POM Breakfast Smoothie

From Smoothie Web

This POM smoothie is full of super healthy antiox­i­dants from the pome­gran­ate juice and the almonds. And the banana pro­vides a great source of potassium.

Just how rich in antiox­i­dants is POM pome­gran­ate juice? Take a look at the image below rat­ing high antiox­i­dant juices. POM scores the highest.

Oh yeah, what about the POM Smoothie recipe? Here it is:

Ingre­di­ents

• 1 cup POM won­der­ful 100% Pome­gran­ate Juice
• 3/4 cup soy or low-fat milk
• 2 ice cubes
• 1 large banana
• 2 table­spoons almonds
• 3 table spoons pro­tein pow­der (optional)
• 1 tea­spoon honey or ste­via sweetener

Prepa­ra­tion

In a blender com­bine all ingre­di­ents. Cover and blend on high for at least 30 sec­onds (make sure the almonds aren’t vis­i­ble) then pour into two glasses.

Makes 2 servings.

Recipe of the Week: Muffin-Tin Crab Cakes

In honor of the Bal­ti­more Ravens mak­ing it to this Sunday’s AFC Cham­pi­onship Game, this week’s recipe fea­tures a Bal­ti­more clas­sic — crab cakes! Here’s a health­ier ver­sion for you to enjoy while watch­ing the Ravens take the wind out of the Patriot’s sails.

From Eat­ing Well:

We’ve taken the fry­ing and fuss out of crab cakes by shap­ing and bak­ing them in muf­fin tins. For the best taste, look for pas­teur­ized crab­meat in the refrig­er­a­tor case at your market’s fish counter, a bet­ter choice than canned vari­eties. Make It a Meal: Try these cakes with some tangy tar­tar sauce and coleslaw.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 pound crab­meat
• 2 cups fresh whole-wheat bread­crumbs, (see Tip)
• 1/2 red bell pep­per, minced
• 3 scal­lions, sliced
• 1/4 cup reduced-fat mayonnaise
• 2 large eggs
• 1 large egg white
• 10 dashes hot sauce, such as Tabasco (Editor’s note: actu­ally, Old Bay sea­son­ing would be a bet­ter option here)
• 1/2 tea­spoon cel­ery salt
• 1/4 tea­spoon freshly ground pepper
• 6 lemon wedges, for garnish

PREPARATION

1. Pre­heat oven to 450°F. Gen­er­ously coat a 12-cup non­stick muf­fin pan with cook­ing spray.
2. Mix crab, bread­crumbs, bell pep­per, scal­lions, may­on­naise, eggs, egg white, hot sauce, cel­ery salt and pep­per in a large bowl until well com­bined. Divide mix­ture evenly among muf­fin cups. Bake until crispy and cooked through, 20 to 25 min­utes. Serve with lemon wedges.

TIPS & NOTES
Make Ahead Tip: Cover and refrig­er­ate for up to 2 days. Reheat in the microwave or serve cold.

Tip: To make fresh bread­crumbs: Trim crusts from firm sand­wich bread. Tear bread into pieces and process in a food proces­sor until a coarse crumb forms. One slice of bread makes about 1/3 cup crumbs.

NUTRITION INFO
Per serv­ing: 183 calo­ries; 5 g fat ( 1 g sat , 1 g mono ); 124 mg cho­les­terol; 18 g car­bo­hy­drates; 2 g added sug­ars; 21 g pro­tein; 6 g fiber; 574 mg sodium; 96 mg potassium.

Nutri­tion Bonus: Vit­a­min C (60% daily value), Zinc (20% dv), Cal­cium & Vit­a­min A (15% dv).

Mission possible: A fast, easy low-carb angel food

BY J.M. HIRSCH
ASSOCIATED PRESS

This cake is easy to love because it is fast and sim­ple to make, is deli­cious and is great for dieters. It makes a stan­dard size angel food cake, but has just 133 calo­ries, 3.5 grams of fat, 23 grams of pro­tein and 2.75 grams of car­bo­hy­drates per quar­ter of the cake. That’s right. Per quar­ter of the cake.

It seemed impos­si­ble. I wanted to make a zero-sugar, low-carb ver­sion of a cake that is made from almost noth­ing but sugar and carbs.

And it took 20-something attempts. But after many dis­ap­point­ing – and some down­right dis­gust­ing – ver­sions, I finally man­aged to bake an amaz­ing and sweet angel food cake that rises beau­ti­fully and has the same del­i­cate, almost spongy tex­ture as tra­di­tional recipes.

My moti­va­tion was sim­ple – Mom. A long­time vegan, she has lived with­out her (and my) favorite cake for decades. But she recently started eat­ing egg whites again, which put angel food back on the table. Except she isn’t eat­ing sugar and is try­ing to limit carbohydrates.

Angel food cake has three pri­mary ingre­di­ents – egg whites, sugar and flour. Egg whites and sugar are whipped until they form a thick, airy bat­ter, then flour is gen­tly folded in. Could I make a cake with only one of the key ingredients?

From the start, struc­ture was the chal­lenge. Using egg whites and the nat­ural sugar alter­na­tive known as ste­via, I was able to bake up cakes with the proper taste. And they would rise beau­ti­fully in the oven. But as soon as they came out, they wilted into near pud­dles of cooked dough.

To get the struc­ture I needed, I turned to two ingre­di­ents pop­u­lar in gluten-free bak­ing – guar gum and xan­than gum. Most baked goods get their lift and struc­ture by work­ing the gluten (a type of pro­tein) in wheat flour until it forms bonds that trap air. Peo­ple who avoid gluten need to find a way around this, so they use other ingre­di­ents to repli­cate those bonds.

The cake still needed dry ingre­di­ents, and for that I turned to more egg whites. A blend of pow­dered egg whites and egg– or whey-based pro­tein pow­der was a good start. A bit of almond flour com­pleted the dry mix, giv­ing the cake a bit of extra body.

A cou­ple things to keep in mind:

• Tra­di­tional angel food cake is made from a very del­i­cate bat­ter. This is why the flour is gen­tly folded into the whipped egg whites by hand. The bat­ter in this ver­sion is much stur­dier and eas­ily stands up to using the mixer to add the dry ingre­di­ents at the end.
• Whey or egg white pro­tein pow­ders are widely avail­able in the grocer’s nat­ural foods or pro­tein bar sec­tions. Look for a brand that doesn’t con­tain sugar. We used Biochem’s 100 Per­cent Whey Pro­tein vanilla powder.
• Pow­dered egg whites are exactly what they sound like. They are sold in the bak­ing aisle.
• The recipe was writ­ten to be gluten-free. If you aren’t avoid­ing gluten, it also can be made sub­sti­tut­ing 1/4 cup cake flour for the 1/4 cup almond flour called for.
• Want to make a choco­late ver­sion? Sub­sti­tute 1/4 cup unsweet­ened cocoa pow­der for the pow­dered egg whites.
• If you pur­chase pack­aged liq­uid egg whites at the gro­cer, be sure they are appro­pri­ate for whip­ping. Some brands will not whip; the car­tons usu­ally are marked to indi­cate this.
• Xan­than gum and guar gum are widely avail­able in the gluten-free sec­tion of most gro­cers. Almond flour gen­er­ally is sold in this sec­tion, too.

Get the recipe →

Recipe of the Week: Chunky Chicken Soup

For gen­er­a­tions, chicken soup has been a rem­edy of choice for moth­ers with sick chil­dren. The lean pro­tein and nutrient-rich veg­eta­bles help boost your strength to fight off a cold. But this power com­bi­na­tion of veg­eta­bles, whole grains and health-enhancing herbs can be enjoyed any time. Our recipe calls for buck­wheat, a whole grain that’s a good source of fiber and mag­ne­sium. It’s also gluten-free and is not a mem­ber of the wheat fam­ily so it is appro­pri­ate for those with celiac disease.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tsp. canola oil
• 1/3 cup whole buckwheat
• 1 cup water
• 1 large car­rot, cut into 1/2-inch rounds
• 1 large cel­ery rib, cut cross­wise into 1/2-inch slices
• 3/4 cup frozen pearl onions, or fresh chopped onion
• 4 cups fat-free, reduced-sodium chicken broth, divided*
• 2 cups roasted chicken breast, in bite-size pieces
• Salt and ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

*To reduce sodium con­tent to 80 mg per serv­ing, use low-sodium chicken broth.

PREPARATION

1. Heat oil to medium-high heat in medium-size saucepan. Add buck­wheat, stir­ring con­stantly, until grains are fra­grant, about 2 min­utes. Off heat, pour in water, tak­ing care, as liq­uid will spat­ter. Return pan to stove, reduce heat to sim­mer, and cook, cov­ered, until buck­wheat is al dente, about 15 min­utes. Set cov­ered pan aside.
2. Place car­rots, cel­ery and onions in large saucepan. Add 1/2 cup broth, cover and sim­mer over medium-high heat until veg­eta­bles are crisp-tender, 10 min­utes. Add remain­ing broth, chicken and cooked buck­wheat. Add salt and pep­per to taste.
3. When soup is hot, divide among four wide, shal­low bowls. Gar­nish each bowl with 1 table­spoon pars­ley, and serve.

Note: If desired, in place of roasted chicken, gen­tly sim­mer a 3/4-pound skin­less and bone­less chicken breast in broth in large saucepan. When it is white in the cen­ter, about l5 min­utes, set chicken breast aside. When chicken is cool enough to han­dle, shred into bite-size pieces. Clean out pot and pro­ceed, cook­ing veg­eta­bles and com­plet­ing soup as above.

NUTRITIONAL INFO
Makes 4 servings

Per serv­ing: 210 calo­ries, 5 g total fat (1 g sat­u­rated fat), 15 g car­bo­hy­drate, 25 g pro­tein, 3 g dietary fiber, 530 mg sodium.

Recipe of the Week: Cheesecakes in Jars

From the author: I like the idea of serv­ing lit­tle indi­vid­ual desserts at get togeth­ers and these lit­tle cheese­cakes do the job. Peo­ple can just pick one up and go — no slic­ing and serv­ing required. These lit­tle cheese­cakes are in the smaller 4-ounce jelly jars. You can find them eas­ily at your gro­cery store. They are just about the per­fect serv­ing size for all those peo­ple who say, “Oh, I shouldn’t eat dessert. Well, maybe just a few bites.” The top­pings that you can use are endless.

Ingre­di­ents

• 2 cups gra­ham cracker crumbs (16 whole gra­ham crack­ers, ground)
• 2 table­spoons sugar
• 8 table­spoons but­ter, melted
• 4 8-ounce pack­ages of cream cheese, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 tea­spoon vanilla extract (I used 1/4 tea­spoon vanilla paste)
• zest of 1 lemon

Rasp­berry topping:

• 2 pints of fresh raspberries
• straw­berry or rasp­berry jelly

Other top­pings: I used mini choco­late chips. You can really do any­thing you like for the top­pings. All kinds of fruit would work, caramel sauce, meringue, etc.

Instruc­tions

1. Pre­heat your oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Spray the jelly jars with non-stick cook­ing spray, mak­ing sure to spray the bot­toms so the crust doesn’t stick. Blend the gra­ham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted but­ter in a bowl. Place about 1 heap­ing table­spoon of the crumbs into each jelly jar and tamp down to make the crust (I used a wine cork).
3. In a large mixer bowl, mix the room tem­per­a­ture cream cheese with the sugar until smooth. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix well. Add the sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest and mix until well incor­po­rated. Fill each jelly jar with about 1/3 cup of the fill­ing, leav­ing room at the top for your topping.
4. Place the jars in a large roast­ing pan or two deep bak­ing dishes. Fill the pan with hot water halfway up the jelly jars. Place in the oven and bake for 30 min­utes. Remove jars with tongs and place on a wire rack to cool.
5. For the rasp­berry top­ping: pick over the rasp­ber­ries and dis­card any that are moldy or bruised. Place 7 rasp­ber­ries on top of each cheese­cake. Heat about 1/3 cup of the jelly in a microwave and stir so that the jelly is spread­able. Brush the tops of the rasp­ber­ries gen­tly with the jelly to glaze them.
6. Refrig­er­ate cheese­cakes until ready to serve. Can be made the day before.