Chicken Enchiladas

This is a favorite recipe at our house! 

Chicken Enchiladas
1-1/4 lb chicken, cooked and shredded (I cook it in the crockpot)
16 low-carb tortillas
LOTS of shredded cheese
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup onion
1-2 tsp garlic
8 oz low fat cream cheese
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder

Spread 2-4 Tbsp of chicken on each tortilla; sprinkle cheese on top and roll up. Place in 9x13 pan (I usually melt a little butter on the bottom of the 9x13 pan to keep tortillas from sticking)

Sauce: Melt butter in bottom of pan; saute onion and garlic. Add cream cheese and stir until melted. Pour in heavy cream, cumin and chili powder. 

Pour the sauce over the enchiladas, sprinkle with more shredded cheese and bake at 350 for 25 minutes!

Note: If you are doing Trim Healthy Mama, this is an S meal. I use the 3g net carb tortillas, and have two of them...

Pumpkin Cheesecake

And yet another yummy recipe I discovered on Pinterest! ;) This was rich and very satisfying without sugar or flour!

The crust is made from almonds, butter, xylitol (or other sweetener) and cinnamon.

There are two middles - made from cream cheese, xylitol, eggs, pumpkin puree, and spices.

I'm not gonna lie... this was not easy to make and it did not turn out pretty. It was one of those recipes that I kept wondering if I was making it right. But in the end, it tasted really good! This would be a great healthy option for Thanksgiving dessert -- and for me it would be rich and satisfying enough that I would be able to leave other desserts alone!

The full recipe can be found here...

I didn't know what they meant by "Set the cheesecake into a pan of water so it won't crack while being baked" so this is what I used, and it seemed to work -- it cooked through and it didn't crack! (Note: I used more water than this... this is how much water was left after baking for an hour and after I spilled a bunch of water all over the countertop -- I filled it about halfway.)

Healthy Pumpkin Bars

Wow! These were yummy -- my kiddos gobbled them up like they had sugar and white flour in them!

You can get the recipe for them here! I used xylitol as my sweetener. For the frosting, I put the xylitol through my blender first (I had heard you could do this, and this was my first time trying it) to make it more like powdered sugar. These are seriously yummy! And when I gave these to my kids for BREAKFAST, I think I may have gotten myself nominated for Mother of the Year!

I thought I had almond butter, but when I opened it up it had already been opened and stored in the pantry for who knows how long -- Yikes! Definitely not useable. And I really wanted to make this recipe... and I had almonds and a food processor.  So I googled how to make almond butter and found a recipe on line. You can go here to see how I made the almond butter! (or you can buy it)

Almond Butter

I made almond butter for the first time! I used the directions I found here...

I used 2 heaping cups (which made a little more than 1 cup of almond butter), and it only took me 10 minutes. I'm not sure if I have a newer food processor than her (mine is 2-3 years old) or if I just didn't process it as much as her, but it turned out great!

I also added a little sea salt at the end... just because I think almost everything tastes better with a little bit of salt in it!

Here's what mine looked like:

Quinoa and Black Beans

I've seen lots of variations of this quinoa and black bean recipe.  I liked this recipe because I liked the idea of making it all in the rice cooker!

1-1/2 cups dry quinoa, rinsed and drained
2 cups water
2 vegetable bouillon cubes
1 carrot, diced, 
1/2 cup onion (I used green onions)
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

Put quinoa, water, bouillon cubes, carrot and onion in the rice cooker.

About 20 minutes into the rice cooking, add the beans:

When it is done it will look something like this:

If you love salt like I do, you will want to add salt before eating!

Vegetable Broth

A lot of recipes I've been using call for vegetable broth. I used to buy this vegetable bouillon from my local health store, but a couple of years ago they stopped selling it so I ordered a bunch of it from Amazon.com (it comes in batches of 6 boxes): 

I add one of these cubes to a cup of hot water for every cup of vegetable broth that the recipe calls for. 

You can see lots more options for vegetable bouillon or broth here at Amazon.com (or you can probably find this -- or something comparable -- at your local health store.). Just be careful that there isn't any MSG in it!

Cauliflower Pasta

Okay, this original recipe called for butternut squash. It wasn't easy to get it cut into these small chunks before cooking it and it gave it a weird taste.  Next time I am just going to make the cauliflower "alfredo" sauce, and add it to pasta... and have the vegetables on the side. This tasted better the next day, but the sweetness of the butternut squash still gave it a weird taste (in my opinion)...

Cauliflower Pasta
1 medium head cauliflower, cut into florets (I'm also going to try this with a bag of frozen cauliflower)
2 cups vegetable broth

Cook over medium heat for 10 minutes, or until cauliflower is tender. Remove pan from the heat and puree sauce until smooth and creamy.  Add any desired spices.

Serve over whole grain pasta.