A Few of My Favorite Things

The hubby cooked last night and he says his recipe is a "secret," so no recipes today. He made ribs, by the way, and they were fantastic.

Since I am not able to provide a recipe...and since I am TOTALLY bored at work, I thought I would blog about some of my favorite things....snacks, ingredients, tools, etc.

Snacks

So, we have been trying to eat more low carb, high fiber, low fat snacks. Here are some we love.

True North Nut Clusters

These are so delicious! I buy at least 1 large bag at Sams club every week. They are organic and there is only cane syrup as a sweetner. Makes these a low carb snack full of the "good fats."

Fiber One Granola Bars- Oats & Chocolate

My cousin has a blog that helps save you money (savingyoudinero.com). She has posts where you can free samples from time to time. One of the samples I got was a Fiber One kit with this granola bar. Now I am not a huge fan of Fiber One cereal, so I was pretty skeptical. I tried it and was blown away with how delicious it was! I kept dreaming of eating some more of it. Each bar has 9 grams of fiber...so it is a pretty healthy snack, at least I like to think so.

Emerald Cocoa Roasted Almonds
Yes, I know it's another nut snack, but these are just so good. They have a chocolate powder on the outside of the nut and they taste pretty similar to oreo cookies. SO good!

Crystal Light

This just makes water so much more enjoyable. I only use half of the on the go packs for a bottle of water; otherwise it is too strong for me. I truly do find myself drinking more water when I am having Crystal Light. I am trying to get my hubby to switch from soda to crystal light.





Ingredients

There are those ingredients that you turn to almost every time you cook. We have a few choice ones that I would like to share.



Tones Garlic Powder

This ingredient gets used just about every day. I LOVE garlic. My husband likes the flavor, but not the bits of garlic when you use fresh. For a compromise, we use this. This brand is the most flavorful I have ever used. In the past, I have tried other brands, but they lack much flavor and you need to use a lot, but not this product. In fact, on the back it even tells you how much to use in comparison to if you were using real garlic.



Splenda
I use Splenda to sweeten drinks, bake, etc. I am on the fence about how I feel about using artificial sweetners, but switching from regular sodas and sweet teas to those sweetened with Splenda helped me lose a lot of weight.



Hidden Valley Light Ranch
The only Ranch dressing I like (besides from restaurants) is Hidden Valley. The light is so delicious you wouldn't even be able to tell it was light. I use this every day on salads for lunch. I also use it in place of egg when I am breading chicken. I marinate the chicken in the ranch dressing, then bread with seasoned flour and bake. It comes out so delicious. My hubby always asks me to make this for him.



Oven Fry

My husband doesn't each much fish, but he loves fried catfish. I am certainly not going to fry anything because of the extra fat, and the mess. When we found this product, it was a great compromise. The coating comes out so crispy and delicious. It is so easy to use. Just moisten the fish (you can rinse it or use milk or egg), then coat with the seasoning and place on baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes and viola, dinner is done!


Dreamfields Pasta
This pasta is a low carb pasta. You could certainly never tell. It looks, smells, and tastes just like normal pasta. I make so many sides for my hubby using this pasta. According to some websites, you shouldn't cook the pasta in the sauce as it allows it to "release" the carbs. Same thing goes for overcooking.

McCormick Grill Mates Barbecue Seasoning
We love this seasoning. It is so delicious on chicken, ribs, pork chops. I also make barbeque wings at times using this seasoning.