Good Morning, and Cooking Lite

Here's me in my jammies this morning and my vat of morning coffee in hand. Check out the ultra cool Raggedy Ann mug that my friend was getting rid of...It's become my new favorite mug because a) it reminds me of my new friend who was getting rid of it, and b) it holds a ton of coffee...always a good thing, and c) it allows me to indulge in a bit of nostalgia for my Raggedy Ann doll toting days as a pre-schooler. I think I wore that doll to shreds. I'm way too nostalgic about my childhood, but overall that's not a bad thing, perhaps, as it means I had a wonderful one. Which I did.

Anyways...I digress. I wanted to tell you all about some cooking I did yesterday. I had catfish nuggets waiting to be cooked in my freezer. So, instead of frying them, I did the usual egg/skim milk wash, cornmeal but then I placed them in a baking dish, sprayed them with cooking spray and baked them.

They were a hit.

Re-vamping old favorites is hard to do sometimes from an "I like things the way I like them" perspective, but I must admit, baking is simpler and less effort than frying, so there is an immediate pay-off in terms of effort saved as well as calories saved.

My other culinary experiment yesterday was to concoct a healthy "core plan" carrot cake. I did. My only complaint is that it is not very sweet, but it makes a perfect breakfast bread.

So, here it is as I cooked it:

1.5 cups oat flour-whirl whole rolled oats in a food processor, then measure the required amount
.5 cup quinoa flakes
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1.5 tsp stevia powder
1 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves

mix all dry ingredients

shred in food processor:

1-1.5 cups of baby carrots (I just dumped some in, so this is an estimate)
2 red apples, cored, but with peel still on.

Add to dry mixture, along with:

3 eggs
2 cups unsweetened applesauce.

Bake at 375 in a large springform pan, muffin tin, or loaf pans...whatever...until done.

This is very moist and delicious and slightly sweet. But check out all those nutritious ingredients!!!! Perhaps we should call it the "no guilt carrot cake". Have you seen the nutritional profile for a regular carrot cake????? It's got way tons of calories because traditional recipes call for up to a CUP of oil. My, my, my.

Ideas for sweetening this up: crushed pineapple instead of the applesauce. Or pineappple tidbits, drained, instead of, or in addition to the apple chunks. Or, if you aren't doing Weight Watchers core plan, how about some raisins? That would be good, too.

So, there's my recipe that I made up yesterday.





And look at these GORGEOUS mung bean sprouts my daughter just "harvested". I'm thinking those will make a great addition to lunch!