When I got the latest issue of Cooking light, I was tantalized by their “Secrets of Juicy Healthy Burgers” headline. One of the recipes was for a turkey burger with roasted eggplant puree. Sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a try. And boy am I glad I did. I was easily the best turkey burger I’ve ever had. By far. I’d take one of these over a hamburger any day.

The secret ingredient is marmite. Marmite is a concentrated yeast paste found in supermarket baking aisles and health-food stores. Just a quarter teaspoon, but man did it make a huge flavor impact. And the eggplant puree itself gave the burgers a fantastic moist consistency. All around and A+.

My modifications to their recipe included using lean ground turkey (7% fat) instead of grinding my own, and I used the whole eggplant. Not sure why they recommend skinning it, but the skin ads great color and nutrients to the dish.

I served them on EarthGrains Thin Buns, with some arugula and tomato. Mmmmmm. I want another.

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• 3 tbs shredded “three cheese” Italian cheese blend (something with a little more moisture than just parm)
• 3 tsp minced garlic
• 9 medium portabello mushrooms (approx 2.5 inches)
• 3 tbs real crumbled bacon (I used Hormel premade bacon bits, it the salad dressing aisle)
• 1 tsp low sodium soy sauce
• 3 cups raw baby spinach, chopped
• 2/3 cup Trader Joes Greek style yogurt (plain, 0%)
• 1 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

Strain yogurt for at least 2 hours in a cheese cloth to remove moisture. You should end up with about 1/2 cup of “yogurt cheese” when it’s done. If you’re making real yogurt cheese, you should let it sit over night, but for this purpose, 2 hours is plenty.

Wash the mushrooms and remove the stems without breaking the caps. Finely chop the stems, and saute them with the garlic, vinegar and soy sauce over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add the spinach and cook until it wilted and there is no more liquid in the pan. Remove from the heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

Once the mushroom/spinach mixture has cooled to room temperature, stir in the yogurt cheese, bacon, blue cheese, and Italian cheese. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Spray a baking dish with olive oil non-stick spray and sprinkle the bottom of the dish with garlic salt. Stuff each mushroom cap with 1-2 tablespoons of the filling and place into the baking dish.

Bake for 25 minues at 350, or until tender. Let them sit for a few minutes to set before serving. Yields: 9 mushrooms; 2-3 servings

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Now that fall is here, I often find myself craving a steaming hot bowl of soup. One of my absolute favorites is a modified Italian Wedding Soup. Reminds me of grandma’s house (but without all the fat and carbs of her recipe!)

First, a little history lesson for you. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know where “Italian Wedding Soup” got it’s name. I just kinda assumed the obvious. But I have since learned that what we call “Italian wedding soup” in the United States is a mistranslation of the soup’s proper name “Minestra Mariata,” or “married soup.”

It is so called because all the ingredients “si sposano,” they “marry” (or blend) well together, hence the name “Minestra Maritata.” Somewhere along the way someone translated it as “Wedding Soup.” If you thought (as I did) that Italians serve this soup at weddings: They don’t.

Ok, now on with the show….

My modified version of Italian wedding soup is low cal, low carb, and obviously high protein. And it’s very satisfying! The secret here is the wheat bran. I used to make the meatballs without any sort of carbohydrate “filler” like breadcrumbs, but the meatballs turned out too firm (especially when you use the extra lean meat).

Ingredients:

• 1.25 pounds extra lean ground turkey
• .5 cup wheat bran
• .25 cup reduced fat Parmesan cheese (the powdered kind)
• .25 cup egg beaters
• .5 teaspoon garlic salt
• .5 teaspoon onion salt
• pepper to taste
• 6 cups fat free chicken stock
• .5 of a 10 oz bag of frozen spinach (loose leaf, not the boxed kind)
• 1 bag shirataki noodles (any of the tiny sizes… I use “tiny pasta” from Konjac foods)

In a large pot, bring the broth to a boil. Mix together the ground turkey, wheat bran, cheese, egg, salt, and pepper. Make into mini meatballs, I like mine about .75 inches in diameter. Drop the meatballs into the boiling broth and top with the frozen spinach and cover. Give the pot about 5 minutes to heat back up to almost boiling and then reduce heat to medium and cook for about 5 additional minutes. Toss in RINSED shirataki pasta and remove from heat. Let sit for at least 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with a little bit of parmesan cheese and enjoy!

Makes about 5 generous bowls. Comes in just under 220 cals, 25 protein, and 2 usable carbs per bowl.

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Smart Snacker Raspberry Fiber Cakes

So, my dad turned me on to a new snack…. Zen Bakery Fiber Cakes. Horrible name for a delicious, healthy, bran muffin. They’re small, compared to “normal” muffins, but they’re very satisfying.

I’d been eating two a day, one for breakfast and one for a snack later in the day. They’re kind of expensive, though. Almost $6 for a package of 6 cakes. I figured that I could probably make some at home, and save myself some money.

First problem: I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how they managed to get 13 grams of fiber into those little cakes. Based on their ingredient list (bran, water, white grape, whole wheat flour, blueberries, bicarbonate and salt), it just didn’t seem possible. No matter what the proportions, there just isn’t THAT much fiber in bran.

So, I thought… what about a fiber supplement? You know, the powder that dissolves in water that you see advertised on TV? I’ve used it before to add some extra fiber to my diet by mixing it into yogurt and soup. It really is tasteless and doesn’t change the consistency of the food. So, I gave it a try.

On my first attempt, I ended up with a good muffin. Definitely on par with the Zen Bakery ones. But I thought I could do better.

On my second attempt: OH MY GOD!! They were incredible. So, I share with you all my creation.

Smart Snacker Raspberry Fiber Cakes

Dry Ingredients:

• 2.5 cups wheat bran
• .5 cup buckwheat flour
• 5 tbsp soy protein
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 tsp Splenda brown sugar mix

Wet Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup water
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 4 tbsp sugar free Torani syrup, raspberry flavor
• 1.5 cup frozen raspberries, crushed
• 12 tsp fiber supplement (yes, not a wet ingredient, but you dissolve it in water before mixing)

Mix all the dry ingredients (except the fiber and Splenda) in a large bowl and set aside. Dissolve the fiber supplement in the water called for in the recipe and stir until completely dissolved. Then add the rest of the wet ingredients to the water/fiber mixture, except for the raspberries. Combine dry and wet ingredients and mix well. Then add in the raspberries (I crushed them so they were more evenly dispersed in the mix. But you can keep them whole, if you’d prefer.)

Scoop 1/3 cup wet mix into 12 muffin tins greased with a bit of pam. Top each muffin with 1 whole raspberry (just to make them pretty) and sprinkle with 1/2 tsp of the Splenda brown sugar. (If you’re really watching your carbs, you can leave the Splenda off and save yourself 2.5 carbs and 10 calories.)

Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Let cool for about 10 minutes and then turn them out onto a cooling rack.

They’re absolutely delicious still warm out of the oven.

Nutrition Info (per muffin): 95 calories, 1 g fat, 23 g carbs, 12 g fiber, 4 g protein.

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Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower
12 medium portobella mushroom caps
.75 cup reduced fat blue cheese (Treasure Cove)
4 tablespoons real bacon bits (hormel’s 50% less fat)
3 ounces fat free cream cheese
Garlic salt
Spray balsamic salad dressing

I chopped the cauliflower and put it into my steamer for about 20 minutes.

While that was steaming, I washed the mushrooms and removed the stems and placed them on a cookie sheet. I sprayed them with balsamic salad dressing (wish bone), sprinkled some garlic salt over the top, and put them in the oven to bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.

Then I pureed the cauliflower in my food processor, and added the cream cheese, blue cheese, bacon bits, and a bit more garlic salt. I took the half-baked mushrooms out of the oven and generously packed them with the cauliflower mixture and returned them to the oven for about 25 minutes.

They turned out SO good. Even nice and browned on top. I was worried that there would be too much moisture from the cauliflower, but there was just enough cheese to hold them together perfectly. I used the medium mushroom caps, as I wanted to eat them as a meal. But I’m sure if you used baby bella’s they’d make great appetizers!

I wish I took pictures. Maybe next time.

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