Roasted Cauliflower

I like cauliflower, but I don't ever crave it.  I decided to try a roasted cauliflower recipe I found here.

I bought cauliflower on sale (Kroger has a lot of specials), and finally decided to try the recipe today.

Here's what you need 

1 medium head cauliflower (about 2-1/4 pounds), trimmed and cut into florets
3 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons lemon juice (I used 1/2 fresh lemon)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

I did not measure the pepper or Parmesan cheese, but added to my taste.

Directions: 

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. 

Combine cauliflower and garlic. 

Drizzle with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper (I added some Parmesan before cooking and after). 

In a single layer on a cookie sheet, roast at 450 degrees F for about 25 minutes, stirring once. 

Sprinkle with Parmesan. 

I had wax paper under the mixture.

Serve immediately.

This was really good! It had quite a but of flavor, and it is a recipe I will use again when I have cauliflower, and it might even be a recipe I crave because it is so good! 

Yum!!!

Less than 100 Calorie Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Muffins!

I saw pictures of a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin on Pinterest.  I'd click the link, and I couldn't find the recipe, but I finally found it!  The recipe I'm sharing today I found on this website.  It claims this is a 95 calorie muffin.  It looks good, but how does it taste.  I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:
I saw pictures of a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin on Pinterest.  I'd click the link, and I couldn't find the recipe, but I finally found it!  The recipe I'm sharing today I found on this website.  It claims this is a 95 calorie muffin.  It looks good, but how does it taste.  I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup	Oats
3	Egg whites
3/4 cup	Unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup	Unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp	Vanilla extract
1/2 cup	Plain greek yogurt (or regular plain low fat yogurt)
1/2 tsp	Cream of tartar (or 2 tsp. vinegar)<-I was nervous to try vinegar, so I used cream of tartar
1 1/2 tsp	Baking powder
1 1/2 tsp	Baking soda
1/4 tsp	Salt
1 cup	Hot water
1/2 cup	Baking stevia OR 1 cup sweetener of choice that measures like sugar
1/2 cup	Semi-sweet chocolate chips Makes 16 cupcakes-about 95 calories each (depending on the calories in your ingredients)

I used cupcake liners, because they do stick.  I used foil and paper, but I did not notice a big difference.  You will also need a blender or food processor.  My blender worked just fine, and it's nothing special.

1. Preheat the over to 350.
2. Mix all of your ingredients in the blender EXCEPT for the chocolate chips.

3. Blend until the mixture is smooth and oats are ground up.

4. Pour mixture into a bowl to stir in 1/4 cup of chocolate chips (or all 1/2 cup chocolate chips if you don't want to put chocolate chips on top).  Pouring into a bowl is recommended because when I did it in the blender to avoid getting a bowl dirty, some of the chocolate chips went below the blender blade, and was difficult to get out to put int he muffin pan.

5. Pour mixture into the muffin pan (with cupcake liners, or without if desired-but greased).  Do not fill to the top or they will overflow.  This mixture made 16 cupcakes with my pan.

6. Cook for 10 minutes. Take out and add the rest of the chocolate chips (1/4 cup) to the top of the muffins.  Continue cooking for 2-5 minutes.

My oven took longer, and I even raised it to 350, but it is definitely my oven.  It's like that with all recipes.  It's important to know what your oven is like.  When they are finished, they are quite tasty warm, but let them cool before putting them in a container, or you will have melting chocolate chips (which isn't so bad).

To me these are not too sweet.  If you use a different sweetener, you may have different results.  At 95 calories and relatively healthy ingredients, they are definitely worth a try, especially if you already have the ingredients at home!

Overnight Oatmeal without the Peanut Butter??

When I first saw overnight oatmeal, I was intrigued.  I wasn't sure how it would taste the being cold, not cooked, and never even warm!  I thought I'd try it, and a friend said she only liked it with peanut butter in it.  I tried it a few times, and some days and recipes were better than others.  The recipe I'm sharing today is one I adapted from this recipe.

Lemon Blueberry No-Cook Oatmeal

3/4 Cup Old Fashioned Oatmeal
3/4 Cup Unsweetened Almond Coconut Milk
1/4 C Pecans
1/4 C Blueberries
1 Tb Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice (1/2 lemon)
1 Tb Chia Seeds
1 tsp Honey

Combine the oatmeal, lemon juice, blueberries, pecans, chia seeds, and almond coconut milk in an airtight container.
Refrigerate overnight. Add an extra splash of coconut milk in the morning of the oatmeal is thicker than you prefer.
Add honey, lemon zest and as many blueberries as you want.

The verdict is-I added a lot of honey because it wasn't sweet enough for me.  I considered adding stevia.  If my blueberries had been sweeter, maybe I wouldn't have needed something, but they were not sweet enough for me.  This reminded me again of why I really like peanut butter flavored overnight oatmeal.  It adds more flavor!

What overnight oatmeal recipes do you like?  I'd love a really good recipe!

I bought an eggplant... *Updated*

I bought an eggplant.  I like eggplant when I get it at restaurants, so I thought I could make something, so I bought an eggplant.  I had it for almost a week and had found a few recipes that I thought about, but I had no idea how to cook eggplant.

I settled on this recipe-Spinach & Eggplant Casserole.  I gathered my ingredients, and I read up on tips for cooking eggplant.  I found this tip about salting the eggplant on both sides, letting sit for an hour in a colander, and then rinsing.  It's supposed to add flavor.

It was time to make the recipe.  I do not cook exactly according to a recipe most of the time.  This was no exception.

I cut up the eggplant (then later cut them up more, and wished I had cut them up even smaller).  I added salt, but probably should have let the eggplant sit for longer in the salt.  The next step was roasting the eggplant.  I decided to use a smaller casserole dish, so I used less ingredients than the original recipe called for.  I put the oven on low broil, and roasted the eggplant coated in olive oil.

I am impatient, so I probably should have let this cook for longer, and possibly less eggplant in this dish to cook more thoroughly.

Next I steamed frozen spinach.  The recipe called for fresh spinach, but I have an abundance of frozen spinach that I needed to use.

The original recipe did not call for meat, but I thought I would add ground turkey.

After roasting the eggplant, I added ground turkey, spinach, mushrooms, a roma tomato, and spaghetti sauce.  I did not measure anything, but added based on what I had, and what I thought would be good.  I then topped it with pizza shredded cheese (mozzarella & Cheddar mixture).

Then I put it in the oven to cook on 375 for about 20 minutes.

It looks very tasty, and I think it would have been better had the eggplant been cooked a little more.  I like spaghetti sauce, so that added lots of flavor, but overall this dish did not have as much flavor as I would have liked.

I plan to try this recipe again, and I will update to tell you what I did to hopefully make it better.  If you try this, let me know what you did, and how you liked it.

*UPDATE*

I had leftovers, so today I decided to heat some up for lunch, but wanted more flavor.  I decided to add cottage cheese, a little salt, pepper, and basil flakes.  I warmed it up in the microwave, and it was SO GOOD!  Next time I think I will add cottage cheese when I bake it, and make sure that I cook the eggplant more thoroughly.  I might add more salt, pepper, and other seasonings, but I think the cottage cheese is what gave this leftover dish added flavor and more yumminess!