Oreo Cupcakes

I fear my blog is very bipolar these days. I'm flipping between healthy Weight Watchers recipes and super decadent desserts faster than yours truly a kid can devour a chocolate bar. It just so happens that January is a birthday heavy month for my family and friends while I am still (mostly) sticking to my new diet. And honestly, I just LOVE to bake - birthdays or no birthdays, diet or no diet.


The recipe I am sharing today is one of those that didn't have an occasion. I stumbled across a few different recipes using Oreo cookies on one of my favorite cooking blogs (Annie's Eats) and couldn't get them out of my head until I gave it a try. I followed her recipe for the cupcakes exactly. I intended to top them with a marshmallow frosting I pinned awhile back.

Following the directions, the frosting came out beautifully - nice pillow-y, shiny peaks of lightly sweetened, fluffy goodness. Then, I had the brilliant idea to add crushed Oreos, destabilized it, and turned it into soup. The second time around I stuck with a classic buttercream and balance was restored to the universe as cake and frosting came together to create these delicious treats.

Buttercream Frosting
2 sticks of butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla extra
1 tbsp heavy cream

1. Beat the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer for a full five minutes on medium speed until it is whipped
2. With mixer on low, add the confectioner's sugar gradually until all is incorporated
3. Scrape down the sides of the mixer with a rubber spatula
4. Add the vanilla and heavy cream
5. Beat for 2 minutes on medium/high speed
6. Use pastry bag to pipe frosting
7. Sprinkle with crushed Oreos (if desired)

The secret surprise in these cupcakes: half an Oreo in the bottom of the cupcake liner!

My little taste tester - note: she only eats her cupcakes with LOTS of added sprinkles

WW Silver Dollar Fruity Pancakes

This morning the bug asked for pancakes. This is a meal I have been avoiding since starting Weight Watchers, but I decided it was time to work out a recipe we could all live with rather than deny her a favorite weekend treat. Here's what I came up with...

Silver Dollar Fruity Pancakes - makes 5 servings

3 points+ per serving, each serving = 7 pancakes

Ingredients

3/4 cup of skim milk

2 tbsp white vinegar

1/2 cup unbleached white flour

1/2 whole wheat white flour

1 tbsp white sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 tbsp light butter, melted (I used Balade from Trader Joe's)

1 tsp vanilla extract

Assorted thinly sliced fruits (bananas, peaches, apples, etc) or berries

Directions

1. Add vinegar to milk and allow to sit for at least 5 minutes so that the milk "sours" (gives the effect of buttermilk in the recipe)
2. Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk to combine
3. Combine all wet ingredients in the measuring cup with the milk and whisk to combine
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated
5. Drop level tablespoons of batter on a hot griddle or pan that has been coated with cooking spray
6. Add fruit to each pancake as it cooks
7. Flip each pancake after ~2 minutes and cook an additional 1-2 minutes on the other side
8. Enjoy with maple syrup (extra points) or more fresh fruit

Dry Ingredients

Wet Ingredients

Yummy Batter

Frozen Raspberries, Frozen blueberries, & Banana Slices

On the Griddle

Breakfast is Served!
(only 6 pancakes are shown, but a serving is 7 - I couldn't help eating one fresh off the pan)

Hazelnut Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream

This past week the office manager for my practice celebrated her birthday. Since I began working with her last year she has been a HUGE help for me. She has been an advocate for getting me integrated into the practice and has talked me up to recruit new patients - in summary, I love her! I wanted to make her a special treat for her birthday so I took something I love doing (baking cupcakes) and combined it with something I know she loves (coffee) and something everyone loves (nutella!) and created these...

Hazelnut Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream

I searched through lots of recipes and combined a few different ideas I saw along the way. The cupcake and frosting recipe can be found here. I upped the yum factor by adding nutella.

1. Cook cupcakes according to directions
2. When the cupcakes are cooled, use a melon baller to scoop out the middle
3. Soften about 1/2 cup of nutella in the microwave on half power for 30 seconds
4. Using a pastry bag, fill in the cupcake with about 2tsp softened nutella and replace the scooped out ball of cupcake on top (squish it down so the top is mostly level again)
5. Follow the frosting recipe and pipe frosting on top
6. Decorate with mini chocolate chips, chocolate shavings, chocolate sprinkles, or chocolate covered espresso beans

WW Buffalo Chicken Quesadilla

I joined Weight Watchers 8 weeks ago right before the holidays to keep myself from gorging and putting myself in a daily "I-just-had-a-baby-and-am-nursing-so-it's-still-OK-to-eat-whatever-I-want" food coma. Following the plan I've lost a little over 10 pounds and, as of today, have finally reached a weight that puts me back in my pre-med school and residency weight range! Here is one of the recipes I created during my journey so far...

Buffalo Chicken Quesadilla with Blue Cheese Broccoli Slaw (8pts+)
Follow Gina's recipes over at Skinnytaste to make a crockpot full of the spicy, tender, buffalo chicken-y goodness and homemade blue cheese dressing you need for this recipe. You'll have enough shredded buffalo chicken and dressing for this and a few other meals.

Ingredients
1/2 cup shredded buffalo chicken (3pts+)
2 Trader Joe's (or other) low-carb whole wheat tortilla shells (3pts+)
1 oz shredded 2% sharp cheddar (1pt+)
2 TBSP homemade blue cheese (1pt+)
1 cup broccoli slaw (0pt+)

Directions

1. The Trader Joe's tortillas are a bit softer and more pliable than a regular flour tortilla, so I like to crisp them up a bit by just toasting each side on a hot pan or griddle for minute or so before proceeding.
2. Place a pre-toasted tortilla in a hot pan, top with 1/2 the cheddar, all of the chicken, the other 1/2 of the cheddar, and the second tortilla shell.
3. Cook each side for approximately 2 minutes or until cheese is melted
4. Cool the quesadilla while you make the broccoli slaw by mixing the raw slaw mix with the blue cheese dressing
5. Cut the quesadilla into 6 wedges
6. Serve - I like to use the slaw like a salsa on top of the quesadilla wedges.

21 Days - An Update

Sorry for the silence, but last week ended up getting BUSY. I had a very long Tuesday with a meeting I forgot about after work until 8:30 and missed my free Thursday morning when my colleague was sick and I was asked to come in early to see some of his patients. This week has continued to be busy as the baby bear didn't start daycare because her pediatrician rescheduled her appointment I wanted to give her time to build immunity after her shots.

 

Even with all that I've made it up to Day 12 and have only missed one day and rescheduled one day! I planned my kitchen pantry for last Thursday morning (no husband, no bug, perfect time to get some real cleaning done), but went to work instead. My pantry is a HUGE project (see below) so I doubled up on Sunday and cleaned the kitchen storage shelves to free up this Thursday.

Here's my progress...

Day 3 - Entry/Coats

BEFORE: Too many coats, a guitar, too many shoes, and general clutter!

AFTER: Coats not in use moved to basement, shoes moved to bedroom, craft supplies moved to where they belong, peds textbooks brought to my office, and I finally parted with my emergency code cards and ID holder from residency:-(

Day 4 - Bookcase

Before: Too many books and general disarray

AFTER: I cleaned up by separating books into catergories: 1. Books we read all the time, 2. Books we never read, 3. Books we read sometimes, and 4. Books we have doubles of. Catergory 1 stayed on the shelf and got organized. Caterory 2 got donated to my office waiting room. Catergory 3 got moved to the small toy organizer in the playroom. Catergory 4 got moved to a storage bookshelf downstairs in the basement

Day 5 - Pantry

Do you SEE this monstrosity?!...POSTPONED until 1/17

Day 6 - Toy Box

BEFORE: You can't even tell how much junk is in this toy box because it is just full to the top!

AFTER: Oh so organized! Junk paper discarded, playdoh returned to the playroom, markers/crayons/stickers all organized into plastic bags/bins to make for easy crafting, and books organized so we can see all the titles easily

Day 7 - Kitchen Cabinets
I have a lot of cabinets, so I tried to just snap photos of the biggest changes...

BEFORE: Literally eight dozen cookie cutters, hundreds of cupcake liners, over a dozen bottles of sprinkles, entertaining dishes, and other assorted baking and candy making supplies

AFTER: Cookie cutters moved to a bin in the basement. Cupcake liners and candy bags on the left, sprinkles (yes, those are ALL sprinkles) on the right

AFTER: Sprinkles moved and everything else straightened up

BEFORE:  Too many dishes and gadgets we don't use.

AFTER: Items not in use put in storage, everything else re-organized

Day 8 - Dressers and Kitchen Storage

No photos of the dressers, but I went through the girls' drawers to weed out too small clothes. Here's the kitchen organizer...

BEFORE: TONS of craft supplies and papers littered all over the top of the shelves and in some of the lower cubbies

 

AFTER: Craft supplies condensed with ultimate goal to move them into the craft bins in the basement on "craft supply" organization day. Other shelves cleaned up with organized

 

Day 9 & 10  - Make-up Bag and Jewelry Box

Small, quick clean-up projects not worth photographing:-)

 

Day 11 - Bedroom Closets

This is the day I missed and will add it to my Sunday organization as my fridge and freezer are pretty easy as I obsessively organize them once a week already.

 

Day 12 - Kitchen Pantry

This is one area that I tend to "let go" on a week to week basis and end up needing to really clean up every few months. In addition to all the cluttered shelves you can see, on both sides of the closet are deep narrow wooden shelves that accumulate SO MUCH junk!

BEFORE: Too many boxes with just a little bit of food left in them, bags and a spilled bag of stellatine pasta all over the floor, and a disgusting amount of candy given to the bug hidden in one of the deep shelves on the upper right

 



AFTER: I went through all the boxes of crackers/cookies/etc and anything with less than 5 portions got divded into snack size ziploc baggies and the boxes recycled. I threw away an insane amount of candy we have built up since October (the last time I purged the sugar supply) - if we let bug eat all the candy she was given she would be a poster child for childhood obesity. I moved everything out and reorganized a bunch of the baking/candy supplies that were scattered about and swept up the spilled pasta and M&Ms.

 

And that's it! Tonight will be the linen closet which is teeny and not very exciting, so don't expect photos. I'll check back in with more photos, tips, and progress in a few days.

 



WW Roasted Cauliflower

During my weekly meal planning this past weekend I pinned a recipe for Roasted Cauliflower (3pts+) from Skinnytaste that I thought would pair well with the Vegetable Turkey Meatloaf (5pts+) from LaaLoosh that has become a favorite in our house. I'm not sure if the head of cauliflower I bought was just smaller than Gina from Skinnytaste used, but a whole 1/4 of olive oil seemed like too much when I was looked at the bowl of florets I had trimmed up, so I ended up modifying the ingredients. I decreased the olive oil and increased the lemon and then roasted it with the garlic, salt, and pepper. Being my usual starving self, I grabbed a piece to taste as I was about to top with the cheese and decided it was tasty enough without it! With these adjustments I was able to lower the points and increase the portion size (who wouldn't want that?!).

We had already devoured more than half of this yumminess before I remembered to snap a photo, oops!

Roasted Lemon Garlic Cauliflower (4 servings, 2pts+ per serving)

Ingredients

• 1 medium-large head of cauliflower
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• Fresh grated pepper and sea salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2. Chop head of cauliflower into small florets. Rinse and pat dry.
3. Toss florets in a large bowl with all other ingredients to coat.
4. Spread cauliflower out on a lined baking sheet or in a shallow dish.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, turning florets every 5-10 minutes so they cook evenly.

21 Days of Organization

During a previous post I mentioned having found a "21 Day" plan to help organize and clear out clutter from our home. As I am a working mom with a funky schedule (Mondays off with both kids, two full days of work, one half day with both kids, and one half day with one kid), I needed to modify the plans I found on other sites to fit what is possible for me and what our house really needs. Above you'll find the schedule I devised with the days of the week included. Feel free to copy and modify to suit your needs!

Day 1 - 21 Day Challenge - Medicine Cabinet

We don't have a medicine cabinet as much as a shallow floor to ceiling set of shelving built into the wall of our teeny, tiny bathroom. The top half of the shelves are open to view and the bottom half is concealed behind doors. This was a huge task to clean up and made me feel very motivated to keep up the challenge once I was done.

Upper shelving BEFORE photo
(Note bottles and bottles of baby lotion  which were given to me when my first daughter was born nearly 4 years ago that I never used because I don't believe in dyed/perfumed lotions for baby. Also, bin to the upper right full of gross bath toys that were finally ripe to be purged)

Upper Shelving AFTER
(Biggest improvement here was separating my husband's daily stuff from mine to avoid them all mashing together and us both fumbling through each other's stuff. Also, I moved all the medicines and our contact lenses up out of reach of our ever growing big girl to avoid ingestion or pouring of the contacts down the drain...again)

Lower Shelving BEFORE
(More than half of the medication on the top shelf turned out to be expired when I went through it)

Lower Shelving AFTER
(I threw away many unused bottles of lotion and rearranged to put kid friendly items low and dangerous ones high)

Day 2 - 21 Day Challenge - Purse

Take my word for it, I cleaned my purse. Photo proof doesn't seem necessary in this case:-)

WW "Wake-Up Wraps"

Before deciding to "go healthy" my quick go-to breakfast when I was running late or rounding at the hospital became the Dunkin Donuts Wake-up Wrap. Although not terrible in terms of points (5 for egg and cheese and 6 for bacon,egg, and cheese), it is full of processed ingredients. Right now I have an excess of daily WW points because I am exclusively breast-feeding baby bear, but the day will come when I need to trim my points. Once I decided to start making my own, I make extras and store them in the fridge to eat for the next 2 days. They heat up in the oven at 350 in about 5 minutes.

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Wraps

At the top right - 7 point plus wrap for the bug
On the bottom left - 3 point plus wrap for me

Highest 7 point wrap is made of the following:

• Mission flour tortilla soft taco size (3)
• One Whole Scrambled Egg (2)
• One slice Oscar Meyer Low Sodium Turkey Bacon (1)
• Half an ounce of 2% milk sharp shredded cheddar (1)

Lowest 3 point wrap is made of the following:

• Trader Joe's Low-Carb Whole Wheat tortilla shell (1)
• 3 tablespoons Trader Joe's Cage Free Liquid Egg Whites (0)
• One slice Oscar Meyer Low Sodium Turkey Bacon (1)
• Half an ounce of 2% milk sharp shredded cheddar (1)

Depending on which ingredients you have available there are a variety of options. Another great option would be to forgo the bacon and scramble the egg with some veggies (mushroom, spinach, onion, etc).

A Whole New Year

Happy New Year!

I will be adding a post to complete our Elf on the Shelf 12 days to Christmas countdown, but I wanted to give a few thoughts on entering the new year first. Overall, I have to say that 2012 really turned out to be a good year. The biggest downs we experienced were some scary brushes with cancer for family members. Although my mother-in-law's scary diagnosis came in the late winter, that was quickly turned around when she was able to have a curative surgery, avoid any further therapies, and has been followed up with a clean bill of health at each doctor visit. Less fortunate was my half brother's wife who was diagnosed with cancer over the summer and is still undergoing her treatments - I am hopeful that 2013 will bring her recovery. Despite those downs, 2012 brought a year of remission for my husband's cousin in her battle with cancer and marriage to her long term boyfriend, new family ties with my half brother and his family that we have been estranged from for years, success in our careers for both my husband and I, new babies to ourselves and many other family and friends, and a beautiful wedding (and pre-wedding celebrations) for my little sister.

I'm hoping to get 2013 going on the right foot by declaring January a month of organization and routine for our family! Using my obsession with Pinterest, I've dug up or created the following plans for us:

• I'm determined that "30 is my year" and am going to get myself healthy and in the best shape possible before my 31st birthday! I joined Weight Watchers after having my baby bear (and am already below pre-pregnancy weight!) and have a Pinterest board dedicated to saving my WW friendly recipes
• I'm keeping meals organized by using a Pinterest board titled "This Week" to reference all the recipes I plan to make and to make shopping lists and shopping trips much easier to organize 
• In addition to trying to make it to the gym 3 times a week, I am starting the 30 day Ab Challenge
• Finally, I am going to try and get our house ready to be put on the market by following the 21 Day Organization Challenge

I'll try to stay up to date with how things are going in case anyone else wants to play along:-)