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Dinners

Easy Beef Stroganoff
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Whole Foods for the Whole Family pg. 163 Great dish. Stroganoff is a childhood comfort food. This whole food healthy recipe did not disappoint. I used Smart Taste Noodles to get more fiber in our meal. I doubled the onions and mushrooms. Next time I will add okra and zucchini at Lela's request. She loves this meal! And I used Fage 0 percent fat yogurt, as the yogurt. I excluded the catsup cause I do not like catsup in recipes like this. We also used portabello mushrooms cause they were the same price as button mushrooms at Aldi's. Over all we will be adding this to our rotation of dinners. Very good and every one loved it. So all 5 stars.

Bubble and Squeek
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Whole Foods for the Whole Family pg. 164. This was delicious! Next time I will double the cabbage and onion though. I did use a whole package of turkey sausage from Aldi's, so maybe just half a package next time. I loved the apple cider vinegar in it. I used Bragg's brand. And it was so so good. I didn't even have to add salt or pepper! This is for sure a winner. And so terribly easy, and affordable to boot! This will be going in our regular rotation of meals.

Joe's "Sorta Lasagna"

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Whole Foods for the Whole Family pg. 168. Awesome. A perfect meat Lasagna. Lela at thirds of it. So she really really liked it! We will be eating it again. It was a bit more time consuming then other recipes out of this book, but still worth it.

The calories listed in the recipe are steep. But, I probably brought them down, by using home made meat sauce. I used low fat turkey, tomato sauce that was just tomato sauce and made my own from scratch. I used honey in the tomato sauce to balance out the acid instead of sugar. I used Smart Taste for the Pasta which brought up the fiber and the calories down. And used lots of onions and added mushrooms too. I only used 8 oz of cheese instead of 12 oz called for in the recipe and I thought it was just fine. Also the recipe said serves 8 but that would be gigantic servings. I would say no less then 12 servings, if not 16! So over all I am thinking my personal serving from this was no more then 300 calories. Bringing it down to a much more reasonable count.

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Desserts

Honey Baked Custard-
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Whole Foods for the Whole Family pg. 225 This is true comfort food. When I am having morning sickness this is sometimes the only thing I can hold down. And it's a great source of protein. I was so pleased to be able to make it with out sugar or sugar substitutes. I did increase the honey to 1/3 cup though and next time may increase it to 1/2 a cup, because I was using old honey, and most the sugar in the honey was left in the jar-crystalized, had those crystals gotten into the custard it may of been sweeter. I also added 2 slices of whole wheat bread that I crumbled up. And coconut as the recipe suggest for a option. It came out very nicely. I am loving it!

Pumpkin Bars-
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Whole Foods for the Whole Family pg. 231. Very good. Really liked it, and will be making it again and again, as pumpkin cake, or bars, or pumpkin anything is my family's favorite.

I did however make quite a few changes based on what I have learned from JoAnna Lund and cooking healthy. I cut the oil back to only 2 tablespoons, and added 1/2 cup of pumpkin. (So I used 1 1/2 cups of pumpkin and not just 1 cup). I omitted the nuts, cause for me, they don't really add anything to my pumpkin experience, and so I can live with out them on most pumpkin recipes, even though I generally like nuts. They just don't thrill me with pumpkin. I also added 1 1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice along with using cinnamon. I am a huge pumpkin pie spice lover, and in my opinion I could of used 3 teaspoons and been much happier. I was afraid though of going over board on the spice. But, 1 1/2 teaspoons really didn't do much to it. I think that has to do with it being whole wheat flour. And I also used Whole Wheat PASTRY flour, to make it a bit more tender.

Over all I loved it. And with my changes it changed the nutritional stats to. From 186 calories per a serving (when divided into 12 servings) to only 114 calories per a serving. It also brought the total fat down. And upped the fiber slightly. So over all very happy with the changes I made to it. Next time I am considering adding a cup of shredded zucchini and a cup of shredded carrots. It will add fiber, and bulk it up even more, with out adding calories or fat.

Cream Cheese Frosting
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 Whole Foods for the Whole Family pg. 248. This is AMAZING! I have been looking for a cream cheese or butter cream frosting that I like, and that is either sugar free or low sugar, and taste good for almost 10 years. Finally I have hit gold! This is the best cream cheese frosting EVER! I will never use another frosting recipe ever! If you have been dying for a awesome sugar free cream cheese frosting, that taste like REAL butter cream or REAL cream cheese frosting this is the one! I did however omit the nuts, and use low fat cream cheese as I can no longer find fat free cream cheese. If I ever find fat free again, I will test it with fat free. But, with the small changes it brought the calories down to 136 calories, and the fat down to 11gms. I know high for some people, but not bad over all for this good of a frosting that taste like REAL frosting. ALL FIVE STARS! YES YES YES!

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