AIM Food: Its All in a Day

In discussing what our next post was going to be, someone came up with the great idea of discussing food, and each of us would take one meal, and kind of make it like a progressive dinner, only it would be individual meals served throughout a single day. So you gotta know how excited I was about this challenge! First, its about food, right? And then, its about planning to have an entire day of food with my very good blog buddies. I would so love it if this were real and not imaginary. If you’d like to follow along with us throughout the day, start with Shelley, who is serving us breakfast.

I was assigned dessert (thank you, Lori! I was just trying to be polite by not nabbing it first thing.) And then I had to obsess over what I would serve my friends. What would be pleasing to all of them, and still fit into our “maintenance” food plan? Several things came to mind immediately. I wanted to include fruit, because its just a great season for fruit. And even though I use artificial sweeteners (Splenda) liberally myself, I’m pretty careful about not offering that to other people–a lot of people don’t like the taste of artificial sweeteners. So I needed a recipe that would use a minimal amount of sugar or honey to sweeten it.

My first plan was to make these little honey and coconut bites. They are absolutely delicious, although a bit energy dense (code for small serving with higher calories.) And then I thought I’d simply serve some fresh fruit with this fruit dip. I thought it was a good pairing.

So I went to the farmer’s market this morning to get some strawberries and peaches. (Yes, I was taking this challenge very literally!) I thought those particular fruits would be terrific with the dip. When I finally got to the market, there were only blackberries and nectarines left. So I got those, and headed home. On the way home, I started thinking again. They weren’t exactly what I’d had in mind. What could I make that would use these two fruit?

Bong bong bong!!! I could make that healthy fruit crisp. It is such a simple recipe, only has 127 calories per serving, and comes out perfect every time. I know people like it. And hello? It calls for granola as a topping! I could use Shelley’s Hippie Granola!

You cook the fruit first

 

And then you add the granola and cook just a little longer.

Oh and then–you gotta have ice cream with a fruit crisp. But of course, I wanted it to be frozen yogurt. Because hello? Most of us talk a lot about frozen yogurt. I’ve even enjoyed a trip to the froyo shop with both Shelley and Cammie!. So I got out my Cuisinart ice cream maker recipe book, and there is a very simple recipe for a low calorie peach frozen yogurt–perfect!

The finished crisp!

And while I actually made the fruit crisp (it can double as a breakfast topping for my regular morning yogurt,) you’re gonna have to imagine the froyo, because, alas, my friends are not actually coming over for dessert, and that is just a little too much good food to have in my house at one time! I will definitely make it at a later date this summer! The recipe is so simple–only three ingredients–a can of peaches packed in their own juice, 2 cups of vanilla low-fat yogurt, and 1/3 cup of sugar. It comes out to 110 calories per 1/2 cup serving.

Here’s the list of all of my AIM friends:

Lynn @ Lynn’s Weigh

Lori @ Finding Radiance

Shelley @ My Journey to Fit

Cammy @ The Tippy Toe Diet