Sorry it took forever to get this up...I stayed home from everything on Tuesday because we had a snowstorm, so finally posting what I did instead :) believe it or not I had planned to make two other no bake dishes as well...decided to slow my roll on that one as I already took this long to post about these five and I will be cooking again tonight.
Without further ado, in the order of creation:
The Recipe: Sweet Potato Pie (with Banana Chocolate Frosting)
- 1 large sweet potato (about one pound)
- 1 cup of butter
- 1 cup of white sugar
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp of nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
- 9 inch all natural graham cracker crust
The Process:
- Boil the sweet potato so that it becomes soft (I didn't do this long enough, so I'll be putting my extensive process in parentheses)
- Remove the skin of the sweet potato and mash (or in my case, remove the skin, slice and dice the potato, and use the magic bullet to mash it as best as possible)
- Soften the butter in the microwave
- Mix the other ingredients in a bowl
- Add the mashed sweet potato
- Mix once again
- Pour mix into the crust
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees
- Bake for about half an hour, testing the center of the pie as needed
- (Pour the excess batter into cupcake paper and add chocolate chips to taste)
- (If desired, add brown sugar to the tops of the cupcakes as they finish baking)
- (Put in the fridge until dinner)
- (Frost as desired)
The Calories:
The sweet potato had a total of 390 calories, the butter had 810 calories, the sugar had 720, milk had 130, the eggs had 144, the nutmeg had 6, the cinnamon had 6, and the crust had 880...for the entire pie batter, that means 3086 calories, but divided into about 8 slices, that's 385.75 calories per 1/8 pie. Granted, I also made 9 cupcakes, so it's probably less than that per slice. It's not exceptionally healthy, but at least it's not a cheese pie or a chocolate pie xD
What went right:
As previously mentioned, the sweet potatoes were not boiled long enough, but they turned out totally fine...less mashed than they should have been possibly but the pie turned out very nice and even better after being refrigerated. We are only just getting to the end of it....sweet potato pie is very heavy! The chocolate and the brown sugar in the cupcakes went over very well.
What went wrong:
Freaking sweet potatoes. Oh well...live and learn! At least the recipe won't take two hours from start to finish next time.
The Icing: Banana Chocolate Icing...deceptively healthy :) - Freeze a banana
- Remove its skin
- Mix with 2 tbsp of cocoa powder
- (Add a splash of milk because I was very impatient)
The Calories: The banana has about 90 calories, depending on size, the cocoa powder has 24 calories, and the milk had about 130 calories. In total, that's 244, but I only used about a third of the recipe or so. And it's mostly banana.
The icing turned out well! I cut the bottom tip off a sandwich bag to apply it.
Moving right along!!
Because of the sweet potato snafu, I decided to put the cauliflower in early. So I put the baked apples in the oven and my sweet potato pie mess in the dish washer, and then broke the cauliflower off the head. This proved wonderfully difficult! I resolved on using a knife to cut a chunk out and breaking it from there...quite a mess but it worked and hopefully I'll do it better next time :)
While waiting on the dishwasher I did everything I could to prep the cauliflower dish...cut my peppers and measured the other ingredients out. I still had quite a bit of time, so I started on the Cheese Its...the recipe seemed simple enough...
The Recipe: All Natural Cheese Its - 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1/2 stick of unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup of flour
The Process:
- Pre-Heat the oven to 350
- Using a blender, mix the ingredients until they become relatively solid. There will be chunks but it should all easily come together as one batter
- Every 30 seconds or so, stop the blender and de-clog it so it will continue to blend
- Once the batter seems relatively together, remove all of it and make one large ball
- Take the batter ball and put it on a piece of wax paper about a yard long
- Place another yard of wax paper on top of the ball
- Using a rolling pin, roll the ball into a pan shape as best as possible. It should be quite thin. (Realize that the dish washer has finally finished!)
- Cut the batter into squares using a small sharp knife (decide halfway through that this can wait, and made the banana and cauliflower dishes first)
- Coat a baking pan with wax paper
- Use a spatula to take each square off the wax and place it about 1/4 an inch away from all other squares on the pan
- Take the edges of the batter that are not shaped properly and repeat the balling and cutting process until the batter is done
- Bake for about 10 minutes (to desired brownness) and then remove and flip each cracker using the spatula...they will be hot!!
- Bake on the other side to desired brownness
- Remove and cool for about 5 minutes
- Enjoy!
The Calories:
The cheese has 455 calories, the flour has 450, and the butter has 404 calories. The whole batch of crackers is 1309 calories, which makes about 30-40 crackers in one inch squares. Estimating it makes 40 crackers, each cracker is about 4.4 calories. This is only a calorie or so less than normal Cheez Its, but then again, it's only made with three ingredients, and using low fat cheese and wheat flour would make it even more healthy.
What Went Right:
They were absolutely delicious and reallyyy addicting. They have a sort of pita-esque taste and I can see them being great with dip. My family loved them and requested another batch...so that happened today.
What Went Wrong:
The process took a while, so I decided to soften part of the cheese and fully melt the butter when I made the second batch today...helped soooo much!
Would I make them in college? Yeah probably. I'll have to try them on the magic bullet before I decide that. I could probably hand mix too and I'll have to try that as well.
In between this recipe came my Loaded Banana Bread again...but this time I doubled the batch I did last time -as requested- and put it in a more shallow, but larger, baking pan. The banana bread was half as thick, which I didn't quite like as much for it, but it was still very very good.
The Recipe: Twice Baked Cauliflower
- Mini red, yellow, and orange peppers
- One head of cauliflower
- 4 ounces of low fat cream cheese
- 4 ounces of low fat sour cream
- Half a cup of mozzarella and cheddar shredded cheese
The Process: - Boil and mash the cauliflower
- Slice and dice the peppers
- Mix all ingredients together and put into a casserole dish
- Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes
- Sprinkle cheese on top and bake until the cheese starts to bubble slightly
The Calories:
The cauliflower had 210 calories, the cream cheese had 262 calories, the sour cream had 154 calories, the cheese had about 160 calories. The total recipe had 786 calories. Very, very healthy :)
What Went Right: The cheese was great, having the peppers was great, the dish tasted good enough...
What Went Right: The cheese was great, having the peppers was great, the dish tasted good enough...
What Went Wrong:
Possibly mashed the cauliflower too much, because it was very very mashed, leaving the dish lacking in texture, except for the peppers. We decided the dish needed green onion and bacon, and possibly some cheese baked inside...so that might happen later on!
Would I make this in college? eh....maybe. It's not exceptionally difficult and I do like it even without the proposed additions.
My final recipe of the day had to be made while eaten...so I made the sauce and prepared the zucchini slices before dinner.
The Recipe: Zucchini Pizza - Three zucchinis
- Pizza sauce
- Butter and garlic salt melted together
- One package of mozzarella
The Process:
- Heat the panini pan on the stove
- Heat the pizza sauce (tomato sauce with basil, garlic salt, lemon pepper, salt, pepper, italian spices)
- Melt about one tbsp of butter and a few sprinkles of garlic salt in the microwave
- Cut the ends off the zucchini and slice it into long strips
- Brush the garlic butter onto both sides of the zucchini strips
- Put as many strips as fit onto the panini pan and cook until they sizzle
- Use a spoon to put pizza sauce on the zucchini strips
- Sprinkle mozzarella on the zucchini strips
- Serve warm!
The Calories:
The zucchinis had about 20 calories each, and were cut into 6 strips, the sauce has 20 calories total, and I used maybe half a teaspoon per strip, and a teaspoon of mozzarella per strip, which has about 12 calories. Each Zucchini pizza slice came to less than 20 calories. The most healthy thing I've ever made.
What Went Right:
Sauce was yummy and the thicker slices were really good.
What Went Wrong:
I cut the slices too thin for the most part, I should only do four per zucchini. The zucchinis should really be grilled to get the most out of them. Panini pan is the next best thing. But grilled is ideal.
I plan on making this in college for sure! I enjoyed them quite a bit :)
Overall it was a fantastic day of cooking and eating, and hopefully my next tries with these recipes will be even better! I learned a lot on Tuesday :)
