I am already planning my Thanksgiving dinner including a homemade pumpkin pie from scratch. But then I do everything from scratch. I even bake the bread that I dry to make my own stuffing mix, but that’s another recipe. This pumpkin pie is low fat and light because it’s made without butter or cream, or even whole milk. I love it! It’s all low fat and healthier, even the crust. Ever since I discovered how easy it is to make an oil pie crust not to mention how much healthier it is, especially made with extra light olive oil, it’s the only pie crust I ever use.
If you’ve ever made a shortening or butter crust with the ice water you know how hard it is to patch cracks. That’s why I love an oil crust. It’s easy to put together and you can just pat it into your pie pan. Or do what I do and roll it between wax paper to get an even thickness of crust. And any cracks or open spaces can easily be patched with pieces of dough.
Cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner for your family is a challenge. Even for an experienced cook, it’s a lot to put together and my rule is to make absolutely everything I can in advance. And that’s easy for pumpkin pie. In fact, it has to be made in advance because it takes hours to cool and then needs to be refrigerated. I even make the whipped cream in advance. What? You don’t make your own whipped cream? Has anyone told you how easy it is? It’s ONE ingredient… plus a little sugar. It takes about two minutes to make and whipping cream has no carbs.
If you’re tempted to try using fresh pumpkin I have two things to say. One, you have to cut and cook it first and it’s easier to build a guest room over the garage. Second, canned pumpkin has more vitamin A than fresh. I believe in cooking from scratch but not this time. I always use canned pumpkin. But make sure it’s only pure pumpkin and not pumpkin pie filling.
My healthier pumpkin pie is made with 1% milk, 2% reduced fat condensed milk, eggs, sugar, and spices. Of course cinnamon is the most important spice but all cinnamons are not the same. The one most stores carry is Ceylon cinnamon but I recently discovered Saigon cinnamon and wow! It’s more potent, more fragrant, and it’s the only one I use. My brand is Spice Islands. If you use Saigon cinnamon, you don’t need as much as you’ll see in the printable recipe. (There’s a how-to video coming next week!)
Homemade pumpkin pie will always trump a store bought pie so I hope you’ll try my recipe. Why not make one this week… just to test it out of course. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
No ham hocks here. This soup is traditionally made with ham hocks but I think it’s best to avoid the saturated fat and nitrates they contain so I don’t use them. But my French Canadian pea soup is still plenty delicious. In fact, I don’t even use stock… just plain water. This recipe is simple and uses ingredients it’s easy to keep on hand plus my soup cooks in about 45 minutes instead of two to three hours that some recipes take.
Although I grew up in Canada, I had never heard of French Canadian pea soup. I come from Ontario and this soup is a Quebec specialty. I discovered it during a cruise we were taking through the maritime provinces of Canada. Our last stop was Quebec City and that’s where I first discovered this hearty, delicious soup. I had been enjoying the cruise around the islands but not the food on the luxury ship. It was too fancy for me and not healthy at all with lots of flambeed things and sauces I didn’t want. I missed my own cooking so much. I just wanted a big bowl of soup. I love soup.
While exploring Quebec City we found a small family restaurant with homemade soup on the menu and their specialty was pea soup. I couldn’t get inside fast enough. I ordered the soup and as soon as I took the first bite I knew I had to make this when I got home. No truffle oil. No “foie de” whatever! It’s peasant food. I love simple peasant food. It’s what I think most people really enjoy eating and why I think so many seem to like my recipes.
Now that autumn is here, a thick and filling soup like this is perfect. Sometimes, it’s all we have for a light dinner. And every time I make it, I remember that little restaurant in Quebec City with the homemade soup. As for any future cruises, I will only go when I can have a cabin with my own kitchen! Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Looking for a family dinner that pleases everybody? Make my quick & easy spaghetti & meatballs! It only takes 35 minutes to make this delicious family favorite, all from scratch, and I promise you will never have leftovers. The lean meatballs are made with ground sirloin and they are super soft because they cook right in the sauce. The sauce is my quick & easy spaghetti sauce and I just add the meatballs (& spaghetti) to make this a complete meal… but don’t forget the salad.
This is really a quick & easy recipe because the sauce takes 5 minutes of prep and the meatballs take 10 minutes to put together. Then it all cooks in one pot and you have the most delicious spaghetti dinner. The sauce needs to cover the meatballs and the pot I use measures 7 1/2 inches across. If your pot is bigger than that, you might need to make more, smaller meatballs so they are covered by the sauce. Marinara sauce does not need to cook for hours on the stove. My recipe uses canned plum tomatoes, the best kind for sauce, and I prefer a smooth sauce so I puree the whole tomatoes first. If you like it more chunky, you can cut the tomatoes up with scissors or a knife for a chunkier sauce.
These meatballs and so soft they really just melt in your mouth. That’s because I use fresh bread crumbs and not dried ones. To make fresh crumbs, which are just soft bread in tiny pieces, I process two slices of bread in a food processor. Then I just wipe out the bowl and use the same one to puree the tomatoes. If you don’t have a food processor, you can cut the bread into small pieces and puree the tomatoes in a blender.
Whether you’re having company or a family dinner, you can’t go wrong with homemade spaghetti & meatballs. Try my easy recipe and you’ll see why they call it comfort food. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
My homemade apple pie is so good, when anyone finds out I made one they invite themselves over. No shame. No made up stories. They just say, “I heard you made pie. I’m coming over.” Homemade apple pie is the most famous American dessert and what a treat it is when it’s made from scratch, especially a deep dish apple pie like mine. No matter how much money you have, there is no place you can buy apple pie like homemade. And this is a healthier apple pie because there is no butter anywhere. The crust is made with olive oil!
I used to be intimidated about making pie and it was always about the crust. Not only was is tricky to do with the ice water method, but who wants to eat all that shortening or butter? Once I discovered that an oil crust is not only flaky and delicious, but super easy to make, that’s all I use now (try my chicken pot pie).
With an oil crust most recipes say to pat the crust into the pan but I say put it between wax paper and roll it out. This way it’s an even thickness and you just have to trim the edges. Another thing I like about oil crusts is you can patch it wherever there is a hole or crack. Just put some extra dough there and press. Actually, you HAVE to roll the dough to make apple pie because you need a flat top crust. It has to be one flat piece that’s rolled out and you just lay it on top, crimp, brush with milk, sprinkle on some sugar, cut some vents, and bake.
This pie bakes for almost an hour so you need to protect the edges of the crust from burning. That requires a pie ring or shield like the one pictured below.
They sell for about $5 and are much easier to use than making your own out of foil. But if you need to make your own, the easiest way is to cut a circle of foil that’s large enough to cover the whole pie and then cut a big crcle in the center, leaving the entire center of the pie exposed and just the edges of the pie crust covered. Tuck the rest of the foil under the rim, just like the photo below.
For anyone not familiar with tapioca, it is a starchy substance used in puddings and as a thickener but if you can’t find it you can use all-purpose flour instead.
I hope you like this recipe. How about this? Next time you’re invited to a family member’s house for dinner, offer to bring dessert. Show up with a homemade deep dish apple pie and watch what happens. There won’t be enough. Your cousins will be arm-wrestling for the last piece. They’ll want you to run for mayor! That’s the power of homemade apple pie. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
A healthy, high fiber breakfast is important but it can also be fun. And waffles are fun. Let’s talk about how healthy they are first. My waffles are made with 100% whole wheat pastry flour and extra light olive oil so… fiber and heart healthy fat. Then I bake each one with a big pile of sliced almonds for extra protein and extra crunch. The almonds get baked into the waffle and then you get a fantastic toasted almond flavor with each bite. Oh, and they are easy to make from scratch. Putting the batter together takes less than five minutes!
Now let’s talk about the fun part… what to put on your waffles. Well, there’s a little butter and of course real maple syrup, or honey, maybe some sliced bananas, strawberries, blueberries, peanut butter, yogurt, or take a minute to cook up some caramelized apples. Here’s how I see it. Let’s say you have three waffles. Put some healthy fresh fruit on the first one, some maple syrup on the second one, and the third one can be dessert. What’s wrong with a few chocolate chips or a little drizzle of chocolate syrup if it means you’re having whole grain waffles? A friend of mine wouldn’t tell you but she puts vanilla frozen yogurt on her third waffle… but you never heard it from me. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Look what I made! I decided to experiment with my faster no-knead bread and make olive bread. I’ve been making the plain bread regularly with 100% whole wheat flour and for a softer loaf, I also make it with 2 cups of whole wheat and one cup of bread flour. I’ve had olive bread before and loved it. I had a jar of olives handy so I made this loaf yesterday with my 2/3 + 1/3 flour mixture and WOW! It’s moist and soft enough for sandwiches and so delicious. I even had it for breakfast. (the crispy crust is the best part!) Olive bread is a way to include heart-healthy olives in your diet. If you haven’t tried the no knead method for bread, it’s amazingly easy.
I first posted my faster recipe for plain bread (click here) and then another recipe for my whole wheat version (click here). Now I have this fabulous olive bread and I am posting the recipe here because it’s so simple. To make my no knead whole wheat olive bread, you would follow the method used in my whole wheat version but with the ingredients below:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup bread or all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon yeast
1/2 teaspoon salt (reduced from original version due to salt in the olives)
3/4 cup chopped, patted dry kalamata olives
1 1/2 cups of cool water
UPDATE: March 3, 2016: I just posted the entire recipe in the Breads category so now you can just click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Eat a piece of cheesecake and run! That’s because to burn off the calories from one slice of old fashioned cheesecake, you would have to jog for over an hour. But not so with my lightened up ricotta cheesecake. A walk around the block should do it. This is a healthier cheesecake for sure because it’s made using part skim ricotta cheese with no cream cheese or sour cream in sight. It’s also called Italian Cheesecake and the first time I had it was at an Italian restaurant. I ordered the cheesecake intending to share because it was, you know… cheesecake. But it was so light I ate the whole piece and could easily have had another one.
It was delicious! I had to learn how to make my own and I did. I even lightened it up some more by using part skim ricotta cheese and this delicious dessert just melts in your mouth. So no more full fat cheesecake for me. The last time I had regular full fat cheesecake at that “factory,” I wanted to stop at the mall on the way home and buy bigger pants. Make my Light as a Cloud Ricotta Cheesecake and you won’t need new pants. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
I used to think you could only buy crusty dinner rolls at a bakery but wait ‘til you see how incredibly easy it is to make your own homemade rolls from scratch. And forget everything you thought you knew about baking bread. Here’s what you will NOT have to do:
1. Proof your yeast.
2. Take the temperature of your water.
3. Knead the dough.
4. Rise the dough twice.
5. Rise it in a warm spot.
6. Get stressed about baking with yeast.
All those things are history! Once I learned that you could bake amazing crusty bread at home with no kneading and almost no work, I set out to make it as fast and easy as possible. I’ve already shared my method for making the fabulous crusty bread that bakes in a Dutch oven.
No dutch oven? No problem. If you want to make the no knead bread that bakes in a Dutch oven but you don’t have one, you can make the same dough into these beautiful crusty rolls. All you need is a baking pan. This method is so easy and it’s foolproof. Don’t worry about the water temperature – just use hot tap water. Don’t worry about kneading the dough – you don’t have to. It’s basically like this:
You mix the dough together, cover, and let it rest for 3 hours.
You shape it into 8 rolls and let them rest for 35 minutes.
You take the same 35 minutes to heat up your oven.
You bake the rolls.
You eat the rolls!
And if you like sesame seed rolls, just brush them right before baking with egg white and sprinkle with sesame seeds and look what you get:
By the way, you can start this dough the night before and let it stand on the counter top overnight for 8 to 24 hours. The only difference is you would use cool water. Then in the morning, shape the rolls and after the 35 minute rest and oven warm-up, you can bake them. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
These healthy cookies are always on hand in my kitchen because I love sweets but they have to be as healthy as I can make them. And these are. They are 100% whole grain made with whole wheat pastry flour and oats. Then I add oil (I prefer avocado oil these days) and this is a cookie I can eat every day (and I do!). The truth is that most of the time, dessert in my house is just a cookie and it’s this cookie more than any other. It’s sweet and satisfying and might actually do you some good. It has lots of fiber, heart healthy fat, and no butter or white flour. Did I mention a few mini chocolate chips?
I tried to decide what to call this… Oatmeal Cookies, Whole Grain Cookies, Healthy Cookies, Cookies I Eat Every Day, but then I settled on Everyday Cookies because I have them just about every day. Sure, they are dessert after dinner but why not after breakfast? They have oats and whole grains and nuts – isn’t that what’s in a granola bar? And my granola bar recipe has chocolate chips too.
These are some crispy cookies, which is good because they keep really well. I keep them in a covered container, mostly in the fridge by the second day, but they don’t last long. With two of us here they disappear fast and when they’re gone, I make more. If you’re looking for a crispy, healthier cookie, one that you can eat every day that might even do you some good, click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones
Five ingredients is all you need to make these simple, easy turkey-apple breakfast patties… and about 15 minutes. In fact, you’ll barely have enough time to scramble some eggs. Okay, I admit it. I like breakfast sausage but I haven’t had it in years. There’s this thing I have about eating healthy. I love the smell and flavor of traditional breakfast links but not all the fat that’s in there. I’m very excited that I can enjoy a healthier breakfast sausage. (patty, actually – unless you have a sausage maker and some casing!) If you’re wondering about using white ground turkey breast, I tried it and it’s just too dry but here’s the good news – dark meat is nutritionally superior to white meat. Look at this:
Calories: White meat = 161 calories. Dark meat = 192 calories.
Fat: White meat = 4 grams. Dark meat = 8 grams.
Protein: White meat = 30 grams. Dark meat = 28 grams.
Iron: White meat = 1.57 mg. Dark meat = 2.4 mg.
Zinc: White meat = 2.08 mg. Dark meat = 4.3 mg.
Thiamine: White meat = .04 mg. Dark meat = .05 mg.
Riboflavin: White meat = .13 mg. Dark meat = .24 mg.
Selenium: White meat = 32.10 mcg. Dark meat = 40.90 mcg.
Folate: White meat = .01 mcg. Dark meat = 10 mcg.
So don’t skip breakfast. Turkey sausage and eggs is full of protein and with a slice of whole grain bread, it’ll keep you going for hours. How about making your own breakfast sandwich with a whole grain english muffin, a fried egg, and a turkey patty. Note to self: Add that to my bucket list. To try my easy, healthy turkey breakfast patties, click herefor the recipe.