Strawberry Delight

I saw this on The Biggest Loser on Netflix streaming and decided that it looked good enough to make right away. I've been making it for a while and realized I hadn't shared it yet! Oh no! This has got to be the easiest and best tasting dessert I've ever made. Absolutely love it! Fresh fruit is best, but you can also defrost some frozen fruit and use that.

Strawberry Delight

1 container fresh strawberries
sweetener, to taste (for the fruit-optional)
1 large box sugar free strawberry jello
8 ounces Lite Cool Whip

Wash and slice the strawberries and place in a medium-sized bowl. Make the jello (using ice to replace the cold water). Whisk in the Cool Whip. Pour over the strawberries, cover, and place in the refrigerator to chill and set. Serve with a dollop of Cool Whip.

There are lots of other combinations you can use too! Try pineapple with lime jello, cherries with cherry jello, etc. Blueberries would be good too. Hmmm...what jello would you use with blueberries? I think I'm gonna try lemon!

Note: Having a fancy luncheon or dinner party? Make individual servings in wine glasses!

Brownies

Okay, Lynn, here's a brownie recipe from BariatricEating.com. I haven't made them (they're not safe in my house!), but all of Susan Maria Leach's recipes are wonderful.

Brownies - Splenda version

This simple brownie recipe uses easy to find ingredients and tastes delicious. Give it a try. I often bake this recipe in a loaf pan for thicker brownies.

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup cocoa powder (Ghiradelli unsweetened cocoa is the best and available in many supermarkets)
2 large eggs
1 cup Splenda Granular
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Pinch of salt
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans - optional

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Melt butter and cocoa in a small saucepan over low heat stirring until smooth - remove from heat to cool. Beat eggs in a medium bowl until thick and smooth, add Splenda, vanilla, and salt - stir in cooled chocolate mixture. Fold in flour and walnuts.

Pour into an 8 inch square pan that has been lightly sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until firm but still slightly soft near center. Brownies are best when slightly under-baked. Cool before cutting into 2 inch squares.

Turtles Candy!

I love turtles candy, but the sugar free I can buy in the store has so many sugar alcohols they just tear me up. Can't even eat one! So this morning I was thinking about the ingredients in turtles and realized that I could probably make a pretty decent copy...not the same, but good enough to satisfy me. Note that there are no amounts listed in the ingredients. This is, so far, a "by gosh and by golly" recipe. I'm sure there are other turtle fans out there and wanted to get the recipe posted as soon as possible. So, for now, you'll just have to make it by remembering the texture and thickness and gooeyness of a real turtle.

Turtles

Smucker's sugar free caramel syrup
Almond flour
Instant oatmeal
Dry roasted (with sea salt) peanuts
Dry roasted (with sea salt) almonds
raisins
Smucker's sugar free chocolate fudge topping

Mix some almond flour with the caramel syrup until somewhat thickened. Add some oatmeal until it's pretty thick (almost as if you were going to roll it into balls). Add the peanuts, almonds and raisins (hey! some coconut would be good in there too!) and mix until well mixed and nice and thick. Add more flour or oatmeal to thicken more if you want to roll into balls.

Spray an ice cube tray with Pam and drizzle some fudge topping into the bottom of the compartments. Spoon some of the caramel mixture on top then smudge (technical word!) some more fudge topping. Put the ice cube tray in the freezer until solid enough to pick up and eat.

Mine are in the freezer now and you know I will eat my share as soon as they are ready. If they come out good, I think I'll get some mini cupcake paper cups and put them on a tray to freeze in the paper cups.

I actually cheated "just a little" and left a taste in the mixing bowl...Hey! that's the cook's prerogative, right! I gotta tell ya, even if they don't harden correctly, they taste awfully good! I'll update as soon as I taste the final result!

Update: Hmmm...I didn't know that ice cream fudge topping wouldn't freeze? Duh! Have another idea that won't add a bunch of sugar alcohols and will try that soon. Meanwhile if anyone else has an idea, let me know!!!

Pudding au Fromage

For some reason I really wanted to use a fancy French name for my Cheesecake Pudding! How do you like it? LOL! It's so fast and easy you won't believe it. Bob and I have a small bowl as dessert every night. And to make it even better...drum roll please...it's made of yogurt!

Cheesecake Pudding (or Pudding au Fromage, if you please!)

1 - 32 ounce Dannon Plain Nonfat Yogurt

2 small packages cheesecake pudding mix

Splenda Granular, to taste

Empty the yogurt into a bowl. Add the pudding mix and sweetener and whisk until well mixed and smooth. Spoon into a container and cover. Chill.

If It's Yogurt, It Must Be Cheesecake!

So remember the Cheesecake Pie recipe I posted a while back? Well, did you know that wls patients really need to eat yogurt every day to keep things, ahem, moving along. Well I love yogurt and we all love my cheesecake pie so one day I made the cheesecake pie but just left it in the bowl in the fridge. No pie crust, just the cheesecake part. Yum! Now I can have cheesecake for dessert every night! And it's just my yogurt! Yeah...I know! Wanna be really decadent? Put a spoon of sugar free cherry pie filling or sugar free Smucker's strawberry topping on top then a dollop of sugar free Cool Whip. I also like to add a teaspoon of milled flax seed to the yogurt and stir it in before I put any topping. Good Omega-3 and fiber!

Caramel Apple Crisp

I wanted something for dessert tonight so I grabbed a can of no sugar added apple pie filling while I was at the grocery store this afternoon. It's Fall! You have to make something with apples in the Fall! I had apple crisp on my mind and knew I had some oatmeal at home so I thought I could either find a good recipe or figure it out for myself. Well, I found a great recipe on this blog. Linda Farnsworth is a great cook and is so generous to share so many of her recipes.

So now you've got the apple crisp recipe, what about ice cream? C'mon! You can't have apple crisp without vanilla ice cream on top!  Well...here you are! Wonderful, tasty, and nutritous protein ice cream.

Vanilla Ice Cream

1 Good Old Vanilla Protein Shake (make sure you blend until thick and very frothy)

Ice cream maker (I use this one)

Start your ice cream maker and slowly pour your vanilla shake into the ice cream maker. I like to cover the hole in the top with aluminum foil to help keep in the cold. Set your timer for 20 minutes. When it's done you can eat it right away (as soft serve) or pack it into a container and freeze for about an hour. We usually eat ours as soft serve, but when I'm going to put it on top of a dessert I like to freeze it for a little while so it doesn't melt all over my lovely sweet dessert.

Cheesecake Pie

A couple of weeks ago my husband, Bob wanted a piece of cheesecake but I didn't have any cream cheese in the house to make even a small cheesecake. Bob thought of using yogurt instead of cream cheese and it worked! It takes a while to set up so you'll need to make it in the morning so it will be good for dessert that night. It's more like a pudding pie than a cheesecake consistency and so very yummy!






Cheesecake Pie

1 Fifty-50 sugar free graham cracker crust
1-32 ounce container Dannon Plain Yogurt
2 small packages cheesecake pudding mix
1/8-1/4 cup Splenda Granular

Whip the yogurt, pudding mix and Splenda together. Be sure to taste for sweetness...you might like it more sweet than me. Pour into graham cracker crust, cover and place in refrigerator for several hours to set up. Serve with a dollop of Cool Whip.