Something Tasty {Skinny Pumpkin Pie}

Ahhhh...Pumpkin Pie. A little piece of heaven on earth. If left to my own devices I could scarf down a whole pumpkin pie by myself! INSTEAD of doing that, I try to keep my cravings for the real thing to a minimum by substituting with Pumpkin Spice Yogurt. I only JUST found this in the grocery store a few weeks ago. I know there are TONS of pumpkin spice this and pumpkin spice that out there but I haven't really fell for any of it until now. I love greek yogurt and eat it anyway so I figured why not. It was good on it's own but....

I add just a few little ingredients to it to take it to the next level!

I added a crushed graham cracker, sometimes two, and a dollop of whipped cream. I sprinkled a little bit of pumpkin pie spice or nutmeg on top too. 

This version of Skinny Pumpkin Pie is only 175 calories!

Something Tasty {Chobani Mezè Dips}

Football season is here! Y'all. I love me some football. Our family is a Carolina Panther family!

 You can't watch football without snacks. Obviously. Our go to snack is the classic all American chicken wings. We love to get adventurous with the sauces too. One of our favorite local pubs has these amazing Asian Garlic Wings that are SO GOOD. Like insanely good.  

When we watch the game at the house we love to fix nachos, chips and dip, or just grab a pizza. We love a good dip so when we found out about Chobani's new Mezè Dips we were ready to add it to our list of appetizers. 

These are savory yogurt based dips that add a little bit of Greek flare to your spread. If you wanted to keep the carbs down (which we love to do) use veggies as the carrier pigeons to get this tasty dip in YO MOUTH!

Here's one of my favorite lil' dippers - SUGAR SNAP PEAS!

Chobani has come up with a TON more veggies for inspiration too!

They come in four different flavors:

 Roasted Red Pepper

Three Pepper Salsa

Chili Lime

Smoked Onion and Parmesan

Give it a little stir after you remove the lid and you're ready to chow!

Only 25 calories for 2 tablespoons

1 g of fat

2 g of carbs

I love it. Very creamy, very delicious. The greek yogurt taste comes through. I would love to try the Chili Lime on fish tacos!!!!!

Something Tasty {Two Ingredient Carrot Cake Bites}

I ran across a two ingredient spice cake recipe from Hungry Girl and I loved the idea of making something to satisfy my sweet tooth but making it more of a bite size treat instead of a whole cake. 

I decided to just see how many muffins I could get out of the recipe. Turns out I got 12 muffins and 6 donuts.

I used a carrot cake mix instead of spice cake because spring is the season for carrot cake and I had been seeing it everywhere!

I'm calling them carrot cake bites because there are so many options ways that you could make these. Muffins, donuts, small cake squares, cake pops, whatever!

The ingredients you will need are:

*Carrot Cake Mix (or any boxed cake mix!) 15 oz - 18.25 oz (mine was 20 actually)

*Can of Pumpkin (not pie filling, just pumpkin) 15 oz

The box of cake mix I picked up happened to be around 20 ounces but it still worked fine for this recipe. 

First, just add the pumpkin puree to the cake mix 

Mix well

Be prepared for your batter to look like dog poo. But it tastes great! Never tasted dog poo so I can't say it tastes better but just take my word on it :)

Since I had so much more batter (since I had a bigger box of cake mix) I was able to get 6 donuts piped out. I also didn't fill up the muffin tins as much as I could have. I didn't know if they would rise. They do not rise.

 Now donuts look like little mounds of dog poo FOR SURE! HA! If you will just use a knife to smooth them out, then they will lose that "piped" look. 

EXCUSE my terrible ugly muffin pan!!! It's well loved I guess.

I baked the muffins at 350 for about 25 minutes. I checked the batter with a toothpick and it came out clean at that point. For the donuts, I started out just letting them bake at 350 for 5 minutes, did a toothpick check, and then another 5 minutes. They were done at that point.

The donuts really were the best, in my opinion. I believe next time I will just make several batches of donuts. You can sprinkle powdered sugar on top if you want a little pizzazz!

I used My Fitness Pal to see what the calories were and I came up with 134 calories each. Not bad! 

They are very moist and dense like a pumpkin bread or banana bread is. Very good! We've been having one...or two each night after dinner! I put them all in the freezer and we just take a few out each day to thaw. This has kept me from eating more than I should in one day. 

You can do the same thing with a devils food cake mix. That's next up on my list!

Something Tasty {Cauliflower Rice}

So cauliflower is NOT my favorite veggie. But I can handle it "riced" and not get angry. It's ok mashed but still not my favorite. If I do make mashed cauliflower then I have to stir in just a little bit of real mashed potatoes...just to make it right. I mean if I am being REALLY strict like I was when I was eating Paleo then I would add several steps like squeezing the mashed cali through cheesecloth to get rid of all of the moisture to make it more potato-y like. So laborious!

Now that you can find cauliflower already cut up, making rice with it is just...easy.

Here's how I do it:

I used light butter this go around. Sometimes I use coconut oil. Sometimes I just spray the pan with a little bit of cooking spray. I add a little bit of garlic, salt, pepper and parsley.

Cauliflower Crumbles are AWESOME! I hate chopping cauliflower! It flies everywhere!

I let it get a good sizzle in the pan. After about 5 or 6 minutes I turn off the heat. I like it to still have a little bit of a bite to it. Don't cook it to long or it will be mushy.

That's it! I put it under chicken and gravy for a low carb dinner!