No Sugar Cheese Cake

Added a few extra berries here... it is my favorite part :)


I made this last Thursday.. super easy and simple and it taste great. I made a half recipe and put it in a pie pan with a thin graham cracker crust. I did not have any fruit in the cheese cake itself.. just fresh berries on top. I also did not add the butter to the cheese cake but used a little with the cracker crumbs. Cut it in 8 pieces and figured out the math so that each piece (minus berries on top) was about 150 calories. The full recipe says it makes 12 servings.

Cheese cake recipe from HCG liquid diet Phase three recipe (lots more recipes at the link too)

• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups Plain Yogurt Plain Greek yogurt is good!
• 1 tablespoon Stevia
• 16 ounces cream cheese Softened
• 2 tablespoons butter melted

Directions

In a large bowl, blend together eggs, vanilla, sour cream and stevia. Slowly add butter and cream cheese. Spoon about 1/2c mix into another bowl and add raspberry flavoring (sugar free, any flavor) Mix well. Spoon remaining mix into a 10 inch spring release pan or 12 ramekins.(see photo) Add dollops of raspberry batter on top and swirl thru. If desired, you can make a crust from 1 1.2 cups ground almonds, 1/4 cup splenda and 1/4 butter. Mix all together like you would graham cracker crust and line pan or ramekins. (calculations do not include crust) Bake in 350 degree oven for 20-25 min if cooking ramekins, 35-40 min for spring pan. This will not look done, but will firm up when refrigerated. Place ramekins in a water bath or place a shallow pan with water in overn below the pan or ramekins. Garnish with fresh raspberries and whipped cream if desired (not included in counts) This can be frozen. Number of Servings: 12

I let it cool a bit then put it in the fridge.. I got busy and forgot to cover it and it sinked down and cracked a bit.. next time I will cover right away.. and eat the next day.. we ended up not eating it until Saturday night.. it had dried out a bit too much.. but was still good :)

Hidden Vegetable Chili / Soup

We are doing a very VERY low calorie diet, the HCG liquid diet, and can only eat certain foods. We have two servings of fruit, two of protein and 4 of vegetables. Mind you.. only certain foods in those groups. With a honey who does not eat any vegetables.. wait he will eat iceburg lettuce... no other lettuce or vegetable at all though.. so this has been a bit tricky.

This is what I came up with and so far I have done two versions of it.. the only thing that is different is the spices. Today I am doing the chili one since it is his favorite, the other one is Italian spices in it.. that is my favorite.

Hidden Vegetable Chili Soup

recipe is for one serving.. just multiply by whatever number of servings to make more. I make a big pot of it and then just warm up a bowl at a time.

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup of beef broth

1 cup of diced onion

1 cup of diced celery

1 cup of diced cauliflower

1 cup of diced tomato

1 cup of red and green peppers diced up

3.5 oz of ground hamburger ( either in a patty on the side or in the soup )

Boil until tender then mash up... I like it to have some texture but for us it can not look like vegetables at all... the texture would be all up to you.

Add some chili seasoning.. again.. as much or as little as you would like.

1 big bowl of the soup equals 4 servings of vegetables and one protein!

Sometimes we eat this like a soup and have a burger patty on the side.. sometimes we cook up the hamburger and put it in the bowl and pour the soup over and mix it all up. We do sprinkle a tiny bit of cheese on top even though it is not on the approved list of foods.

In a couple of weeks when we are eating a bit more I will also be adding carrots to this mix.

For more recipes from me, my family and my friends.. check out my kitchen blog

Coffee, Tea and Recipes

Happy Valentines Day

I wanted to make something fun for Valentines day... when the kids were little I would make a few (like 6 to 10) dozen cupcakes and invite all their friends over. Sit them all around the table where there are bowls of different frostings and sprinkles and let them all have at it. I remember kids stacking cupcakes with layers of frosting.. and kids just eating their cupcakes.. and sometimes just eating the sprinkles or the frosting. Lots of good fun memories. I always had so many kids running around that it was about how many I could make. When it came to cookies they could eat them as fast as I pulled them out of the oven. That and sneaking bites of cookie dough. I would have to triple or quadruple the recipes.

I made a cake this weekend... had not been thinking about Valentines day, I had just wanted cake... so I wanted to do something different today. I made big soft old fashioned sour cream sugar cookies and had printed out a friends recipe for butter cream to frost them with. Was just getting ready to mix up the frosting when my friend posted on facebook that she had just made the best butter cream frosting ever... she was sweet enough to email me a copy of it real quick and I gave it a try.

The frosting was so easy to make... I had to make a few changes as I only made half a batch and did not have the cream so just used milk. I added a bit of food coloring to it because I wanted pink and then I did a tiny bit of almond flavoring with the vanilla. This recipe will be used many more times.... even though I only made half a recipe I had a bunch left over.. I put it in a zip lock bag and put it in the fridge.. not sure how it will hold up but I only made 2 dozen cookies. I will update on that in a day or two when I make some cupcakes to put it on :)

*update on the frosting keeping* it keeps like a charm.. I scooped all that was left into a ziplock bag and stuck it in the fridge... pulled it out a couple of days later... sat it on the counter for a short bit... massaged the bag a bit and nipped off the corner and put it on some cupcakes.. looked great and tasted wonderful! Sorry no pictures... everyone was eating them as fast as I could frost them.

Here is the link to the frosting recipe, along with some beautiful cupcakes, recipe is at the bottom of this post ~ Butter Cream Frosting at Java Cup Cakes

Here is the cookie recipe

Old fashioned sour cream cookies

This is my favorite sugar cookie recipe... well one of them! This one is really easy and always taste great.

Mix together

1/2 cup ( one cube ) softened butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla *you could add a little dash of peppermint too if you wanted*
1 egg

add in

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Today I wanted to make heart cookies so I scooped out some dough and using floured hand I patted it flat on a floured sheet until I had them as thick as I wanted them and then used the heart cookie cutter. You can also just roll into a ball and then roll in sprinkles and press flat onto the cookie sheet. The cookies do not get any bigger when they bake.. so don't make them too flat. I like them pretty thick and soft. I bake them in the oven at 350 for about 7 minutes.. I watch them pretty close.. I do not want the edges to start turning brown.. then they can get a bit crunchy.. still good.. but I like mine softer.

~Michelle

Emmy's Sugar Frog

I love frogs... .. used to have a collection.. but.. there are only so many things one can collect. While we were out geocaching we saw this beautiful frog attached to a travel tag so we just had to take it and check it out. Turns out it it is Emmy's sugar frog and has a sweet tooth.. it wants to hop around from cache to cache... having it's photo taken while having a dessert :) When we read that.. we knew we had found the right travel bug (frog) for us to move along.

Last night I decided to make some cookies and I remembered that Emmy's sugar frog was visiting us and I thought he might enjoy making some cookies... from what I had heard I knew he would enjoy eating some cookies. So I gathered up all the supplies on the counter and set him there to watch. Right away he hoped into action and was making sure everything was mixed well.

Then we had to get it all patted down in the pan and nice and even. (yes we ALL washed before helping)

I did make the mistake of opening the chocolate up so it would be ready when the cookies were done baking.. lol came out to find this.

here the cookies are... out of the oven and ready for chocolate... from the look on Frogs face I am not sure I was moving fast enough.

Wouldn't you know it... he went right for the one with chocolate on it.

Emmy's frog also helped make some brownies

And some blue berry muffins while visiting.

We had a lot of fun with this frog and had thought we found the perfect cache to drop it in.. one that belonged to a little girl named Emmy.. but.. we had no luck getting in touch with the owner.. and then we noticed that the cache seemed to not have any activity so we decided to keep looking... found a well maintained cache close to home on the perfect trail for a frog so last night while out hiking/caching with the kids we left it there to continue on it's journey. We look forward to watching and seeing where this special, fun frog will go next :)

~Michelle

recipe for these cookies (in thumb print version) is on my other blog, Coffee, Tea and Recipes. Only difference would be instead of making into little balls.. just spread in a pan and bake until edges are brown.

recipe for the brownies and the muffins can be found in Chelle's Kitchen too :)

Rhubarb Cookies

Rhubarb Cookies
Originally uploaded by glass_identities

I am loving my grandma right now so much... growing up she made the best rhubarb cookies.. not sure how.. but I had forgotten about them until the other day when my dad called me up looking for the recipe... ( thanks dad )....after sharing it with him I had to make some myself. I did not have any rhubarb but I put an ad on freecycle.com for my local area and within an hour I had 6 people write me who all lived within a mile or two.. so I headed over to one of the houses and she wonderfully let me take a whole bunch of it.. ( going to make a pie with what is left ) I just finished making them and not only are they wondeful *pats self on back* but they bring back so many wonderful memories of being young and carefree and playing at grandmas. Grandmas are truly a childs best friend.

Just a side note on this recipe make them small... they grew a lot while baking and ended up being the size of saucers which only made a dozen cookies.. I will be making more this weekend.

Rhubarb Filled Cookies Recipes

Ingredients For: Rhubarb Filled Cookies Recipes
1/2-cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2-teaspoon salt
1-tablespoon milk
1-teaspoon vanilla

Filling For: Rhubarb Filled Cookies Recipes
3 cups rhubarb, chopped
1/4-cup water
1 cup granulated sugar

Instructions For: Rhubarb Filled Cookies Recipes
Mix filling ingredients and cook until soft. Set aside and chill.

To prepare Dough: Cream butter, add sugar and cream together well. Beat eggs and add to this mixture.
Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mix alternating with milk and vanilla.
Chill dough.
On floured board, roll out dough 1/2" thick. Using a 2" cutter, cut out cookies .
Place cookies on a greased or sprayed cookie sheet.
Cover dough with a teaspoon of filling. Top with another cookie and press edges together with tines of a floured fork.
Bake rhubarb filled cookies recipes in 400°F oven for 10 minutes.