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Sweet Ideas for Your Sweet Tooth
Sometimes after a great meal, nothing sounds better than a sweet sugary conclusion. Servers are always quick to offer dessert or coffee, and stray pieces of candy around the house can be extremely tempting. Fortunately, not all desserts are disastrous for your diet, and some are super easy to make at home. Though some are high in sugars, fruit-based desserts are good choices. Cobbler is traditionally made with flour and butter, but eatingwell.com suggests simply substituting flour with whole-wheat flour and canola oil for butter to make the dish more calorie-friendly. Apple is the best choice when picking from fruits for desserts. Apples have high nutritional value and freeze well for leftovers or if you are cooking in advance for something. Ice cream is a largely popular dessert but unfortunately is detrimental to a diet, especially when consumed in large servings (…guilty). Luckily, www.thekitchen.com offers a delicious alternative to traditional ice cream with one simple and nutritious ingredient – bananas! To make this treat, simply put a few ripe bananas in the freezer. Once the banana is frozen solid, blend it well and enjoy. The consistency should be creamy like custard. Similar to vanilla ice cream, the flavor can be altered to your liking by adding a spoonful of peanut butter, cinnamon sugar or some chocolate chips. Speaking of cinnamon, the spice is not only delicious but also has many health benefits. Cinnamon has been linked to lowering cholesterol and has a tendency to regulate blood sugar. Healthdiaries.com says cinnamon and honey were shown to help seniors with arthritis pain as well. It also has been suggested to help preserve foods because it fights certain bacteria. Cinnamon has also been shown to prevent the reproduction of specific cancer cells. So while some desserts are too tasty to avoid no matter how unhealthy they are, if they have cinnamon then they may be doing your body some good! Chocolate is a huge hurdle for some on their road to healthier eating. Chocolate may taste fantastic and provide appealing side effects because of its role as an aphrodisiac, but it is still high in sugar and not very healthy or slimming. Substituting some chocolate for its healthy counterpart, unsweetened cocoa, is a surprisingly delectable decision and can cut a desserts calorie count significantly. Nuts can also be used in cookies to substitute chocolate chips. Obviously pecans don’t have the same rich taste as chocolate, but they are a healthy snack and contain lots of omega-3 acids and vitamins that are good for your heart. Finally Mark Bittman, one of my favorite food writers, who writes for the New York Times, suggests a recipe for a dessert that may not sound appetizing but is amazing! Bittman’s recipe is a mixture of ice cream, apples and – bacon! Yes, it is not the healthiest option, but this recipe is too cool to not share and does have the apples to give it at least one healthier aspect. Bittman’s ice cream is also super easy to make at home. Start by cooking the bacon and finely chopping it. Then caramelize it with a few tablespoons of sugar and remove the bacon from the pan to a paper towel. Then take a few sliced apples, put them in the same pan used to cook the bacon and caramelize those with sugar as well on high heat until lightly browned. Combine the apples and bacon with some vanilla ice cream and you’re done. The hot and sugary apples and bacon paired with cool clean ice cream is a perfect combination.
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