95 Calorie Apple Pie Protein Smoothie

Here's another protein smoothie recipe :) This one tasted fantastic in my opinion, I think the apple and cinnamon flavors worked really well with the Vanilla Vega protein powder 

Using half a serving of the Vega Protein powder gives this protein smoothie 7.5 grams of protein and a full serving of vegetables :)

This is also gluten free, dairy free, and vegan!

Recipe:

4 tablespoons Unsweetened Apple Sauce - 25 calories

3/4 cup Unsweetened Almond Milk - 30 calories

1/2 serving Vanilla Protein Powder(1/2 scoop, or half of a single serve packet) - 40 calories

1/2-3/4 teaspoon Cinnamon                                                   

= 95 calories total

1. Freeze Applesauce in an ice cube tray over night
2. Put apple sauce cubes, almond milk, protein powder and cinnamon in the blender
3. Blend until smooth - it may take 1 or 2 minutes for your apple sauce cubes to fully blend if your blender is like mine
4. Serve cold :)

20 Calorie Apple Oatmeal Cookies

Fall is in full swing, and clearly I have caught Apple Fever - 

I based these cookies on traditional oatmeal raisin cookies, but instead of raisins I used apple chunks!

These cookies are also lower-calorie than regular cookies because of the oat flour, and they do not have any regular sugar or butter/oil

These are also gluten free, dairy free, and vegan :)

Recipe:

1 tablespoon Oats - 32 calories

2 tablespoons Oat Flour - 44 calories

3 tablespoons Unsweetened Apple Sauce - 19 calories

1/4 of a medium Honeycrisp Apple - 20 calories

1 tablespoon Pumpkin Puree - 5 calories

1 tablespoon Stevia

Cinnamon(to taste)                                                          

= 120 calories total, makes 6 cookies - 20 calories per cookie

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Mix together oats, flour, apple sauce, pumpkin, stevia, and about 1 teaspoon cinnamon - refrigerate for 20-30 minutes

3. Wash and cut up apple into small pieces

4. Spoon the batter onto a parchment paper lines cookie sheet - makes 6 cookies

5. Smooth the cookies out, they do not spread while baking - then top with apple pieces and sprinkle cinnamon on top

6. Bake about 10-12 minutes - remove from oven and let cool, store in an airtight container

80 Calorie Apple Chips

Apple Chips were on sale at the grocery store, so my boyfriend picked out a few bags - I thought they were good but they were very sugary (and 140 calories for 12 chips!) and my boyfriend didn't think they tasted apple-y enough  -  so I decided to try making some from scratch without the added sugar

These weren't difficult to make, but they have to bake for a few hours so these are a good thing to make if you're going to be home for a few hours -  I made them while I finished watching Breaking Bad :)

All you need are Apples and Cinnamon! These are gluten free, dairy free and vegan! There are also only 80 calories in the whole batch!

Recipe:
1 Medium Honeycrisp Apple - 80 calories
Cinnamon to sprinkle on top


1. Wash and Slice up your apple into thin pieces - I did lots of differently shaped pieces, but you could make them more uniform if you are better with a knife than I am :)
2. Spread out the apple slices on a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon(you could also sprinkle some Stevia on top if you want them to be sweeter)
3. Bake at 200 degrees for 3 hours - then turn off the oven and leave the apple chips in there for another hour
4. Enjoy! Store in an airtight container :)

Skinny Shoestring Apple Bake

I promised lots of Apple recipes after I went apple picking - here's another one!

I didn't really know what I wanted to make when I started chopping this apple up into small pieces - like shoestring potato chips

I thought it would be good in a crumble-type bake - so I mixed up some oat flour batter and voila! - you have the Skinny Shoestring Apple Bake!

Since this is under 200 calories for the entire recipe you can easily make the whole thing in a single container and eat the whole thing yourself without feeling guilty :)

This is gluten free, dairy free, and vegan!

Recipe: (makes 3 servings)

1/4 cup Oat Flour - 90 calories

1 small/medium Honeycrisp apple - 80 calories

1/8 cup Unsweetened Apple Sauce - 12.5 calories

2 tablespoons Almond Milk - 5 calories

1/4 cup Stevia

Cinnamon (to taste)                                              

= 187.5 total / makes 3 servings, 62.5 per serving

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Chop up the apple into skinny shoestring pieces
3. Mix together the flour and almond milk - if it does not mix fully add a little bit of the apple sauce
4. Sprinkle cinnamon and stevia on the apple slices, add the apple sauce
5. Mix the apple mixture and the flour mixture together
6. Divide into 3 greased baking cups (or 2 for 2 larger servings)
7. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes - enjoy warm, top with ice cream or whipped cream if desired

67 Calorie Apple Tart

After I went Apple picking I had a huge supply of apples to experiment with in my baking - here is one of the recipes I came up with!

This individual-size apple tart is so low-calorie you could eat 3.5 of them for the same calories as one McDonald's personal apple pie - I think I would rather eat my low-cal and gluten free version anyways

In addition to being gluten free, this apple tart is dairy free and vegan!

Recipe:

For the crust:
2 tablespoons Oat Flour - 44 calories
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon Unsweetened Almond Milk - 3 calories
1/4 teaspoon Stevia, a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of salt    

For the Apple topping:
1/4 of a large Honeycrisp Apple - 20 calories
1/4 teaspoon Stevia, 1 teaspoon Cinnamon  
                                                                            
= 67 calories!


1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix together the ingredients for the crust
3. Spread the crust batter into a greased personal tart pan or quiche pan (it is very sticky but smooth it out the best you can, it will be covered by apples anyways)
4. Chop up and peel the apple, coat with stevia and cinnamon
5. Place the apple on top of the crust
6. Bake for about 25 minutes, until the crust is cooked - enjoy hot!

200 Calorie Apple and Chicken Sausage Stuffed Acorn Squash

In honor of the first night of fall I decided to make a fall-inspired dinner for myself, since it was also my first night back in my apartment for school

I have half a peck of honeycrisp apples that I picked myself so I knew I wanted to include those, and I also wanted to try making acorn squash for the first time. To add some protein I decided to also add a link of Chicken Apple Sausage - you could add more but I had italian beef and sausage for lunch, and I usually don't eat very much meat so I didn't want to go into a meat overload

For this recipe you only need 3 ingredients: an acorn squash, an apple, and sausage

This recipe is Gluten free, Dairy free, and Paleo :)

Recipe:(makes 2 servings)

1 small Acorn Squash - 230 calories

1 small Honeycrisp Apple - 80 calories

2 links Applegate Farms Chicken Apple Breakfast Sausage - 80 calories    

= 390 calories total, makes 2 servings, 195 calories per serving

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Slice open the acorn squash, cutting down the middle from the stem to the pointed end

3. Scoop out the strands and seeds from the middle of the acorn squash
4. Chop up apple and sausage and fill both halves of the squash

5. Place filled squash cut side up in a baking dish(fill the baking dish with about 1/2 inch of water) and cover the dish with aluminum foil
6. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the squash is tender
7. Let cool for 5 minutes before eating, top with cinnamon if desired

Apple Picking

This weekend I went Apple Picking at Apple Holler in Sturtevant, Wisconsin

We got really lucky and just happened to be there on the first weekend of Honeycrisp Picking!

Honeycrisp apples are really the best apples in my opinion - for baking/cooking and for eating plain

I have 1/2 Peck of Honeycrisp Apples picked right off the tree -

 which means there are some Apple Recipes in the forecast :)

If you can't wait to make some delicious apple recipes you can try my 400 Calorie Cinnamon Apple Loaf 

or my 150 Calorie Fall Harvest Bread Pudding

150 Calorie Fall Harvest Bread Pudding

Since my Skinny-tized 435 Calorie Pumpkin Loaf and  Skinny 400 Calorie Cinnamon Apple Loaf turned out so well I decided to try combining them - this recipe is what I came up with

I combined the Pumpkin loaf base with the chopped up cinnamon apples, and I added a chopped up plum for good measure. This turned out very dense like a bread pudding - but it is still gluten free and dairy free!

The fresh fruit chunks in this make the loaf/bread pudding tart and delicious even without a whipped topping!

Recipe: (Makes 3 mini loaves)

3/4 cup Pumpkin Puree - 60 cal

1/2 cup Unsweetened Apple Sauce - 60 cal

1/2 cup Oat Flour - 180 cal

1 Honeycrisp Apple - 80 cal

2 egg whites - 34 cal

1 plum - 46 cal

Cinnamon - to taste, and to sprinkle on apple chunks

1/4 cup Stevia                                

= 460 calories in whole recipe - makes 3 mini loaves, 153 calories per loaf

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Mix Pumpkin puree, apple sauce, egg whites, and stevia - then add flour

3. Peel and chop up apple into small pieces, sprinkle with cinnamon

4. Chop up plum, with the peel - mix with apple chunks

5. Add the fruit mixture to the batter, add additional cinnamon if desired

6. Divide between 3 greased mini loaf pans

7. Bake for about 27 minutes, remove from oven when the top of the loaf is set

8. Let cool, or enjoy immediately - refrigerate leftovers

Skinny-tized 400 Calorie Cinnamon Apple Loaf

So I have noticed a recipe for 500 calorie Pumpkin Bread circulating on Pinterest - unfortunately after making it for my Dad I calculated the calories and found there were actually about 900 calories per loaf (ouch!) So I modified the recipe to lower the calories - I will post the modified recipe for the pumpkin bread later, but here is another version of the recipe, using apples instead of pumpkin!

This bread is very moist, almost like a bread pudding, but it holds its shape well enough to eat it like a brownie too!

Recipe:

1 Honeycrisp Apple, peeled and cut into small chunks

2 tablespoons cinnamon

3/4 Cup Stevia

1 cup Oat Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1- 1/2 cups Unsweetened Apple Sauce

1 egg plus 3 egg whites

1. Grease 2 loaf pans and preheat the oven to 350 degrees

2. Mix together all ingredients except your cut apple, stevia and cinnamon

3. Coat the apple chunks in about 1/4 cup stevia and 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

4. Add the excess cinnamon and Stevia to the batter, then add your coated apple chunks

5. Pour about half of the batter into each loaf pan and bake for about 40 minutes

Let the apple bread cool in the pans, or eat it right away for more of a bread pudding experience.

Each loaf has about 400 calories depending on the size of your apple and what type of apple sauce you use. 

The Stevia can give this bread a little bit of a weird after-taste so my Dad likes to put soy whipped cream on top of his dessert!(We love soy whip because it is dairy/lactose free and has less calories than Cool Whip or regular whipped cream)