I need S'more 100 calorie Cupcakes!

I LOVE cupcakes! I love them so much that I had to come up with a way that I could eat them without feeling like my whole blog/life is a lie.

This weekend I experimented with a lot of things I’ve seen on Pinterest and came up with a low-calorie (approx. 100 calories) S’more Cupcake. They are oil free and egg free and ACTUALLY taste like a cupcake version of a s’more! I couldn’t be happier with the outcome!  

100 Calorie S’more Cupcakes!

You’ll need:

1 box of Yellow Cake Mix

cereal, preferably Golden Grahams (I used what was in my cupboard—Trader Joe’s O’s)

Marshmallows

applesauce

at least 1 banana

baking powder

Coconut oil

Chocolate chips

OK… first things first, egg substitute:

1 whole banana mashed up so that it has as few lumps as possible. Add 1 teaspoon of baking powder and whisk together, making sure all is combined and there are little or no lumps. 1/3 c. of this mixture will be equivalent to 1 egg. 

Secondly, applesauce can be substituted on a 1:1 basis with oil in baking recipes.

Now, onto the cupcakes!

1.     Preheat the oven as instructed to on the box.

2.     Use the back of the box and make cake batter as instructed except, substitute ALL of the oil for applesauce and the egg(s) for the banana/baking powder mixture (1/3 c. of mixture = 1 egg).

3.     Line your cupcake pan with liners – for this recipe, since there isn’t any oil, you need to use cupcake liners otherwise your cupcakes will stick to the pan.

4.     Fill cupcakes liners ½ full of batter.

Batter with O's in them

5.     Put a few pieces of cereal in each—I made Mini cupcakes and put about 4-6 O’s in each cup—for larger cupcakes, I’d put about 8. (PS. The cereal adds that crunch that you need to really feel like it’s a s’more)

6.     Put a few chocolate chips in each cup. I put 2 in each for my minis, larger ones, I’d use about 4.

7.     Put enough batter on top of the cereal and chocolate chips to just cover them. If you have a few pieces of cereal sticking out still, that’s ok too. The cups should be about ¾ full.

8.     Bake according to the package, subtracting 5 full minutes from the baking time.

Cupcake cooling with Marshmallow

9.     Once your time goes off (with 5 more minutes of baking needed) take out the cupcakes and carefully place 1 marshmallow on top of each cupcake. Try to make sure they stay upright and don’t topple over. For mini cupcakes, I used small marshmallows, for larger cupcakes, I’d use Large ones.

10.  Place cupcakes back in oven and cook for remaining 5 minutes.

11.  Let cool completely before frosting.

My favorite part of s’mores is when the chocolate is partially melted, but you get a little bit of crunch from the parts that didn’t melt completely. This is precisely why I used hardening chocolate as opposed to a true frosting.

Hard Shell “Frosting”

1¼ Cup Chocolate Chips

½ Cup Coconut Oil (measured while solid)

Melt together 2 ingredients for about 1 minute in microwave. Stir until runny. You’ll have lots left over that you can save for next time—or to put on ice cream a la Magic Shell!

Dipping into "Frosting"

12.  Once the cupcakes have cooled, dip the top of each one into the Hard Shell “Frosting,” set it on a cooling rack and wait for it to harden. (I am aware that my “no oil” cupcakes have an oil based “frosting,” but it is applied in a very thin layer adding minimal calories—not to mention Coconut oil has a wide array of health benefits).

13.  Make all your friends try them and let them praise you, THEN tell them that they are pretty much as healthy as cupcakes can get.

14.  Enjoy! (I didn’t want to end the recipe on number 13.) 

**side note: the calorie content is my calculation based on the recipe's ingredients and how many cupcakes it makes.  Serving size is 1 regular sized cupcake with "frosting." (Mini cupcakes came out to about 60 calories each)

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Probably the EASIEST Soup Recipe Ever

I just had a really rad lunch that I think you'd like to hear about. 


Recently, I’ve been on a quest for low calorie, good tasting, filling meals, that don’t contain “low-calorie” ingredients (ie. saccharin, aspartame, etc.). Well, it turns out they really do exist! This recipe was insanely simple and it’s been an hour and a half since I ate it and I’m still full. This was super easy and best part was that I didn’t have to cook anything, I threw it all in a Tupperware container, brought it to work and heated in the microwave. Dunzo.

Salsa Shrimp Soup
1/3 cup of Trader Joes Creamy Tomato Soup
1/4 cup of Trader Joes Mild Salsa
about 15 Frozen Fully Cooked Medium Shrimp
½ an avocado, diced

Add these all to a Tupperware Container, then heat in the Microwave on high for approximately 1:30-2 mins. (Note: I mixed everything the night before I heated it in the microwave which gave the shrimp plenty of time to defrost, if you are heating this straight from frozen, you’ll probably need to add some cook time)

This recipe makes one serving that comes out to roughly 200 calories (most of which come from the avocado--which provide your body with the "good" fat that it needs daily).  

Sorry I don’t have a picture, it was so thrown together that I didn’t imagine it would be good enough to blog about—I’ll try to add a pic later.  3/19/12 Update: I had this for lunch again today and was able to snap a quick pic before devouring. Enjoy!

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Milk: The Great Debate

I love milk. It’s creamy and filling and just makes me feel all warm and gushy inside. That said, I can’t remember a time when there wasn’t a debate over which milk to buy.

Growing up we always had to buy 2 types of milk. My mom would only drink whole milk—it’s what she grew up on, who could blame her? My sister agreed with my mom, but my dad and I didn’t want the added calories so we went with 2%. Two gallons of milk in the fridge takes up a lot of room, but when no one will budge, what can you do?

I’m having the same dilemma now. My boyfriend and I have been swaying between whole milk and 2% and organic vs non-organic for months now. We’ve tried them all and now we’re just really unsure of where we land on the whole (no pun intended) subject. It’s a much harder decision than you’d think.

Do we go with what tastes best? (Whole Organic Milk). What tastes good but is cheap? (Whole Non-Organic Milk). Or what’s best for our waist line? (2%). Sigh.

The deets: Whole milk has 8 grams of fat and 150 calories per cup, 2% has 5 grams of fat and 130 calories. Organic is awesome and tastes so much better, but it’s $6 per gallon versus $3ish for non-organic.

So I did some research and turns out everyone else is as confused as I am. The best article on the subject is probably this one that basically says, that there are good and bad qualities to all variations of milk and that any study you find on the subject will have another study that says the opposite. UGH! So now what? I have to decide? There isn’t an article that will tell me what to do?? NOOOOOOO!

It’s ok. (breathe) I’m fine.

Ok, this week we’ll go with non-organic because this article says the advantages of organic milk are not worth the price you pay and they may not even be that beneficial after all (plus it’s REALLY hard for me to spend $6 for a gallon of milk when I can spend $3 for essentially the same thing).

Basically, what I’m finding out is that there isn’t enough research to really know what to choose. Some articles say that if you drink lower-fat milk you don’t’ absorb the nutrients promised to you and other say that’s complete bull-hockey (yup.).

I guess, bottom line, if you like whole milk and don’t mind the added calories (it’s only 20 calories more) then go with that—do an extra 2 minutes on the elliptical. If you like the idea of organic, go with that—even though it may not really mean much. Buy locally if you can—that will always be your best option, but just get what you like.

Feeling unsatisfied with that answer? Me too, kinda. Anyone wanna go in on buying a cow? You'll have to do the milking, of course.

P.S. There was no mention of 1% or non-fat milk in this post because I simply do not accept these as forms of milk. If you drink this clear-bluish substance, be my guest, but I won’t even let it near my coffee.

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Screw Low-Fat and Low-Cal, GO Low-Ingredient!

I just read an article on Yahoo! “Diet Mistakes that make you Fat.” I got so enraged at the article that I started venting to my friend about it…but then decided I could vent to you instead. You’re welcome.

The article, if you don’t want to read it—and really, don’t bother—is basically about how some foods that you are taught are “good” for you are actually very high-calorie and/or high-fat. For example, olive oil is considered good for you, yet it is very caloric if you use too much. Or, peanut butter, also known to be a “good” food, but is high-fat.

OK. The article is being truthful, but what it’s also doing is scaring people on “diets” away from foods that they should be eating. It fails to mention how olive oil helps with daily digestion and it’s calories will burn faster than those in, say, a Snickers Bar; or that peanut butter, while high in fat, will keep you feeling full long after you’ve finished eating it. The problem, I fear, is that people will read this and not eat peanut butter or not use olive oil and instead will buy highly processed Lean Cuisines or sugar-free Healthy Choice Cookies—thinking that these are better foods for their diets because they have less calories. I know that this is how people think, because this is how I used to think. When I was counting calories, I would, hands down, choose to eat a frozen Lean Cuisine over make myself grilled chicken cooked in olive oil. When counting, a calorie is a calorie. Thank goodness, I’m past that and I have seen the benefits of eating quality food.

I won’t bore you with examples of ingredients in foods that we buy everyday, but what we can do—rather than freak out about peanut butter and olive oil is to check ingredients. Rather than low-cal or low-fat, lets go for low-ingredient.

If you can read and understand the ingredients on the product, you’re probably doing pretty well. Also, on a side note, some items that you think must be good because they’re from Trader Joes or Whole Foods, aren’t. Trader Joes, for example, has 3 different types of sour cream (I know, I know, high-fat AND high-cal—but oooh so good!) Two of the sour creams have about 6 ingredients (I can sound out most of the words, but I have no clue what they are or what they do), the third container, however, has 1 ingredient: Grade A Cultured Cream. WHY would there be anything BUT that in sour cream?

Am I right?

Need another example? I had a friend move to Italy for a year. She said she ate more pasta and cheese and bread than she ever ate here in the states and she lost 15 lbs. Seems impossible (and awesome!), but the difference is that they use almost all fresh ingredients. Make the pasta daily, make the bread daily, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, fresh mushrooms, fresh mozzarella, etc.

My point is, give yourself time at the grocery store—find out WHAT you’re actually buying and what will eventually make it to your tummy. To me, its become much more important than the total calorie or fat intake.

This is all sort of part of my experiment, rather than focusing on the numbers in food, I’m trying to focus on WHAT I’m eating and trying to be overall healthier and my hypothesis is that I will naturally lose weight doing so.

Apologies for the rant. I’m off to Trader Joes.

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