Cooking For Two

Have a craving for chocolate? Here’s the answer! It’s so simple you’ll be amazed. All you need is a coffee mug, a few ingredients and a microwave and you have hot, steamy, gooey chocolate bliss in about 5 minutes. The best part? It’s not as bad for you as you think!

Ingredients:

1 8oz microwave safe coffee mug
4 tbs white whole wheat flour
4 tbs white sugar (or brown sugar but omit the vanilla)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbs mini chocolate chips
1 tbs ground flax seed
3 tbs boiling water
4 tbs milk
1 tsp oil
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the flax meal and boiling water and set aside. Mix all dry ingredients well in the mug, add chocolate chips and mix well. Add flax meal mixture and liquid ingredients to dry ingredients in mug. Mix well. Microwave on high for 2.5 - 3 minutes. Cake is done when it stops rising in the mug. Tip out onto a plate (yep, it falls right out) and enjoy! This is perfect for two people with a scoop of ice cream, or one person, with a hearty appetite.

Now this will rise and may even overflow. If it spills over the sides of the mug you used too much baking powder, if it doesn’t rise very much you used too little.

This recipe was adapted from one I found elsewhere. It called for an egg, but I found a whole egg in one mug was too much egg. So I tweaked it and used flax as a binder and the baking powder as a leavening agent.

The other day I was reading a post on a cooking blog I recently discovered. On her site Ari had a recipe for Marble Molasses Pound Cake from a cookbook she had. It sounded divine! And of course, me being me, I had to experiment with it. Unfortunately, or should I say, fortunately, it didn’t quite work out as planned. To begin with, I had no eggs… Read the rest of this entry »

They look good, don’t they? Know what else thinks they look good? Your heart! These cookies have little sugar in them and lots of whole grains. This recipe makes 6 dozen, but don’t let that fool you, that’s for the two-bite version. If you make regular sized cookies you’ll probably get around half that. Either way it’s a lot of cookies, but it’s a lot of good stuff too. And they’re great with coffee! Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t noticed yet, we like our pasta around here. We try to choose healthy options when available. One of the great things about making your own lasagna is that you know exactly what you’re putting in it. This recipe uses a mixture of pre-shredded, low-fat cheeses available, whole wheat lasagna noodles, frozen spinach, sauteed onions and peppers and fresh herbs. About half an hour later you have a hot, healthy, ooey, gooey pile of excellent lasagna. This makes 4 generous servings (forget the sides, you won’t have room!) and reheats like a dream. The best part? It’s ready to eat in 30 minutes! Read the rest of this entry »

If you think pasty, gloppy, tasteless mess when you think oatmeal you are in for a huge surprise! This recipe uses hearty Irish oats, fresh blueberries (they’re in season now!) and a couple of deceptively simple additions to make a delicious, filling, exceptionally healthy dish! Read the rest of this entry »

Pressed for a quick dinner idea I decided on pasta. We had a package of my favorite veggie tortellini, but no sauce. I decided to try to whip some up. After studying a few recipes for pasta sauces, including one for vodka sauce (which is our favorite, but too fatty to have it often) I thought I could throw something together that wouldn’t be too awful with ingredients I had on hand. I had no milk or vodka, but I was sure successful and this has now become a staple in our house. Not only is it much better for us, but it’s cheaper to make and tastes much better than any sauce I’ve ever had from a jar. I’ll never buy vodka sauce again! Read the rest of this entry »

This dish makes a super quick, delicious, healthy dinner for the lacto-ovo vegetarians out there. With prepackaged and canned ingredients this dish comes together super fast. The tortellini takes the longest to cook at about 10 minutes and while that’s cooking the spinach is heating in the microwave, the sauce and chickpeas are heating on the stove and before you know it everything’s done and it’s time to eat. This made about 3 servings. Enough for my husband and I for dinner with enough left over that I could have it for lunch a few days later. It reheats very well, there’s a lot of protein, not too much fat and it tastes divine! Read the rest of this entry »

This sounds strange and vaguely unpleasant to a lot of you, I know, but stick with me here. Despite the odd ingredient, these are really good. Hearty and filling with just a touch of spicy heat. You don’t really notice the sweet potato so much or the lack of meat. These were unanimously declared a winner around here; even the dogs got a bit of the action as I could only manage one and a half. Really, both of us were full after the first one, but they were so good we decided to eat another. Read the rest of this entry »