and less prepackaged stuff (Although, I can’t give it all up I confess!) One thing that I have rediscovered on this journey is home made bread! I love handmade bread, but have gotten so busy lately that I haven’t bothered to make my own, and well… you never know how many calories are in that great bakery loaf. I’ve discovered a new method that makes it easy to make it myself, without a big time commitment.

On a public radio show I heard the authors of a book called “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” talk about their book, and give the base recipe for their bread baking method,  so here’s the base recipe:

• 1/2 tablespoons granulated yeast (about 1-1/2 packets)
• 1-1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
• 6-1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting dough (I used whole wheat, yummy, and kept those points down!)
• 3 cups lukewarm water
• Cornmeal

In a large plastic resealable container, mix yeast and salt into 3 cups lukewarm (about 100 degrees) water. Using a large spoon, stir in flour, mixing until mixture is uniformly moist with no dry patches. Do not knead. Dough will be wet and loose enough to conform to shape of plastic container. Cover, but not with an airtight lid.

Let dough rise at room temperature, until dough begins to flatten on top or collapse, at least 2 hours and up to 5 hours.

After this you store the dough in the fridge for up to 2 weeks, that’s right, 2 weeks! This amount makes 4 loaves.  Then, anytime you want bread just take out as much dough as you want, gently shape it into a ball, let it rest for about 20 minutes, then cook at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or so.  Put some hot water in a container in the oven to steam the crust and make it crunchier if you like that sort of thing! So far I’ve used it as bread dough and pizza dough, and it’s been amazing and fast both ways!!!

Not only is this bread natural, warm, and totally yummy, but it’s cheap too, you can make a loaf of this for far less than inferior store bought sandwich bread! I’m sold, and I’m buying the book, I hear there’s a killer cinnamon roll recipe in there that I’m just dying to weightwatcherize!

Tags: baked good, bread, weightwatcher recipe, whole wheat

Carbmania

Friday, November 14th, 2008 | Food Finds | No Comments

I get so excited when some new product comes along that I haven’t tried yet. I know, I’m a dork but seriously, everybody needs a little motivation to stay excited, a little variety, and these latest carbfull food finds are doing the trick!

Mr. Krispers Rice Krisps - These are for the days when you really need a lot of something! You get 37 (yes, I said 37!) little crispy rice cracker/chip type things for only 120 calories, 3 grams of fat, and 1 gram of fiber. That’s a deal! These were great with some herb cream cheese, and would be a good thing to replace your giant pile of chips with any hummus or dip. The bummer though, is that with only 1 gram of fiber, they don’t keep you going for too long! I found them at my local PriceChopper.

FiberGourmet Macaroni and Cheese - This was totally awesome! I saw this product in the store a few months ago, but it took the review of another blogger to make me give it a try. I am so glad I did! This is the mac and cheese from my childhood, except it’s way better for you, and doesn’t glow with that fake orange powder look! The nutritional profile is outstanding, you get 1 cup of cooked macaroni and cheese for 170 calories, 2 grams of fat, and 18 grams of fiber! This really does keep you satisfied. The only downside is that there are 3 servings in a box (what happened to 4, that’s a nice round leftover friendly number?) Anyway, I picked it up at Hy-Vee, but it’s also available on the company’s website.

Wheat Thin Fiber Selects - I love crackers, but they always leave me wanting more, and a serving is often something ridiculously tiny like 6 crackers (not even worth my time!) Not with the new fiberfull offering from Wheat Thins! I tried the Garden Vegetable with gave me 15 crackers for 120 calories, 4.5 grams of fat, and 5 grams of fiber! These are a big hit with my husband as well, and would be a welcome addition to any holiday cheese and cracker spread. For a fiber filled sweepstakes, click here.

Tags: Chips, Crackers, Fiber, Food Finds, Macaroni and Cheese, Pasta