Low Fat Oatmeal Banana Chocolate Chip Bread - No Oil, No Butter!

Inspired from this recipe for Low Fat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins.

Sorry for the posting delay - went on a quick vacation!

Ingredients:

• 3 large ripe bananas, mashed*
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1 tsp. vanilla
  
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
  
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup instant oats
• 1/2 tsp. salt
  
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips (mini chocolate chips recommended)

*Mine were frozen, so I thawed and mashed. When I have uneaten ripe bananas, I peel and freeze in a ziplock bag. Works great for baking with bananas.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350.

In a medium sized bowl, mash bananas with a fork. Add sugar and stir. Add beaten egg and vanilla. Mix and set aside.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, oats, salt and cinnamon.

Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture, mix well and then add the applesauce.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Spray three small loaf pans with cooking spray and distribute batter evenly between them, filling each about 2/3 full. This would likely make one large loaf and one small loaf as well.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 min., until golden brown on top. Stick a toothpick in the middle of one of the loafs to be sure they're baked through.

Let bread cool in pans for a few minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack and let cool 10-15 minutes more.

Each loaf yields 10 thin slices.

Review: This bread ROCKED. I made it during a very busy week and it was awesome to grab a slice of this and some fruit for breakfast as I ran out the door. It definitely cures a chocolate fix. I highly recommend using the mini chocolate chips, as it distributed the chocolate flavor throughout the bread.

I find it hard to believe a recipe can be this good and has no butter and no oil! That's a winner in my book. Sometimes I find baking can be dry when aiming for a lower fat content but the amount of bananas and applesauce in this recipe alleviate that for sure. And it doesn't TASTE low fat, which is even better.

We will definitely be repeating this recipe. The only issue is self-control when a loaf of bread is sitting out!

We ate the first one and froze the other two and they were just as good frozen and thawed as the freshly baked loaf.

Yum!

Nutritional Information:

Serving size 1 slice, at 10 slices per loaf:
70 calories
1.2 grams of fat
1.3 grams of dietary fiber


1 WW points

At 8 slices per loaf:
83 calories
1.5 grams of fat
1.6 grams of dietary fiber

1 WW points (I'd probably count as 1.5)

Weight Watchers Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies - 1 pt. each

Adapted from Weight Watchers.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour*
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder OR dark chocolate powder (I used Hershey's)
• 2 large egg whites
• 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips
• Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Spoon the flour into a cup, level off, pour into a medium-sized mixing bowl
3. Add baking soda and salt - stir
4. With a mixer in a separate bowl, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy
5. Gradually add sugar and beat well
6. While still beating, add cocoa and egg whites
7. Once combined, slowly add flour mixture until blended
8. Stir in chocolate chips
9. Spray baking sheet and drop by teaspoons onto sheet
10. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes
11. Cool on pans a couple of minutes until firm and then transfer to cooling racks

Makes 40 cookies (see review). *Do not go over 1 cup flour. There isn't a ton of liquid in this recipe and if there's extra flour, they likely won't turn out as well.

Review:

I love these cookies. They are a GREAT option when needing a chocolate fix. I made two batches - one with regular unsweetened cocoa powder and one with dark chocolate. Since I'm a big dark chocolate fan, I do like those ones a bit more, but both are good. It would be easy to make these cookies to bring to a party or to serve to guests without them even knowing it's a healthier cookie recipe. I seriously need to make these more often. Yum!

The key to keeping these cookies low in calories is to count the number of cookies dropped on the sheet. I count to make sure I have 40 cookies. Then I know the serving size is correct.

Nutritional information per cookie:

53 calories
1.8 grams fat
.3 grams dietary fiber

Roasted Vegetables and Whole Wheat Pasta Bake

Inspiration from Apple A Day’s blog, who adapted from Giada DeLaurentiis.

Ingredients:


2 small to medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and chopped (about 1.5 cups)
1 small or half a large yellow squash, quartered lengthwise and chopped (2- 2 1/2 cups)
1 ½ cups fresh mushrooms, coarsely chopped
1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1 small yellow or red onion, chopped (about ¾ cup)
3-4 cloves garlic, crushed and divided
2 ½ Tbsp. olive oil
Herbs de Provence (see notes), ground, to taste
4 cups whole wheat penne or fusilli pasta
¼ cup whole wheat Italian style bread crumbs, divided
2 ½ cups marinara sauce
1 ¼ cups low moisturized, part-skim shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
½ cup shredded parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp fresh cilantro or parsley, chopped
Salt and pepper to taste
Sprinkle red pepper flakes, to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line a shallow jellyroll pan with foil and lightly coat with olive oil spray.
2. Chop vegetables and combine in a large bowl. Add olive oil, 1 crushed garlic clove, salt & pepper to taste, and herbs de provence to cover the vegetables. Stir until sufficiently coated with oil (should be light on the oil). Spread vegetables on prepared jellyroll pan and roast in the oven for about 15 min. or until tender.
3. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to boil and cook the pasta for about 6-8 min. and drain. Pasta should still be tough in the middle since it will bake in the oven.
4. While the pasta is cooking, spray a 9x13 baking dish with olive oil spray. Add 2 Tbsp bread crumbs to bottom and shake to evenly distribute.
5. In a large bowl, stir together the roasted vegetables and cooked pasta. Mix in marinara, additional 2-3 cloves crushed garlic, remaining 2 Tbsp bread crumbs, ½ cup mozzarella and cilantro/parsley. Add a dash of salt & black pepper to taste. Sprinkle in some crushed red pepper flakes for a bit of spice kick.
6. Add entire pasta mixture to prepared 9x13 baking dish. Cover with remaining ¾ cup mozzarella and 1/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese. Top with freshly cracked pepper.
7. Bake uncovered 25 minutes or until cheese is golden brown on top

Makes 8 servings. Approximately 7 WW points per serving.


Notes and review:

I meant to use red onion for this dish but they weren’t very good at the store and I had yellow in stock. Either will work fine, depending on your preference.

Herbs de Provence can sometimes be hard to find in the store. I usually purchase them in France, but have seen them in some stores. If you can’t find them, you can mix your own.

I would have preferred to do a homemade marinara sauce with this but I didn’t have time. I recommend using a marinara with basil, as it added some great flavor. If using a sauce without basil, I would add 1-2 tsp. dried basil when mixing the pasta, vegetables and sauce together.

I had fresh cilantro in stock which ended up being an amazing flavor booster to this dish. I highly recommend using cilantro. Parsley can be common in Italian-style dishes, so is also a likely choice, especially since cilantro tends to be a “love it or hate it” kind of spice.

Overall this was a GREAT pasta dish. It would be perfect as a family dinner or even for a casual dinner party. Awesome flavors and the herbs de provence were a great addition to the roasted vegetables. The blog’s recipe I referenced at the top of this entry used bell peppers. I decided to substitute yellow squash since I had it on hand and love them with zucchini. Bell peppers would be a good substitution for another vegetable in the dish if someone doesn’t like one of the vegetables.

Enjoy!

~Chews Wisely

Crock Pot Stuffed Green Pepper Soup

The stuff:

1 lb extra lean ground beef

1 medium onion, diced (at least one cup)

2-3 tsp. dried basil

2-3 tsp. dried oregano

2 cloves garlic, crushed (can also use 2-3 tsp. minced jarred garlic)

1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes

2 cups chopped green peppers (generally two green peppers is enough)

1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce

3-4 cups beef broth

¾ cup brown rice (not minute rice), uncooked

Pepper to taste

*I forgot to include the green peppers in this photo and then they didn't photograph well,

so don't forget to include them. :)

The execution:

Brown beef with onion over medium heat and place in the crock pot. Add the remaining ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours. *As shown, will be soupier at the beginning before the rice cooks.

Less beef broth will give it more of a chili consistency; adding more will make it soupier. I usually add 4 cups, but generally have a bit more than 1 lb of meat.

Can also be cooked on the stove – add all ingredients to a large pot and simmer for 1 hour.

Makes about 12 cups. 1 cup is approximately 3 WW points. I think it’s about 150 calories per serving but I wasn’t able to figure it out exactly.

Tips:

Some recipes say to cook the rice beforehand, but I wouldn’t recommend it, as it cooks just fine over time in the crock pot. I also add some ground-up herbs de provence and a few dashes of crushed red pepper flakes for a bit more flavor.

If you want to make it even leaner, cook the ground beef and onion separately and then drain and rinse the beef before adding to the crock pot. Since there are so many other flavors in this recipe, it won’t be lacking.

An additional variation would be to substitute barley for the rice.

I usually find the long grain brown rice it in the bulk section of the grocery store.

The beef broth can be done with pre-made beef broth or by making it with bullion cubes. I’ve done both with success.

The review:

Fantastic – great comfort food!

This has become one of our favorite meals. If you don’t love cooked green peppers (as my husband doesn’t), this soup is still worth a try. There are enough ingredients and flavors that the green peppers aren’t everything in the soup, but still have a presence.

I rarely made soup before coming across this recipe. Soup is generally not one of my favorite dishes but this particular soup has me wanting to make it again and again! Very flavorful AND filling for not a ton of calories.

It really doesn’t need much to round out the meal since it’s pretty sturdy on its own, but a bowl goes well with some crusty, whole grain bread.

Overall, it’s a great winter-time dish (or early spring when it’s still cold out, as it is here!).

If the amount of soup in this recipe is a lot, I still recommend making the full amount. It will cook the best in the crock pot that way. I’ve frozen part of a batch before and it worked well.

*Recipe originally inspired from a handout at a Weight Watchers meeting. Has been adapted quite a bit.