Skinny Chocolate Cake

Hannah and I had so much fun at our library over the weekend – they just renovated the whole place, and I don’t take advantage of it often enough.  One of the books I got was Jamie Oliver’s “Super Foods” and one of the recipes that I thought I could tweak a bit to make it lower in points was his “pretty chia pots.”  Hannah bought a lifetime supply of chia seeds about a year ago (do they go bad?!) so I already had everything I needed to make this.

The bottom layer is yogurt, bananas, vanilla extract and chia seeds.  It chills in the fridge for an hour to firm up, then the top layer is frozen mango, more banana and topped with fresh fruit and unsweetened coconut flakes.  

The flavor is amazing, but the texture got to me after I ate about half of this mason jar.  It started tasting like gourmet baby food and I am not quite ready to post the recipe for this – I think I’ll treat this more like a smoothie bowl and add granola/nuts/etc. which will add more points but I’d probably lick the bowl clean – stay tuned!  Photo credit goes to Hannah – who lost SIX pounds her first week on Weight Watchers. #gohannah

I met my sister and her co-worker Jenny for walking at Macy’s at lunch.  It was a balmy 21 degrees and I easily could have walked outside in that weather especially since it was sunny.  But it was fun catching up with Jenny – I hadn’t seen her since before Christmas.

Lunch was a snap to put together because it was another bowl of lasagna soup – the only sad part was that I forgot the lite mozzarella a.k.a cheesy goodness!  It was still delicious.  If you haven’t tried Italian Seasoned Jennie-O turkey give it a try.  It’s not zero points, but only 1 point an ounce.  My bowl of soup without the cheese was 5 points.

I left work on time yesterday!  Whoop!  Although I waited to take the 5:30 train.  I could have caught the 5:20 train, but it would have been packed and since I am near the end of the line, I would have had to stand for at least 30 minutes of my 1:07 train ride home.  But I was one of the first ones on the 5:30 train, so I got a great seat.  

Am I the only one who writes recipes on the way home from work? Hannah and I tried to make skinny brownies the night before last, and they tasted like ass.  When I woke up yesterday morning, I suddenly realized that Hannah and I forgot to put the protein powder in! I am not sure that would have helped the recipe at all, but Hannah called them “frownies” instead of brownies, and declared them #nastypants.  If you guys are not watching our stories on Instagram, there is some pretty funny shit there!

Anywho, I tweaked this a bit after I put this together, for starters I doubled the recipe, I added baking powder (which in hindsight may have made it more cake like than brownie) and added coconut milk.

While the brownies (well cake!) baked, I made this quick dinner.  Leftovers!  I had leftover steak, I needed to use up the rest of some shrimp that I defrosted, and made orzo to make this quick spinach and orzo side dish.  Literally about 15 minutes from beginning to end, and mostly because I had to wait for the water to boil for the orzo.

The creole sauce is below – once you take everything out of the pan, just pour this mixture in the pan, cook for 2 minutes until it thickens up, and pour it over the steak and shrimp.  I swear it tastes like there is butter in the sauce, but there isn’t any. 

After the “brownies” cooled and I cut them, it was quite clear that I had made chocolate cake.  And I wasn’t mad about that!  I don’t like overly sweet desserts (well, except for gummies!) and if I am at a wedding or baby shower and someone hands me a piece of cake, the first thing I do is scrape off all the frosting.

Hannah took a bite, and I wish I would have videotaped it, because she still thought these tasted #nastypants.  I like them, and brought a few squares to work to get the opinion of a couple other people.  So I am posting the recipe, because I would make these again.  And maybe I put a bit of whipped cream on top to kick it up a notch.

This was the perfect way to end my day yesterday, and I ended my day with 25/23 points for the day.

Okay, so to prove how technically challenged I am?  Yesterday I couldn’t log onto my wifi hot spot.  Well, when Jacob fixed my phone and mac book pro, he had to go back to some factory settings or something like that – well I name my phone My Bizzy Kitchen so I can find it on the wifi drop down on the train.  When he reset my iphone, it named my phone iphone – and I could have logged on using that on the train ride in yesterday.  Doh!

All is well, my computer is working great, so thank you Jacob!

We are already to Wednesday – make it a great day!