60 Calorie Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkin bread in cookie form. Chewy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. Full of fall flavors this cookie whips up fast and requires no eggs or butter.

Ingredients:
1 cup of whole wheat flour
1/4 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 Maple syrup
1tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
1/2 unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 tsp of Almond Extract
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 cup of canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
Cooking spray

Servings: ~22 cookies

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a cookie sheet with cooking spray or use a silpat (no spray needed)

Cream sugars, Maple syrup, applesauce, pumpkin, almond and vanilla extract together. mix in baking soda, baking powder and pumpkin pie spice. Add four and stir until just combined.

Drop cookies in ~1-2 tbsp mounds, a cookie scoop makes pretty cookies and helps you achieve your perfect 60 calorie cookies but is not needed.

Bake 15-18 minutes, you can even use a toothpick to check doneness like pumpkin bread if your nervous. That's what I did when I left out some of the original recipes flour. 

Nutritional Information: With 22 cookies you get - Calories: 60 Total Fat: 0.2g Cholesterol: 0.0 Sodium: 80.2 mg Total Carbs: 14.7g Fiber: 1.1g Protein: 0.9g Recipes.sparkpeople.com

Recipe From: Nutritionfor.us

The basic recipe on this took a major change when I flat out forgot to add the other cup of white flour. But I already had some of them in the oven, so I pressed on to see how they would come out, and they came out perfect. No need for the added flour at all!

I am also not sure how the original recipe came to 42 calories a cookie, my calculations came out to 60 calories, and that was with a cup less of flour. But I think 60 calories a cookie is still perfectly acceptable in my book.

I think you could cut some more sugar out and not miss it, but I have not tried it yet. I think you could use 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup maple syrup (use light and cut out some more calories) with no white sugar at all and still get amazing cookies.

These came out chewy on the outside and soft and moist like pumpkin bread on the inside. Fantastic flavorful treat, and close to guilt free!

New England Clam Chowder

I wish I had a better picture but I forgot to take one!
A rich creamy New England Clam Chowder that even the non-chowder fans will enjoy Plenty of clams for the clam fans and enough clam taste, but plenty of creamy bacony goodness to satisfy everyone else. Because everything is better with bacon

New England Clam Chowder

Ingredients:
1/2 - 1 Package thick sliced bacon
3 (6.5 ounce) cans chopped clams
1-2 small bottles of clam juice
1 cup minced yellow onion (roughly 1/2 a large onion)
1 cup big celery chunks*
2 cups cubed potatoes (not too small, nice bite sized)
1 cup diced carrots (not too small, nice bite sized)
3 tbs butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 quart half-and-half cream**
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
ground black pepper to taste
3-4 Chives***

*Your going to fish these out of the pot, so cut them big
**You could easily go half skim milk and half half-and-half to cut some calories!
***Optional but nice color! Good flavor

Servings: Make one big pot full of soup so ~6-8 servings

Instructions:
Drain juice from the clams into a medium sauce pan over the celery, potatoes and carrots. Add clam juice to cover, and cook over medium heat until tender. Crumble or chop 1-2 sliced of the bacon into the pan as soon as they are ready (next step), no rush but it helps get some of the bacon flavor into the veggies.

Meanwhile fry the bacon in a pan to desired crispness (over cook slightly if you like very floppy bacon). Set the bacon aside, reserve bacon fat (all of it).

If you have the burners for it, also sautee the onions with the 3 tbs of butter until they are mostly translucent.

As soon as the bacon and onions are ready... in a large pot, add the bacon grease (all of it - you should have about a 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of fat in the pot, add butter if you do not have enough fat) to the pan and warm. Whisk in flour until smooth, cook for a minute or two. Things may get clumpy, don't panic! Whisk in cream in about three additions stirring until smooth before the next addition. Stir constantly until thick and smooth, bring just to just before boiling, do not full boil, to take out any "flour" taste.

Remove the celery from the vegetable and broth pot, discard. Stir in vegetables and clam juice to the cream mixture. Add onions and any remaining butter in the pan with them. Heat through, but do not boil.

Chop or crumble the rest of the bacon and add with clams right before serving (really, -right before- serving or the clams with get tough). Keep soup warm for 5 minutes or so, so that the clams heat through. Stir in vinegar, and season with salt and pepper. Add chives and serve.

Nutritional Information: You probably don't want to know

Recipe From: AllRecipes.com

If you really like celery you can chop it up into bite size pieces and keep it in your chowder, but I hate the stuff. It does add good flavor to a stock, so don't skip it but it is your choice to keep it or toss it.

I also think this would be fantastic with some corn! If you like chunky soup, add some corn, maybe some peas anything goes and it will be fantastic. If you don't like chunky soups, leave this good stuff out.

If your Dad, don't skip the onions. I know you don't like them but they add a lot of the soup. Your really not going to taste them, when you cook them up in all that butter and then drown them in a delicious creamy bacon soup they add so much flavor but don't at all taste like onions.

This soup is rich, so if you want to cut out some fat, don't skip the bacon or the butter, skip some of the half and half. I think you could use half skim milk and still have a very creamy soup. It might thin it out a little so if you like thick soups add a little more than the 3/4 c flour if subbing skim milk. This soup is pretty thick and creamy as is, so no extra flour if you like them thick.

KFC Coleslaw

This is a rip off of KFC's Coleslaw which is a sweet tangy and little bit creamy slaw that goes well with BBQ, well, and fried chicken. It wont over power the rest of your food, but will compliment it.

Ingredients:
DRESSING:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

SLAW:
1 head of green cabbage
1 medium carrot (about 1/4 cup)
2 tablespoons minced onion

Servings: 10-12

Instructions:
Chop cabbage into chunks and shred with a mandolin, or chop it fine by hand. Do the same with the carrots and onion. In my case I used the larger size shredder on my mandolin for the cabbage but used the smaller size for the carrots and onion. Combine them all in a very very large bowl.

Combine all of the dressing ingredients in a large bowl, whisk well. Pour dressing over the slaw and turn to coat well. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving to allow the cabbage to soak up the marinade. Overnight is best.

Recipe From: AmandasCookin.com

Make sure you use a HUGE bowl (or Tupperware) for the initial shred and marinade. One head of cabbage, once shredded, turns into a LOT of cabbage. And you will need to turn and stir etc. I ended up dirtying more than one bowl discovering I was out of room. Once you let things sit over night it will condense down some, but at first you have a LOT of slaw.

I also made up a second batch of the dressing for my own slaw. I would advise, for a more tangy flavor, making the slaw and dressing the night before. Mixing and letting it sit in the fridge turning it over occasional to keep it well mixed. The next morning, drain out the excess dressing and then "reapply" fresh dressing (so you make two batches of the dressing) before serving. This step is not needed, but I thought it gave it a more tangy, less watered down feel to it.

When I made it, I forgot to drain the old dressing off and just added the new, leading to a lot of dressing. I think the drain and redress will produce the best results. If you want to go the extra step redress the slaw but this stuff is tasty without doing anything else at all!

I accidentally used white wine vinegar and not vinegar, because that is what I had, so I guess less of an accident. The slaw still came out fantastic but with a little less bite to it. So if you want to tone it down, white wine vinegar works great, want to kick it up, use regular.