Valentines Cake

I forgot to post this when my daughter made her cake, but I came across the photo today, so I decided to post it anyway - better late than never, right?  lol

Anyway - since Valentines was on a Monday, she decided she wanted to make the desert.  I have a recipe for ice cream cake, using a cake mix but making it low fat and then putting sliced ice cream between the layers.  She wanted to make it heart shaped, so we used my heart shape pans.  It turned out pretty good, which is why I wanted to post the photo.  It wasn't chocolate (because it gives my hubby a headache, so we avoid it when he's going to eat), but it was still yummy.  You could probably do the same with any flavor cake - I've made it with chocolate.
Anyway, enjoy!

Cake

1 Betty Crocker Lemon Cake mix  

1 container Kroger plain FF greek yogurt  4 Egg whites 
1 1/2 Cups Water

no sugar added low fat ice cream vanilla , 8 serving  

Frosting

4 C Powdered Sugar 
2 T Light Butter
1/4 - 1/2 C skim milk
mix all dry ingredients, then add eggs and yogurt. Mix, adding water as needed till thicker than usual cake mix. Pour into two round pans, one bundt pan or 9x13 pan, sprayed with pan spray. Bake at 350 for 25 min if the two pans, alter according to size of pan.   remove from oven and let cool. Slice in half length wise, and then slice ice cream in 1/4" slices and lay in middle. Put other half of cake back on top. We actually cut both halves of a heart shaped cake in half and had four layers. Freeze.
Make frosting with the powdered sugar, butter and milk. add powdered sugar to the butter and milk a little at a time so that you don't have to much frosting. This one I used the True Lemon stuff to give it a real lemon flavor. Some yellow food coloring, and we were set. 
makes about 24 servings.

Something different...

Okay - if you like Cream of Wheat, you're a friend of mine.  Honestly.  I love Cream of Wheat or Farina, or whatever it is you call it.  And the thing is...the more lumps in it, the better.  My hubby thinks I'm crazy.  He tells me how his mother perfected the art of pouring it in while stirring so as to make no lumps at all.  What fun is that??  Not that I like great big gobs of lumps, I just like a couple here and there.  Gives me more to chomp on.

Anyway...lol  I tried making some the other day with milk to add protein.  I had some fat free half and half left that I needed to use up, so I used it in place of some of the milk.  Wow....you would never believe the difference!!  It was soooo creamy.  YUM.  and, I'm ashamed to admit to my dieting world friends...but it's good with butter in it too.  That's from my mission days and a companion that introduced me to that little bit of yum.  I put just a bit in, probably half a teaspoon, but you can still taste it. So, then, I added cinnamon.  It was getting better and better all the time.  Add a little of splenda blend brown sugar blend (and I do mean a LITTLE) and it's heavenly.

I made it again this morning for breakfast, and had just a little left over in the pan when I came home from work.  Hmmm...so I warmed it up in the microwave, added the smallest tich of butter and about a tablespoon of semi sweet chocolate chips.  Oh man!  Who would have thought a chocolaty treat was a breakfast food???  So, if your craving something chocolate and have some Cream of Wheat or a generic stand in around, give it a whirl.  You'll love it...  ;)

And they call it mock potato soup why???

Okay...so I thought I'd try this recipe that claims to taste just like potato soup, but it's made with cauliflower.  I'm sure you've heard of it - it was a first for me.  I figured we had two huge heads of cauliflower, it was a good time to try the recipe.

Well...as my hubby claims, I couldn't just make the recipe, I had to alter a few things.  But honestly, it shouldn't have made a difference!  I added some celery, didn't use all the oil and used FF canned milk instead of the 1%.  Wouldn't that just make it better?? I wanted soooo badly to add garlic to it, but I refrained.  sigh.  It was kind of bland, and tasted like cauliflower to me.  I mean, it was good, everyone liked it -- but it was no potato soup.

What do you think?

2 large heads of cauliflower
2 pkg bacon
5 cans ff low sodium chicken broth
1 large sweet onion, chopped
1/2 C chopped celery hearts (the leafy part)
Mrs. Dash tomato basil
1 can ff evaporated milk
1/2 C FF half n half

You steam the cauliflower until tender, then you broil it till it's golden.  (You spray it and sprinkle spices on it first)  You cook up the bacon and drain it, then crumble it.  You chop the onion and saute it in a large soup pot with the celery and a can of the broth.  When the cauliflower is golden, you add it to the pot with the rest of the broth.  After it's simmered for about 10 minutes, scoop out half of it into a blender and blend till smooth.  Dump it back into the pot and add the milk and cream and bacon.  Serve with sharp cheddar cheese.  The recipe suggested putting the cheese in the soup, but I like to control how much cheese is used, so we sprinkled it on top.  We also used parmesan cheese.  It makes about 14 servings.

Chocolate Cake Cookies

Last Sunday I decided to use up the rest of some frosting I'd made with spiff e Whip.  Have you ever heard of Spiff E Whip??  It's the most amazing stuff, and I'm afraid I love it.  Even thought it's really bad for you, filled with all those types of preservatives and artificial sweeteners that you shouldn't eat...sigh.  But it's really handy when you want something quick to whip up and don't have any whip topping. and it has zero fat.  Which is always a plus...  lol

Anyway, be sure to use cold water when you make it, it takes like 1 minute that way.  I've been trying to find a picture of the can so you can recognize it when you look on the shelves for it.  You need to look in the food preparedness aisle, it won't be in the regular baking stuff.

Anyway - the cookies.

1 Betty Crocker, Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge cake mix 1 can western family black beans low sodium, pureed western family egg substitute, 0.75 cup

mix all ingredients together in a mixing bowl, blend for 2 minutes. Preheat oven to 350. Spray cookie sheet with pan spray. With small ice cream scoop, place cookies on cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.

Number of Servings: 92

• Calories: 26.3

• Total Fat: 0.4 g
• Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
• Sodium: 69.0 mg
• Total Carbs: 6.0 g
• Dietary Fiber: 0.4 g
• Protein: 0.7 g

Okay - back to spiff e whip ...  There is a frosting recipe on the can that I made for my son's bday cupcakes.  I had loads of frosting left over, so I used it to make sort of a moon pie with these cookies.  It was really yummy!  so try it out...you'll love it!