Healthy Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

As I've posted before, we love Greek yogurt and besides using it in chicken salad and dips, I also use it for baking.  We are also hardcore pumpkin lovers in this house, which is another great baking alternative.  Last year I found a recipe on Pintrest for the Softest Chocolate Chip cookies that is made with pumpkin and the husband loved them.  A few days ago a friend had us over for pumpkin pasta and gave us the extra pumpkin to take home.  Since we had a snow day I decided to use the pumpkin to modify the recipe I made previously and use Greek yogurt in lieu of oil.  I also used whole wheat flour since we always have some on hand but if all you have is all purpose flour that will work.

There is still sugar, that is hard to eliminate altogether but it is still less of what is in regular chocolate chip cookies.  Also I have never done the flour, baking soda and spices first like most recipes call for.  Mine is the lazy way of course.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup Greek yogurt

1 cup pureed or canned pumpkin

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups wheat flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

2 pinches salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp powdered ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp cloves

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.  Beat together eggs and sugar.  Add Greek yogurt, pumpkin and vanilla.  Mix in flour, baking powder, salt and beat well. 

Greek yogurt and pumpkin... healthy cookies!

Once everything is mixed together add spices.  Stir in chocolate chips with a spoon, I never mix them in with the beater.  

Fall spices to give some kick to the pumpkin

Lately I have been just spraying a light sheen of PAM on my cookie sheet instead of using foil or parchment paper and it works just fine.  Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, the perfect time to take them out is right as the edges of the cookies are starting to brown.  I athink that many people ruin cookies by over cooking them.  Once the edges are starting to brown and pull them out and let them sit on the cookie sheet to set.

These cookies are very moist so they won't keep as long as regular cookies.  I also found they should be refrigerated.  I made just a few and froze the rest of the dough.

Snow Day

Yesterday morning we woke up to this

Shoveling a path for the pup

 Which meant just about everything shut down for the day in DC and everyone was home from work.  A friend of ours who lives a little less then a mile away offered to bring over Zing Zang and sausage if the husband would make biscuits and gravy.  

First of all, if you like Bloody Marys and you haven't discovered Zing Zang you are wasting your time with other mixes.  Not long after we started dating I had to go to New Orleans for a conference and the husband (the boyfriend at the time) came with me.  Everywhere we went we had the best Bloody Marys and we realized they were all using the same mix.  We looked for it all over in VA and DC when we got home with no luck but about six months later it started appearing in the liquor stores.  We actually realized the night before the snow storm we were out, so when our friend offered to bring it over in return for brunch we jumped on it.

Best Bloody Mary mix ever!

Despite the snow our friend made it over pretty quickly and she was rewarded for the trek and the Bloody Mary mix with this. 

Biscuits and gravy, bacon and fried eggs

 We try to eat healthy but once in awhile you have to treat yourself!

Hungry Girl Buffalo Chicken Dip with Old Bay

A couple years ago when we were first dating, I made my husband the Hungry Girl Buffalo Chicken Dip.  He loves it so I make it for special occasions, like for the Super Bowl last week.  I wouldn't say its healthy but its definitely a healthier option then a lot of the other dips and snacks.  Also it tastes great with veggies, I just cut up what we had in the fridge which was celery and green pepper.  We had some chips as well but mostly stuck with the veggies.

  When it's just us I make just half the recipe and for large parties I often double it.  The only change I make is using a chicken breast instead of the canned chicken the original recipe calls for and adding Old Bay.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast
1 (8 ounce) package fat free cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup Frank's RedHot original cayenne pepper sauce
1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup fat free ranch dressing
1/4 cup fat-free Greek yogurt

Old Bay Seasoning

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place cream cheese in a medium bowl and stir until smooth. Mix in Frank's RedHot, mozzarella cheese, ranch dressing, and yogurt. Stir in chicken until thoroughly combined. Spoon mixture evenly into a deep 8-inch by 8-inch baking dish.  Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, or until mixture is heated through.   Sprinkle Old Bay seasoning on the top for extra flavor.

Buffalo Chicken Dip with Old Bay sprinkled on top

The veggies make it healthy right?

Wordless Wednesday

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