Savory 'n Sweet - Cheesecake

. “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/

Photo by Payton Tuttle on Unsplash

Light  Creamy Cheesecake

Ingredients:
3 large eggs, or ¾ cup liquid egg substitute
3 cups (765 g) nonfat plain Greek yogurt
1 (1 oz) small box instant sugar free/fat free cheesecake or vanilla pudding mix  or 3/4 cup of homemade instant pudding mix.
1 teaspoon lemon extract
​1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons Lakanto Monkfruit/Erythritol sugar - **If using homemade instant pudding mix, increase to 1/2 cup.

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk together all the ingredients except pudding mix. Then stir in dry pudding mix  until thoroughly combined.

Pour into eight, lightly greased small ramekins or a 9” pie dish or springform pan.

Bake ramekins for 15 minutes, pan for 30 minutes. (It may look a bit wobbly on top. That wobbliness turns into creaminess once chilled.)

Let cool completely before covering and chilling in  the refrigerator. Best eaten when completely chilled.

Cheese cake recipe adapted from Lindsay Kel’s marvelous website, The Pound Dropper.

**You'll find the recipe for homemade instant pudding mix at https://www.foodiewithfamily.com/homemade-no-cook-instant-pudding-mix-make-ahead-mondays/