Virtuous Dessert Challenge

[pegkerr]

Perhaps, like me, you have not yet let go of your New Year's resolution to lose weight. Give me a recipe for your favorite guilt-free dessert. Something you really like, which is easy to fix, but won't adhere immediately to your hips. I need some new ideas.

Here's one I had tonight:

Glazed Grapefruit

1 medium grapefruit
2 tsp orange marmalade (I use Smucker's Low Sugar)
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat broiler. Cut grapefruit in half. Combine orange marmalade and cinnamon and spread over grapefruit.

Set grapefruit 4 to 6 inches from heat and broil 3 to 4 minutes, until carmelized and nicely glazed. Serve warm.

Here's another one I use a lot:

Microwave Apple Crisp

1 medium tart cooking apple (like Granny Smith)
1 TB orange juice concentrate
2 TB Quick oats
1 TB wheat germ
1 TB chopped nuts

Core, peel and chop apple into bite sized chunks. Melt the 1 TB orange juice concentrate in the microwave for 15-30 seconds, add the other ingredients and mix them together, and then sprinkle over chopped apple. Microwave for 2 minutes. Serve warm.

Comments

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I'll try your recipes. They sound yummy. One dessert I love is a baked apple, and they're easy to make. You have to use a bit of brown sugar (at least, the way I do) but it's not much and the apple is yummy and warm and... yeah.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Sliced banana, drizzled with honey. Simple, quick, and delicious. Perfect for summertime.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

You know what else is terrific on bananas? Cinnamon.

[liadan-m.livejournal.com]

During the summer when I can get berries free or reasonably priced, I use berries in sugared cream.

1.5 c cream-like liquid (There is the abomination that is fat free whipping cream, or I thicken almond milk)
1/2 t sugar or honey
1 c. berries of your choice

Warm milk, add sugar and stir until it disolves. (You may want more, you can also do entirely without and use the natural sugars of the fruit.) Pour over berries. Chill.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

this sounds like one of my non-dessert desserts: strawberries with cottage cheese and honey. good without the strawberries, too.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

My favorite dessert at the moment, for ease of preparation and low calorie count, is the BlueBell Mini-Mooo: ice cream onna stick with a chocolate coating. Do not get the Mooo, which is double the size of the Mini-Mooo!

Alternate dessertish thing: small cup of fat-free fruit yogurt with 1/4 cup of a non-raisin granola dumped in. (Dried fruits are not high on my list of favorites.)

I'm not very helpful in this respect, because if I actually MAKE a dessert, I usually go all out for max calories and chocolatey goodness, and then just plan my other food consumption around having a slice of it.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Make a compote of what ever fruit and nuts you like, gool and set aside. Have some sorbet or ice cream that will set off the compote. Take some phylo sheets butter, sugar and some cinnimon about 4 or so. Work fast phylo will dry out quickly (keep the rest covered till use. Scoop sorbet, top w/compote onto the preped phylo, make into a lil purse shape. Freeze very hard. Heat oven to 375ºf place purses on cookie sheet bake 3-4 minutes till golden and serve w/topping of choice. yum.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

I'm boring - I just like dipping strawberries into slightly warmed hershey's Special chocolate syrup - one tablespoonful is enough to drizzle over more than a cip of berries.

[mark356.livejournal.com]

If you want something that's neither labor-intensive nor fattenning, then the only things that you can really do are take high-quality low-fat ingredients that are good on their own, like fresh raspberries, and do nothing to them. (Of course, you can only do that in the summer, when there are fresh raspberries.) Any other time of year, unless you're tired of apples and cheese, you're going to have to work, and the more dessertlike you want you want it to be while still having it be low-fat, in general, the more you're going to have to work in order to make the ingredients dessertlike.

That said, there are a lot of fairly light pudding-like things I can think of off the top of my head:

Do you have a copy of Rombaur? Try her Cornstarch Blancmange; it's milk thickened with just a little bit of cornstarch, with an egg and just a little bit of sugar, so it's hardly more caloric than milk, but it's a very nice dessert (or part of a dessert). Also Orange Jelly; it's orange juice and lemon juice, thickened with gelatine properly, and it's much better and much healthier than jello or equivalents. Her Fruit Whips are more elaborate, because they call for beaten egg whites, but they are also lighter. Or her recipe for Milk Rice does require you to be in the vicinity, stirring it a few times per hour, but it's just milk and rice (and you can use as little rice as you want to; you don't need to use nearly as much as she calls for!), put over low heat or in the oven for a few hours, and it's very good. Let me know if you'd like me to transcribe those recipes for you.

I'd also recommend following whatever recipe you use for pumpkin pie (the one on the pumpkin can is fine), only using milk rather than cream or condensed milk and just baking it in a baking dish of some sort without using a crust. It's very easy (you just mix together the ingredients and stick them in the oven, basically), and although I'd classify it as a rather rich pudding, it doesn't need to be very rich if you only make it with milk, it's not nearly as rich as pumpkin pie is, it's very healthy (pumpkin is quite nutritious), and you don't need very much to feel satisfied with it.

Or you could just have almond milk: take four ounces of blanched almonds, whiz them in the food processor, maybe with a drop of water, until they're a fine paste, like almond butter (only paler), and gradually add two cups of water, scraping down the sides of the food processor. It's very fast, and if you add maybe a few drops of vanilla or almond extract or maybe half a spoonful of sugar, you can serve it by the third of a cup, and just that much is a great dessert beverage. It is rich, but the richness comes from almonds, which are very healthy, and because it is rich, you will be satisfied with that little of it. I have served only fractions of a cup of almond milk with a single, light cookie as a dessert, and people do not feel slighted. It is better as a dessert beverage, and slightly less rich, if you strain it to get all of the little almond pieces out of it, which is a pain, but you can do it however far ahead as you like.

Also, broiled bananas can be as virtuous or as sinful as you like-- I generally do them with cinnamon and a little nutmeg and gobs and gobs of brown sugar, but Madhur Jaffrey suggests just drizzling them with a little lime and orange juice and only a little bit of sugar. Broil them (or bake them in a very hot oven) until they're softand cooked through-- I forget how long this takes, but I think it's only about 15 minutes.

Good luck; I hope that helps!

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

They sound YUMMY! Whats the full name of the book they come from?

[mark356.livejournal.com]

Yay! I'm glad you think they sound yummy!

By "Rombaur" (the source for the recipes in the first recipe-containing paragraph), I meant The Joy of Cooking, which originally was by Irma Rombaur. My edition is absolutely ancient and so old it's lost its title page, so I don't know which edition it is, but I was operating on the assumption that all households had one old, beaten-up copy of The Joy of Cooking. Since Irma Rombaur died a long time ago, I'm fairly sure that the new editions are edited by her granddaughter, but the recipes aren't the same. So I may as well post the recipes here. (The recipe for almond milk is also from there.) My comments are in square brakets: [].

Also, by Madhur Jaffrey, I mean An Invitation to Indian Cooking, by Madhur Jaffrey in 1973, which is sadly the only one of her books I have, but it's excellent.

Cornstarch Blancmange

Scald 2¼ cups milk.

Stir together:
¾ cup milk
2 tablespoons sugar
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup cornstarch [for a very light pudding; 1/3 cup for a stiffer mixture, or you might use even less if you want it thinner]

Add these ingredients to the hot milk, and stir them over a low flame until they thicken [but you don't need to freak out about using a very low flame; cornstarch is fairly forgiving], and you can no longer taste the cornstarch.

Beat until light:
1 egg
2 Tbsp sugar

Pour the hot milk mixture over the egg, beat it and return it to the fire for a minute or two. [Rombaur says "until the egg thickens", but don't worry if the egg doesn't thicken.]

When cool, add:
½ tsp vanilla

[Letting it cool is so that the alcohol does not cook out of the mixture; you don't need to let it cool if you use a little more vanilla. I have been known to use over a teaspoon. I also often like to add a little grating of nutmeg and maybe the tiniest dash of cinnamon. Serve it warm, as is, or thoroughly chilled. It is fine as is, but will be accompanied very nicely by almost anything-- I long to do this in August when there are raspberries!]

Orange Jelly

Soak 1½ Tbsp gelatine in ¼ cup water.

Dissolve it in ½ cup boiling water.

Add and stir until dissolved:
½ cup sugar
¼ tsp salt

Add:
6 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1½ cup orange juice
(1½ tsp grated orange zest, if you care to)

Chill it until it is firm. [This takes only a few hours. I find that it is best the first day; after that, the lemon flavor will break down and not come through so clearly.]

Now, by Milk Rice, I think I really meant Rice Cream, the formula for which is as follows:

Combine and place in a baking dish in a very slow oven 225°:
4 cups milk
2 Tbsp. rice [no, you didn't read that wrong]
1/3 cup sugar
½ tsp. salt

Stir the mixture every half-hour until the rice is completely dissolved, a matter of about 3 hours. The rice may be flavored with 1 teaspoon vanilla or grated lemon rind. [It will not thicken, but the rice will enrich the milk and make it into a sip-type dessert beverage.] Serve it thoroughly chilled.

Madhur Jaffrey gives a variant of this recipe, called Kheer, using only 1 tablespoon of rice, no salt, 1 tablespoon of sugar and 10 sliced unsalted pistachios added at the end, and flavored with 4 slightly crushed cardamom pods, which you remove before adding the sugar, which give it a fabulous aroma. The main difference is that Madhur's recipe tells you to stir the milk yourself over the stove at a near-boil for about an hour and a half, or until it has reduced to only 2 cups, but you probably could do it in the oven just like Rombaur's formula and save yourself the trouble.

Good luck!

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

I've recently fallen in love with arroz con leche, which is similar to kheer, just seasoned differently. I keep telling myself, how bad can it be for me? It's rice -- I eat rice all the time -- and milk -- I drink milk! -- and cinnamon -- there aren't CALORIES in cinnamon, are there?? ;-)

The sugar, of course, is the real culprit (Latin American and Spanish desserts tend to be on the sweeter side); I should start making it at home to control the sugar level.

[amethistdolphin.livejournal.com]

Simple easy and tasty

Instead of mixing the last quantity of water to jello, mix half of it as yogurt and then the rest of the water, and then use a blender to mix. Is a very light mouse of watever flavour you happen to make the jello. good thing too, you can use light jello, or unflavoured jello and choose the flavour of the yogurt

[norabombay.livejournal.com]

This is absurdly simple but an aquired taste.

One cup skim milk.
One and a half spoonfulls of hershey's chocolate milk mix.

= 150 calories. It's sweet, chocolty, and high protein.

It's also half the mix they say to use on the container, but I like the slightly weaker taste.

It's not worth bothering if you use the sugar free nestle stuff- tasts artificial.

But it's about as good as icecream, and lots simpler/lower cal.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

My favorite is a slushy made with crushed ice and Trader Joe's sparkling cranberry joice. (Most juices are too sweet and I cannot drink them, but this one is tart and just right.) For an extra bit of pizzazz I squit in a bit of lime juice.

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

My favorite is actually very simple: a dish of Breyer's Heart Smart vanilla ice cream drizzled with caramel syrup. The ice cream is low fat (and low sugar, too, I think), so you just have to be careful with the syrup. Breyer's also makes a Heart Smart (or other low fat) Chocolate Fudge or Chocolate Ribbon or Chocolate Brownie...something chocolate with soft chocolate chunks in it. Also very good with caramel syrup.

Only...not so much at this time of year.

[morganmalfoy.livejournal.com]

I am yet to start my resolution to lose weight, but it's there somewhere. I used to work at a cafe and people loved our Fruit Fantasy and I could never figure out why--until I tried it! Basically it's a mix of fruitsalad, yogurt, a little honey, and granola. I personally could eat granola and yogurt as a dessert, but the whole combination is great.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

The Banana Ice in Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home is quite pleasant -- slice a banana or two, freeze it, put the slices in blender or food processor, and process until all the huge chunks are gone. Very nice, though I don't make it often as I hate cleaning the blender afterwards.

Crepes might make a nice dessert too, depending on what you fill them with. My recipe is a slight tweak of Bittman's in How to Cook Everything. 1/2 cup flour, smidge o' cinnamon, pinch of salt; 1 tablespoon melted butter, 1 egg, and 1/2 cup milk plus enough milk to get it to my preferred thinness. Pour into a small hot non-stick pan, let set a few seconds, pour the excess liquid back into the bowl, wait a few more seconds for the top to dry, flip, count to 16, and dump onto the plate. Makes 4-6 crepes, depending on how thick you make them.

[qwerty88.livejournal.com]

I was going to post about that one. I have a banana in my freezer just for that purpose.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

I've seen a couple of cooked banana recipes here, but I like the simplest possible version: Throw a whole (unpeeled) banana in a hot oven (how hot doesn't matter much, usually 350) until it turns completely black. Peel carefully and serve with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a bit of fat-free yogurt or ice cream.

For a different season, strawberries with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and sugar is unbelievably delicious.

Or an easy coeur la creme: Drain fat-free yogurt for at least 6 hours (place in a strainer lined with a coffee filter over a bowl in the fridge). Mix with an equal quantity of part-skim ricotta cheese, sweeten to taste, and serve with fruit. (Frozen berries, whirred in the blender and lightly sweetened to make a coulis, work fine.)

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

Another banana recipe. You also could try sliced apples with peanut butter, a favorite snack from my childhood....

Chocolate-Banana Liquado

Inspired by the flavor of Mexican chocolate, this icy-cold drink is as creamy and rich-tasting as a milkshake, but a lot more healthful. Keep a few bananas in the freezer for this recipe. You can peel them before or after freezing. It's a great way to deal with those inevitable overripe bananas!

2 bananas, frozen
1.5 cups low-fat milk
3 tablespoons chocolate syrup
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon, to taste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients in blender and puree until smooth. Taste to make sure it's got enough chocolate and cinnamon for your taste (and add more, if not). Serves 2.

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

I used to grab those from stands off the street when I was in Mexico, and they are indeed utterly delicious. And I don't even *like* banana. *grin*

[tinymich.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh -- my old standby when I am at a diner with friends in the middle of the night, don't want to eat anything too caloric right before bed, but have a sweet tooth that needs scratching (way to mix metaphors) -- an egg cream.

I'm not sure if they're peculiar to the Northeast, but basically -- tall glass; inch (or less) of chocolate syrup; inch of milk; seltzer to the top. Stick long spoon in and stir to mix up the chocolate syrup (but the frothy top is already milk-white and uncontaminated).

It's like a combination of a milkshake (because of the chocolate milk), a soda (because it's fizzy), an ice-cream float (because of the yummy foam), and it's not that bad for you because a) it's mostly seltzer water, and b) milk and chocolate syrup aren't that bad for you in and of themselves either.

Also, lots of fun to make with the girls: set up an assembly line and each of you can be responsible for one ingredient. =) I used to do that with my sisters.

[magicwoman.livejournal.com]

Easy Strawberry Cream Pie Makes 8 servings

Half of a 12-ounce can frozen orange-strawberry-banana juice concentrate, thawed
One 8 ounce package fat free cream cheese
1 package (four 1/2 cup serving) sugar-free instant vanilla pudding mix
1 1/2 cups light whipped topping
1 cup strawberries, chopped
One reduced-fat graham cracker pie crust

1. In blender or food processor, combine juice concentrate, cream cheese, and pudding mix; process until smooth.
2. Transfer to large bowl: fold in whipped topping and strawberries.
3. Transfer to pie crust; spread evenly. Cover and refrigerate until firm, at least 2 hours.

Per serving: 203 calories, 7 g fat, 1 g fiber. Points per serving: 4

[carbonel]

In summer, I make a lot of slushies. I got a Hawaiian shaved ice maker at a garage sale, and I pour about an ounce of sugar-free syrup over it. I bought a huge variety from netrition.com, so I have my choice of watermelon, chocolate, cookie dough, cinnamon, and a bunch of others.

In winter, not so good, of course. I bought some sugar-free meringues from netrition.com the last time I placed an order, and they're working okay as a little mid-morning something.