Fall Food

If you didn't know, fall is my favorite season. I love the weather, I love that I can wear a sweatshirt outside, I love the smell of a fireplace. I just love fall! So, being that I love fall, I wanted to try out some new fall recipes. Heath and I were at Publix and got some pork chops (which we never eat, so it was a nice change of pace.) While searching for a recipe (that was relatively healthy) I came across a new website, EatBetterAmerica, which has a lot of good sounding recipes. A few reasons why I like this new website:

• It offers healthy recipe options
• They "healthify" recipes people submit to cut down on fat and calories
• You can search recipes by "cooking for 2" so that you don't have to make a feast for just 2 people. It's nice they don't assume everyone is cooking for a large family

Anyway, I found a pork and apple recipe on this website that seemed very fall-ish. It was really easy to make and very good:

Lean chops and apples baked in one dish to serve two.

Prep Time:20 min

Start to Finish:1 hr 5 min

makes:2 servings

1	medium unpeeled cooking apple, sliced
2	tablespoons packed brown sugar
1/4	teaspoon ground cinnamon
2	pork rib chops, 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick (about 1/4 lb each)

1.	Heat oven to 350°F. Place apples in ungreased 1 1/2-quart casserole. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.
2.	Remove fat from pork. Spray 8- or 10-inch skillet with cooking spray; heat over medium heat 1 to 2 minutes. Cook pork in hot skillet about 5 minutes, turning once, until light brown. Place pork in single layer on apples.
3.	Cover; bake about 45 minutes or until pork is no longer pink in center and apples are tender.

I cut down the cooking time in the oven and I will cut it down even more next time. The recipe says to bake for 45 minutes. I baked it for 25 minutes and it was still a little too done for me. I would check it at 15 minutes and go from there.

The apple paired nicely with the pork and it was very light. A lot of the recipes I found seemed like you would be eating apple pie filling (heavy and very sweet) with pork.


I also tried out Hungry Girl's Pumpkin Pie on Saturday.

For Crust
2 cups Fiber One bran cereal (original)
1/4 cup light whipped butter or light buttery spread (like Brummel & Brown); melted & mixed with 1 oz. water
3 tbsp. Splenda No Calorie Sweetener, granulated
1 tsp. cinnamon

For Filling
One 15-oz. can pure pumpkin (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
One 12-oz. can evaporated fat-free milk
3/4 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener, granulated
1/2 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters)
1/4 cup sugar-free maple syrup
1 tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. salt
Optional Topping: Fat Free Reddi-wip

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a blender or food processor, grind Fiber One to a breadcrumb-like consistency. Combine crumbs with all other crust ingredients. Stir until mixed well. In an oven-safe 9-inch pie dish sprayed lightly with nonstick spray, evenly distribute mixture, using your hands or a flat utensil to firmly press and form the crust. Press it into the edges and up along the sides of the dish. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients for the filling. Mix well. Pour mixture into pie crust. (Filling may be taller than the crust -- trust us, this is okay!) Bake pie in the oven for 45 minutes, and then remove it and allow to cool. Chill in the fridge for several hours (for best results, chill overnight). Cut into 8 slices, and if you like, top with Reddi-wip before serving! Makes 8 Servings.

I thought it was really good, especially for being only 2 WW Points per serving! One thing I am going to change in the future though: Because of the texture of the crust, I kept thinking it would be a graham cracker crust, which it is not. I am going to use a regular Pillsbury Pie crust and then use her recipe for the filling. It changes the WW Points value to 4, but totally worth it, especially considering the average piece of pumpkin pie is 9 WW Points. (Plus I LOVE pie crust!)

I Don't Get It

I normally don't write blogs based on other peoples blogs, but I couldn't help it this time.

I occasionally read the blog of a sorority sister who is getting married, so her blog is all about wedding planning. Since I just recently planned a wedding, I like to see what others are doing for theirs.

This is not a critique on her planning, just on this website she posted. And maybe I don't understand it fully, so if you have better insights, please feel free to share them.

Her post was about what to do with her wedding dress after the wedding. She came across this website which will make a custom drawing of you in your dress for $425 + shipping. Maybe it's just me, but I don't get it. I just spent thousands of dollars on a photographer, who took many beautiful pictures of me in my wedding dress. Wouldn't it accomplish the same thing to hang a picture of you in your wedding dress to remember what it looks like?

Am I missing something?

Buttery Deliciousness

I love chicken pot pie! Part of it is that i like chicken and vegetables covered in goop. I also love crust. It's buttery and delicious and it makes everything better - eggs, pumpkin, pudding, etc. Anyway, I made a Hungry Girl chicken pot pie recipe that is healthier than the regular, only 4 WW points per serving (which is 1/4 of the pie!).

The recipe was pretty good. Instead of a bottom and top crust it is just a top crust made from crescent rolls. So you do get some buttery goodness. The filling was really good, too. Lots of veggies and chicken. I think my main problem (which I have only myself to blame) is that I was expecting a crunchy crust, like from a pie shell, which you aren't going to get from a crescent roll, unless you burn it. But, once I readjusted my expectations after realizing that, the taste was good.

I would like to tweak it to see how it would work to use part of a pie crust as the topping instead of the crescent roll. I would have to see how that would affect the points value and how it would cover the top of the pie. You can roll the crescent roll out really thin to cover the top, and I'm not sure how thin you can roll the pie crust out - it will be an experiment!

Another alternative would be to heat the veggies, chicken, and cream of celery soup until hot, bake a crescent roll (in crescent shape) and serve it on the side!

It's Pumpkin Season!

The Dunwoody Crier published a 3 ingredient Pumpkin Spice Bread (or muffin) recipe a few weeks ago and it is too good not to share!

1 box Spice Cake Mix (I used Duncan Hines)
1 15oz can of Pumpkin
3/4 cup of water

Mix all ingredient together and either bake as 12 muffins or as a loaf at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

*4WW point per serving (serves 12)

Big surprise...I tried to find a way to reduce the points per serving. Although I haven't tried this yet, I think it will work.

1 box Pillsbury Reduced Sugar Yellow Cake Mix
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon allspice
[all of the above make the Spice Cake]

1 15oz can of pumpkin
3/4 cup of water

*3WW points per serving (serves 12)

So I can only state from the batter I ate how great the original recipe is, and really, so easy! But I did give the loaf to my grandmother and she said that it is great! It will make perfect housewarming gifts, teacher gifts, mailman gifts, etc. this upcoming fall and holiday season!

the start of a new blog

I recently decided that I wanted to start a blog. I struggled with the title (as I have gathered a lot of people do.) I sat on it for about a week before just making one, realizing that I can change it later if I wanted to. Although, it does seem appropriate with my new initials (JTW).

A little background on the name: While stopped at a Starbucks on the way to visit my husband's family over the summer I said, "oh JTDub (like BTDub)" in the middle of a story, since those would soon be my new initials. Heath and I both thought it was funny, and it stuck. Although it doesn't make much sense, it still gets a smile, and it seems to be spreading (slowly, admittedly) to some of our other friends.

Anyway, I'm on Twitter and, for the most part, do enjoy the 140 character limit of the tweets. I like that I can follow people that I don't talk to on a regular basis, and it's a nice interruption throughout the day when tweets pop up on Firefox. There are times though, that I wish I had more than 140 characters. A lot of my tweets have to do with new recipes I have tried or recipes I am looking for. I am a big believer of the Weight Watchers program and a big follower of Hungry Girl. I like to take recipes that I enjoy and make them healthier, because I don't believe that eating healthy has to mean eating tasteless food. While I started this blog without a set topic in mind, it does seem that a lot of it will be geared towards recipes and food. Also, it will probably hit on items around the house that I like or don't like, and things I want to try.

I've never been one to shy away from giving my opinion on something, so I can't imagine that I will stop now.