Apple Puffed Oven Pancake
(From Diabetic Living)

Yields: 6 servings (1 pancake wedge, 1/4 cup apples)
Ingredients
1 tbs Butter
3/4 cup refrigerated or frozen egg product, thawed (You could also use 3 eggs, but I used egg product)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup fat-free milk
1/4 tsp apple pie spice (I used 1/8 cinnamon, 1/8 nutmeg, 1/16 cloves, 1/16 ginger, 1/16 cardamom)
1/8 tsp salt
-----------------------
Nonstick cooking spray
2 medium apples, cored and thinly sliced (I only used on apple, but it depends on how much you want)
2 tbs packed brown sugar (I used regular sugar and it worked fine, recipe said you could use a sugar substitute)
2 tsp water

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place butter in a 10-inch ovenproof skillet (cast iron works well) with flared sides. Place skillet in oven for 3-5 minutes or until butter melts. meanwhile, for batter: In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, flour, milk, apple pie spice, and salt until mixture is smooth. Immediately pour batter into the hot skillet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until puffed and well browned.

Meanwhile lightly coat an unheated medium saucepan with nonstick cooking spary. Preheat over medium heat. Add apple slices, brown sugar, and the water. Cook for 4-6 minutes or until apples are golden brown and tender. Stirring occasionally.

Cut pancake into wedges and top with apple slices. Dust with powdered sugar.

I found this recipe and thought that it works well for someone that is also trying to watch what they eat for cholesterol reasons. This turned out really tasty, the best puffed recipe I have found yet, and fairly healthy to boot! The ingredients that makes this good for the heart are: apples, cinnamon.

Mexican Pizza

Today it is quite cold where I live so I decided a pizza would be nice. I was doing some research about healthy pizzas and I found a recipe that sounded good. Here is what I made and the changes I made. :)

Yields: 5 servings
Ingredients:
1/4 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tbsp. olive oil
8 oz can refried beans (used vegetarian organic refried beans)
7 oz jar taco sauce
8 oz can tomato sauce (used no salt added tomato sauce)
1/2 tbs chili powder (used 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp cumin
2 oz. can green chilies, drained (optional, I didn't use)
1 large Boboli Pizza Crust (used wheat version)
1 can sliced black olives
1/2 tomato, diced
2 cups 2% shredded mexican cheese mix

Preparation:
Saute onion and garlic in olive oil until tender. Add beans, taco sauce, tomato sauce, chili powder, and cumin. Stir well, and heat through.

Spread sauce evenly over pizza crust. Top with sliced olives, diced tomato, and shredded cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes until cheese is melted, bubbly, and begins to brown.

I will start this paragraph off by telling you that I am a bit of a light weight when it comes to hot/spicy food. This is very close to being too spicy for me and I used a mild taco sauce. I suggest you mix it up a bit depending on what your tolerance is. The original recipe that I created this from asked for 9 oz jar of taco sauce and 4 oz of tomato sauce, so if you do like really spicy food you could change it back to that and add jalapenos instead of chillies, and up the chilli powder back to half a tablespoon. The ingredients that make this good for the heart are: beans, onion, olive oil, olives, garlic, tomatoes.

Tuna Salad

This weekend with temperature over 90 I decided to make something that didn't need to be cooked and would be refreshing in this hot weather. I found this recipe for a tuna salad sandwich from tasteofhome.com. I have included changes and notes which are green.

Simon's Famous Tuna Salad
Yields 5 servings
3 cans (6 oz each) light water-packed tuna, drained and flaked (3 cans (5 oz each) water-packed low sodium tuna, drained and flaked)
3/4 cup fat-free mayonnaise (3/4 cup light mayonnaise)
1/4 cup chopped celery (about 1 stalk)
1/4 cup chopped carrot (about 1 medium carrot)
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp dill weed (I used fresh)
10 slices whole wheat bread, toasted (I used quinoa bread, not toasted)
5 lettuce leaves

In a small bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. For each sandwich, layer a slice of toast with a lettuce leaf and 1/2 cup tuna salad. Top with a second slice of toast.

This is quite tasty and it is quite tasty. The only fat-free mayo that I have been able to find is Miracle Whip which personally I think tastes way to sweet which is why I used light mayo. For those who don't like whole wheat bread the quinoa might be a good option. It is a bit unique in flavour, but I think it doesn't have as much flavour as the whole wheat. The ingredients that makes this good for the heart are: tuna, onion, garlic, whole wheat or quinoa bread, and carrots.

The Story Behind the Recipes

Hello, and welcome to my blog. The reason I am creating this blog is to help myself and others with their recipes and diets. To start off let me tell you a little about me. I am in my 30s and work at a fairly high stress job even though it can be quite fun. A while ago I had a doctors checkup and he told me that I have high cholesterol and that I needed to change my diet. I thought I was eating fairly healthy, but as I did more and more research I discovered that I wasn't. One book that I found very useful in these early days and still today is Women Heart's All Heart Family Cookbook, by Kathy Kastan LCSW, MA ED and Suzanne Banfield Phd.

My plan for this blog is to share some of the recipes that I have tried and like that are healthy. I hope to update the blog every weekend which is when I usually do my cooking for the week. (No time to cook during the work week.)