Recipe: Perfect Pumpkin Bread!

I just received this recipe last week in my inbox from a Hungry Girl email blast and it sounded so good, I had to give it a try last night. The verdict was delicious, so I must share with you! One thing that didn’t work out so well for me was the 1/2 cup of granulated Splenda (which I don’t happen to have in my kitchen cupboards) and I wasn’t about to pay a pretty steep price for the huge bag of the stuff at the grocery store when all I needed was a half cup. I did have some Splenda Mist from a promo I got the scoop on through Facebook last week, so I put in 12 sprays of that and it seemed to work great! I would imagine that if you have some Splenda packets you could sub those as well, you just need to figure out the conversion. Otherwise, happy pumpkin’ bread eatin’! And thanks again Hungry Girl!

HG

Ingredients:

One 15-oz. can pure pumpkin

1 1/4 cups whole-wheat flour

1/4 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Original Egg Beaters)

1/2 cup Splenda No Calorie Sweetener (granulated)

1/4 cup brown sugar (not packed)

1/4 cup Ocean Spray Craisins Original Sweetened Dried Cranberries (or regular raisins), chopped

2 1/4 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine both types of flour, Splenda, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.

In a medium bowl, mix together pumpkin, egg substitute, and vanilla extract (all the wet ingredients). Add this mixture to the bowl with the dry ingredients, and stir until just blended.

Slowly sprinkle chopped Craisins or raisins into the batter, making sure they don’t all stick together, and mix to distribute them.

Spoon batter into a large loaf pan (about 9″ x 5″) sprayed with nonstick spray. Bake for about 50 minutes, until the top of the loaf is firm to the touch. (Bread may be moist inside. This doesn’t mean it’s undercooked.) Allow to cool, and then cut into 8 slices. Enjoy!

Makes 8 Servings

Serving Size: 1 slice

Calories: 143, Fat: 0.5g, Sodium: 281 mg, Carbs: 31 g, Fiber: 4.5g, Sugars: 9 g, Protein: 5 g

Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies!

Yum!

Listen up all you chocolate chip cookie lovers! There’s a way to have your cookie and not kick yourself for eating it! I found this recipe by doing a search online, and of course you can do your own search and come up with your own version. However this is the one I found, tried, and enjoyed. It may not be for everyone, since the texture is a bit different than your average cookie (it’s chewier thanks to the oat flour), but I dig it!

Click the above highlighted link, or go to the following url to find chocolatey-yummyness!

http://heart-healthy-cooking.suite101.com/article.cfm/healthy_chocolate_chip_cookies

Crystal’s Tip: Don’t tell your friends, spouse, significant other, kids, etc. that it’s healthy and see if they like it first. Sneaky!