. “Life tastes better after a slice of cheesecake!”
-Jason Shaw

In October of 2019 I stepped off the bathroom scale and acknowledged that I had gained back all the weight I lost the year before. It was a depressing realization. What was the point of going to the considerable effort of losing weight if I was just going to gain it back?

I thought about how good I felt in my clothes the year that I lost weight, compared with how dowdy I felt after the weight gain, and vowed to do it differently. I would find a way to lose the weight and not gain it back.

Enter the Weight Watcher’s app for my smartphone.

It is now six months and sixteen pounds later and I have reached my goal weight. What’s more Peter has lost almost forty pounds. The Weight Watcher’s combination of tracking food eaten by assigning point values to foods, along with lots of free zero-point foods, really works for us.

Still, it wasn’t easy getting my inner child on board.

This is how the conversation went between me and my inner child.

Me, “We’re going on a diet. We’re going to lose weight and keep it off.”

Inner Child, looking a little pudgy, pushes out her lower lip, plants her hands on her hips and stomps her foot. “We are not! No way! I’m not going to starve again.” She pulls a protest sign out from behind her back and holds it up. It shows the word DIET written in large, childish block letters, with a bright red X scrawled over it. She marches around the room chanting, “No more deprivation! No more deprivation!”

Me, admiring her vocabulary and wheedling, “You can have dessert.”

Inner Child, stops marching and looks back at me over her shoulder, “I can?”

Me – “Yup, you can even have cheesecake.”

Inner Child – “Can I have cheesecake for breakfast?”

You see what I have to deal with here.

Eventually, with Inner Child on board and the Weight Watchers app on my phone and firmly in hand, we did it. We even got Peter signed up. The rest is history.

Now, on to the cheesecake. Ok, it’s not technically cheese – cake. It is made with yogurt, fat free Greek yogurt, to be precise. The taste is lighter than traditional cheese cake made with cream cheese because there isn’t the usual fat. But the texture is spot on, and it is delicious.

Fat free Greek yogurt has become one of my go to foods. It is free on Weight Watcher’s, meaning it doesn’t cost me any points. Eggs, another main ingredient in this recipe, are also free.

Then there is Lakanto Monk Fruit/Erythritol sugar substitute, also zero points. It is by far the best-tasting of the sugar substitutes out there, with little to no aftertaste. What’s more it is the only one (and I’ve tried most of them over the years) that doesn’t give me intestinal discomfort or heart burn.

(BTW, I’m not affiliated with Lakanto, they just make an excellent product. I’m not affiliated with Weight Watcher’s either, but I really like their system and the app.)

There is a lot of controversy about sugar substitutes, and for good reason.

Sugar free pudding mixes are not what I would call a healthy food and I wouldn’t recommend regular consumption. I wish they would come out with one that is made with erythritol as the sweetener. **

Studies have shown that erythritol is not detrimental to long-term health. What’s more, some studies have shown that it acts as an antioxidant in the body and may even improve blood vessel function.

Back to cheesecake.

The combination of fat-free Greek yogurt, eggs, pudding mix, sweetener and flavoring, with the addition of heat from the oven, bakes up into a wonderfully light tasting, smooth and creamy rendition of cheesecake. Top it with a small amount of light whipped cream and some berries and you have a delicious dessert that your Inner Child will love.

You might even allow her to have it for a special breakfast. There are eggs in there after all.
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*For more information on the Weight Watcher’s app go to https://www.weightwatchers.com/us/how-it-works/ww-app
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**I usually make my own instant pudding mix. I substitute  Lakanto Monkfruit/Erythritol sugar 1:1 for the sugar in the recipe.  You'll find the recipe at https://www.foodiewithfamily.com/homemade-no-cook-instant-pudding-mix-make-ahead-mondays/

"Let's face it, a nice, creamy chocolate cake does a lot for a lot of people; it does for me!"
-Audrey Hepburn

Last week there were six birthdays of various family members and friends, one of them my own. In celebration I want to share with you the recipe for my all-time favorite birthday cake.
 
I originally had this moist and delicious chocolate experience at my husband’s parent’s home, baked by Louise, my much loved and lamented mother-in law.
 
The derivation of the name of this cake comes from a wonderful story related to me by Charlie, my father-in-law.
 
Years ago, Charlie and Louise went to their favorite seafood restaurant to celebrate Louise’s 71st birthday. This restaurant offered $10 off the dinner of anyone celebrating their birthday, on the date, with proof of date of birth.
 
That same day another couple were celebrating a birthday. The husband was 92 years old that day.
 
Charlie and Louise, always friendly, struck up a conversation with the couple and wished the elderly gentlemen a very happy birthday.
 
Going to their own table, they enjoyed their meal. When it was time to pay the bill, Louise looked in her purse for her license to prove that it actually was the day of her birthday and receive their $10 off. No license. She had switched purses and left her license in her other purse.
 
Louise, with her usual aplomb, met the situation with self-deprecating humor. They paid the full bill and stopped to tell the elderly couple all about it on their way out.
 
The 89 year-old wife looked at Charlie and said, “Isn’t she worth the $10?”
 
Without hesitation Charlie answered, “I wouldn’t give you a dollar for another one, but I wouldn’t take a million for her!”

​What a guy!
 
This recipe is a ringer for that original chocolate masterpiece. It is adapted from the website Sweetapolita.

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” 
 - James Beard

Here’s the recipe I told you about in our first Savory ‘n Sweet blog posting. This is the ABSOLUTE BEST gluten-free multi-grain bread recipe I’ve tried, and believe me when I say I’ve tried a lot.

When I decided to give up wheat, I was able to find delicious alternatives for most of my favorite baked goods. Either I was able to buy something ready-made or more usually I was able to find recipes that I could bake myself.

The black hole in my culinary world was a gluten-free alternative to fragrant, dense and delicious home-made whole grain bread. I tried the breads available in whole foods markets. Without exception they tasted more like starchy cardboard than bread.

I felt like Julia Child when she said, “How can a nation be great if their bread tastes like kleenex?” 

I then tried countless recipes I found on-line. Some were passable, but tended to be more like white bread than whole grain. I was looking for a bread that had some nutritive value to it as well as wonderful heft and flavor.

After many discouraging attempts I happened upon treasure - a recipe for whole grain teff bread. I tried the recipe purely out of curiosity about teff flour (which by the way, is delicious) and was astounded. Here was the fragrant, deeply flavorful, moist, multi-grain bread I’d been searching for.  

OK now we were cooking!

Sadly, I’ve been unable to find that original recipe on-line so that I may give the author the thanks they are due. So, I’ll send my thanks on a prayer off into the ethers, with a blessing added in for many delightful baking experiences to come. Thank you whoever you are!

Now I had found my master recipe. Through additional experimentation I discovered that I could substitute any combination of whole grain, gluten-free flours that appealed to me and it still came out deliciously moist, fragrant and satisfying.

Here is the recipe I settled on as my favorite. This is the bread I bake every week. It is fragrant, flavorful, full of holes and heft. I use it for toast, for sandwiches, for croutons, for bread crumbs and for anything else I can think up. What's more, a warm, fragrant loaf of this bread is always a hit at pot-lucks.

Although this is a yeast-raised bread (with the attendant delicious fragrance and flavor) it is a snap to mix up. The dough is scooped directly into the bread pan for rising. No kneading necessary.

Not so long ago a wonderful friend gave me a bread pan worth its weight in gold. It is specifically intended for baking gluten free bread. It has ridged sides that support the sponge as it rises, and makes for a perfect rise without the concave center that so often happens in gluten-free baking. If you love to bake as I do, and love home-baked bread it would be a worthwhile purchase for you.

Here is a link to where you can purchase it.
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A tip - as soon as you remove the bread from the oven, immediately flip it upside down onto a cooling rack, and cool for 30 minutes upside down. This will allow the bread to firm up before you remove it from the pan and prevent the top from caving in slightly. As you can see from the picture above I forgot to do this and the top is slightly concave!

Without further ado, here’s the recipe, along with several yummy variations. Wait till you see how flexible this recipe is!