Non-Fat Gingersnaps

I really like these.  They're sweet, gingery, soft and dense.  I'm not a chocolate lover, in fact I usually pick out the chocolate chips my daughter puts in her low fat oatmeal cookies.  I usually make stuff without chocolate and these are one of my favorites.  All my dessert recipes have a lot of sugar in them but you can always substitute splenda for the sugar, it trades straight across.  Also, I usually sneak in a little bit of whole wheat flour along with the white, not enough for anyone to notice.

In a mixing bowl combine:

1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup applesauce
1/3 cup molasses
2 egg whites (I usually use 1 whole egg and deal with the minor amount of fat it adds)

in another bowl combine:

2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. soda
2 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp cloves (optional)
1/4 tsp. salt

Mix both bowls separately, then add the dry to the wet and mix until combined.  Roll into balls and coat with sugar before baking at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.  You might need to add just a little more flour if the dough is too sticky to handle.

  

Magelby's BBQ Sauce

We have a restaurant here called Magelby's that has a BBQ chicken salad to die for!  The best part is the BBQ sauce, it is perfect, not too molasses-y, or too sweet, it's got chunks of good stuff and a little kick to it...it's not your grandma's BBQ sauce.  I could eat it on just about anything, or just drink it straight. (I've never actually  done that but I've thought about it late at night!)  I can guarantee you will love this, unless you are a grandma who likes the weak, molasses-y flavored stuff in a bottle.  It's great on chicken, beef , veggies, fish and salad!  It makes a lot so I usually half the recipe.

1 cup ketchup
1 3/4 cup chili sauce (right next to the ketchup at the store, not Asian chili sauce, more like ketchup-y salsa)
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp. ground mustard
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 T vinegar
1/2 cup brown sugar
6 T molasses
1 1/2 tsp. onion powder
1 T liquid smoke (hickory)
2 1/4 tsp fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 T dried chopped onion

Combine and simmer for 15 minutes.

Mike's Favorite Granola

We love anything with oats at our house.  When my kids were little they would ask for a bowl of dry oats and sugar!  They also loved horses so maybe they were just trying to act the part.  I have one child that acted like a horse for about a year of her life.  She would wake up and whinny, then gallop on all fours around the house and yard all day.  She actually got really good at galloping.  She would even sound like a galloping horse!  Anyway, I know that's a little strange and yes, I was worried about her but now she's a healthy, normal ten-year-old who never whinnies or neighs at all.  So the bowl of dry oats and sugar has evolved into Mike's Favorite Granola, since my husband has always loved it.  I've replaced the oil that most granolas have with applesauce and added some rice crispies to make it a little less dense and heavy.  This granola is light, crunchy and sweet.  Just add any dried fruits or nuts your family likes and enjoy as cereal or with granola or frozen yogurt.

In a large bowl combine:

7 cups oats (quick or old-fashioned, I use some of both)
1 cup wheat bran (not wheat germ, it has too much fat)
1 cup oat bran
1/2 tsp. salt

In another small bowl combine:

1 cup brown sugar (or brown splenda)
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1/2 cup apple juice or water
1/2 T vanilla extract
2 tsp. cinnamon

Mix the wet ingredients together then add to the bowl of oats.  Mix until combined, then add 4 cups of rice crispy cereal.  Mix until everything is wet.  Bake on a greased cookie sheet at 350 degrees for 25 minutes, then, turn it all over with a spatula to mix it around and bake for about another12-15 minutes.  Turn off the oven and let it sit in there for another 5-7 minutes.  You want it to be slightly crunchy when you take it out of the oven but not too crunchy because it will harden more as it cools.  Add all the good stuff and enjoy!

Apple Crisp

About 4-5 apples, peeled, cored and sliced, spread on the bottom of a greased 8 or 9-inch square baking dish.  In a small bowl, mix ½ cup sugar, 1 tsp. cinnamon and 2 Tablespoons flour together.  Sprinkle this mixture over the apples and toss them around to coat the apples.  Then sprinkle ½ cup water over this apple mixture.  If you want to skip this part and just used ready-made, canned fruit filling, that’s great too!

                    

Mix the topping in a mixing bowl:

¼ cup flour

1/3 cup oats (I like old-fashioned)

1/3 cup brown sugar

3 tsp. cinnamon

 ¼ tsp. nutmeg

2 Tablespoons butter or margarine

4 tablespoons apple juice

Cut the butter into the flour and oat mixture, add the juice a little at a time, keep it crumbly, not mixed into a paste.  Crumble the topping over the apple slices and bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes.  The topping should be baked and the apples cooked.

Pumpkin Apple Bread

(makes one loaf)

In a mixing bowl combine:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. pumpkin pie spice

In another mixing bowl combine:

1 egg

1 cup low fat buttermilk (or I cup milk and 1 T vinegar)

1 large apple, peeled, cored and grated

½ cup pumpkin puree

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, stir until combined and the lumps are gone.  Bake in a greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.  Use a toothpick to test if the center is done.

Chocolate Hot Lava Cake

My children are kind of picky about candy and treats.  I mean, when I was a kid I ate anything that even looked like candy.  My girls don’t like a lot of kinds of candy, which, by the way is very okay with me!  The kinds like nerds, sweetarts, smarties, dum-dums, lemonheads, pixie stix etc… are usually rejected.  They usually get sorted out and trashed on Halloween night.  Last year, after Halloween, my younger girls made “sand art” with the pixie stix dust and glued lemonheads and nerds all over paper, in a very artistic way, of course.  The “good” stuff gets sorted, counted, organized, traded, saved, fought over, and eventually savored.  The “good” stuff usually amounts to a pile of chocolate.  My girls seem to love chocolate, which is strange because I really don’t.  I try to make desserts with fruits and other flavors like caramel and molasses but chocolate always seems to win in the end.  So, my challenge was to make something semi-healthy using chocolate.  This dessert is a cross between brownies and hot fudge.  It makes a chocolate brownie crust on the top while hiding a lava pool of dark chocolate underneath.  Let  me warn you, it’s very rich!  Even my chocolate-loving eight-year old maxed out after just half a serving.  Serve it warm with some low-fat ice cream or whipped cream, but just beware of a chocolate-induced coma!

Blend together in a mixing bowl, beat until smooth:

¾  cups white sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

½ cup milk

2 Tablespoons butter or margarine

1 ½  tsp. vanilla extract

Pour this batter into an ungreased 8 or 9-inch square baking dish

In a separate, small bowl combine:

½ cup white sugar

½ cup brown sugar

4 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

 Sprinkle this mixture evenly over the batter in the dish.  Then, pour 1 ¼ cup hot water over the top.  Do not stir, just bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until the center is almost set.  Remove the cake from the oven and let it stand for about 15 minutes. (if you can wait that long!)  Spoon into dessert dishes and add some ice cream or whipped cream, you’re not going to believe this is low-fat!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

My oldest daughter loves baking and cooking.  She also loves to help me find low-fat recipes for some of our favorite treats.  She discovered this recipe from the Sun-Maid raisin website.  It is amazing!  We usually make half the batch with raisins and chocolate chips and the other half just chocolate chips since I’ve got a few non-raisin eaters.  These cookies are so good, everyone in my family just wolfs them down (well, they would if I let them) and with just about 1 gram of fat per cookie, that’s okay with me!

                   

In a medium mixing bowl combine:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 1/3 cups oats (quick or old-fashioned)

In a large mixing bowl combine:

1 cup brown sugar

¼ cup fat-free vanilla or plain yogurt

2 Tablespoons vegetable oil

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix together.  Add about 1 cup of raisins or ½ cup chocolate chips or even a little of both.  Bake at 350 degrees on a greased cookie sheet for about 10-12 minutes.  Thank you Sun-Maid!