Healthy Holiday Recipe: Light and Luscious Pumpkin Pie

Here's another healthy holiday recipe! Pumpkin pie. When I saw this in my cookbook I freaked out, I LOOOVE pumpkin pie and to see a recipe for one I can eat, well I was all over it. It's from "The ultimate low-calorie book" By Better Homes and Gardens

PREP: 30 minutes BAKE: 40 minutes OVEN: 450 F/ 375 F MAKE 10 servings

Ingredients: 
1 recipe Oil Pastry Sugar (recipe below)
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup evaporated fat-free milk


Directions:

Oil Pastry Sugar: In a medium bowl stir together 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add 1/3 cup vegetable oil and 3 tablespoons fat-free milk at all once to flour mixture. Stir lightly with a for until combined. Shape into a ball. Makes 1 pastry.

Pie:

1) Preheat oven to 450 F. Prepare Oil Pastry. On a well-floured surface, slightly flatten pastry. Roll pastry from center to edges into a 12-in circle. Wrap pastry circle around rolling pin; unroll into a 9-inch pie plate. Ease pastry into pie plate. Crimp edge as desired. Do not prick pastry. Line pastry with a double thickness of foil. Bake for 8 minutes. Remove foil. Bake for 5 minutes more. Cool on a wire rack. Reduce oven temperature to 375 F

2) If desired, combine the reserved pastry scraps; flatten to 1/4  in thickness. Using desired cookie cutter, cut out shapes for top of pie. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. If desired, sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 7-10 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack; cool.

3) For filling, in a medium bowl combine pumpkin, 1/3 cup sugar, honey, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg. Add egg and vanilla. Beat lightly with a fork just until combined. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour filling into baked pastry shell.

4) To prevent overbrowning, cover edge of pie with foil. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until filling appears set (edges of filling may crack slightly).

5) Cool on wire rack. if desired, top with baked pastry cutouts. Cover and chill for 2 hrs.

Nutrition facts per serving: 196 cal, 8 g total fat, 28 g carb. 5 g protein.

Protein Pumpkin Pankcakes

Alright ladies and Gentleman, I am so happy to introduce a new recipe to you! Pancakes! I have come across some GREAT alternatives to pancakes like egg white french toast and such, but when I saw a recipe for pancakes that had no flour in it I was as happy as a kid in a toy store! Now, I don't know about you but when I think of pancakes all I think about are carbs and more carbs. Flour, eggs, water with a pool of syrup! Don't even get me started on syrup. I won't touch it with a ten foot pole. The base of this recipe is from a guy I follow on Instagram (maityz). It consists of Oatmeal, egg whites, and banana. I've made both versions, the recipe just mentions and obviously the recipe I'm going to share with you. BOTH are very good! What I love about this simple basic recipe is it's sooo easy to alter, substitute. You can pretty much do what you want with it. Yay! This recipe is makes one portion.

Here's what you'll need:

Blender
 1/4 cup Oatmeal
3 Egg whites (Or whole eggs if you want)
1/4 cup Almond Milk ( Haven't tried regular milk, I don't see why it wouldn't work though)
3 tbsp Libby's pure pumpkin
Cinnamon
Non-stick spray

Directions:
1) Mix oatmeal, egg whites, almond milk, and pumpkin in blender.

2) Mix until smooth
3) Spray non-stick on a pan, pour mix in pan. When I made this mix I had to kinda pat the pancakes with a spatula to flatten them a little or spread them so they're larger.

4) Let cook till bubbles show throughout all the cake.
5) FLIP!

6) Let the other side cook.
7) TADA! ALL DONE!!

Note: For my last pancake I added some Cinnamon to the non-cooked side before flipping.

I make eggs and protein "frosting" to go with my pancakes. But top with whatever you want! :)

Frosting: 

Ingredients:
1/3 scoop Protein powder
1/2 tbsp Peanut butter
Almond milk

Directions for "frosting"

1) Mix peanut butter and powder together
2) add almond milk till consistency you like
3)TADA, all done!

So simple and quite delicious.

CALORIE COUNT: 385 calories, 17 g Fat, 21 g, Carbs, 41 g Protein

This is my weekend breakfast! If you guys try it tell me how you like it! I would love to hear some feedback.

Till next time, discover a new healthier version of food you miss and love!

Recipe: Chicken Salad

Alright guys, it's recipe time! Yesterday I made dinner for my roommate and me. She wanted to try some of my healthier food, to see how good it was. Well, it was a hit! I made a delicious simple chicken salad over my even simpler carrot noodles. It's just a bonus that it's LOW CALORIE. :)

Here's what you'll need:

One large can of chicken breast. I think it's the 8 or 9 oz can.

1/2 cup of fat free cottage cheese
1/2 a cubed avocado
2 cups of spinach cooked
seasoning of choice
3-5 Carrots
1/2 teaspoon per plate of Flax seed

1) Mix the chicken (after being drained), Cottage cheese, and avocado in a medium sized mixing bowl.
2) Mix until the chicken and avocado are smooth.
3) Add seasoning of choice, I added pepper, and sirracha. I'm pretty sure anything of you want will work.
4) Saute some spinach in a pan and add to the bowl
5) mix all together and tada! All done! :D
6)For the carrot noodles
I peeled about 3-5 carrots, depending on how thick your peeler peels and heated them up in a pan sprayed with cooking spray. If the peels are pretty thick it might take longer to reach the doneness you may like. I like mine to have a little bit of a crunch. I season those with pepper and a tiny bit of salt.
7)Top the dish with some flax seed, I do this for appearance and the omega 3s.

Calories: For 2 Servings 311 calories (including carrot and flax seed)

Enjoy. Tell me how it comes out. :)