Adventures in the Kitchen: Flourless Fudge Cookies

Mike and I are motivating each other to eat healthy. We find that whenever we are together, we tend to eat whatever we want. We eat out more and eat junk more. Since he left for his core rotations, we have been working together but separately to come up with a healthy eating regimen that way we can stick to it when we visit each other.

Part of our regimen is that we get one day a week to be our "cheat day", meaning that we can go over our calories deliberately and indulge a bit. This may be the day we have a few drinks, eat out or have a little extra dessert.

Entering this past week, I had my meals planned out and knew what I would cook when. After planning everything, I realized I did not really give myself a cheat day. The worst thing I was making was the Corn Chowder, so I decided to make that my cheat day and I would decide how to indulge when the day got there.

The week went by and Friday finally arrived. I made my chowder and it was great, but outside of having some chocolate milk at breakfast and throwing some bacon on my salad, I really would not consider myself having a "cheat day". Heck, I didn't even reach my calorie goal with everything I ate.

I wanted something sweet, but not candy, and I really did not have anything to fill that craving. I also did not have a wide variety of baking ingredients. I searched my Pinterest boards and finally came across a recipe that I had the basic ingredients for. The recipe was from kingarthurflour.com.

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cocoa Powder
• 3 large egg whites
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (gluten Free if you are trying to make them that way)

The other ingredient that could have been added was 1 teaspoon of espresso powder, but I did not add this as I really do not like coffee.

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 365. Grease two baking sheets. 
2. Stir the ingredients until smooth, scraping the bowl as you stir. 
3. Drop the soft, batter-like dough onto the baking sheets in 1 1/2 inch circles. 
4. Bake the cookies for 8 minutes. They will spread out, become shiny and some may have a cracked look on top. 
5. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the pans. 

The directions were easy to follow and yielded 16 cookies. They were not too sweet and the chocolate powder that I used really gave them a strong flavor, but as a quick and easy dessert, I was quite pleased.

Flourless Fudge Cookies

Makes 16 3" cookies
Calories: 88 per cookie


Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cocoa Powder
• 3 large egg whites
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (gluten Free if you are trying to make them that way.

Directions:

1. Preheat Oven to 365. Grease two baking sheets. 
2. Stir the ingredients until smooth, scraping the bowl as you stir. 
3. Drop the soft, batter-like dough onto the baking sheets in 1 1/2 inch circles. 
4. Bake the cookies for 8 minutes. They will spread out, become shiny and some may have a cracked look on top. 
5. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the pans.

Adventures in the Kitchen: Crockpot Corn Chowder

Hurray for Friday! After a long week, I just don't feel like cooking at times. Enter the amazing invention; the Crock Pot (or slow cooker, whatever term you prefer). Just throw some stuff in the pot, turn it on low while you are at work and you come home to a meal! Its brilliant and I want to shake the hand of the person who invented it!

I figured, after the chilly week we have had here in Florida (Yes, I was cold, don't judge me) I thought coming home to a crock pot filled with corn chowder would be a great idea!

The recipe I found was from crockingirls.com. This recipe had been sitting in my Pinterest space for a while. Very simple recipe, just adding the ingredients, letting it cook, adding a couple more and then it is done. I relative novice chef shouldn't mess that up!

First: the Ingredients: 

• 6-8 potatoes (peeled and diced)
• 1 Can cream corn 
• 1 Can whole kernel corn
• 2 Cups chicken broth
• 8 Ounces diced ham
• 1 Cups diced onions
• 1/4 Cups butter
• 2 Cups half and half

For the potatoes, I cut them up the night before. The ones I found were pretty large

so I only used 3 of them. In hindsight, I could have probably done with one more, but I was happy with my choice. Both varieties of corn were Del Monte as they were buy one, get one free at Publix. For the chicken broth, I actually used chicken stock as it is supposed to have more flavor than just regular broth. This seemed to work just as well for me. It was an all natural version called Kitchen Basics. The diced ham was also a natural version, no MSGs, by Cumberland Gap. They actually had a pre-diced version that was exactly 8 ounces, which made it very easy to just dump into the pot. The butter was Target brand and the half and half was from Organic Valley, a perfect pint size. 

The Directions: 

Adding the ingredients

1. Put the potatoes, both cans of corn, chicken broth, diced ham and onion into the crock pot. 

2. Cook on low for 7-8 hours

3. Mash the mixture to your desired consistency and then add the butter and half and half.

4. Cook for 30 minutes on high and then serve. 

After 9 hours cooking

When I woke up this morning, it took a total of 8 minutes to put the crock pot bag in the pot, open everything, pour it into the pot and turn it on low. It was great! I then left and forgot about it. As my day at work had to start a little earlier than usual, my chowder ended up being in the pot for almost 9 hours, but that did not seem to change anything about the recipe.

When I got home, the house smelled great! I went into the kitchen, stirred the contents and then mashed it up a bit. (I love my Farberware utensils, I have a Nylon Basting Spoon and masher from them and they work great!) I don't think this had to be done, but I cut my butter up into chunks and threw it in the pot with the cream. After a half hour on high, I poured some into a bowl and had probably the best dinner I had all week!

After adding the butter and Half and Half

I ate it just the way it came out of the crock pot, but some may want to add some salt and/or pepper to theirs, all depends on your taste. 

If you are interested in the calories, according to MyFitnessPal when I plugged it in with my ingredients, it said this dish would be 383 Calories for 6 servings.  After spooning it out and putting the rest of the chowder into containers, I am thinking that I may be getting 8 servings out of it, but we will see. 

Would I recommend this recipe? Absolutely!! I plan on saving it to my recipe book on my tablet and would definitely make this again!

What are your thoughts on my first Adventure in the Kitchen? Have you made this before? What would you have done differently? Please leave comments below and let me know your thoughts! 

Crockpot Corn Chowder

Servings 6-8

• 6-8 potatoes (peeled and diced)
• 1 Can cream corn 
• 1 Can whole kernel corn
• 2 Cups chicken broth
• 8 Ounces diced ham
• 1 Cups diced onions
• 1/4 Cups butter
• 2 Cups half and half

The Directions: 

1. Put the potatoes, both cans of corn, chicken broth, diced ham and onion into the crock pot. 

2. Cook on low for 7-8 hours

3. Mash the mixture to your desired consistency and then add the butter and half and half.

4. Cook for 30 minutes on high and then serve.