On those days when your body is screaming for a sweet dessert but your mind is trying to keep you focussed on you diet/weight maintenance/management routine…I have the perfect solution:

No Pudge Brownies!

I will tell you right now they are not an equal replacement to a regular full-fat and calorie brownie, but they sure are good. And they couldn’t be easier to make – just combine the mix with non-fat vanilla yogurt and bake. Easy! They also give you the measurements if you want to bake just one brownie to get your fix without baking (and possibly eating) an entire batch.

And here are the facts – only 120 calories for one brownie!

You’re welcome.

After a weekend away filled with skiing and apres-ski snacking, my husband and I got home Monday night needing a light, quick, and delicious meal.

I’ll start this post by telling/showing you the end of our adventure – a scrumptious meal of handmade shrimp and mascarpone cheese-filled ravioli with a truffle butter/white wine sauce.

And here is the tale of our adventure:

We began by rolling out pasta dough to the #4 thickness setting on our pasta maker. We used our basic recipe for pasta dough.

We then put small spoon fulls of the shrimp mascarpone cheese filling onto the dough, laid out on a generously floured board.

Filling recipe for 1/2 lb of ravioli

from Roberta Dowling, Cambridge School of Culinary Arts

½ Tbs unsalted butter
½ Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 Tbs brandy
2 Tbs white wine
½ lb shrimp, chopped
½ lb mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
1 egg, beaten
1 Tsp dried basil
s&p
Pinch nutmeg

Heat butter and olive oil in a large skillet. Add shallots and cook until soft and translucent, about 3 minutes. Remove pan from heat and add brandy. Turning pan away from you, carefully light with match to flambe. Add white wine and cook until reduced to syrup-like consistency, about 10 minutes. Add shrimp meat, cooking until just warmed through. Remove from heat and place into a large mixing bowl and allow to cool.

In a medium bowl, combine mascarpone cheese with beaten eggs, basil, nutmeg and salt and pepper, to taste. Add to shrimp and shallot mixture and combine well. Taste to adjust seasoning. Cover and set aside.

We then brushed egg whites around the filling to prep for the top dough. The egg whites bound the dough together and sealed in the filling.

We pressed the top into bottom by hand, letting any air escape.

Then we hand cut raviolis with a cutter.

And voila – beautiful, handmade raviolis!

We then cooked them in plenty of boiling water for 5 to 7 minutes, or until they floated to the top. Tip: pour a tiny bit of olive oil into the water so the raviolis don’t stick together while cooking.

Then we made the quick truffle butter white wine sauce:

Melt 1. 5 oz. of truffle butter (you can find truffle butter at Whole Foods, it’s a little pricey but delicious and worth it) and 1.5 oz. of unsalted butter over medium heat. Add about 1 Tbs of white wine and lemon juice and cook about 3 minutes. Pour over plated ravioli. Last, we sprinkled a little parsley and Parmesan cheese on top. Delicious!

To ring in the New Year, we made mini donuts this morning for breakfast – they came out so cute!

You need a mini donut maker for this recipe.

Basic Donut Batter Recipe (makes 5 to 8 mini donuts)
from Sunbeam

Donuts
3/4C flour
1/4C sugar
3/4 Tsp baking powder
4 1/2 Tbs melted butter
3/8 C milk
1/2 a lightly beaten egg

Chocolate Glaze
1/2C confectioners sugar
1 Tbs milk
1/4C cocoa powder

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Whisk in butter, milk, and egg until a smooth batter is formed. Pour into min donut maker, close lid and cook for 6 minutes. *We flip the donuts after 6 minutes and then cook an additional 1 or 2 minutes.

For glaze, mix ingredients all together. Decorate donuts and enjoy with a hot cup of coffee!

Happy New Year!

Flour strands of fettuccine so they don’t stick together while you’re making the whole batch of pasta.

A 1/2lb of pasta will only need about 4 mins to cook. Here it is with homemade meatballs, my favorite sauce, and a little sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

These muffins are so delicious and were just the perfect treat to eat before we opened gifts on Christmas Morning. The center layer of streusel combined with the moist cake make them scrumptious!

Coffee Cake Muffins
from Martha Stewart Living

Streusel Topping
1C packed dark-brown sugar
1C all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1/2 Tsp salt
1/2 Tsp ground cinnamon
1/2C (1 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Muffins
1/2C (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature plus more for pans
1 3/4C all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans
2 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp baking soda
1C sour cream
1C granulated sugar
1 Tsp pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
Confectioners’ sugar, optional

Prepare streusel topping:
In a medium bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour, and salt. With a pastry blender or two knives, cut in butter until mixture resembles large coarse crumbs; refrigerate until ready to use.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare muffins:
Butter and flour a jumbo 12-cup muffin tin (or two 6-cup muffin tins). In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together butter, sour cream, granulated sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well combined. With mixer on low, beat flour mixture into butter mixture. Divide half the batter among prepared muffin cups. Top with half the streusel mixture, then remaining batter, and top with streusel. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with confectioners’ sugar, if desired.

Cioppino is a delicious tomato-based fish stew originating in San Francisco and I just LOVE it. I’m sharing Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe with you because it’s quick, easy, and one of the most delicious homemade versions we’ve made. I half this recipe and it’s still a lot of soup!

Note: Cioppino recipes call for a ton of different fishes, and when cooking for 2 as my husband and I often are, it’s impractical to buy all those different kinds of fish. Well, Trader Joe’s sells a “mixed fish” bag in their frozen section that includes baby shrimp, calamari, scallops, which is a great place to start with this recipe. Then buy a little bit of white fish and a few mussels and you’re good to go!
Cioppino
from Giada De Laurentiis

3 Tb olive oil
1 large fennel bulb, thinly sliced
1 onion, chopped
3 lg shallots, chopped
2 Tsp salt
4 lg garlic cloves, finely chopped
3/4 Tsp dried crushed red pepper flakes, plus more to taste
1/4 C tomato paste 1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes in juice
1 1/2 C dry white wine
5 C fish stock
1 bay leaf
4 1/2 lbs fish (clams, mussels, shrimp, halibut)

Heat the oil in a very large pot over medium heat. Add the fennel, onion, shallots, and salt and saute until the onion is translucent, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and 3/4 teaspoon of red pepper flakes, and saute 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste. Add tomatoes with their juices, wine, fish stock and bay leaf. Cover and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer until the flavors blend, about 30 minutes.

Add the clams and mussels to the cooking liquid. Cover and cook until the clams and mussels begin to open, about 5 minutes. Add the shrimp and fish. Simmer gently until the fish and shrimp are just cooked through, and the clams are completely open, stirring gently, about 5 minutes longer (discard any clams and mussels that do not open). Season the soup, to taste, with more salt and red pepper flakes.

*I know I use a lot of recipes from Giada De Laurentiis – she has a lot of great recipes that have few ingredients, are easy to make, and taste like you’ve been cooking for hours when really you’ve only been in the kitchen for like 20 minutes.