Recipe Review: Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Happy Fall!! That's right, yesterday was the first official day of Fall. This is my favorite time of year. I love everything about fall, like chilly weather, crisp fall air, hot cocoa, the colors, sweaters, foggy mornings, apples, and more.

In honor of the first day of Autumn, I wanted to bake something delicious. While browsing through My Recipe Collection, I rediscovered my recipe for Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes. To be honest, I am not a huge fan of pumpkin flavored things and so I have only made these cupcakes once. However, I decided that I was going to make them anyway. To my surprise, I really enjoyed these cupcakes!! The pumpkin flavor was not too overwhelming and pairs well with the spice cake mix.

I hope you all will try this recipe, because it is so easy and delicious!! Even my girls enjoyed these cupcakes.

The ingredients

Combine cake mix, pumpkin, and water together in a mixing bowl.

Stir until combined.

Scoop batter into 24 cupcake liners. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Remove cupcakes from oven and place on a cooling rack.

These are called cupcakes, but they almost have the texture of a muffin. Either way they are delicious.

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Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes

Source: Living a Changed Life 

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Servings: 24

Serving Size: 1 cupcake

Calories: 84.2

Fat: 0.8 g

Fiber: 0.3 g

Protein: 0.6 g

Old Points: 2 pts

Points+: 2 pts+

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Ingredients

1 box spice cake mix
1 15 oz can of pure pumpkin (not pie filling)
1/2 cup water

Instructions
Mix everything together and put in muffin tins.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes

Additional Ideas:

Use a butter pecan cake mix instead of spice cake.

1 Box yellow cake mix, 1 can pumpkin, Spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, ground cloves), Baked it in a 9 x 13 pan.

Is It Worth It - Power Point Presentation

 

Back in April, I was one of the guest speakers at a local Weight Watchers event called, "Is It Worth It?". At the event I talked about how to transform your favorite family recipes into more Weight Watchers friendly choices. After all, that is what I do with my Recipe Reviews, here at Living a Changed Life. Let's go through the process together as I share some of my powerpoint slides with you.

First, you find a recipe that you like. It might be a family recipe or a recipe that you found on Pinterest. Either way, it is probably a recipe that isn't Weight Watchers friendly yet.

Next, I open up my Weight Watchers Recipe Builder in eTools, because this really is my secret weapon! I evaluate the original recipe, taking on item at a time. For Example: The recipe might call for whole milk, but you could substitute fat free milk instead.

Also, play around with the portion sizes, because more portions equal less pointsplus per serving.

While you are in Recipe Builder, don't forget to use the "Lighten It Up" tab. Weight Watchers gives you lots of great ideas about other ways to lighten up your recipes. For Example: Instead of using butter, you could use applesauce.

As you can see in the slide above, the original recipes was 6 pointsplus per serving. However, after it was transformed, it was only 4 pointsplus per serving!

Ultimately you must ask yourself, "Is it worth it for you to take the time to transform some of your favorite recipes?"

Recipe Review: Crockpot Beef Stroganoff

While on maternity leave, I had the opportunity to fly home to visit my family for two whole weeks!! I spent most of my time with my youngest sister, Vivian. Olivia, Sophie, and I stayed at Vivian's house along with her husband and two children. The entire time we were there everyone was waiting for the arrival of Vivian's third baby, Elias. Waiting for baby Eli to be born gave us all a lot of time hangout. One of our favorite past times was cooking and baking anything and everything.

During our time together, I came to learn that my sister is an amazing cook. She does not need a recipe, because she can come up with dinner on the fly based on what is in her pantry. I wish I was that talented.

Crockpot Beef Stroganoff is an easy and delicious recipe that my sister came up with on the fly. Thankfully, Vivian let me write down her recipe and modify it, to make it a little more Weight Watchers friendly. As you will see below, I also changed this recipe and made it in my Crockpot instead of on the stove top.

I hope you all enjoy Vivian's recipe as much as I do!!

The ingredents

In your Crockpot mix together your soup, sour cream, milk, salt, black pepper, italian seasoning, and garlic powder.

Brown lean ground beef and add it to your sauce.

Add dry noodles to your crockpot mixture and stir.

Cook on high for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Becareful to not let the noodles overcook!

I served this on Valentine's Day with steamed broccoli and garlic bread.

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Crockpot Beef Stroganoff

Source: Vivian Eccleston 

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Servings: 8

Serving Size: 3/4 cup

Calories: 323

Fat: 7.0 g

Fiber: 4.6 g

Protein: 20.6 g

Old Points: 6 pt

Points+: 8 pts+ (only 5 pts+ for 1/2 cup)

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Ingredients

1 pound lean ground beef

1 box (12 ounces) smart taste rotini pasta

2 cans (21 ounces) 98% fat free cream of mushroom soup

1/2 cup fat free sour cream

1/2 cup fat free milk (add more as necessary)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp italian seasoning

1 tsp garlic powder 

Instructions
Brown ground beef.

In your Crockpot mix together your soup, sour cream, milk, salt, black pepper, and garlic powder. Once sauce is thoroughly mixed together, add cooked ground beef and dry pasta.

Cook on high for 1 - 1 1/2 hours. Stirring every 1/2 hour, so everything mixes together. Becareful not to let the noodles overcook!

*Please note the original recipe called for you to make this dish in one pot on the stove top. However, I do not have a pot big enough to make this entire dish in one pot! So, I modified the instructions so that this recipe could be made in my Crockpot.

Recipe Review: Healthy Cookies

I enjoy eating bananas, but they always get too ripe before I am ready to eat them! Thanks to the tin foil solution, I haven't had that problem much any more. However, I still have a bunch of bananas in the freezer that I need to use. My husband prefers that I make Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, but recently I have been looking for a healthier ways to use those ripe bananas.

When I found these Healthy Cookies on Pinterest I thought that they were too good to be true. I was excited, because they did not have many ingredients and were low in pointsplus values.

I'm excited to share this new recipe review with you and hope that you enjoy it!

Ingredients: bananas, quick oats, and walnuts

Crush, mash, and mix all the ingredients together.

Place a tablespoon of each on cookie sheet.

The finished product!

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Healthy Cookies

Source: The Burlap Bag and Skinny Taste

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Servings:8

Serving Size: 2 cookies

Calories: 93

Fat: 3.5 g

Fiber: 2 g

Protein: 2 g

Old Points: 2 pt

Points+: 2 pts+

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Ingredients

2 medium ripe bananas, mashed

1 cup uncooked quick oats

  1/4 cup crushed walnuts

Instructions 

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Spray a non-stick cookie sheet with cooking spray.

Combine the mashed bananas and oats in a bowl. Fold in the walnuts and place a tablespoon of each on the cookie sheet.

Bake 15 minutes. Makes 16 cookies.

 *If you don't like nuts, add in chocolate chips or coconut instead. Just make sure you adjust the pointsplus values.

Recipe Review: Crockpot Baked Potatoes

I am always on the look out for good crockpot recipes. So naturally, when I came across this recipe on Pinterest I could not resist making it into my own recipe review to share with all of you. The biggest thing that you will need to watch out for is underestimating the size of your potato!

You're main ingredients are potatoes and aluminum foil.

I used my Weight Watchers scale to weigh my raw potato to find out how many pointsplus it would be for dinner.

After weighing my potato, I covered it with aluminum foil and wrote my name on it. Otherwise, I would not have known which baked potato was mine!

My favorite baked potato topping are these Green Giant Just for One Broccoli & Cheese Sauce trays. They are just 1 pointsplus per tray!

This is what my Baked Potato looked like when it was finished! It tasted just as good as the baked potatoes that I cook in the oven!

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Crockpot Baked Potatoes

Source: Budget Savy Diva

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Servings: 4

Serving Size: 1 potato

Calories:164

Fat: 0.2 g

Fiber: 4.7 g

Protein: 4.3 g

Old Points: 2 pt

Points+: 4 pts+ (large is 5 pts+)

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Ingredients

4 medium russet potatoes

aluminum foil

Toppings (extra pts+): light sour cream, fresh chives, bacon bits, broccoli, cheese 

Instructions 

Wash and scrub potatoes until clean. Dry thoroughly. When dry, prick potatoes with a fork and wrap in aluminum foil.

Cook on low for 8 hours or on high for 4.

Recipe Review: Potato Lover's Soup with Crispy Bacon

I have not posted a recipe review since BEFORE Olivia was born. I have missed writing these posts so much!! I cannot promise that I will post a recipe review every week, but I will try not to let so much time go by in between now and my next post.

As you know Weight Watchers 360° launched this week. In honor of this special occasion, I wanted to try a recipe from my newest Weight Watchers cookbook, "What to Eat Now". This cookbook comes in the Ultimate Weight Watchers 360° kit, that we talked about yesterday.

This new cookbook has 150 recipes, meal ideas, and more for your first 12 weeks on plan. I really like this, because so many people ask me what they should eat now that they are on Weight Watchers and this book helps to get your weight loss journey off to a good start!

The Ingredients

Instead of using three small potatoes, I weighed out 24 ounces of potatoes.

 

First, I cooked the turkey bacon.

Next, I cooked the green onions and garlic.

Then I added all the other ingredients except the potatoes.

 

I added my soup mixture to the Crock Pot with the potatoes and let it cook all day.

This is the final product! It was so good!

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Potato Lover's Soup with Crispy Bacon

Source: What to Eat Now By, Weight Watchers

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Servings: 4

Serving Size: 1 1/2 cup

Calories: 215

Fat: 4 g

Fiber: 5 g

Protein: 10 g

Old Points: 4 pt

Points+: 5 pts+

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Ingredients

3 large (8 ounce) baked russet potatoes

3 strips bacon

3 garlic cloves, minced

4 scallions, thinly sliced

2 3/4 cup reduced sodium chicken broth

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

3/4 cup fat free half and half

Instructions

1. Leaving skin on, coarsely chop potatoes; set aside

2. Cook bacon in large nonstick saucepan over medium heat until crisp. Drain on paper towels and set aside. Pour off and discard all but 1 teaspoon of drippings.

3. Add garlic and half of scallions to drippings in saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 3 minutes. Add broth, salt, pepper sauce, and potatoes, mashing potatoes with wooden spoon to break them up slightly. Bring mixture to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until heated through. 2-3 minutes

4. Stir in half and half and return to simmer. Serve soup sprinkled with crumbled bacon and remaining scallions.

*For your information

This soup is especially convenient if you have leftover baked potatoes on hand. If you don't, preheat the oven to 425°F, pierce each potato a few times with a fork, and place on the middle rack of the oven. Bake until tender, 45 to 50 minutes.

Recipe Review: "Labor Inducing" Gingersnap Cookies

A while back I was asking my friends to give me some good ideas about how to induce my labor. One of my friends, Meagan, suggested that I try making these "Labor Inducing" Gingersnap Cookies. I found the recipe on Pinterest. I decided to put this recipe into the Weight Watchers recipe builder to see how many points+ per cookies. To my suprise these are only 1 points+ per cookie!

Even though these cookies did not induce my labor, I am glad that I found a great new low points+ treat!

The Ingredients

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt and cayenne pepper in small mixing bowl.  Set dry ingredients aside.

Then blend margarine in large mixing bowl. Stir in brown sugar and granulated sugar slowly.

Add the molasses, then the egg whites. Finally, add the dry ingredients to your mix.

Roll dough into ¾ inch balls. Roll cookie balls in sugar to lightly coat each cookie.  Place balls on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake in oven for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are golden brown.

The final product!

Just 1 points+ per cookie!

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Labor Inducing Gingersnap Cookies

Source: Just Mommies

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Servings: 60 cookies

Serving Size: 1 cookie

Calories: 66

Fat: 1.6 g

Fiber: 0.2 g

Protein: 0.7 g

Old Points: 1 pt

Points+: 1 pts+

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Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

8 tablespoons (or 1 stick) margarine

1/2 cup granulated sugar (will also need extra sugar to roll cookie dough in)

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup molasses

2 egg whites

Instructions 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

 Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt and cayenne pepper in small mixing bowl. Set dry ingredients aside. 

Then blend margarine in large mixing bowl. Stir in brown sugar and granulated sugar slowly. Add the molasses, then the egg whites. Finally, add the dry ingredients to your mix. 

Roll dough into ¾ inch balls. Roll cookie balls in sugar to lightly coat each cookie. Place balls on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in oven for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are golden brown.

Recipe Review: Soup or Sauce (S.O.S.) Mix

Today, I want to share with you another amazing recipe that I found on Pinterest!! I have seen this before, but I have never taken the time to calculate the pointsplus values for this recipe. I wish I had taken more of an interest in this recipe in the past, because it probably could have been saving me money for months.

I make a lot of recipes that require cream of chicken and/or cream of mushroom soup. I always use 98% Fat-Free Cream of Chicken soup, which is about 4 pointsplus for 1 can. I feel like I need to own stock in this product, because I purchase it so often!

I was excited to learn that the recipe below for this S.O.S. Mix is equal to 9 (10.5 oz) cans of cream soup and is only 3 pointsplus per serving!! This recipe is lower in pointsplus values than the 98% Fat-Free Cream of Chicken soup that I normally use. It is also homemade, so there are not any ingredients in this mixture that I did not put there myself.

The real test came when I used it in one of our favorite family recipes. I made Chicken and Rice with this S.O.S. mixture, instead of the cans of soup that I typically use, and it turned out great!! On top of all of that, with the SOS mixture one serving of Chicken and Rice was only 4 pointsplus per serving!

I am excited to continue to use this mixture!!

Ingredients

Combine all ingredients in a recloseable plastic bag or in a plastic container.

Shake all ingredients together until completely mixed.

This is your final product and it is equal to 9 (10.5 oz) cans of cream soup!

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Soup or Sauce (S.O.S.) Mix

Source: One Good Thing By Julliee 

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Servings: 9

Serving Size: 1/3 cup of dry S.O.S. mix 

Calories: 69

Fat: 0.3 g

Fiber: 0.2 g

Protein: 1.9 g

Old Points: 1 pts

Points+: 3 pts+

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Ingredients

2 cups powdered non-fat dry milk

3/4 cup cornstarch

1/4 cup instant chicken bouillon (regular or low sodium)

2 Tbsp dried onion flakes

2 tsp Italian seasoning (optional)

Instructions

Combine all ingredients in a recloseable plastic bag, mixing well. Equal to 9 (10.5 oz) cans of cream soup.

To substitute for 1 can of cream soup

Combine 1/3 cup of dry mix with 1 1/4 cups of cold water. Whisk until well blended. Cook and stir on stove top or in microwave until thickened. Add thickened mixture to casseroles as you would a can of soup.

Store in closed plastic bag or air-tight container until ready to use. It does not have to be refrigerated.