Consuming Consciousness

I’ve tried just about all the chocolate cheesecake recipes out there, and I was never very impressed. Chocolate is fabulous with cheesecake, but it doesn’t taste nearly as good when it’s actually beaten into the cheese. And I’ve been disappointed in all the cream cheese brownie recipes I’ve tasted, because I never felt like the cheesecake swirl or layer was as good as I know a cheesecake can be. After some experimentation, I’ve come up with something I like a lot better — a dessert that matches a fudge brownie top layer with the creaminess of a fine cheesecake. Unlike other layered cheesecake-brownie recipes out there, I’ve put the cream cheese layer on the bottom, where it belongs, and I bake it for longer than the brownie layer. The result — a perfect cheesecake on the bottom, and perfect fudge brownies on the top. The only challenge is in letting it cool long enough for it to set up perfectly — it smells so good you’ll want to dig in while it’s still warm.

It’s snowing like mad outside, and I felt like baking something savory and aromatic. A quick look in the refrigerator revealed a chunk of cold Camembert that wouldn’t warm up and ripen any time soon, and I was captured by the thought of the flavor of Camembert in a corn muffin. Onions deepened the flavor, and the apples were a last minute inspiration. As muffins go, they’re a miniature cheese and fruit-plate feast.

I’ve also installed a new recipe plugin, which will hopefully make keeping track of my recipes easier. Eventually I’ll transfer all the old ones to the new format, but in the meantime check out the Camembert, Apple & Corn Muffin Recipe!

For such a rich-tasting dish, this has surprisingly few calories and packs a huge protein-wallop. It’s also a one-pot meal, very quick to assemble, and relatively inexpensive for a seafood dish.

Though I love fresh mussels, they’re hard to come by in many U.S. supermarkets, and I rarely have time to wrestle with bearding the beasts before even beginning to get around to preparing dinner. Lately, though, I’ve been finding large bags of frozen, pre-cooked mussels in my local Turkish and Asian markets in Berlin. My guess is that they’re also available in the States. Here they’re quite cheap, and I can feed four people very well for under 10 Euros. I love how easy they are to use — they’re already clean and simply need to be heated through.

Mussels have a powerful flavor and need to be countered by other strong but complementary tastes. In this dish I use a combination of garlic, shallots, chilis and hot peppers and balance it with white wine, cream and orange peel. Any citrus peel would be interesting, and next time I’ll try it with lemon. You can serve these mussels in a bowl like a stew, or spoon them over rice or pasta if you can handle the carbs. (more…)

A heady mixture of tastes and spices, this rich cake and its creamy frosting scream luxury. The cardamom flavor is distinct but not overpowering, and it’s perfectly complemented by the cashews. The cake itself is soft and moist, chock full of carrots and chopped nuts. For the frosting, you make your own cashew buttercream mixture. Though I’ve used only cardamom and cinnamon as spices, you can easily experiment by adding clove, ground coriander, or nutmeg either to the frosting or the cake batter. The cake would also work as well with peanuts as with cashews.

This recipe was inspired by chokylit’s cupcakes, which are lovely but deadly little calorie and fat bombs. I replaced as many of the ingredients as possible with lower-fat and healthier alternatives, including swapping out butter for coconut oil and white flour for spelt flour. It’s by no means a low-calorie dessert, but at 335 calories per rich, filling slice, I think it’s now in the realm of possibility for folks looking to control their intake. (more…)

Salmon, cream cheese and avocado! What could taste richer? This is a quick and tasty snack for lunch, hungry kids, or company.

The calorie count is figured without the sesame crackers, since they vary a great deal from brand to brand. It is also calculated with low-fat cream cheese and regular mayonnaise, so you can reduce it if you use a non-fat cream cheese and a low-fat mayo. (more…)

Since childhood I’ve had an inexplicable emotional attachment to grape soda. Unfortunately, like other sodas, the commercial brands are unbelievably high in sugar, as well as low on natural grape juice. Some studies came out in the last couple of years, though, suggesting drinking grape juice lowers your risk of heart disease. Apparently, it works just like red wine, helping you avoid blood clots, reduce bad cholesterol, preventing damage to blood vessels in your heart, and helping maintain healthy blood pressure.

Naturally this inspired me to rethink the grape soda issue, and I’ve come up with an alternative. It’s so simple it doesn’t require a formal recipe. Just combine 1 cup grape juice with 4 cups of mineral water and the juice of one lemon, and you’ll have 2 servings of a refreshing, sparkling drink. Each serving has only 50 calories and gives you 78% of your daily requirement of Vitamin C. The best juice for your heart is made from the dark purple Concord grapes.

[Note: For the carbohydrate counters among us, there are 13.0g total carbohydrates, 11.5g of which are sugar.]

I love smoked fish, but it’s usually too expensive for me to buy. However, lately I’ve been seeing packages of smoked fish in the deli sections of many of the less up-scale supermarkets, and I’ve been buying smoked trout this way. In my part of the world it costs about a dollar an ounce. Yeah, I know that amounts to sixteen bucks a pound, which could hardly be called economic, but you don’t need more than two ounces to get the full benefits of the wonderful taste of smoked fish. And the rest of the ingredients in this dish are inexpensive, so you can feel like you’re living in the lap of luxury while not breaking the bank.

This recipe stretches an eighth of a pound of smoked fish to feed four on a lunch menu, or to serve six people as a side salad. It’s also low enough in calories that you can have a big, satisfying bowl and still add less than 350 to your daily total. And they’re good calories too: 21.4 grams of protein per serving, and only 7.2g of fat, most of it from the fish. You’ll meet 25% of your daily needs for Vitamin A, calcium and iron in a single serving, and over 80% of your Vitamin C needs. All that and it tastes fabulous, too! (more…)

This is an exceptionally rich and mild chocolate mole (though of course you can heat it up with cayenne). It’s my favorite sauce for grilled turkey or chicken breast, and it also goes wonderfully with rice or vegetables. I make a large batch because it takes time to cook and it freezes well. From beginning to end, the cooking process is about three hours long, but your active contribution is less than one hour. It’s on a day off, when you don’t want to fuss too much in the kitchen, but you’d like to fill the house with delicious smells. At less than 120 calories per serving, this is an exceptional treat. (more…)

There’s nothing like a cold bowl of gazpacho on a warm day. It’s great for you, packed full of vitamins, and unbelievably low-calorie. This version is so easy to make that if you have some vegetables and a blender, you can set it on the table, ready to eat in about 15 minutes. But don’t be in a hurry; gazpacho tastes best after it sits in the refrigerator for about 4 hours, letting the flavors mellow and mingle. Dish yourself up a large bowl and enjoy feeling both healthy and fully satiated. (more…)

I love carrot-ginger soup, but most recipes call for an unacceptable amount of expensive and unhealthy butter and cream. After experimenting, I found a way to achieve the right level of creaminess using low-fat yogurt. At less than 200 calories per serving this is a hearty lunch or a satisfying appetizer. (more…)