I’m not a big pizza fan. I don’t like oversauced-overcheesed-thick crust pizza. It feels like it sits like an anchor in my belly.

But I do like thin-crispy-crust-veggie-filled pies. Mr. Real Mom Recipes eat meat and I don’t so often we end up ordering two different things, but I think I’m going to try this new Hungry Girl recipe on him this week.

**If you are ever trying to ‘trick’ your hubby or kids into eating something healthy use healthy thing and one normal thing. Example: for this recipe I will use turkey sausage but real pizza cheese. I hope they will get so sidetracked by the yummy cheese, they won’t notice the sausage swap.

Hungry Girl Sausage Pizza Swap

Ingredients:
1 frozen meatless or turkey sausage patty with about 80 calories (like the kind by Morningstar Farms or Jimmy Dean)
2 tbsp. diced bell pepper
2 tbsp. diced onion
1 stick light string cheese
1 whole-wheat or high-fiber pita with about 125 calories
2 tbsp. jarred pizza sauce
Optional toppings: garlic powder, red pepper flakes

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick spray and set aside.

Bring a skillet sprayed with nonstick spray to medium heat on the stove. Add sausage patty and cook for 4 minutes.

Flip sausage patty and continue to cook for 2 minutes.

Add veggies to the skillet with the sausage and cook for about 2 minutes, until sausage is hot and cooked through and veggies have slightly softened and lightly browned. Remove from heat and set aside.

Break string cheese into thirds and place in a blender or food processor — blend at high speed until shredded/grated. (Or tear into pieces and roughly chop.) Set aside.

Place pita on the baking sheet. Evenly spread pizza sauce onto the pita, leaving a 1/2-inch border around the edge. Sprinkle cheese over the sauce and set aside.

Once cool enough to handle, roughly chop sausage patty. Sprinkle chopped sausage and veggies over the cheese.

Bake in the oven until hot and toasty, 10 – 12 minutes.

If you like, season to taste with garlic powder, red pepper flakes, or your guilt-free pizza toppings of choice. Enjoy!

MAKES 1 SERVING

Serving Size: entire recipe
Calories: 290
Fat: 8g
Sodium: 834mg
Carbs: 33g
Fiber: 7g
Sugars: 3g
Protein: 19g

It’s still 80 degrees where I live and I’m already jonesing for fall. Fall decorations, fall food, fall clothing and mostly NEW BOOTS. But I digress …. this is the first fall recipe I think I’ll make this year.

Pumpkin Pie is awesome..but it’s even more awesome when it’s fat free, low cal, low carb and high protein. This recipe makes it ok to eat desert for breakfast. And don’t think I won’t.

You Need:
2 1/2 packages of fat free cream cheese (8 oz. each)
1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin
4 egg whites
1 cup Splenda granular
1 1/2 t pumpkin pie spice
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t allspice
1/2 t vanilla powder or 1 t vanilla extract
1/2 t nutmeg
dash of ground ginger
dash of ground cloves

*** you could skip all the spices and just use Pumpkin Pie spice…which honestly is what I plan to do. I don’t have time for cloves in my house.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, Splenda, and vanilla from low to high until smooth, about 1 minute.

Add pumpkin, egg whites, and spices. Beat from low to high for another minute.

Spray a 9” cake pan with cooking spray. Pour in the batter, pick up the pan, and tap on the counter to release air bubbles and smooth the top.

Bake for 60-70 minutes, until the top of the cake browns a little. Let the cake cool to room temperature, and then cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

Serve with fat free whipped cream!

8 servings…Each slice has
103 calories
0g fat
6g net carbs
1.5g fiber
and 14g protein

I was looking back through my “Make These Recipes Some Day” file last night and I came upon this recipe that came from someone at The Biggest Loser. I think a contestant or maybe a winner. Not sure. I was originally thinking I would make them last fall for a playdate or a visit to Mimi’s but since the girl was born last fall…this momma wasn’t baking nothing.

Anyway, when I found it the recipe I realized I had everything I needed to make it in the kitchen so this became today’s baking project for the boy and me. As usual….I didn’t follow the recipe exactly..this time mostly because I didn’t have the time or the patience to grind my own oat flour..and I really did want to…so I used a half/half mixture of whole wheat flour and regular all purpose flour.

We also left out the walnuts..because my son does not like nuts in his muffins. I have no idea where he gets that from. His momma loves nuts on every-thang.  Oh and also…we just had to make them in the heart-shaped valentine muffin tin..not the mini muffin tin that the recipe calls for. So we made the giant heart shaped muffins and guess what? When they were all done and cool and I put one on his plate..he ate exactly half. And this is my life.

Healthy Pumpkin Walnut Snacks

You Need:

• 1 1/2 cups whole-grain oat flour
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup fat-free artificially sweetened vanilla yogurt
• 3 large egg whites
• 1/2 cup granular sugar substitute
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 tablespoon finely chopped walnuts

And Then You:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, process the flour for about 1 minute until no coarse grains remain.
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, pumpkin pie spice, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Sift the mixture twice. Set aside.
4. In a large mixing bowl, combine the yogurt and egg whites. Wisk until thoroughly blended. Add the sugar substitute and the pumpkin. Whisk to blend.
5. Add the reserved flour mixture, stirring, until no four is visible.
6. Spoon the batter into prepared cups until each cup is about two-thirds full. Sprinkle on walnuts.
7. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one muffin comes out dry.
8. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes. Transfer the muffins to the rack. Serve warm or cooled.

If you make these exactly to the recipe the nutritional info comes out like this:

24 mini-muffins or 12 standard size muffins :  Calories 72… Protein 3g…Carbs…11g…Fat2g …Fiber 2g..

I don’t like to toot my own horn…but TOOT TOOT TOOT.

I found a low fat recipe for Coconut Cream Pie on line ages ago and have been dying to try it. I printed it out and had it hanging on the fridge for months and when I flipped the month from February to March it came falling out and screamed, ‘make me for petes sake or throw me away.’

I don’t like when my recipes yell at me so I made it right away. I did have to tweak it a bit to make it work for my fam…meaning it has to taste great and not low calorie for the hubs…it has to look yummy for the boy and it has to be low calorie for me. The original recipe made a much thinner crust and I am a crust gal…it also had more coconut mixed into the pudding mixture which I omitted. I also used almond milk because no one in my house drinks regular milk.

(I had to leave the coconut off the top of part of the pie because while the boy likes the taste of coconut ..he does not like how it looks :sigh:)

Thank goodness it was low calorie because I ate an obscene amount of this scrumptious-surely-it-can’t-be-low-calorie-coconut-yummy. Of course it’s not low calorie if you end up eating 1/3 of the pie but while I was eating it I cared NOT.

So here’s how you make it.

You Need:

For Crust

3 cups fiber one cereal

4 sheets of graham crackers (broken into small pieces)

3 tbsp Splenda or other sweetner

1/4 cup light whipped butter

For Filling and Topping

2 cups milk (I used almond milk)

1 large box of sugar free fat free instant vanilla pudding

1/2 tsp coconut extract

2 cups thawed and divided Cool Whip

shredded sweet coconut flakes

And Then You:

Preheat oven to 350 and spray pie pan with no stick spray

Grind fiber one and graham crackers into crumb like consistency in a blender or food processor

Add sweetner

Melt butter with 2 tbsp water ..add to crumb mixture and press into pie pan

Bake for 10 minutes and set aside to cool

To make the filling pour milk into a bowl, add pudding mixture, coconut extract and beat with whisk until smooth

Fold in 1 cup of Cool White and 1/4 cup coconut into pudding mixture

Once crust is cool spread filling evenly on top of crust. Spread remaining cup of Cool Whip on top of filling. Top with as much coconut as desired. Can be toasted.

Let the pie chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

It should make 8 servings at about 180 calories a piece. Since I’ve already eaten a third of it that leaves 5 slices of creamy coconut goodness taunting me from the kitchen.

I think I’m safe though because hubs loves coconut pie even more than I do so I’m hoping there will be zero slices of creamy coconut goodness left in the morning.