Cook Yourself Thin

The day of birthday feasting was great. The herb-roasted chicken and roasted veggies that we had for dinner are from my favorite new cookbook, "Cook Yourself Thin."

MyLifetime.com aired a television show of the same title a few months back and I just loved it. The guest of the week would tell the hostesses/cooks about their favorite dishes. Total calories would be calculated and were ALWAYS way over the number of calories the guest should eat in a day to get to their goal weight. So the hostesses would re-make those recipes, slimming them down to usually around half of the normal calories.

While you can get the recipes online -- here is the link for the Easy Herb-Roasted Chicken and Roasted Veggies -- I love the feel of a book in my hands. Had a Barnes and Noble gift card from Mother's Day to spend, so I ordered one. I have repeatedly made several of the dishes from this cookbook and they are absolutely delicious and do not taste de-calorized (is that a word?).

In addition to the roasted chicken, I can recommend the Turkey Mini-Meatloaves, Green Chile and Chicken Enchiladas and Turkey Chili Crunch (this one might be my very favorite so far). Instead of the chipotle pepper called for, I just use a small can of mild diced chiles and we scoop the soup with Baked Tostitos Scoops. OMG, I can't even begin to tell you how good this is!

A little cupcake heaven

The cupcakes hubby requested for his birthday cake, we saw on an episode of Food Networks's "The Best Thing I Ever Ate: With My Hands." It is a devil's food cupcake (I like the Duncan Hines boxed mix), iced with cream cheese frosting and rolled in sweetened flaked coconut. They are so good! But hubby's favorite part of the show was when the chef (sorry, can't remember her name) made a Cupcake Sandwich ... tear off the bottom of the cupcake, put it on top of the frosting and you have a sandwich with the frosting in the middle. It really is great and fun to do. Little kids, as well as big Old kids love it!!!

This wonderful cream cheese frosting is one of my Mom's recipes:

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 T. butter, softened

1 3-oz. package cream cheese (I used Fat Free and it was just fine)

2 cups confectioners sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Blend until creamy.

Yum!