Healthy Stuff, Baking

Have a shorter name to name these fabulous, crusty topped moist-interior muffins? Doesn't matter - these have the goodness of applesauce, buttermilk, wheat germ, oat bran, wheat bran, and also offer precious little fat and only one egg (and make it an Omega 3 Egg if you please). These muffins are incredibly tasty, rustic, and good for you. They are also real appetite zappers. You can replace half the whole-wheat flour with kamut or spelt if you prefer.

Skinny Cookie, Part Deux. These are egg free, spicy, carrot enhanced, wonderful cookies. They are……a meal.The fresh ginger (which you think you will hate) is the magic touch.

I like my muffins rustic no matter what and I see them as carriers for nutrition. So I don’t mind scaling back on fat to make a muffin that is ‘skinnier’ and a storehouse of nutritional goodies. But taste is the first criterion. This muffin has it all! You can try this using Splenda if you want to avoid the sugar. You can can also substitute ½ cup of the white flour for white spelt or kamut flour. It will make for a heavier muffin but benefits from the ancient grains.

The skinny on these egg and butter free chocolate cookies is that they are ….healthy. Use Omega 3 eggs and hearty-healthy semi-sweet chocolate, with the other good things in this easy recipe and you might never by a bag of Mallomars again. These also freeze well and are simply good and filling. This is great when you want chocolate decadence and still want to feel noble. These are sprawling, chewy-crisp cookies that simply taste like super cookies – i.e. don’t tell people they are healthy or skinny or anything else but delicious. If you love these, you'll adore Carrot Cake Skinny Cookies in my cookbook, A Passion for Baking or Oatmeal Skinny cookies on this website.

These are great when you want a hearty cookie and a little less fat. I make these large for guests and small (and freeze them) to tote in the car in case of traffic and hunger attacks. You can up the nutrition by using Omega-3 variety eggs, which are a bit more heart-healthy. But you can also leave the eggs out of this cookie, for less fat and an egg-free version.

The health food store near me has this thick, sweet, brownies that use date paste as part of the whole deal. I tried it and voila – a beautiful brownie with pure gourmet taste and pedigree but with a health food store sensibility. These are dense, sweet and fudgy and best served cold. For goodness sakes, please don’t tell your kids these have flax seed and are butter-free or otherwise healthy. The dates are mellow and sweet and being dark in color, they amplify the chocolate bouquet. These are more cake brownies than chewy but they are so dense and dark and served very well chilled, they are almost fudge.

This dreamy, ambrosial apple sauce wil never make it from the pot to the dessert dish. Forget about leftovers! It is outstanding on its own, or atop chesecake, yogurt and granola, or with vanilla ice-cream. The combination of apples, vanilla and a few other goodies makes this a new classic.

I fell in love with www.Terrachips over the holidays. These are fried, thin chips of sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, yaro and beets.  It’s easy to make your own at home but slow baked, not fried. Much less fat.Tossed with some sea salt and vegetable oil, they are addictive.

These are ‘spa’ cookies because they are healthy, lower-fat, appetite zapping, good carbs. They are even on my diet because one of these cookies negates 500 extra nibble calories I would have had without one of these gems. I call them O List because it is the sort of cookie I would love to see in Oprah magazine but so far, no bites. Make these with an Omega rich egg for added heart healthy nutrition.