I called them 75 calories each (because really, my diet is calorie counting ;) Most packaged cookies I've ever eaten average about 75, so I thought this was safe. They might be more, they might be less, but the important thing is that because I'm assigning a caloric value to them, I eat maybe one or two a day instead of ten. I was intrigued by the concept of the cookie diet - not as a meal replacement necessarily, but as a concept - eating cookies while you diet!! How cool. The key would be that they would have to provide me with some health benefit, in order to be worth wasting precious calories on. Here's what I did. I took a recipe for pumpkin cookies and modified it:- The first step was reducing the sugar. The recipe called for two cups (are you kidding me?) so I used one. (Btw, they tasted great).
- I then replaced half of the white flour with other stuff: wheat germ, quinoa, flax, oats, and coconut. I'm guessing the calories of these ingredients replaced the calories taken away when I reduced the sugar, but you know what? Healthy, so worth it.
- Just for fun, I added chocolate chips. (Hey, fun is an important component of health ;)
TenGone Home
Haha. You are so awesome. I do this too with cookies. Whenever I go off diet and splurge on something, I keep the ingredient label & go on line and try to find similar recipes. Then when I find one that looks right, I reduce the sugar and replace the part that I kept with half Splenda/half real sugar! Depending on the snack, I'll add a few tablespoons of Hersheys cocoa or use freshly brewed black coffee (replacing the water in chocolate cookies & cupcakes). Just for more flavor and it masks the Splenda & I don't miss the sugar I cut out!!
ReplyDeleteMy cabinets are stocked with low-calorie stuff, so substituting ingredients is easy peasy. I get to eat cinnamon buns, cookies, brownies and more! lol. So long as I'm baking it myself and I know EXACTLY how much is going into each one!
Ronda