Saturday, March 2, 2013

Clean Eating Chocolate Sauce

We ate pretty well tonight for dinner; steak, a small baked potato, asparagus and salad. After dinner I was craving a little something sweet. My family loves frozen yogurt for dessert on the weekends and it might seem like a pretty innocent treat, but I have no way of telling what is in my cup of yogurt. There could be high fructose corn syrup, food dyes and the milk they use is most definitely not organic. The unknown is pretty scary to me and I have just learned not to eat something that I can't easily identify. So usually I will just buy some organic ice cream and have a little here and there, but that gets kind of boring after a while. The best part of a frozen yogurt place, at least to me, is the toppings bar. I needed a little something to top my ice cream off with tonight and that is how the clean eating chocolate sauce came about, and it is delicious. Much better than Hershey's chocolate syrup and certainly much better for my body.

What exactly is in Hershey's Chocolate Syrup???

HERSHEY'S Chocolate Syrup

Ingredients

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP; CORN SYRUP; WATER; COCOA; SUGAR; CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE); SALT; MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES; XANTHAN GUM; POLYSORBATE 60; VANILLIN, ARTIFICIAL FLA VOR

Eek!! I'm not sure why they need all of that in their syrup, but what I made tonight had 4 ingredients in it total and was delicious!

Here's the recipe:

1/4 cup organic maple syrup (the real deal! not pancake syrup, read your label)
1    Tablespoon Unsweetened 100% dark cacao
1    teaspoon organic unsalted butter
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

Heat the maple syrup over low heat, add the cacao. Mix together well. When thoroughly heated add butter and vanilla. Let cool and drizzle over your ice cream or dessert.

This recipe makes 4 generous servings at 61 calories per serving, according to myfitnesspal. Enjoy!
 
 


 

Friday, March 1, 2013

Homemade Citrus Dressing

I went on a one day rampage where I threw everything out that had an iffy ingredient in it...GMO, flavor, added color or preservatives. It left me with brown rice, fruits and veggies and not much else. I think the most common ingredient I threw away was salad dressing. I really love having a salad before my dinner but was not sure what to do as far as a dressing that wasn't crazy in calorie content or hard to make.

Well guys, I have fallen in love with this dressing!! You probably have everything you need to make it in your pantry already..which is awesome because who wants to run to the store just for some salad dressing?? The best part is this is low-cal so if you are like me and trying to loose weight, this will be a keeper! I recycled a bottle of Honest Tea that my hubby drank to use to keep the dressing in and it is quite convenient.

So the recipe is:

8 Tablespoons of freshly squeezed citrus juice. (I used a grapefruit because they were on sale.)
2 Tablespoons of oil, I used olive oil
2 Tablespoons of honey
2 Tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
2 to 3 teaspoons of mustard, I used an organic brand from Kroger's

Put everything in your bottle and shake, shake, shake!!! A little tip: add the oil before the honey, it will make the honey slide off the measuring spoon easier.

And that is pretty much it, super easy and probably takes 5 minutes at the most. This stuff is good!! According to my fitness pal recipe maker it is about 62 calories a serving, if this recipe made 8 servings. Oh, don't forget to store this in the refrigerator.