Jalapeno Popper Pizza

This recipe is definitely one of my husband's favorite dinners.  It's a perfect snack for guys night.  It has three of his requirements for a well balanced meal: bacon, jalapeno and cheese.  It also has a good does of veggies from the jalapeno peppers and the red peppers.  You can use a homemade pizza crust if you would like, but since this is usually one of our quick dinners with just use premade.  You can also adjust how hot it is by adding the jalapeno seeds.  I usually add one or two jalapenos worth of seeds and it's a good compromise between what my husband likes (mouth on fire heat) and what I like (being able to taste my food).  You could adjust how much cheese there is if someone in your house likes super cheesy, just put extra cheddar on part of the pizza.

Ingredients

1 12" premade pizza crust
9 slices bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces
1 cup chopped red peppers
4 jalapenos, seeded and diced (save the seeds if you like your food little hotter)
1 8 oz package fat free cream cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
In a large pan, cook the bacon until almost crispy. Add the red and jalapeno peppers the pan (add the seeds too if you like), cook until the peppers have softened. Stir the bacon and pepper mixture into the cream cheese. Spread over the pizza crust and sprinkle with cream cheese. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the cheddar cheese has melted.
 

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 6
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 294.5

• Total Fat: 5.4 g
• Cholesterol: 20.0 mg
• Sodium: 930.5 mg
• Total Carbs: 38.1 g
• Dietary Fiber: 1.8 g
• Protein: 20.2 g

Breakfast Cookies: Oatmeal-Chocolate-Cranberry-Pecan Cookies

It's that time of year when I start channeling Betty Crocker and do a couple all night cookie baking marathons.  This year it looks like there's going to be at least seven types of cookies, so somewhere around thirty dozen cookies.  I've done five of them so far and I thought I would share one of them with you guys.  I stumbled upon the combination a few years ago when I was playing around with an oatmeal cookie recipe.  Cranberries can be rather tart (like in my Cranberry Nut Pie), but it's balanced out nicely with the cookie and chocolate.  I call these Breakfast Cookies because they're great for a grab and go when you're in a hurry.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups softened butter
2 cups brown sugar, packed
1 cup white sugar
3 1/2 cups flour
2 eggs
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped pecans
3/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the sugar and butter together. Add the flour, eggs, baking powder and soda, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Mix until everything is thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips, pecans, and dried cranberries. The dough is going to be very stiff.
Drop by rounded teaspoons on to cookie sheets and bake for 12 minutes or until the cookies start to brown. Let them sit on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Nutritional Info
• Servings Per Recipe: 60
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 160.2
• Total Fat: 7.2 g
• Cholesterol: 18.6 mg
• Sodium: 33.9 mg
• Total Carbs: 25.7 g
• Dietary Fiber: 1.2 g
• Protein: 1.8

Easy Hummus

A friend of mine introduced me to hummus a few years ago and I loved it.  The store bought stuff is good, but it's easy to make your own and you can flavor it however you would like.  Besides, regular hummus has about 70 calories for two tablespoons.  A serving of this stuff is almost four tablespoons and only 53 calories per serving.  You can expand upon this recipe if you feel like experimenting, try blending in some red bell pepper, more chili powder or a little lemon juice, maybe even all three.  You can serve this with crackers, chips, or veggies.  I like it on a Mediterranean style pizza (more on that in a later post).

Ingredients

1 16 oz can of reduced sodium garbanzo beans, undrained
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

Without draining it, pour the can of beans into a food processor. Sprinkle the onion, garlic and chili powder on top. Blend until smooth. Taste and depending on your preference, add the salt and blend again.

 

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 8
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 53.1

• Total Fat: 0.9 g
• Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
• Sodium: 176.7 mg
• Total Carbs: 10.3 g
• Dietary Fiber: 2.4 g
• Protein: 2.9 g

Recipe Tweak: Salty Caramel Cups

This was originally a Pampered Chef recipe that tasted good, but it had 100 calories and 6 grams of fat per cup.  As much as I liked them, I thought they could use a little improving.  I made a few swaps in the recipe and cut the calories in half.  The fat grams were reduced from 6 grams to 1.6 grams.  The bite size makes them great for potlucks or cookouts.  And as far as the "guy tested" requirement for recipes I put on this blog?  I took them to one of my husband's Army functions, about 25 guys said they liked them and didn't even realize that they were reduced fat!

Ingredients

2 cups pretzel sticks
5 tablespoons light butter, melted
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup sugar free cool whip, thawed
6 ounces fat free cream cheese, softened
1/4 sup sugar free caramel syrup
1 square (1 ounce) semi sweet baking chocolate

 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Crush the pretzels into very small pieces and combine with the powdered sugar and melted butter. Lightly grease a mini muffin tin and put about 1 tablespoon of the pretzel mixture in each cup. Press down hard in the center to form a small indentation.  Bake for six minutes. When they are done let them cool for a minute or two in the muffin tin then let them sit on a cooling rack for about five more minutes, or until completely cooled.

Finely chop the chocolate square until it's almost the consistancy of a powder. Mix with the cream cheese, caramel syrup and cool whip. Put the mixture in a ziplock bag and cut the corner off. Pipe equally among the cups.

 

Nutritional Info

• Servings Per Recipe: 24
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 50.0

• Total Fat: 1.6 g
• Cholesterol: 5.4 mg
• Sodium: 123.9 mg
• Total Carbs: 6.8 g
• Dietary Fiber: 0.2 g
• Protein: 1.3 g