Tag Archives: sugar

March 17, 2011 · 2:30 pm

Kiss Me…

…I’ve got some Irish in me!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Leave it to the Irish to turn a holy day into a day associated with BEER!  Not that I’m complaining, I am planning on enjoying a Guinness float in honor of my Irish Pappy.

If there are any Irish readers out there, how is St. Patrick’s Day celebrated in Ireland?  Is it more about the church service and less about the green booze?

March 17th is a special day in my family because it’s my mother-in-laws birthday!  Happy birthday Shay!

I made her a birthday cake but since she lives 3 hours away we had to eat it all ourselves. 😉

This flour-less, low-fat chocolate torte was an experiment that turned out really well.

  • 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 nugget panela dissolved* in 1/4 cup water OR 3 tablespoons brown sugar dissolved in 1/4 cup water
  • 1/2 cup cocoa (non alkalized is much higher in antioxidants)
  • 3 eggs
  • pinch of salt
  • ~1/4 cup unsweetened baking chocolate

Whisk all ingredients except the baking chocolate together in a bowl.  Melt chocolate in microwave or double boiler and quickly whisk into the other ingredients.  Taste for sweetness.  This is meant to be a rich, semi-sweet torte but if you prefer it a little sweeter you can add another tablespoon of brown sugar/panela dissolved in a tablespoon of warm water.

Butter and cocoa your baking dish. I used an 8 inch pan but I would have preferred it a little thicker so next time I will double the recipe or use a smaller dish.  Bake at 350 for 22 minutes.  Take out of the oven when it still looks a little undercooked.  Since this torte is low-fat is will dry out if cooked too long.

I glazed the top with a Cabernet Sauvignon jam that I melted in the microwave. Raspberry would be great too. If you wanted to go full-on decedent a chocolate-coconut icing like the one I made for Halloween would be pretty amazing.

*Panela

These morsels of unrefined cane sugar are my go-to for all of my sugar needs lately (Kefir Spritzer, Kombucha, the occasional sugar-sweetened dessert).  They can be found at any Latin American specialty store for a few bucks a bag.  Panela dissolves quickly in hot or cold water and tastes similar to brown sugar but unlike brown sugar is unrefined.  Most brown sugar is just refined white sugar with processed molasses added back in.  The processing of both the sugar and the molasses stripes out the nutrients and you are left with empty, nutritionally-void calories.  Panela is minimally processed and the essential nutrients, vitamins, and minerals remain.

It’s a gorgeous day and along with a little yoga and a quick kettlebell workout, my exercise will come in the form of yard work and walking dates with girl friends.  Love Spring.  Enjoy!

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January 12, 2011 · 5:53 pm

Balls and Rolls

Yesterday was all about balls and rolls.

First, the rolls.

I have been interested in making cabbage rolls (stuffed cabbage?) for years.  Funny thing is, I don’t think I have ever eaten this dish and I am not even sure what goes into it (meat?) but I like the idea of it.

I didn’t have any cabbage and dark green is so pretty that my plan morphed and Tofu-Stuffed Collard Rolls were born.

To begin I gathered ingredients

Collards, egg, nutritional yeast, tofu, homemade tomato sauce, garlic, and canned straw mushrooms.

I dropped the ball on the mushrooms and forgot to add them to the tofu mixture because they got hidden underneath a stack of collards.  😦

I ♥ my food processor.

  • one package of tofu
  • 4 T nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 t smoked paprika
  • 1/4 t (or more to taste) cayenne
  • 1/4 t salt
  • 1-2 t soy sauce
  • 2-3 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 t thyme
  • 1 egg

I intentionally added the egg last so that I could play with the spices and taste as I went along (I have a cookie dough raw egg clause but besides that it grosses me out).  I like things spicy so I was heavy handed with the cayenne but that’s adaptable to individual taste.

Tomato sauce the bottom of the baking dish.  I used about 2/3rd of a cup of homemade sauce.  Any sauce without (much) added sugar will do.

Start rolling!

 

Approximately 1/3 cup tofu mixture dolloped on the clean collard leaf

Fold, fold

And roll

Place seam side down to prevent unraveling

Cover smother with sauce

Bake at 400* for 35 minutes

Lunch time!

 

This recipe made 8 rolls, each with less than 125 calories and loads of protein and B vitamins.   I give this recipe a grade of 86 out of 100.  If only I have remembered the mushrooms…

It was really fun to make and a nice way to eat greens and tofu with different textures than usual.

The balls though, the balls were total winners.


Dates, raisins, walnuts, peanut butter, coconut, vanilla, flax seeds, and oats.

These were a take off on the “truffles” I made last month.  (Tate says that I shouldn’t call them truffles because than people expect something rich and decadent, like butter and more butter perhaps. I think I’ll stick with truffles because “Nut Balls” just doesn’t have the same ring ;))

So. Good.

So good in fact that I have no intention of going back to regularly eating white sugar once my 23 days are up.  I don’t want to exclude sharing a dessert out or tasting something at a dinner party but I plan to make primarily sugar free desserts from here out.

I must admit, I miss comment commit!   I am going to start posting my workout plan for the day on gracefulfitness’s Facebook page, feel free to post your as a comment to mine!

Time for some collard roll leftovers!

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