Monday, June 8, 2009

Health Stealth

Today I felt like quite the sneaky little stealth in the kitchen. Not at all in a bad way—it was actually quite good. How you ask? I put on my bandana and turned into the Health Stealth complete with the sneaky attitude. My mission? To turn a heavy casserole into a complete light dish without family members being able to tell the difference. Did this stealthy healthy move work out as planned? Follow along today’s journey in the kitchen to find out..

Sinless Apple Sausage Strada

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Original Recipe Stats

Nutrition facts per serving:
  • Servings Per Recipe 8 servings
  • Calories 325
  • Total Fat (g) 13
  • Saturated Fat (g) 6
  • Cholesterol (mg) 194
  • Sodium (mg) 692
  • Carbohydrate (g) 35
  • Fiber (g) 3
  • Protein (g) 18

My Stealthy Healthy Stats

Nutrition facts per serving:

  • Serving Per Recipe 8 servings
  • Calories 134.7 (Cut calories by 60%)
  • Total Fat (g) 4.7 (Cut fat grams by over 70%!)
  • Saturated Fat (g) 1.9 (Took care of most of this)
  • Cholesterol (mg) 62.2 (This went down over half)
  • Sodium (mg) 279.5(Always look for ways to slash sodium)
  • Carbohydrate (g) 14.3 (Say see ya to over 1/2 the carbs)
  • Fiber (g) 1.8 (Tried to retain as much as I could)
  • Protein (g) 9 (Cut in 1/2, but still a hefty 9 grams per slice)

I’m sure your wondering how in the heck I made such drastic(and healthy)improvements.You can check out the original recipe here. To start off, instead of using the Italian loaf bread it called for to make breadcrumbs, I figured why have empty white bread that is not at all filling. So instead I used Healthy Choice Hearty 7 Grain Bread and cubed up my own breadcrumbs equaling 6 oz instead of the 12 oz. Who needs all that bread? I used chicken apple sausage from AmyLu instead of kielbasa, and instead of 6 eggs, used 2 eggs and 1 egg white. Another simple switch was using skim milk instead of whole which doesn’t make a difference in how it’s used in this recipe. Also instead of a 9 x 13 pan I used a 7 x 11 which made the slices thicker! Little tricks=big results.

The taste test? My fam absolutely fell in love with this and no one knew that I had been tweaking away in the kitchen concocting a much healthier and heartier version of this comfort casserole. Please try ASAP! BTW, it’s great eaten cold for the next day or two—leftovers please!

So here’s the recipe!

Ingredients

2 Amylu's Apple and Maple Chicken Sausages
1/2 C Sargento's Fancy Pizza Double Cheese
1 Tbsp honey mustard
2 eggs + 1 egg white
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp sage
4 1/2 Healthy Choice 7 Grain Bread
4 1/2 oz granny smith apple, chopped/peeled
3 1/2 oz yellow onion, chopped
3/4 C skim milk

Directions

Coat 7 x 11 baking dish with nonstick spray. In a skillet, sauté sausage, apples, and onion for 5 minutes over medium heat. Cool slightly.

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In medium-sized bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, honey mustard, sage and pepper.

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Place bread cubes(you'll need to cube them up in 1-inch cubes beforehand) in a medium-sized bowl.

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Gently stir in sausage mixture and 1/4 cup of the shredded cheese.

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Spoon into prepared baking dish and then pour egg mixture evenly over it.

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Compress lightly with hands until all ingredients are moistened. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup shredded cheese.
Cover with foil and bake at 375°F for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 20 minutes. Cool slightly before serving.
Number of Servings: 8

Hey go get your own slice!

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Do You Play Healthy Stealth In the Kitchen? If So, How?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh my god....this is SO freaky, I made a very very similar thing! with apples and sausage casserole, too! I tell you, great minds think alike....

Bec said...

wow that looks amazing!!!! I definitely try to healthy up a lot of recipes but sometimes you just cant!

Healthy Beach Bum said...

girl you should enter that recipe to be on the Cracker Barrel menu or something.. YUMMY! you have the cutest site! I saw that you're a Marketing Communications major.. and guess what... I'm a Marketing major and mass comm minor!! wooo :) it's so neat to find someone out there with the same interests <3

tinyirishdancer said...

Mhmm. Yummy sausage!

When I cook, I usually make healthy substitutions - olive oil instead of butter, for instance. But, as for baking...nope! It's my guilty pleasure, so reducing the "guilt" factor feels wrong, somehow.
Does that make sense?

Probably not.

Ah well. =]

Krista said...

That looks really good! Printing the recipe now!

nic said...

YUM! I love strata!

Just found your blog through PB & Jenny. Happy to have discovered you! I'm from MN too.

Can't wait to read more.