Simple Apple Galette or Pie

• 1 store-bought pie crust (800kcal for entire crust)
  
• 2 pound tart apples such as Brock or Spencer, peeled, cored and sliced
• juice of one fresh lemon
• grated lemon zest of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

Unfold thawed pie crust. Transfer to an non-greased 17- by 14-inch baking sheet or a pie shaped baking dish.

Toss apples with lemon juice and zest in a large bowl, and sprinkle granulated sugar over apples. Place apple slices on pie crust. Either arrange neatly (or not so neatly), or fold in dough border over apples if making a galette, pleating dough as necessary, to form a 9-inch round.

Bake pie 30 minutes, then loosely cover with foil and bake until apples are tender and crust is golden, 25 to 30 minutes more. Remove pie from oven and turn on broiler.

Dust apples with confectioners sugar and broil 5 to 6 inches from heat until apples are just golden, 1 to 3 minutes (watch carefully; sugar burns easily). Slide pie from baking sheet onto a rack, then cool to warm or room temperature.

Tartelettes!

Fall reminds me of onion tarts, accompanied with young white wine. Onion, caramelized in balsamic vinegar, baked with ham, cumin seeds, heavy cream, eggs on a pizza dough like crust. But, I was lazy and hungry, so a quick and dirty version had to do. I cut some layers of phyllo dough into round shapes, and lines small tart forms. One was filled with onion chutney, and topped with a mix of ff sour cream and (full fat) grated gruyere with some nutmeg. A second was lined with halved cherry tomatoes, and sprinkled with shredded mozzarella and basil. A third was filled with a mix of eggbeaters, sour cream and spices, and the 4th was filled with peeled sliced tiny picked apples, mixed with some brown sugar, ground cloves and a bit of maple syrup. Baked for 25 min in a 425F preheated oven.


onion tartelette

Walnut Kalamata Bread

One of my favorite fast home-made breads, and instead of individual servings, this time in family size.

1 cup Insta bake
1/2 cup ground FiberOne cereal
1/2 TB baking powder
1/2 cup sliced marinated kalamata olives
1/4 cup walnuts or pecan, fresh chopped and slightly toasted
3/4-1 cup ff milk
2 TB of kalamata olive water

Mix all the dry ingredients first, and add olives and nuts. Add the wet ingredients, and mix. It will be a dry, clumpy dough, but not too crumble. It should come together as a dough, just not very smooth. Fill in a small bread baking dish, and bake at 400F for 45-60min.

Bacon and Cinnamon Waffles

This was one of the occasions when reading the Sunday morning paper and watching FoodTV on brought about a great idea for breakfast: waffles with the unusual combination of bacon and cinnamon. In the originial recipe, Giada Di Laurentiis uses pancetta, but this is a skinny version of the waffle that leaves you little to wish for with regard to taste, texture and a perfect Sunday morning breakfast.

1/4 cp Big trail buttermilk pancake mix (or other pancake mix)

1/2 TB brown splenda

1/2 ts ground cinnamon

1 TB walnuts, chopped

1 ts bacon bits

3.5 TB ff buttermilk (or 1/3 cup for the NS pancake mix)

1 TB eggbeaters

Mix all ingredients in a small bowl; the batter should be on the liquid, pourable side. Pour batter in the middle of pre-heated waffle iron, and bake for 3-5 min. For extra special waffle, roast the walnuts first. Serve with sf maple syrup!

Chocolate Muffin

Another Starbucks creation. This time I am just going to eat it.....

Chocolate Cream Cheese Muffins (using NS pancake mix)

Muffins:
1 NS pancake mix
1 TB brown Splenda
3 Tbsp eggbeaters
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cold coffee or instant coffee
1 TB FF milk
1 TB Ghiradelli ground sweet chocolate
1/2 ts vanilla extract

Filling:
2 oz FF cream cheese
1 TB eggbeaters
1/2 ts vanilla
1 ts pancake mix
1/2 ts fiberfit (or a 2 packets of splenda)

Topping:
4 small pieces of chocolate

Directions
Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients for the muffin in a separate bowls. Then, add wet to dry ingredients and mix well. Line a muffin pan with liners, and fill with batter. Should make about 4 medium sized (regular) muffins (I used 2 larger ramekins). Pre-bake for 5 min at 400F.

In another bowl, whip the ingredients for the cream cheese filling. It might help to soften the cream cheese in the microwave for a 1/2 min. Divide the filling equally into the 1/2 baked muffins, and finish baking (overall ca. 15-20 min). For the last 2 min, place the chocolate pieces on top.

all 4 muffins: 1 breakfast + 1 protein

Note: the original starbucks muffin has 600kcals, and 43g of fat. And it does not even taste good.
This version has no fat, and about 180kcal (with 'old' pancake mix at 120kcal) and 210kcal with the new NS pancake mix.