Showing posts with label ww recipe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ww recipe. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Food for life....

Since I got some for Christmas and was sharing with friends I just had to do a search to find out the best way to enjoy it. My exploration of wine allowed me to find out....
1) A person does not drink wine to get drunk.
2) Usually wine is most remembered by a special event and the people it was celebrated with.
3) It's okay if a person says I do not like red wine or any other for that matter, no need to convince them otherwise. I don't like most wines either, but the fruit wine we bought is pretty tasty.

2007 is here.
Empty Red Raspberry Wine and Blushing Pink
Champagne bottles complete with empty glasses.
Bringing in the new year, we anticipated the event with two neighboring families whom we played Yahtzee (I won) and Clue (I accused and lost early in the game). One neighbor couple brought their three children so they watched the movies THE INCREDIBLES and SPY KIDS. About 9:30 pm we opened and shared the fruit wine between the 6 of us and then at midnight we popped open the bottle of bubbly. I had Dreena's Mushroom and Wild Rice soup in the crockpot to munch on through the evening. One neighbor brought some organic blue corn chip along with a cheesy salsa (non vegan) combination and the another brought chocolate pretzels, probably not vegan.

RESOLUTIONS ...
To begin the year I have a few personal growth goals as well as a few family financial goals.

#1) Personal goals: DH and I are at a time in our life when we transition into me going back to work after leaving the workforce to be a homeschool mom for seven years. I used to be a social worker before going pro mom, but over the last couple of years I returned to school to prepare myself for the transition of children beginning to grow up and out. Of course I will be going into a food and family related work now with my family and consumer science degree and teaching certification, but for personal satisfaction and enjoyment I blog. Thank you for an enjoyable 2006 and I look forward to inspiring and being inspired by fellow bloggers out there whom I might otherwise not have the opportunity to meet.

#2) Food goals:
Okay over the past month we have went all out on sugar and wheat in our house. My clothes still fit, but I feel the sluggishness of what I have done to myself. I'll offer some recipes and thoughts about this below. I'd love to understand more about cleansing or fasting ... tips and links welcome.

A LITTLE HISTORY ...
Concerning goal #1: I left the paid workforce seven years ago when I discovered a I had a son with special needs... actually, several of them... Asperger's syndrome, ADD w/o hyperactivity, social anxiety disorder, asthma, food allergies, and hypoglycemia. For us we realized that there came a time in life that QUALITY of life was more important than staying in the mainstream system where our evenings and weekends were set by assignments given at school which in actuality had nothing to offer his life after this "education". This journey lead me into exploring food "cures" and I learned a great many things. Unfortunately food has not been the "cure" but our whole family has benefited as we changed our diet and lifestyle into an organic, back-to-nature with home grown produce, whole grain, vegan, etc and still learning. My son is improving and he is able to attend a college level computer networking and technology program in "the big city" living the week away from home and returning on weekends. He still has some issues, but they are more manageable and we have found that food does have a very important role but is not the only factor.

Food has been good to us. As a family we started the small whole organic grain bakehouse and worked it for the past five years. It was not the sole source of our income as DH works elsewhere but managed all aspects of our business, my job was to learn to live on his one income, and together we worked baking, selling, growing, living, etc. A couple of years ago we were to the point that we either needed to hire employees (and start a small factory) or reduce and stay a specialized mom and pop business that we could enjoy. We decided to down size and continue to do only what we enjoyed. Now that my children are growing up I intend to take my knowledge of food and business into the public sector to help students and later families with my experience and area of knowledge. This is the year for this to begin and today I look forward in anticipation.

TO MEET GOAL #2: BREAKFAST
OATMEAL WITH FRESH CHOPPED APPLES and cinnamon

I use 1/2 cup rolled oats (not quick), 1/2 cup water, 1 cup water, and a sprinkle of cinnamon sweetened with KAL stevia extract powder to taste. I microwave the dish for two minutes on high (watch to make sure it doesn't bubble over and leave it sit for 2-3 minutes while I prepare coffee and make a sweet tofu yogurt sauce to eat on top of my dish. This is a wonderful weight watchers core recipe and with lite silken tofu and a little xanthan gum you can make an incredible VERY low calorie, satisfying drink. ( LINK TO 1 point: MOCHA SMOOTHIE and more oatmeal recipes) You may think to yourself that you ate an very big meal, but if you are a ww point keeper the total meal is only 3 points.... of course you will be hungry for a snack later, think of how few calories your just ate. Want to make it a few more points to make it to lunch add 4 - 6 English walnuts or almonds. Maybe a square of my favorite dark chocolate will be satisfying also... this will only add a point or two (depends what kind you use).

NEW YEARS DAY WAFFLES AND OUR FAMILY TRADITION:
LINK TO WAFFLE RECIPE also includes another smoothie recipe

Every new years DH and I are up on New Years Day preparing healthy waffles (which happens to also be a ww core item), Bryanna's TVP S'SAGE patties, and strawberries (which we use as syrup). I buy some sweetened strawberries and some whole without sugar and sweeten them myself with stevia. I melt a little of my homemade sugar free chocolate syrup for the top and also use my homemade soy yogurt, however one of my family members brought their own organic dairy yogurt.

The best thing about this day is that I have the time make up a bunch more. I multiply the recipe by 4 and make up a bunch ahead to freeze. The pile of waffles in the picture are actually leftover after feeding 9 people. They are also ww core or 1 ww point (i believe) and in general plain healthy and full of fiber. They are not your typical light and fluffy buttermilk stuff, but they are light enough very tastey. I do sweeten my batter with a touch of KAL stevia extract powder and have left the sugar completely out of it.

FROM DECEMBER BAKING ...
I know that the holidays has probably got most of us thinking about less food or more veggies due to all the rich treats we ate over the past month. However, I want to add that I do enjoy baking and I rarely ever buy snacks, because of it. After that introduction I present (with anticipation of the next cookbook) more baking...

Drumroll for Dreena ...
Here I share a couple of cookie pictures for her upcoming book that I had the opportunity to test in December and they were wonderful.
CHOCOLATE MINT MELTAWAYS

JAM-PRINT COOKIES
She says the new book will be out in Fall 2007. I'll be waiting... I have really enjoyed cooking from the two books she currently has out.


The following muffins come from the book Vive Le Vegan
Orange Poppy Seed Muffins. They are made from 1 1/4 C oat flour and 1 cup barley. Weight watchers fans will like that these flours are CORE foods, although they do contain a minimal amount of oil I think this could be subbed easily. This muffin batter started rising immediately in my mixing bowl, so I really heaped it in the muffin cup. .... obviously a good thing I did because they did not rise much in the oven. I have discovered several of Dreena's muffins have this "poofy" nature. These muffins made a pretty presentation and the oat flour gave them a somewhat nutty flavor, they were filling also and had that "stick with you" quality. If I personalized this recipe I would do away with the syrups and use stevia, maybe add some real oranges so that the orange pulp would be included .... however you know this is the season for cranberries. Family rating: C-, they didn't care for the lack of flavor but texture was good as long as you had a drink to sip on with it. I guess I am not as picky with foods... I liked the ingredients in it and went to the work of making them so of course I ate them. I did add fresh cranberry relish to the top in place of jelly foer added flavor and I had to freeze them until I could get through them since I am the only one who ate on these.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Quick Chili B**f Pie

It is a somewhat "blustery" day here, as Winnie the Pooh would call it (windy, gray, and a light rain drizzle). Since I am on a clean out the freezer/ basement shelves kick I saw that I had prepared red beans (from February, froze them in 1 1/2 cup serving size bags) in the freezer, I had a large onion beginning to grow and some bottem of the jar TVP strips (mostly crumbs) that I wanted to use up. Blustery, red beans, onions, b**fy strips .... this all adds up to chili. However, I have been drooling over tamale pies and savory corn muffins with dallops of chili in them.... which I would have tried today except I had a busy schedule out of the house this afternoon. I needed something that doesn't require so much care and I wanted it warm and ready when I get home!

This recipe comes straight out of Bryanna Clark Grogan's The Fiber For Life Cook Book (link), page 124. Although this might be considered a heartier winter meal, the chilliness of spring makes it a good choice for me today. I doubled the recipe to get 12 servings and discovered a time saving method that I'd like to share.

Picture: B**fy Mix with onions, green pepper, and garlic made with bottem of the jar soy strip crumbs. I get my soy strips from Country Life (link). Their online catalog does not list them, but if you call them they still have them.

TIME SAVING TIP: I have a cooktop that has a slow cook feature. I put together the chili base ingredients and allowed it to cook while I was gone for six hours this morning. When I came back in at lunch time my chili was at a good boil. I made up the corn dumpling batter, dalloped it on the mux, covered (while the chili mixture was at a good boil) and let cook for 12 minutes. I dished it up with a romaine salad and thinly sliced red peppers at lunch for me and my son. Then I turned the heat down to keep warm and left it covered. When I got back from my afternoon running, supper for the family was completed.

Picture of the cooked chili pie with dumpling - minus the small sample ;-) 12 servings for my family fed 4 people, including 2 men 6' and 6'4", and had leftovers for two lunches. Also a serving (a filling size) is only 6 weight watchers turnabout plan flex points or 312 calories, very little fat (I don't add oil to saute veggies) and 11.9 grams fiber.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Big Beautiful Bran Muffins


Top O' the Morning to all who read this!

This post is the beginning of my very own blog. I love to cook and am especially interested in low fat vegan cooking. I wanted to give all who are wondering what is up with the "bread lady" an opportunity to see what's cooking at Dori's place.

The picture here is my breakfast this morning. It is a vegan, fat free bran muffin (click for recipe). Not only is it fat free (but moist with applesauce), it is reduced sugar but sweet with stevia herb as well as whole grain and 175 calories (2.5 weight watchers points). I ate mine with low sugar orange marmalade that I made after happening upon a great orange sale last year and coffee.