Recipe Review: Wholewheat Buttermilk Biscuits

I finally baked up a batch of Weight Watcher's Whole Wheat Buttermilk Biscuits to have with my homemade freezer jam. Don't they look tasty? Pictures can be deceiving though. While tasty enough when straight out of the oven and smothered in blueberry-lemon jam, they get drier and harder the longer they sit.

I made the recipe using buttermilk (strangely, the recipe first calls for yogurt then buttermilk as a substitute) and found that the amount given was too much; the dough was overly wet. I had to add extra flour to make it rollable. This likely added to the toughness of the finished product.

I also noticed that the recipe was lacking salt. Now I'm no Martha Stewart when it comes to baking, but even I had to raise an eyebrow at the omission. As every biscuit recipe I've ever tried has salt added to it, I decided to add about 1/2 a teaspoon. If I make these again, I'll play with the amount and perhaps add a tich of baking soda as well.

Recommended if you have extra whole wheat flour, time to kill, and don't mind hardtack.

Review: Kellogg's All Bran Bars - Chocolate Chip

I've been hearing about this new flavour of Kellogg's All Bran Bars (Chocolate Chip), and finally had the opportunity to pick up a package. Having the same NI as the other bars (Calories: 130, Fat: 6g, Fibre: 4g), it has the added bonus of chocolate chips. It's literally like a good-for-you chocolate chip cookie. A dry, fiber-filled cookie, but hey, healthy sometimes has its tradeoffs.

Recommended with a glass of milk for dunking or a cup of hot tea.

New Find: Wasa Fiber Rye

If you like crispbread (Mr. Trim calls it "cardboard")(Mr. Trim does not like crispbread), check out this new product from Wasa: Fiber Rye. It's extremely points friendly (Calories: 30, Fat: .5, Fibre: 2g) and great to have with soup, salad, or with your favourite topping.

If you're not a fan of crispbread (see Mr. Trim above as an example), you might find it dry and well...like cardboard. Personally, I love it. My mom used to serve it to us topped with sprouts and deli meat; it was a great easy snack. I still do that (recent recall of Maple Leaf meats notwithstanding), and I also like to spread it with Laughing Cow cheese or almond butter.

All in all, a great cracker to turn to if you're low on points for the day. Just be careful, the points do round up the more you have.

The Vivanno Experiment

Can "meal replacement" shakes keep you full? It was my devout hope that they would. Without regular lunch today, I cashed in my free-drink coupon at Starbucks and tried one of their new "Vivanno" shakes. Though they're not specifically described as a meal replacement, I went ahead with my experimental study anyways. What follows is an excerpt from my scientfically-controlled journal.

------------
12:19 p.m.
Chocolate Banana Vivanno in hand. Sipping experimentally. Tastes like cocoa and banana.

12:32 p.m.
Back at work. Yep. Definitely like cocoa and banana. Can't taste any whey powder. Pretty tasty.

12:40 p.m.
Finished. I wonder how long it'll last in my stomach. It feels very heavy.

12:53 p.m.
I'm burping up cocoa and banana.

12:59 p.m.
Still feeling kinda full. I drink some water to "top it up."

1:12 p.m.
Still burping up cocoa and banana but not as often.

1:23 p.m.
Feeling less full. I drink some water.

1:41 p.m.
First stirrings of hunger. I drink more water.

2:05 p.m.
Have to pee like a race horse.

2:13 p.m.
Distracted by work; running to washroom.

2:15 p.m.
Back from washroom. For some reason, it smelt like Salt & Vinegar chips in there.

3:21 p.m.
Distracted by work again; I can hear my stomach grumbling in earnest now.

3:24 p.m.
I really want Salt & Vinegar chips. I eat an apple instead and drink more water.

3:30 p.m.
I still want chips. I'm starting to count the hours until dinner.

3:45 p.m.
I google "baked salt & vinegar chips."
------------

The rest of the journal goes into further notes about "S&V" chips and are mostly irrelevant to this experiment.

From this data we can conclude:

1. A Vivanno shake can keep you full from one to three hours depending on water consumption and work load.
2. Never go into Salt & Vinegar scented bathrooms lest you get afflicted with cravings for the rest of the day.
3. Yahoo! Answers reports that the only way to get baked Salt & Vinegar chips is to "order online from a British Importer."

Additional experiments may be needed to determine the veracity of these findings.

Review: Slow Cooker Ropa Viejo

After spying a new crockpot recipe on my Weight Watcher's homepage, I had to try it: Ropa Viejo! Apparently, the name means "old clothes." Not very appetizing, hey? But it was very good nonetheless. It's also Core, which is always a bonus.


Ropa Viejo with mashed potatoes

To begin with, I halved the recipe because it makes a lot. Preparation was easy and took about 30 minutes the night before. My crockpot tends to cook fast, but leaving it for 10 hours didn't dry out the meat. The only other variation I made was substituting parsley for cilantro.

The result was as promised: a slightly spicy vinegary stew. I was worried it'd taste completely like vinegar, but it didn't; it just lent a small kick to it. I also raised an eyebrow over the inclusion of an apple, but it really added to the flavour and complemented the vinegar. The meat still tasted like typical "I've been stewed in a slow cooker all day" meat but I don't mind that. In fact, that's one of the things I love about crockpots!

Serving size is list as a 1 1/4 cups. However, I should mention that "stew" is not really an apt name for it. After cooking, it's mostly shredded meat with a bit of veggies and a small amount of liquid. As a result, I found one serving to be way too much meat for my taste. Instead, I measured out half a cup and served it over a similar amount of mashed potatoes. It made a relatively low-point and filling meal. Mr. Trim and I really enjoyed it.

I'll be making it again for sure but probably in the fall. Delicious but a bit too heavy for summer!

New Product: Quaker 100 Calorie Bars

There's two new 100 calorie bars out in Canada now. Made by Quaker, they come in two varieties: Sweet & Salty (Almond) and Dipps (Chocolate Chip). Both bars are 2 points each and are similar in nutritional value. For the chocolate bar, it's 100 calories, 4g fat, and 1g fibre. The Sweet & Salty is the same, except it has 3.5g fat.

The taste? They're tasty. I will give them that. The sweet and salty is a nice mix and the dipped bar has a nice chocolaty coating. However as tasty as they are, I won't be buying them again.

One, they trigger my binge tendencies. I kept going back to the boxes and eating them. Two, they are unbelievably small and thin. The picture below just does not do justice to how small they are. That's a dessert plate, not a dinner plate. They're also less than half an inch thick.



These things are so small, it takes just four tiny bites to eat them (and even then that's stretching it). Because I like to get bang for my points values, these aren't worth it to me. I can think of lots of other things that I could spend those points on that are more filling, healthier, and don't cause me to inhale the whole box. That's the danger about tasty but excessively small snacks – it's too easy to eat lots of them.

But hey, if you don't mind the points values and trust yourself more than I do, it's worth trying if they're on sale.

Review: Dr. Oetker's Light French Vanilla Mousse

This post could also be titled "Dr. Oetker, I love you." Seriously, this was the best tasting dessert I've had in a looooong time. Yes, it tastes a bit like pudding made from a box, but the texture was so light and creamy that I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

To make it, you whip together the mousse powder with a cup of skim milk. After it's all light and fluffy, you spoon it into cups and chill. That's it. I love simple.

I served it in small bowls topped with fresh grapes. The fruit was such a nice compliment to the mousse, that I can't imagine having it without. I also didn't notice the artificial sweetner which normally I do. Though to be fair, I think the grapes helped with that.

Each box makes five servings. One serving is 1 point for half a cup. Yes, that's right. Sinful and low in points. Please feel free to double-check the value yourself.

Dr. Oetker's light mousses (moussi?) come in three different flavours, all similar in NI: French Vanilla, Milk Chocolate, and Strawberry. For more info and NI, visit Dr. Oetker's site and give him my undying love.

*yum!*

Starbucks light frappuccinos = summer

As the sun finally starts shining in my neck of the woods, I'm once again reminded of my dear dear friend of last summer. The Starbucks light frappuccino. Seriously sinful and low on points. Plus, there's new flavours to try this year.

If you're hankering for a frosty treat, get thee to your local Starbucks. A tall mocha light is only two points. Ask for it double-blended for an extra-creamy treat. Want to try other flavours? Be sure to check Starbuck's nutrition calculator before you go because not all light fraps are created equal.

Update: To the anonymous poster who said the above points value for the tall mocha frap light is wrong, I kindly suggest recalculating because it's most definitely 2 points. The NI for one is 110 calories, 1g fat, and 2g fibre. Note, that it's just 1g fat and not 10g fat. There's 10 calories from fat, but not 10 grams of it.

I used all three calculators available to me (the online calculator, my paper calculator, and my handheld calculator) to triple check the points value. I also looked up the points value using Weight Watcher's online database. All four methods yielded the same results: a tall mocha frap is 2 points.

I know it's too good to be true, but it is :)

Review: Quaker Low Fat Honey Bran Muffin Mix

Yearning for some baked goodness, I made a batch of honey bran muffins using Quaker's low fat muffin mix.

The package makes 24 in total. All you need is water, a spoon, and a non-stick muffin pan. Mix the ingredients together and you'll have fresh-baked muffins in under half an hour. One prepared muffin is about the size of a 1/3 cup measure and is 2 points (140 calories, 1.5g fat, 3g fibre).

For a muffin fix, they're pretty tasty. The outside is slightly crisp, the inside moist. They also bake up nice and golden as you can see by the picture. I liked the taste well enough that I'd probably try the other flavours if I see them on sale. Recommended for those who don't have time to bake.

Recipe Review: Easy Macaroni and Cheese

WeightWatchers.ca has been featuring a recipe for Easy Macaroni and Cheese on the Plan Manager home page for a few days now. I couldn't take the temptation any longer, so I decided to jazz up my evening by trying it out.

Since our low-fat cheese selection up here in Canada is pretty slim, the only reasonably close to low-fat cheese I could find was Kraft Cracker Barrel 2% Old Cheddar. I also used whole wheat pasta instead of regular. I recalculated the points value using these ingredients and came up with the same amount of points as listed.

The end result was a rather spicy, smooth and creamy macaroni and cheese. Though it didn't have the deep cheddar flavour of some of the other (full-fat) homemade recipes I've had before, it was still pleasantly cheesy and much better (both in taste and nutrition) than anything out of a box. If you don't like things spicy, ease up on the hot pepper sauce and don't use the pepper flakes. I added both and found it a bit too spicy for mac n' cheese.

Also, I don't really recommend the whole wheat pasta. I find that the whole wheat texture is more pronounced in smaller pasta shapes. Instead, I suggest using Catelli Smart Pasta. It tastes just like white pasta but has the fibre content of whole wheat.

All in all, pretty darned nummy and comforting. And because it was easy to make, too, the recipe is aptly named. Though I have to suspect the cheesy colour of their photo was enhanced after the fact. Mine looked more creamy-white than anything else.

Serving size is listed as 1 cup. I got slightly more than that but would say it's an accurate gauge. One serving is 6 points. 4 out of 5 stars. I'd make it again.

Review: The Biggest Loser Workout – Cardio Max

I've had this DVD for months and didn't get to try it until recently. Just goes to show you how busy I am! I bought it for about $10 from Rogers Video. You can also order it from Amazon.ca.

The DVD has 50 minutes of workouts on it which can be combined in any way you like. The warm-up (5 minutes), Level 1 (20 minutes), and the cool-down (5 minutes) are hosted by Bob. Level 2 is with Jillian (10 minutes), and Level 3 is with Kim (10 minutes).

If you follow the built-in programs, Level 1 includes the warm-up, the 20-minute section with Bob, and a cool-down. Level 2 is the same, but after the workout with Bob, the workout with Jillian plays. The same goes with Level 3. You can follow these programs or you can go into the "maintenance" option on the DVD and choose whatever workouts you want.

So far, I've only done Level 1. Foolish me, I thought it'd be easy! It's easy in that the moves aren't complicated. But it's hard in that it really pushes you. The moves remind me of the sort of things we do in Bootcamp, especially because the cool-down is yoga-inspired. I also like that contestants from the show are the ones doing the exercises. They're regular people so they make mistakes which I can relate to. There's even a few of them who do modified moves that you can do if you're finding things are too hard.

The only complaint I have about the DVD so far is the music. It's about the most uninspired music I've ever heard on an exercise video. It's comprised of one or two music loops lifted from the Biggest Loser show. However, you soon forget about it because you're listening to Bob, Jillian, and Kim yelling at you more than anything else.

Lastly, if you pick this one up, be prepared to have hand weights. I thought it was all cardio, but in Bob's section he has you doing moves with weights. Bob shows you a modified version without weights, but I think you'd get more out of it with weights than without.

Four stars out of five.

Sammies...a greasy little high-point sandwich

I finally tried one of Quiznos' "Sammie" sandwiches - the Chicken Bacon Ranch. Not worth it at all. Not only are they tiny, they pack a lot of calories and fat into such a small package. The best guess I have is 7 points for a sandwich the size of a small taco.

I'm estimating because Quiznos Canada doesn't have nutritional information. I eventually found the NI for a similar sandwich on the American site which is what I'm basing my estimation on. 310 calories, 26g fat, and 1g fibre.

Was the sandwich tasty? I suppose I would've found it yummy once upon a time. Nowadays it isn't anywhere near tasty enough to merit spending that many points on it. I have it marked in my points tracker as "never again."

Review: Salsa Chicken

I tried out a new crockpot recipe the other day – Slow-cooker Salsa Chicken courtesy of Julie of New Start~New Life. All I can say is: YUM! Okay, I'll say a bit more. It was super easy to put together and the sauce was divine. I followed the recipe with a couple of modifications: I used Cream of Chicken soup instead as well as fat-free sour cream.

Both my husband and I loved it. In fact, it'll become a standby in our household because it's more than worth the minimal amount of effort involved. Thanks a million, Julie!

Yum! Rich spicy taco-flavoured sauce with fall-apart chicken

Almond Cadbury Thins

There's a new type of Cadbury Thin showing up in the wild. Almond! I found a box at London Drugs, but I've also heard they've been seen at Walmart. There's real bits of almond mixed in there. My new addiction. Yum!

New Find: Barlean's Cinnamon Flax Oil

I've been meaning to write about this oil ever since Mr. Trim had his wisdom teeth out. It's cinnamon-flavoured flaxseed oil made by Barlean's and it's awesome in a bottle. I bought it to jazz up the nutrition of his smoothies and wound up falling in love with it.

I know regular flaxseed oil is more versatile, but the cinnamon flavour is so clean and delicious that I can't imagine a smoothie without it now. Plus, I get in one of my servings of healthy oils earlier in the day which is always a bonus.

The oil is also organic and made with all-natural cinnamon flavouring. I can't compare price with other oils as this is the first time I've bought flax oil. It was about $15 and worth every penny.

To find Barlean's in your area, you'll have to send them an email (if you're in Canada), or use their store locater if you're from the US.

Bonus prize for US readers: you can send away for free samples. Yes, I'm jealous.

Review: Deep Chocolate Vitamuffins

I finally found a box of Vitamuffins at Safeway. They weren't cheap: $4 for four muffins but I bought some anyways. Especially because, through some sort of voodoo magic, these muffins are really low in points. 100 calories, 1.5g fat, and 7g fibre. Calculate it and you'll see how spooky (but awesome) it is.

When I got them home, I microwaved one for 30 seconds (it was frozen) and had it with a cup of tea. The chocolate chips became gooey and the whole thing was pleasantly moist. It was very yummy and had a nice chocolate flavour to it. I'd buy them again!

Some words to the wise:

• They're small (about the size of a 1/3 cup measure)
• Microwave them for optimum moistness and avoid the non-frozen ones (many people have found them to be too dry)
• They have teeny kernels of something with the texture of hard sawdust. You can see them in the closeup picture as light brown flecks. You mostly don't notice them, but every so often you'll bite down on one and wonder what the heck it is. Even still, I liked them enough that I could forgive this small bit of occasional unpleasantness for such a low-point treat.

*Does not come with toonie.

Review: Polar F6

As promised, here's my review of my shiny new toy: a Polar F6 heart rate monitor. In the box there is the watch, a transmitter band, and an instruction/warranty booklet.



There are two styles of the F6 - men's, and women's. Mine is a women's style though the thing is still really big. Reminds me of those old calculator watches. Despite its size, it's still pretty with a floral design around the watch face. It also comes in pink and black for women and just black for men.

Setup was easy. First, you enter your details into the watch as per the instructions. Next, you strap on the transmitter, making sure you moisten the contact strips. Then you press a button on your watch and bingo! Your heart rate will appear within 15 seconds and will stay that way, giving you real time updates to it.

With a few more button presses, it'll start to record your heart rate, calories burned, and duration of the workout until you stop it. After stopping it, it'll give you a summary of these figures, with an average and a maximum heart rate.

I was worried that the transmitter wouldn't stay put or that it'd be uncomfortable. However, it stayed where it was supposed to and after awhile, I forgot about it.

There's a lot more settings to it than I've tinkered with so far. I know that you can switch it from beats per minute to heart rate percentage (the latter being most useful to us WWers in calculating intensity levels) and that it records up to 12 of your workouts that you can review. If you want it to alert you when you've reached a particular heart rate zone, it can do that as well.

You can also download software to your computer that enables you to change the watch settings (including the logo on the front) or to upload your exercise data to an online tracking program. You will need speakers or a microphone to do it, but it's pretty nifty - it transmits info using bleeps and bloops from your speakers or your watch.

The first thing I did was install a new logo from Polar's logo gallery. That's my new watch face on the left; it's just too darned cool. I've also played around with uploading my exercise file from the watch to the online program. There was some trial and error (on my part), but once I got it working, it worked like a darn. The tracking program looks like it'll be very useful in recording my exercise. I like that I can go in and see info about each of my exercises, including calories, and heart rate percentage.

As to price and where I got it: I ordered it from the Running Room and it was $125 plus tax. The US retail for this watch is $119, so I think it was a pretty good deal. You can also find F6s at any of Polar's dealers, Mountain Equipment Coop (men's only), or Sport Chek.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to take the guess work out of calculating calories burned during a workout. Thanks to this lil' baby, I now know how many activity points I should be recording...and eating!

New find: Lindt dark chocolate bites

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a dark chocolate connoisseur. Sure, I like it, but I don't love it. However, these little packets of 65% Madagascar dark chocolate are sinfully good. There's an exotic flavour to them that hits the right spot. They're small, but they go a long way. I take a good long 10 minutes to savour it.

You can find them in the bulk section of grocery stores. I'm estimating them to be about 1 point each because I'm having a heck of a time finding nutritional information for them. I went with what CalorieKing.com had to say for about 5g. Though I weighed one using my food scale, it's not an exact weight (but it's pretty close).

Me on a Diet Book

So yesterday I finally bought You on a Diet and spent all evening on the couch, in the bedroom, and yes, even in the washroom reading it. It's a very interesting and enlightening book and I'm wondering why I didn't buy it sooner. In a nutshell, it tells you in simple terms the science of hunger and digestion and what goes wrong when you fill your body with crap.

The book is written in a very accessible style. It uses funny metaphors instead of jargon to explain how the body works. I can see how some people might be put off by this style, but I prefer it to techno-babble. I laughed more than a few times!

The only thing so far that I don't like about it is their occasional referrals to you, as the reader. It's hard to explain it, but it's almost a little rude and condescending. I think they were just trying to be funny in a "we're laughing with you, not at you" sort of way. Fortunately, it doesn't happen too often and the rest of the info is more than worth it.

I'm not even a quarter of the way through the book and there were so many lightbulb moments that I've lost track. The biggest thing (no pun intended) I learned is why many health professionals are saying that we should be more concerned with our waist size than our BMI. Part of it has to do with this thing called an omentum that we all have.

Omentum is belly fat and it literally hangs off our stomachs. The bigger it is, the more dangerous to your health it is and the more problems it causes. Take it from me, after seeing their diagram in the book, I'm completely grossed out by the thought of how big my omentum was and how it's still too big.

If you want to know what a normal omentum looks like compared to a big omentum, try the following link (WARNING: GROSS, GRAPHIC, AND TMI, don't say I didn't warn you), courtesy of Oprah. If that isn't an incentive to not to fill your body with crap, I don't know what is. Yuck, yuck, and more yuck.

There's much more to the book than our omentums though. It also talks about inflammation due to poor eating, how our small intestines are like a second brain, the work our poor liver has to go through, and much much more. Presumably the book will also go into what we can do to retrain our eating habits, what to eat, how to exercise and so on. I haven't gotten there yet, so I'm only going by the table of contents.

There's also a diet plan in the back of the book. When I get to that section, I'll see how it meshes with Weight Watchers. I'm hoping it'll give me a better idea of nutrition. I think I'm doing pretty okay with it so far, but I know I can do better. Fortunately, any cravings I've had for 100-calorie packs are entirely squooshed...for now ;)

So far, two thumbs up. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars if I were reviewing it on Amazon.

Review: Kavli 5-grain Crispbread

I found a new cracker at the grocery store. It's made by Kavli, comes in a variety of flavours and is made with all natural ingredients. I tried the ones pictured (5-grain) and they're really tasty. I especially like them because there's no preservatives or anything like that. They're also really thin so they're really crispy. Lastly, they're a good size – about 2.75" by 4.5" each – so even though they're thin, you feel like you're getting a lot. The price wasn't exorbitant either (about $3 for a box).

Best part is, they're low in points! For two of them:

• Calories: 60
• Fat: .5g
• Fibre: 3g

I had them with hummus for my snack today (pictured below). I've also spread Laughing Cow cheese on them for another nummy snack. I can see these as being very versatile. Highly recommended for people who like crispbreads!