Tag Archives: Weight WAtchers

Plum Upside-Down Cake

Posted on June 30, 2014 by four sweetie pies

Happy summer Monday friends!

Last night I had a surplus of plums and decided to make a fruity summer dessert- a Plum Upside Down Cake. It is a lovely dessert, but it is so good for you that it could easily pass for a healthy breakfast coffee cake! I calculated the Weight Watchers Points and based on 10 servings, it is a 5 point treat and that is a generous piece :)

Plum Upside-Down Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Ingredients

For sauce:

1 TBL butter

8 plums, pitted and quartered (no need to remove skin)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp cardamom

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of salt

For cake:

2 TBL applesauce

2 TBL softened butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat pastry flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 eggs (could use egg whites and reduce calories)

3/4 cup low fat buttermilk

1 TBL almond extract

1 tsp vanilla

Directions

Melt 1 TBL butter in a skillet, add plums and cook 3-4 minutes. Add the 1/2 cup sugar, cardamom, cinnamon and salt. Cook down until plums are tender about 10 minutes. Bring liquid to a boil and cook until liquid begins to thicken up, about 5-10 minutes.

Spray a 9 inch cake pan with baking spray. Remove plums from skillet and place in cake pan. Once liquid is slightly thickened, pour over plums.

To make the cake batter:

Beat the 2 TBL of butter and 2 TBL of applesauce together. Add the eggs, vanilla and almond extract. Combine the flour, baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt. Add the flour mixture and buttermilk, alternating each, into the sugar mixture.

Pour batter over plums and gently spread to cover. Bake @ 350 for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Run knife around edge of pan. Place a platter upside-down on top of the cake and carefully invert cake.

Serve with whipped cream or vanilla bean ice cream.

Enjoy!

Adapted from: http://www.cookinglight.com

Peanut Butter and Banana Baked Oatmeal

Posted on March 11, 2014 by four sweetie pies

Good morning friends,

As we sit and wait for our umpteenth snow storm of the season, may I suggest a recipe that I’ve devised for my family incorporating some of our favorite ingredients? Tomorrows forecasted cold and snowy start might be more bearable with some warm Peanut Butter and Banana Baked Oatmeal, and it can even be made the night before to save time.

Peanut Butter and Banana Baked Oatmeal

1-2 bananas (ripe, sliced for bottom)

2 cups of old-fashioned oats

1 generous tsp cinnamon

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of sea salt

1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk (half the calories of skim) but you can use any type of milk desired

1/3 cup of peanut butter, softened in microwave, plus additional for serving

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 egg whites (I keep the liquid ones on hand for things like this when Im trying to do low-fat baking)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Spray deep pie dish with non-stick spray

3. Slice and layer the bananas on the bottom of the dish

4. Mix the rest of the ingredients together and place in pie dish.

5. At this point you can refrigerate overnight or bake immediately for about 30-35 minutes or until set, but not over baked or it will be dry.

6. Serve with warm milk of your choice, sliced bananas if desired and drizzle with a bit of additional peanut butter (non-negotiable ;).

* A couple of side notes-if prepared as above, this recipe has 5 WW PointsPlus (when the dish is cut into 8 servings and not including how much peanut butter you add to the top ;). Sometimes I make this recipe with 1 1/2 times the ingredients to make it a bit thicker, this would however increase the points value.

Enjoy! My family gobbles this up and requests I make it often :)

2 Comments

Posted in Breakfast, Healthy Baking, Weight Watchers and tagged baked oatmeal, Peanut butter, PointsPlus, Weight WAtchers. Bookmark the permalink.

Pumpkin Spice Baked Oatmeal

Posted on January 15, 2013 by four sweetie pies

Good morning friends,

I love a warm breakfast on a cool morning and this one will make you feel like your indulging, but without any guilt. The recipe is a slight variation of the Blueberry Baked Oatmeal I made on Saturday, this one is equally as good, especially if you like pumpkin! I really enjoyed it as did my kiddos and I think you will too :)

Dry Ingredients

2 cups old-fashioned oats

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup dried cranberries (could use regular or golden raisins if preferred)

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 generous tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice

Wet Ingredients

1 1/2 cups skim milk

1/3 cup of applesauce

1/3 cup canned pumpkin

2 egg whites

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly spray 8×8 baking pan with cooking spray.

2. Combine dry ingredients.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry, mix until combined.

4. Pour into baking dish and baked for about 25-30 minutes or until set.

5. Serve warm with steamed milk and if desired a drizzle of maple syrup. My kids also sprinkled with “Maple Sugar” from the Savory Spice Shop.

This recipe serves a 9 and is 3 Weight Watchers Points Plus if you’re counting :)

(The calculations are my personal calculations, not endorsed by Weight Watchers)

Bon Appetit!

Recipe adapted from http://www.mintdesignblog.com

Baked Blueberry Oatmeal

Posted on January 12, 2013 by four sweetie pies

I love oatmeal, baked, boiled, overnight…you name it, I like it! I found a recipe that I adapted to make even healthier and it was so yummy, we polished off the pan very quickly. It almost tasted like a blueberry coffee cake, but for only 3 measly Weight Watchers PointsPlus per serving you can easily indulge without guilt!

Ingredients

1 lemon, zested and juiced

2 cups skim milk

2 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 egg white

3 TBL Truvia (or 1/3 cup sugar)

2 cups blueberries, frozen or fresh

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray 8×8 baking dish with cooking spray.

2. Zest lemon and set aside. Add lemon juice to the milk to form a “buttermilk”.

3. Wisk together oats, baking powder, salt, spices and lemon zest.

4. In another bowl, blend milk, egg and sugar.

5. Spread half the oat mixture into the baking dish, top with half of the blueberries. add remaining oat mixture and scatter remainder of blueberries on top. Pour the milk mixture on top.

6. Bake about 40 minutes and until top is slightly brown and mixture is “set”.

I served with a little steamed milk and topped with a drizzle of maple syrup and sprinkled with powdered sugar. I cut the 8×8 pan into 9 servings to yield 3 WW PointsPlus. Next time I make it I will try to make ahead the night before and bake in the morning.

Hope you enjoy another delicious way to eat your oatmeal :)

Recipe adapted from http://www.preventionrd.com/

1 Comment

Posted in Breakfast, Weight Watchers and tagged baking, Baking powder, blueberry, breakfast, Cooking spray, Milk, Oat, Oatmeal, PointsPlus, Weight WAtchers, Wisk. Bookmark the permalink.

20 Pounds Gone!

Posted on October 11, 2012 by four sweetie pies

Last Friday I achieved my goal! 20 pounds gone since March 1st!!!!!!! It was weigh in day…and yes, I have been a closet Weight Watchers member. The only person that really knew I was on this journey was my dear husband. It wasnt necessarily a secret, I just felt I would be more successful if I just did it and not talked about it. I was very skeptical when joining this program. After all, I have young kids in the house, I really do not like to focus on my weight or a number on the scale. I really think “diet” is a four-letter bad word. Mostly, I love to eat, and thought how could this possibly work? But, I had decided it was time to drop some pounds, something I had wanted to do for a long time. Having 4 babies in 7 years was a bit tough on the body. I had also suffered from plantar fasciitis in both of my feet for almost a year. I went through months of physical therapy, icing, electronic stimulations, massage, and with the help my wonderful physical therapist, I am now pain-free. Those months with limited exercise certainly didn’t help my situation and for some reason last March, I decided it was time. I actually lost the first 10 pounds by myself , by literally working my tail off and tracking my intake religiously. I upped the ante on the workouts, became best friends with the elliptical, walked miles and miles and regularly did weight lifting. I used an app on my iPhone to track calories. This tracking became very eye-opening. I thought I knew what I was eating, but until I actually recorded EVERYTHING, I really had no idea.

Summer arrived and I felt I hit a plateau, I joined Weight Watchers to help me finish off my goal. The plan basically gives you a set amount of “PointsPlus” to consume based on your weight and height. What I like best about the program is the ETools program you can use online and on the smart phone. I mainly use it on my phone, but it’s basically a tracking program. I also like the plan because it’s not a restrictive “diet” or something where I had to purchase or only eat certain foods. I’m a foodie after all, I wouldn’t like being told I couldn’t eat something. I still eat everything I want to, just in limited quantities. It’s really just held me accountable. This summer Weight Watchers came out with an activity monitor called ActiveLink. It monitors all of your activity in a day and gives you a goal for each day. You can actually see how much your moving and I could get a better idea of the physical activity I was getting. Being the digital girl I’ve become, I surprisingly loved all this tracking and monitoring!

I’ve met my Weight Watchers goal and have maintained it for 6 weeks. Yahoo! I’m pretty proud of my accomplishment! That makes me a “lifetime” member at Weight Watchers, which means, the program is now free for me, even the Etools! I think that’s pretty awesome too. I am not an official “spokeswoman” for Weight Watchers, but I’m here to say it works and it’s a pretty great program. My journey has really just confirmed things that most of us know already, I just needed some reminding. Moderation and movement, it’s really just a lifestyle, about making healthy choices. I will feature recipes on my blog from time to time that I have made PointsPlus calculations on and I will continue to look for tasty and healthy recipes to share with you and your family.

7 Comments

Posted in Weight Watchers and tagged ETools, Physical exercise, Programs, Weight loss, Weight WAtchers. Bookmark the permalink.