I talked in my video post the other day about planning for your indulgences this time of year. Although I love chocolate and do have some on occasion, the one Christmas dessert that I make and eat a piece of is Cranberry Nut Pound Cake. Warning: This is not a low-calorie or low-fat recipe, but a few people have asked me for the recipe. The printable recipe is at the bottom of the page.

First, I measured out about 1 cup of fresh cranberries that I had already washed and dried.

 Don’t they look lovely?

To prevent the cranberries from clumping together after you chop and add them to the batter, dump 1/2 cup of the flour on top of the chopped berries and toss with your hands.

 I always think they look like a cranberry mountain with snow on the top at this stage.

 Mix together the ingredients, adding the eggs one at a time.

If you have an adorable little person to help you – let them add the milk.

Don’t forget some good quality vanilla.

The batter will be relatively thick. Thicker than a cake mix, but thinner than a pound cake.

Bake in a bundt pan at 325 degrees for about 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until your cake tester reads clean. 

Cranberry Nut Pound Cake

Print recipe

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Serves:	20
Prep time:	30 minutes
Cook time:	1 hour, 10 minutes
Total time:	1 hour, 40 minutes
Meal type:	Dessert
Region:	Worldwide

Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups self-rising flour
• 1 cup raw cranberries, chopped

Optional

• 1 cup walnuts or pecans

Directions

Cream your butter until soft. Slowly add sugar. Mix the two together until thoroughly mixed. Add in the eggs, one at a time. Mix until the batter is light and fluffy. Pour in the vanilla. Mix briefly. Mix the chopped cranberries with 1/2 cup of the flour. Set aside. Add 1 cup of flour to the batter, and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and mix once again. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of flour to the batter. Place the cranberry/flour mixture into the batter and carefully fold them in. Pour the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan. Place in a 325 degree oven. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until done. Cool for about 30 minutes. Allow the cake to cool completely before serving.

Enjoy a small slice!  Diane

With the days getting colder and the little fact that I cooked a 20 pound turkey over Thanksgiving weekend, I needed to find a way to use up the extra turkey. After two days of sandwiches, I had just enough turkey to make a hearty but simple turkey and rice soup.

Ingredients:

2 cups of cooked turkey

1 cup of chopped celery

1 cup of chopped onion

1 cup of uncooked rice (I used basamati rice)

2 cups of homemade chicken broth or low-sodium purchased broth

6 to 8 cups of water

1 tsp. black pepper

Directions

Place about 2 tbsp. of the broth into your stock pot. Heat until barely simmering. Add the chopped vegetables and saute the vegetables in the broth until soft. Add all the other ingredients, except the rice. Once the mixture comes to a rolling boil, add your rice. Stir, turn the pot down to low and cook covered for about 30 to 45 minutes. The rice will be soft, the turkey will absorb the flavors of the sauteed vegetables and the water will thicken from the starches in the rice.

My Notes:

I serve this with a loaf of homemade bread or low-sodium whole wheat crackers. In all honesty, my littlest boys aren’t the biggest fans of soup, so I give them a tiny bowl and a grilled cheese sandwich. They taste the soup, but do not eat much. My philosophy is to just keep putting good food in front of them and they will learn to love it eventually! Right??

Do you have a favorite soup recipe? Diane

The holiday season is in full swing, with stores all over displaying their holiday decorations, and trying to entice us to buy delectable candies, cakes, and pies. In our household, Thanksgiving is about food and family. However, I’d be lying if I said I just focused on the people at the table and didn’t plan a delicious, but healthy Thanksgiving meal.

That being said, I do consider the healthfulness of the meal when deciding what dishes to include and which to exclude each year. If you are like me, you want to enjoy your holiday meal or meals and still stay true to your healthy eating habits. Perhaps because I’ve been in weight maintenance so long, or the feeling of being morbidly obese never leaves me, I’m not willing to just throw caution to the wind and eat whatever I want for the whole holiday season. Because after all, that’s part of what got me into the 300-pound range.

Enjoying a great, healthy Thanksgiving meal and fabulous leftovers can be as easy as making a few smart substitutions. Saving calories without losing flavor leaves you room for a serving of your favorite Thanksgiving dessert. Which for me, includes not pumpkin pie, but either cheesecake or chocolate pie! (I’ve never been a fan of pumpkin pie!)

Here are 10 tips designed to help you plan your big holiday meal with healthy eating in mind.

1. Prepare mashed potatoes without butter and whole milk, and instead use skim milk and water. Even better, serve baked sweet potatoes topped with a dash of cinnamon in place of calorie-laden mashed potatoes.

2. Substitute wild rice stuffing in place of traditional cornbread or herb-seasoned stuffing. Traditional stuffing recipes often call for butter and high-sodium broths. If you do prepare traditional stuffing, use your own breadcrumbs, homemade turkey broth with no added sodium, and onions sauteed in broth to make a delicious, moist stuffing with fewer calories and fats.

3. Make your pies in mini-muffin tins rather than large pie plates. This automatically helps you control your portion sizes, assuming you can just eat one or two of the tiny treats.

4. Serve baked apples as a healthy dessert. Core the middle and stuff with raisins and 1/2 tsp. of brown sugar for a filling dessert that has fiber and less than 100 calories.

5. Use Greek yogurt seasoned with chives, or hummus as a dip for whole-wheat chips or vegetables instead of the traditional sour cream and onion dip. (I like Sabra greek yogurt dips and hummus. )

6. Defat your turkey gravy using a specially designed defatter. You can get them at most large discount stores.

7. Opt for whole-wheat rolls instead of dinner rolls made with white flour. The whole wheat gives you more filling fiber and nutrients.

8. Steam fresh vegetables instead of soaking healthy green beans with cream of mushroom soups and topping them with french fried onions.

9. Baste your turkey with low-sodium broth instead of butter.

10. Wear belted pants, slim-fitted skirts or a dress with a defined waist to give you a physical “hint” that you are getting full!

I hope these ideas give you a jumping off point when planning your holiday meal for next week. Although we all need balance in this journey, not giving up your healthy eating plans for the holiday meal just strengthens your belief in yourself that you can make good choices all year long.

How do you make holiday dishes healthier? Diane

If you are like me, you might frequently use chicken broth when I make chicken soups, chicken and dumplings, brown rice, risotto, and other chicken dishes.

The problem for me lies in the basic unhealthiness of many canned or boxed chicken broths. One popular brand of chicken broth has over 800 milligrams of sodium in just 1 cup. While I have found some organic broths that have little or not fat, and little sodium, I do prefer to make my own.

I thought I’d share how I do it, in case you are shy to try! I use the bones of the chicken to make the broth, as simmering the bones releases more vitamins, minerals and glucosamine than if you just make the broth with the meat.

I buy whole, organic chickens when they are on sale. Don’t be afraid of whole chickens. I know it’s gross, but I just don my plastic gloves to prevent contamination and go for it. Roast the chicken, or chickens, if you are game to make a large amount of broth at once. I roast the chicken on a rack at 325 degrees for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. When the chicken is done, I let it cool for about 15 minutes, then get the majority of the meat off the bone. The smell is delicious.

Put the bones and any juices that were left in your roasting pan in a crock pot.

Add a little bit of water, or enough almost cover the bones, and turn the crock pot onto low. Let it simmer overnight, or for about eight hours. In the morning, your house will smell something like Boston Market or another chicken restaurant.

Do not give the bones to your doggy, no matter how sad he looks.

Strain the broth to get all the bones out.

Let the broth sit in the refrigerator for about 8 to 12 hours, or until your broth looks like this.

That stuff on the top is fat. You do not want or need that. Then I strain the broth one more time.

I freeze it in 1 cup serving sizes. Two chickens gave me about 8 cups of broth.

It does take a bit of time to make the broth, but to me, it’s worth the effort to know where my chicken broth is from.

Have you ever made your own broth, or do you have any more suggestions?  Diane

Do you have a food that you’ve never, ever, ever tried? If so, you are in good company.

On his show the other day, Anderson Cooper revealed that he has never tried spinach and maybe some other things that I can’t remember. It made me think about how so many times I advise people to eat a well-balanced diet, to try new things and be experimental in their eating.

Well. . .

The truth is I have several foods that I’ve never tried, and may never unless I get someone to convince me.

Here it goes:

Brussel sprouts – They look weird and I don’t have the foggiest idea to make them.

Artichokes – What are those things anyway?

Goat cheese — It seems gushy and of doubtful origin. I know that’s ridiclous.

I have other things I’ve never tried, like star fruit, seafoods because of an allergy, and other things I can’t remember!

So – confession time. What’s a food you’ve never tried? Diane

On this Labor Day, I hope that you are all having a great, relaxing weekend. We’ve been hanging around, doing a bit of bargain hunting, and I’ve been writing. Last night, I used the handy random number generator to choose the winner of the Subway Gift Card!

The winner is: mamajuliana who blogs at Abide and Endeavor !!!!

On a second note, Chef Jeff, who blogs at Dinner Revolution wrote me and told me about a cookbook he’s put together and asked if I’d be interested in letting my readers have a copy to try. The cookbook, which has all healthy recipes, is over 200 pages and free. I looked through the recipes and thought that the recipes were tasty sounding, healthy and best of all – really quick to prepare. I’m always looking for new recipes so my family of nine doesn’t get bored with the same old, same old.

Here’s the link if you are interested. Dinner Revolution Cookbook

I didn’t get anything at all for pointing you in the direction of the cookbook, but just thought you’d enjoy it. When you click the link, you are asked to give your name (real or imagined) and your email address. You will then get an email from Dinner Revolution with the link to download the cookbook at no cost. If you want to continue getting updates from Dinner Revolution, you are set. If you want to unsubscribe at any time, you can do that too – just like any RSS feed.

Have a great Labor Day, and congrats to MamaJuliana again!!  Diane

Okay – I don’t put up a lot of recipes, although I cook all the time. In my heart, I’d like to share more of them, because quite honestly – I know you guys would like them!

So, here’s one that you may find delicious. If you remember, I began grinding my own wheat about this time last year. I’ve been remarkable consistent using my wheat mill: (Here’s the original post in case you missed my foray into wheat grinding!)

This is one of my family’s favorite muffin recipes, but shhhh – don’t tell them how healthy it really is!

Healthy Banana Bread Muffins

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour (freshly ground or a good quality whole-wheat from the store)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed over-ripe bananas (about 2-3 bananas)
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (or 1/4 cup of melted butter if you are not watching you weight or fats)
2 eggs ( or 1 Tbsp. of flaxseed meal mixed with 3 Tbsp. of warm water for one of the eggs)

Directions:

Mix your dry ingredients together thoroughly. In a separate bowl, mix together the bananas, honey, applesauce and egg or flaxseed mixture. Combine the wet and dry ingredients. Mix until completely combined, but don’t beat the mixture to death, or your muffins will be tough and not tender.

Pour into prepared muffin pans and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for 12 to 17 minutes. Don’t let them overcook! Remove from pans and cool. Makes 12 good sized muffins.

I hope that you will try these healthy muffins, or use a variation of the recipe by adding blueberries and cinnamon in place of the bananas.

I’d love to hear if you’ve tried making whole wheat anything, and how it turned out!  Diane

In my obese life, I ate the same fattening things year round. Rather the calendar read spring, summer, winter, or fall, my diet consisted of high calorie restaurant meals, large portions of home cooked dinners, and desserts of all kinds. Chocolate was available all year long, and ice cream was as good in the winter as it was in the summer. If a day went by without me eating an entire box of some processed food it was unusual. Just as unusual were the days when I ate  more than one variety of vegetable. The vegetable of choice? Canned green beans. If I did eat a salad, it was iceberg lettuce swimming in full fat bleu cheese dressing, topped with fried croutons. Definitely not the healthiest, well rounded diet in the world.

No wonder  I had a weight problem!  When I finally decided to get my weight under control, and regain control of my health, I realized that I didn’t want to just lose weight in a haphazard manner, but I wanted to lose weight by learning to eat healthy foods. As most of us know, you can lose weight by eating small amounts of junk food, but that is definitely not the preferred method. As my journey began,  I started paying attention to not only what I was eating, but how fresh my food was. In doing so, I discovered the joys of eating in season foods.

Logically, one of the easiest times to eat “in season” is the summer. I had never visited our local farmer’s market as a overweight person. Instead I ate canned, frozen or no vegetables. As healthy eating took over, the desire to find fresh food got stronger. The first time I saw the farmer’s market I couldn’t believe it. All those vegetables looked amazing, and the varied assortment was something completely unexpected. As I strolled the vendor’s area, I had a hard time picking what to buy. It was fun to support the local farmers, and get amazing produce at the same time. I never knew the strawberries from the grocery store were a poor imitation for the real thing. And that tomatoes grown fresh, and not transported hundreds of miles had a completely different taste from the mealy grocery store ones.

As I changed my eating habits, my family benefited from the better choices I made for them. Fresh fruit for dessert replaced high fat baked goods, and oatmeal topped with fresh blueberries was much better than packaged varieties. Salads became an experiment in new tastes, flavors and textures, as I learned to appreciate zucchini, onions and cucumbers. Smoothies for dessert tasted better than ever with real strawberries instead of frozen, and even our favorite dessert pizza became healthier when I topped it with fat free yogurt and fresh fruit.

Green living is very fashionable right now, and eating in season goes right along with that philosophy. In our town there is no recycling (unbelievable I know), but I can still do my part by supporting local vendors. As we change our own personal lifestyles, we can set good examples for those in our own family, and assist other people at the same time.

I’ve seen a change in my husband’s attitude towards processed food. Whereas boxed was best, now he too enjoys fresh food. As he says, “It’s nice to be able to tell where your food came from!”

Try some new things this summer, and take advantage of the bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables that are available right now. You will be glad you did!

I’d love for you to tell me what your favorite summer food is.    Diane