What does Cake Batter Ice cream have to do with a weight management blog? I found this post on another blog the other day for ice cream made with Almond Milk. I’ve been a big fan of Almond Milk lately so I might give it a try. The blogger was kind enough to include nutritional information, too.
http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2011/06/22/cake-batter-ice-cream/
What?! Really?! Zero PTS+ ice cream?! Not really, but kinda. I saw this recipe today and I am definitely going to try it as soon as I go buy some more bananas!
http://userealbutter.com/2010/08/12/single-ingredient-ice-cream-recipe/
I eat a strawberry, blueberry & banana smoothie for breakfast each morning but today at Whole Foods I decided to try some different fruit. I bought a bag of frozen organic peach slices and a bag of frozen mango chunks. I mixed about a cup of each (partially thawed) with a 6 oz vanilla Chobani yougurt cup and wow – it was good! Very summery and refreshing. I added my typical 1/3 cup of Kashi GoLean Crunch bringing the total PTS+ up to 5.
Definitely give this one a try this summer – it’s so refreshing, and healthy too!
After our first beach day of the summer my friends and I stopped for some good, old-fashioned soft serve in the form of a Dairy Queen Blizzard. They’ve recently added the mini size, which is nice for portion control. I got a vanilla mini Blizzard with M&Ms and banana. The banana is 0 PTS+, and according to the DQ Website nutrition calculator the mini with M&Ms on its own is 9 PTS+.
Definitely high, but for a major lover of soft serve in the summer (it’s a cherished ritual from my childhood) it was well, well worth it. I wrote it down, enjoyed every bite, and now it’s on to a week of healthy eating and exercise in the newly arrived warm weather.
What’s your favorite summer treat, and how do you fit it in while staying on program?
I’m going to a cookie swap tomorrow. Crazy, right? I already told the host that I am not taking any cookies home, but I also wanted to bake because, well, tis the season. I found a cookie recipe that is very low in PTS+ values but still fun to make and tasty to eat – meringue cookies.
I originally found a recipe for Chocolate and Vanilla Meringue Cookies on the WW site that I was going to try, but they didn’t feel very holiday-ish. So I kept looking and found a recipe for Peppermint Meringue Cookies on allrecipes.com that were almost identical but a little more festive.
A few things to note about the Peppermint Meringue Cookies:
I am going to make another double-batch of these for the cookie swap and combine the chocolate meringues from the WW site and these to make chocolate peppermint meringues. All I’m going to do is add 2 tbsp of cocoa powder and hope that it comes out reasonably well. I might add a smidge of vanilla to balance out the cocoa powder, but we’ll see.
According to the WW recipe builder these are 1 PointsPlus each, using the 24 cookies per batch. We’ll see what the girls at my cookie swap think!
I was traveling this week and made the mistake of letting myself get too hungry. I ended up eating the Biscoff cookies given to me by the Delta Airlines flight attendant, AND the amazing warm chocolate chip and walnut cookie given to me at the hotel as a welcome (I had no idea they do this, but it is apparently a Doubletree Hotel tradition).
I knew I shouldn’t be eating these cookies, but I did, so it was time to write down the damage – knowledge is power.
I only found an estimate of the hotel cookie nutrition information. At 270 calories, 16 grams of fat, and 1.5 it weighs in at 6 PTS!! It was warm, gooey, and hit the spot but I’m not sure it was worth 6 PTS. 
Nutrition information for the Delta cookie pack is actually online, so I knew that was 3 PTS.
So half of my daily PTS today were eaten in cookies. Not my finest hour. But knowledge is power, and next time I will be able to make different choices either in what I eat or in how I plan around a treat if I really want it. Luckily, this hotel has a gym. Time to go lace up my sneakers and burn off some of that cookie goodness!
My mom and I tried a new-to-us recipe from the Passover section of my grandmother’s 1972 temple sisterhood cookbook. The goal was to use up some potato starch my grandfather bought, so we found a recipe for Passover date & nut bars. They were AMAZING! Light and fluffy – like blondies but with dried fruit and nuts instead of chocolate chips. And I was happy to learn they were only 2 PTS per bar! I took a few home from Mom’s to use as snacks for the week, and will definitely add them to next year’s menu.
Passover Date and Nut Bars
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup potato starch
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
3 eggs, separated
½ cup matzoh cake meal
1 cup dried dates, cut up
½ cup orange juice and rind (we interpreted rind to mean a little zest)
1 cup raisins (we actually did have raisins, half dried cranberries)
Beat yolks and sugar well.
Add salt, cake flour, potato starch,dates, nuts raisins and orange juice and rind.
In a separate bowl, beat egg whites to a stiff peak. Fold into the rest of the mixture.
Spread in greased shallow pan (about 8 x 11) . Bake at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes . Let cool, cut into 24 squares.
PTS per bar: 2
Thanks to Mrs Abraham Altman of the Temple Beth El sisterhood for contributing her recipe way back in ’72! It’s a winner!
I had lunch at Bertucci’s today with two of my friends and their little ones. Bertucci’s is always hard because their nutritional info isn’t online. But I think I did pretty well. I had:
1 Bertucci’s roll (4 PTS)
Dipped in approx 1 tsp olive oil (1 PT)
Bowl minestrone soup (4 PTS)
I had to approximate the minestrone, but the WW site said basic PTS for minestrone (not canned) was 4. So I’ll go with that. 9 PTS for lunch isn’t too far off what I would normally have, so I’m feeling pretty good. Plus we walked for 2+ hours, and I went to the gym before that.
After our walk we stopped for ice cream at a great local place. I had 1/2 cup chocolate mousse frozen yogurt topped with my favorite topping – mini M&Ms. It’s a holiday weekend, so why not! I estimate the ice cream and topping to be about 5 PTS. The frozen yogurt is about 3, and in the past I’ve looked up the mini M&Ms and that small amount is about 2 PTS.
What I liked most about the day was the great company and the beautiful weather, but it helps that I feel good about my food choices too.
Have a happy, healthy Memorial Day weekend everyone!
A friend from work – I’ll call her T – came over for dinner tonight. We had a great, PTS friendly dinner that I made and dessert that she brought. I’ll post the chicken recipe I made later, but wanted to share the delicious sweet treat we had first (life is short, right?!).
She found individual sized angel food cakes at Shaw’s that were only 2 PTS each (120/0/0). They were round with about a 4″ diameter. We topped them with some Cascadian Farms frozen mixed berries that we warmed in the microwave for about 3 minutes on 50% power, and a swoosh of Hood light whipped cream. The liquid from the berries created a nice sauce, and they’re available year round because they’re frozen.
We used about 1/2 cup berries per dessert which is 30 calories, and a decent – but not huge – spray of whipped cream which I also estimate to be about 30 calories. Technically this is 4 PTS, but I could be persuaded to count each as 0.5 PTS and the whole thing 3. Of course, I’m not really getting away with anything if I do that. Only I will suffer if I under-count PTS!
This would also be great with fresh berries, but I like that the frozen berries allow you to eat a fairly healthy dessert even in the dead of winter. If you live near a Shaw’s and can find these mini angel food cakes, I highly recommend trying this one out!
P.S. It looks fancy but takes 2 minutes to assemble, so it’s great for a dinner party!
