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 :)

Price Matching and Coupons

Yesterday I went grocery shopping and ventured into the land of price matching. It went really well.. I saved about $5 on produce. I also had some coupons I wanted to use and I ended up saving about $7 dollars with those. It was a nice time to give this all a try, the store was pretty quiet and empty.. no lines for checkers :) I did learn.. do not go to the line that sells tobacco. Even though it is not a quick check lane.. It is the only lane that sells tobacco and even though it went ok I am thinking if there had been people in the store it could have been stressful. My checker acted a little put out.. well she started with clueless and then went to put out... but I just kept smiling at her and pretending like I knew what I was doing.. and she got the job done.

I made my grocery list, on two different pages ... all the produce on one page, since we get a lot of that and I knew I would be price matching what I could there. Then everything else on another page. I put little stars next to items with coupons and ones that I price matched. Next time I will give coupon items a star and then items I price matched I will circle. As I got to the item on my list I would pull out the coupon and decide if I wanted to use it. I refuse to buy a brand name because I have a coupon if I can get the store brand cheaper. I only used about half the coupons I had hoped to use. I did however score $1.50 off coupon for the cat food, there was a pile of them sitting next to the food so I grabbed a couple. I did end up having to buy a huge bag of cat food and bag of liter not because of the coupons but because the store was out of the smaller bags.. I now have about a 6 month supply.

All in all it was a good experience, I like the price matching at Walmart.. super easy to do.. I just gathered up all the adds locally and went through pricing things on my list.. anything on sale for a good deal I made a note of... then when I was shopping at Walmart I checked to see if the other ads were cheaper.. some of them were a LOT cheaper, Walmart cauliflower was $1.89 and my local store had it for .79 cents I grabbed a couple of those.. onions were about half the price and apples were 30 cents cheaper a lb. I made sure and kept all the price matched items in the front of the cart and when I got to the check stand I told her right away I wanted to price match those items and pulled out the flyers... she sort of rolled her eyes but she did it :)

My Giveaway Wins

I read today someone posted about how much they had won in the last year and I have been signing up like crazy and have already won one item. I decided to start a list of things I win and how I win them.. giveaway, or contest or however it is, and their value. That way I can come back in a year and see how I have done :) This will be an ongoing list.. much easier here online then I do not lose the paper I write it all on.

Date ~ Item won ~ How it was won ~ Value

9/7/11 ~ HCG Kit ~ Twitter RT contest ~ $97

9/20/11 ~ HCG Strength Training for Phase 3 ~ Survey ~ $20

9/21/11 ~ Envelope full of coupons ~ Giveaway at Mommy Likes Deals ~ Value depends

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Coupons for Free stuff, ones I sign up for on the web and they mail me.

Two ( one for me and one for Dave ) free Hershey chocolate bars

Free gallon of ice cream

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Free stuff, samples, they mail to me.

Granola bar from kashi

Dove body mist from Walmart

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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

New Giveaway

New giveaway is up and running today.. Winner will be announced in one week (15th of September) Remember you can always find the most current giveaway by clicking the giveaway link on the right hand side of the blog :)

You can win this Sea Glass Key Chain

If you would like a key chain but not this one... I do have a couple more in my shop and I can also make one just for you.. if you would like something custom. Also have Necklaces and bookmarks and earrings and picture frames and shadow boxes and more (coupon code 3off will save you $3 on all items marked with a yellow "coupon" banner.

Good Luck Everyone and have fun

~Michelle