Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope everyone has their green on today!

Tonight we're hosting a pot luck dinner party at our house.

Main Eats...
CrockPot Corned Beef and Cabbage (Me and Bryan)
Irish Mac N Cheese (Justin and Barbara)
Irish Potatoes (Amber)
Irish Soda Bread (Adam)

and for Dessert...
Irish Bread Pudding (Sara)
Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes (Me! Pictured Above)

don't forget the drinks...
Plenty of Guinness, Bailey's and Jameson = Irish Car Bombs!

We'll see how getting up early for work on Thursday goes...

Hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday! :) I know we will.

Christmas Desserts and Treat Tins

I volunteered to make desserts for Christmas Eve. I decided to make a bunch of mini desserts for more vareity and figures I could use the leftovers for dessert on Christmas day. I was originally going to make a bunch of half batches of the desserts, but then I thought it would be a good idea to make treat tins for people we would be visiting Christmas day. I was off work (or maybe I was sick ::cough, cough::) the Wednesday before the holiday so I spent the majority of the day baking the following goodies. They were all delicious and a big hit with everyone.

Red Velvet Cupcakes: These were originally supposed to be cookies, but I used applesauce and egg substitute instead of the oil and eggs and the result was more of a cake batter vs. a cookie dough.

Peanut Butter Brownie Bites

Mini Cheesecakes: I used used Nilla Wafers and fresh strawberries for half, oreo cookies and chocolate chips for the other half.

White Chocolate Oreo Truffles

Chocolate Oreo Truffles

White Chocolate Peppermint Fudge

Chocolate Fudge
I made a few more, but did not have a chance to photograph them before they were gone!
Mini Pecan Pies
Jam Thumbprints
Sugar Cookie Bites

Christmas Cookies

I have seen and bookmarked so many wonderful cookie recipes recently, however there is no way I can make a whole batch and keep it in my kitchen. I will, without fail, eat each and every one of them. That doesn’t quite fit into my losing weight plan. So instead, I decided to spend a day baking cookies for my husband and I to share with our co-workers. I used leftover wedding favor bags, dressed it up with some festive ribbon and added a Happy Holidays note. The cookies were delicious and everyone loved them! I was able to eat a few (well maybe a little more than that….) and then gave the rest away!

I made peanut butter cookies:


Iced sugar cookies with peppermint sugar on top:

Snickerdoodles:

and Dorie Greenspan’s world peace cookies:

Pumpkin Pie

I made this pie last week for Thanksgiving. I must say, for my first pie, it was pretty darn good! So good, that my husband refused to let me to take ANY leftovers to work and insisted he would eat it all week. The pie is also super easy to make. I took a short cut and used a pre-made crust instead of making my own. I also didn’t have any pumpkin pie spice so I just measured out the spices individually. You would never even know this is low fat / low calories. It’s a great dessert alternative for the holidays.

Adapted from Hungry Girl

Ingredients
1 15 oz can pure pumpkin
1 12 oz can evaporated fat-free milk
1/2 cup Egg Beaters
3/4 cup Splenda
1/4 cup sugar free pancake syrup
1/2 T + 1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 T ginger
1/8 T ground all spice
1/8 T nutmeg
1/8 t salt
1 reduced fat graham cracker crust

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients for the filling. Mix well. Pour mixture into pie crust. The filling may be taller than the crust -- this is okay!

3. Bake pie in the oven for 45 minutes. Allow pie to cool slightly. Refrigerate for several hours (overnight is best). Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

The Facts
10 servings
Calories 143.1
Total Fat 3.0 g
Fiber 2.5 g
WW Points 3