I’ve decided to start making some of my recipes I’ve previously had on my blog that were full of fat, lighter. Yay! Better than Sex cake was really easy to make lighter. The only thing I had trouble with was the toffee candy on top. There’s no way to make that lighter, but is there? Ever heard of Skinny Cow candy? It is heavenly. They have different flavored candy bars and chocolate covered caramel, I believe their called turtles for only 110 calories. They’re so good too. They had this one candy bar that almost reminded me of a Nutter butter. I was walking down the candy aisle trying to find something to put on top of the cake, and saw these. It’s been awhile since I’ve had them and I thought they would make a great topping for the cake and they did. Thank goodness.

The one thing I didn’t like about the full fat better than sex cake, was that it was really sweet. This version cuts back on the sweetness. Is it better than sex? That is up for you to decide. I tried making the cool whip frosting orange for Halloween. It turned out more like a peach color.

Servings: 15

Points Plus: 4

Calories 131; Fat 4.87g; Carbohydrate 20.05g;  Fiber 0.9g; Protein 2.28g

Better than Sex Cake

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Ingredients

• 10 oz Devil's Food Cake Mix
• 1 can diet soda (any kind)
• 1 package sugar free instant cheese cake pudding
• 1 container cool whip light
• 2 cups milk (1% or fat free)
• 4 bars Skinny Cow (Heavenly Crisp Bars)

Directions

Step 1

Make cake according to directions on the back of the box. Use the diet soda in replace of the other ingredients.

Step 2

While cake is cooling, make the cheese cake pudding.

Step 3

After the cake has cooled, poke holes in the cake, with the back of a wooden spoon.

Step 4

Pour the pudding over the cake so the pudding gets into the holes.

Step 5

Spread the whole container of cool whip over the cake.

Step 6

Cut the candy bars into bite size pieces and sprinkle them over the cake. Serve cold.

Yesterday was a good day. Made an excellent soup for dinner, found a black pair of boots for Winter, and got $20.00 in Kohl’s cash. I ended up getting some items for Fall and Winter. Mustard color jeans, a purple sweater that came with a scarf, a Viera Wang scarf, and  a new top. I had some extra spending money so I went a little wild yesterday. In case most of you don’t know…. I’m really into fashion now. I never used to be either. Kohl’s is a good place to do that to find the newest fashion for not a lot of money. I’m almost thinking about having one blog post a week on different clothes that I find. I’ve been looking for a good pair of mustard jeans for a long time now and finally found them. Yay!

Anyways, enough on clothes. I made a really fantastic chicken and dumpling soup with leftover rotisserie chicken that we had. It was in Martha Stewart’s magazine from the October issue. There were 3 different ways to re-make chicken pot pie and this was one of them. They took one recipe and just did it 2 different ways. Kind of cool. To save time on chopping vegetables, I used about a 1/2 bag of mixed frozen veggies from the freezer section. The only vegetables I chopped were the celery and onions.  I want to make 5 other recipes from that magazine too. This soup was really good and only came out to 7 points plus per serving.

Points Plus: 7

Servings: 6

Calories: 273; 12 g fat; 15 g protein; 27 g carbs; 3 g fiber

Chicken and Dumplings

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Ingredients

• salt and pepper (to taste)
• 1/3 cup green beans
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 small yellow onion
• 1 stalk celery
• 2 medium carrots
• 1 + 1/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• 2 tablespoons cold butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• 3` cups chicken broth

Directions

Step 1

In a large sauce pan, melt butter over medium high heat. Add onion, celery, and carrots and cook until onion is translucent. 4 minutes

Step 2

Add flour (1/4 cup and save the other 1 cup for the dumplings) and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Gradually add broth. stirring constantly, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in chicken an season with salt and pepper.

Step 3

To make dumplings: Whisk together 1 cup all-purpose flour. 1 teaspoon baking power and course salt. Add 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley. Cut in 2 tablespoons of cold butter. Stir in 1/2 cup whole milk. Drop heaping spoonfuls batter on top of chicken mixture.

Step 4

Cover and simmer dumplings until they are cooked through. About 12 minutes. Top with additional chopped parsley.

I love rotisserie chickens! There’s a grocery store where I live, and you can get 2 of them for only $10.00. I think that’s a steal. I like using them to make easy recipes like this Chicken Ranch Pasta. The chicken is already cooked, so all I had to do was make the sauce and boil the noodles. Super simple.

I was really tempted to put this pasta in a casserole dish and make it into a mac and cheese casserole, but the sauce was super yummy I didn’t want to wait any longer to eat it. I tried making this first with some left over bacon grease in the pan (I really strained much of it) and a pepper jack cheese, but the sauce ended up being really gross and griny. I made it again with out the bacon grease and it was much better. This pasta dish has two of my favorite ingredients in it that pretty much can make anything better: ranch and bacon! I’d like to try making this again, but a mac and cheese version of it instead. Another recipe winner I found on pinterest.

Servings: 4

Points Plus: 10

Recipe from Just a Pinch

Weight Watchers – Cheddar Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta

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Ingredients

• 1/2 pound penne pasta (whole wheat)
• 4 slices bacon (cooked until crispy)
• 1/2 tablespoon light butter
• 1 cup 1% (milk)
• 1 whole chicken breast (cooked )
• 1 tablespoon all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (reduced fat)
• 1/2 packet ranch seasoning mix

Directions

Step 1

Cook pasta according to package directions in boiling salted water; drain, return to pot, and keep warm.

Step 2

Meanwhile, cook bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Drain all but 1/2 tablespoon of bacon drippings from the pan.

Step 3

Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Add the butter to the reserved bacon drippings, then add the chicken to the same skillet. Cook until tender, no longer pink, and slightly browned.

Step 4

Sprinkle the flour and ranch dressing mix over the chicken, stirring to coat evenly. Stir in the milk, and cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened and bubbly. Stir in the cheddar cheese and half of the reserved bacon; cook and stir until the cheese is melted. Taste for seasoning and adjust as needed.

Step 5

Serve each plate of pasta with more bacon sprinkled over the top.

Since the pumpkin fluff post has been really popular lately, I thought I’d make Orange Fluff. I think I like it better than the pumpkin fluff actually. It’s kind of amazing what instant jello will turn into when you add in a box of instant pudding mix an some cool whip. There’s many possibilities with this, look for more “fluff” recipes coming soon!

To make this all you do is dissolve the orange jello in a cup of water. Once the orange jello is completely dissolved, add in a cup of cold water and let that sit for 5 minutes. I set my microwave timer to let me know when it was done resting. Fold in the cool whip, and add in the mandarin oranges. I added in some marshmallows to mine, to make it more decorative. Hope you like this! This orange fluff is best served cold. And it’s Weight Watcher friendly.

Recipe from Sparkpeople.com

Servings: 4

Calories: 138.8, Fat: 0.0 g Carbs: 29.2 g  Fiber: 0.6 g Protein: 0.7 g

Points Plus: 3

Orange Fluff

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Ingredients

• 1 small box sugar free orange Jell-O
• 1 small box Instant sugar-free vanilla pudding
• 1 can mandarin oranges
• 1 8oz tub of cool whip (light)

Directions

Step 1

Mix Jell-O with 1 cup boiling water. Dissolve Jell-O completely. Add 1 cup cold water and let it sit for 5 minutes. Using electric beater, beat in pudding and mix until well combined. Fold in drained fruit and Cool Whip. Chill and serve.

I was contemplating on whether or not I should post this recipe. At first, I didn’t like it and thought it was just so, so. I think my problem when I first tried it was, that I tasted it when it was at room temperature. I tried some more of it today and liked it a lot  better, because it had been sitting in the fridge. Also, I cut the snickers bars kind of too big and would have preferred them to be a bit smaller. This “salad” tastes like a caramel apple dipped in nuts. It almost reminds me of one of those fluff recipes that are popular too. I had seen this recipe floating around on pinterest a lot lately, so I thought I’d give it a try. Then, I found it again on Taste of Home’s website and they had the nutrition info posted for this recipe.

The pictures kind of look like just a bunch of cool whip. Believe me, the apples and snickers bars are in there. Cool whip type desserts are hard to photograph.

218 calories, 9 g fat, 31 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 3 g protein

Points Plus: 6

3/4 cup per serving

Candy Bar Apple Salad

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Ingredients

• 1 - 1/2 cups milk
• 1 package instant pudding mix (vanilla )
• 4 large apples
• 4 snickers candy bars

Directions

Step 1

In a large bowl, whisk milk and pudding mix for 2 minutes. Let stand for 2 minutes or until soft-set. Fold in whipped topping. Fold in apples and candy bars. Refrigerate until serving. Yield: 12 servings (3/4 cup each)

If you’ve been experiencing really slow loading times at my website, I apologize. Found out my host limits my bandwith usage since I’ve been getting so many visitors lately. I tried doing everything they told me, but I think I’m just going to end up switching hosts.

I was originally going to make some Italian Sausage Hoagies tonight but I wasn’t in the mood for that. I decided to make this Baked pasta recipe from Skinny Taste since we have had some lean chicken sausage in the freezer forever. I’ve been going through our freezer picking out things that I can make to get rid of it. Got a lot of frozen potatoes like tator tots and frozen vegetables to get rid of .Hmph, what am I going to make with those?

Chicken sausages have casings around them so remember to get rid of those first. I mistakenly placed the chicken sausages with the casings in the oil first, and had to take them back out and remove them.  It was an Italian chicken sausage with parmesan cheese and the sausage ended up being really good. Jeanie-o makes it.Recommend by me. Ben thought this was really good to and now we have dinner for probably 3 more nights.   Hope you enjoy it, because we did.

Recipe and Nutrition Info from Skinny Taste

Calories: 398,  Fat: 12.5 g, Protein: 27.5 g, Carbs: 44 g, Fiber: 6 g

Points Plus: 10

Servings: 8

Baked Pasta with Sausage (- the spinach)

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Ingredients

• 1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano
• 8oz fat-free ricotta
• 8oz part-skim mozzarella, shredded
• 14oz sweet Italian chicken sausage (casing removed)
• 12oz high-fiber or low carb rigatoni pasta
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves finally chopped
• 4 cups Marinara sauce ((homemade or store bought) )
• 10oz frozen spinach (thawed)

Directions

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 375°. Spray a 9- x13-inch baking dish with olive oil spray.

Step 2

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.

Step 3

In a medium bowl, combine the ricotta, 6 tablespoons of the Pecorino Romano cheese and half of the mozzarella cheese.

Step 4

Meanwhile, in a large deep skillet, brown the sausage breaking up into small bits until cooked through; set aside. Add the oil to the skillet and sauté garlic about a minute, careful not to burn. Add spinach and season with a little salt and pepper and cook another minute. Return the sausage to the skillet and add the marinara sauce; cook on low about 2-3 minutes.

Step 5

When the pasta water comes to a boil, cook pasta according to instructions for al dente, but undercook them by 4 minutes less; drain and return to pot.

Step 6

Put half of the cooked pasta into the prepared baking dish and top with half of the meat sauce. Spoon the ricotta mixture on top of the sauce in an even layer. Cover with the remaining pasta and the remaining sauce. Top with the remaining mozzarella and Pecorino Romano cheese.

Step 7

Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 6-7 minutes or until the mozzarella is melted and the edges are lightly browned.