Cheesecake Made in the Microwave!

 Last night, at like 10 pm., I was craving something sweet. Looking through my cabinets, I couldn't find anything that would "hit the spot". So, what did I do?

Of course, I turned to my recipe books and e-books!

A few months ago, I had downloaded this e-book called 25 Marvelous Microwave Desserts. My first thought of this cookbook e-book was, "Oh, how interesting! Desserts I can do in the microwave! I'll have to try some of these one day!"

Well, that day came last night. As I was flipping through the pages of this e-book, searching for a recipe that I knew I had all the ingredients to make, I came across this one! 

Who would have thought you can make a cheesecake in the microwave?!

 The recipe says to use a quiche dish, however since I don't actually own a quiche dish, I used a microwave-safe round casserole dish, and doubled the recipe.

Here's my altered recipe for all you eager, cheesecake-loving fans!

Ingredients:

• 5 Tbsp. cream cheese
• 5 Tbsp. powdered sugar
• 4 Tbsp sour cream
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 4 Tbsp. graham cracker crumbs
• 6 Tbsp. butter, melted

Directions:

1. Spray the inside of a small microwave-safe round casserole dish with cooking spray.
2. Combine the melted butter with the graham cracker crumbs and press into the bottom of your casserole dish.
3. Whisk together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, sour cream and eggs in a small bowl until smooth.
4. Stir in the lemon juice then spoon the mixture into the casserole dish.
5. Microwave on medium for 1 1/2 minutes. Microwave longer, if necessary, at 15 second increments on medium power. The center should be slightly wobbly when done.
6. Chill the cheesecake for a few hours in the refrigerator then serve.

Nutritional Information:

Servings per Recipe: 8 slices
Serving size: 1 slice

Calories: 168.2
Calories from Fat: 129
Total Fat: 14.3g
Saturated Fat: 8.3g
Cholesterol: 82.4mg
Sodium: 140.3mg
Total Carbohydrates: 7.9g
Sugar: 6.3g
Dietary Fiber: 0
Protein: 2.5g

*If you add berries, cool whip, or anything else to this after it is made, please be aware that it will change the nutritional values shown above!

I must say, for a microwaved dessert.... this is pretty tasty! Go try it out and tell me what you think!

Sugar Free Lemonade

Ahh Lemonade. A favorite summertime drink! I came across this recipe for making fresh lemonade a while ago, but since my son's diagnosis with Type 1 Diabetes, we opted to go in search of more sugar free recipes.

That's when I tweaked this recipe.

It truly is a very tasty drink. Great for those hot summer days!




Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Splenda sugar substitute
1/2 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons fresh lemon rind, grated
1 1/2 cups fresh lemon juice
5 cups cold water

Directions:

1 Stir together sugar and 1/2 cup boiling water until sugar dissolves.

2 Stir in lemon rind, lemon juice, and 5 cups cold water.

3 Pour into a 2 quart pitcher.

4 Chill 8 hours.

5 Serve over ice.

Nutrition Information: 
Recipe Makes 8 Servings (8 cups)

Calories 46.5

Calories from Fat 0
Total Fat 0.1 g
Saturated Fat 0.0 g
Cholesterol 0.0 mg
Sodium 5.3 mg
Total Carbohydrate 13.0 g
Dietary Fiber 0.1 g
Sugars 9.8 g
Protein 0.1 g

Dehydrating

This week, I have been busy dehydrating things!

My  husband happened to remind me that our dehydrator was downstairs (he wanted to make some beef jerky soon!), and that got me to thinking...

If your family is anything like mine, they go through a LOT of fresh produce. Apples, bananas, grapes, strawberries, blueberries... I could go on forever!

My problem is, I tend to overbuy often times! As my husband puts it, I "get lost in the produce section"! HAHA! Not really a "bad thing", unless half of the produce you buy goes to waste! And, sometimes, that happens in my house!

I've come up with a solution though, and one that is very affordable and easy!

Dehydrating and freezing!

In the above picture, you can see that I have some dehydrated cabbage (left) and dehydrated lemons (right). I had also thrown in some dehydrated limes as well, which you can not really see in this picture because they are under the lemons.

Earlier in the week, we had also dehydrated some strawberries, cranberries, and celery! (Pictured below)

Dehydrated Celery (left), Cranberries (middle), and Strawberries (right)

All of these dehydrated well!

I added nothing to anything we dehydrated. Did not candy anything before-hand, as I did not want to change the nutritional values too much.

Over the next few days, I will go into a step-by-step instruction on how you, too, can easily dehydrate produce you may tend to overstock on, as well as add a few ideas on how to use your dehydrated fruits and veggies later!

Enjoy!

Sugar Free Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins

Friday, I was in a major baking mood! I made brownies for my hubby (that I must note, he had been asking me to make for a couple of weeks, he he), Reduced Sugar Strawberry Cookies, and these yummy Sugar Free Cranberry Pumpkin Muffins!

This recipe makes 22-24 muffins, depending on how full you fill the muffin cups.

If this recipe makes that many muffins... why are there only 7 muffins showing in this picture? Because they are so good!!!

After I made them, I gave 8 to my in-laws so they could try them out, and so the kids could have some at their house this weekend. Glad I did... otherwise, they may not have been able to try them at all!!

I originally found the recipe on allrecipes.com but since I wanted to make is sugar free, to lower the amount of carbs per muffin, I did a little tweaking and worked out the adjusted nutritional information on food.com before making them, and sharing this recipe for you all!

They really aren't very hard to make, or very time consuming. Most time consuming part of the recipe is just cutting the cranberries in half (I  used fresh cranberries I had frozen a few months ago). But let me tell you, I am glad I "slaved" over those cranberries to make this! It was worth it! My only complaint about this recipe is that the cranberry taste overpowered the pumpkin taste, so I think the next time I make these, I'll add a touch more pumpkin pie spice to see if that helps bring out the flavor of the pumpkin more.

I'll stop rambling now, and share this awesome recipe with you all! If you make it, leave a comment below and tell me what you think!

Ingredients:

2 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups Splenda sugar substitute
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons orange zest
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cranberries, halved

Directions:

1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners.

2 Beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, vegetable oil, and orange zest in a small mixing bowl until smooth.

3 Mix flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl with a fork.

4 Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.

5 Pour pumpkin mixture into the well; stir until the dry mixture is just poistened into the batter.

6 Fold cranberries into the batter.

7 Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.

8 Bake in the preheated oven until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes.

Nutritional Information:

Calories 125.5

Calories from Fat 50
Total Fat 5.5 g
Saturated Fat 0.8 g
Cholesterol 16.9 mg
Sodium 117.1 mg
Total Carbohydrate 17.1 g
Dietary Fiber 0.8 g
Sugars 4.6 g
Protein 2.1 g

  Now, I made my own Pumpkin Puree, because I didn't have any canned. To learn how to make your own Pumpkin Puree, Click Here.

DIY- Pumpkin Puree

Something I've always wanted to do after Halloween, was figure out a way to make use of those great pumpkins! Often times, because of how busy we tend to get during the school season, I forget to help the kids carve pumpkins for Halloween. Even when we do help them carve them... I always feel guilty for just letting them sit and rot and not putting them to good use! Especially when someone else gives them to us!

This year, I decided to figure out a good use for them. What I came up with (after much google searching!) was, make pumpkin puree from them!

I'll warn you, this is kind of time consuming, what with digging out all the seeds from the middle, then removing the skin, and all... but hey, who can't use pumpkin puree? And better yet, you know its all natural, not filled with unknown "preservatives", and can come in handy for some great fall pumpkin recipes!

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Lightly oil, or use cooking spray, on baking sheet.
3. Cut pumpkin in half. Remove all seeds and stringy fleshy stuff from the center.
4. Place pumpkin halves flat side down on baking sheet..
5. Roast pumpkin until completely tender inside (about 45 minutes or so)
6. Once tender, scrape pumpkin skin off using a metal spoon.
7. Puree in blender or food processor. (May need to cut pumpkin into pieces and puree in smaller batches)
8. Let cool. Use as needed.

Reduced Sugar Strawberry Cookies

I found this recipe for Strawberry Cookies on the Duncan Hines website the other day. I decided to try it out today, and tweak it a little bit, to reduce the amount of sugar in it.



Ingredients:
1 box Duncan Hines Strawberry Supreme cake mix
1 (8 oz.) container of Cool Whip
1 egg
1 cup sugar free powdered sugar 

Directions:

1. Mix cake mix, cool whip and egg well.

2. Take heaping teaspoonfuls of mixture and dip in bowl of sugar free powdered sugar.

3 .Place two inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake in 350 degree preheated oven for 7-10 minutes.

5. Watch carefully and don't let them brown. 

Nutrition Info:

Serving Size: 1 (21 g) cookie

Servings Per Recipe: 45 cookies
Calories 81.8

Calories from Fat 23
Total Fat 2.6 g
Saturated Fat 1.3 g
Cholesterol 4.1 mg
Sodium 79.8 mg
Total Carbohydrate 14.0 g
Dietary Fiber 0.1 g 

Sugars 11.1 g

Protein 0.7 g

I know you are saying... "I can't find sugar free powdered sugar at my store!". That's OK! You can make it yourself, really easily! Click the link above in the ingredients list to be directed to one of my previous posts on how you can easily make your own sugar free powdered sugar!

The next time I make this, I am SO going to try it out completely sugar free! The only reason why I didn't go all sugar free this time, is because I used what I had on hand. I ran out of Sugar Free Cool Whip, and only had regular cake mix in my cabinet. Next time, though, I'll definitely make it sugar free, and share it with you all!, as well as post a new nutrition facts for the "sugar free" version of this!

Let me tell you... Myself, my hubby, and my sister in law all tasted these (before the kids even got home from school!)... and we all agreed... they are awesome! I sent some down to my in-law's house today for the kids to have after their dinner. I'm really looking forward to hearing their thoughts on it! I'll bet the kids will give them RAVE reviews! LOL!

Enjoy!

This is what the batter will look like after it's mixed... with the sugar free powdered sugar in the smaller bowl!

 

Sugar Free Powdered Sugar??

Having a child with diabetes, I am always looking for "reduced sugar" or "sugar free" ideas when it comes to baking. Don't get me wrong, just because he has Type 1 Diabetes, doesn't mean he's not allowed sugar. He absolutely can! It's just a personal preference of mine to limit the amount of sugar he gets. It's healthier, mainly.

Anyway, I wanted to make some cookies today for the kids. The recipe called for "powdered sugar". So, of course, my line of thinking is... "Hm, can you make sugar free powdered sugar, I wonder?"

I hit up Google. Yep, one of my Best Friends LOL!

Here's what I found (on about.com)

• 1 cup granulated Splenda (not the coffee packets or the brown sugar varieties)
• 1 tsp cornstarch

Procedure:

Place the Splenda and the cornstarch in a mixer or food processor. Blend on high speed for approximately 1 minute, until the texture is similar to powdered sugar. You may need to scrape down the mixer or processor bowl several times in the process. Sugar can be stored in an airtight container for up to a month. Try dusting it on candies, tarts, or lemon bars.
Like with any sugar replacer, this is best used when you need the flavor of sugar but not necessarily the baking properties. Don't try to use Splenda-based granulated or powdered sugar in recipes where sugar is the main ingredient, or where the recipe depends on sugar to give it structure or caramelizing properties.

When I made it... it actually tasted just like the real stuff!

Try it out! You might be surprised!