Refreshing Cucumber Watermelon Salad

This morning I found a recipe to use up some of the watermelon that my family doesn't seem to want to eat.  Why I'm not quite sure, but I bought the watermelon this past weekend and it's sat in my fridge, with only me eating it.  Now I'm sure we can all agree that this can get a bit drab after awhile, regardless of the fact that I love watermelon.  My only issue with this is that it's fully seeded, now this isn't as big of an issue when you slice it up and a whole bunch of people are eating it during say a BBQ and you can have a seed spitting contest but this was not one of those times.  I'm getting off track, so I made a salad similar to this last year and I cannot find where I had this recipe at, so I had to seek out a new one and this one is pretty similar.

It's a very easy recipe, i found it on Pinterest here and then the original link is from The Healthy Foodie.  I have taken the liberty of adding and removing a few ingredients from the original recipe on her site, but I think the beauty of cooking is making things more "your own".  I'm very happy with the outcome and will gladly be noshing on this throughout my day today.

Refreshing Cucumber Watermelon Salad:

1 Cucumber (seeded or not, your choice) sliced into quarters

3 Cups of Watermelon, diced (save yourself some time and get the seedless watermelon, unlike me)

3 Tbsp chopped fresh Basil

2 Tbsp chopped fresh Mint

1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper (I used course ground)

1/4 tsp salt (I prefer Kosher)

3 Tbsp White Balsamic Vinegar

1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1/2 of a Lime squeezed

1/4 tsp Crushed Red Pepper Flakes

In a large bowl add everything but the Cucumber and Watermelon, mix and let sit until you've chopped up your Cucumber and Watermelon, once you do, add them to the dressing and mix well.  You can serve it immediately or cover and refrigerate until you are ready to dig in!  I love it, and you could even add some cooked diced pancetta or bacon to the salad too, for a little extra crunch.  Enjoy! 

Spiced Cranberry Muffins - Low-fat

I had an itch to bake this morning.  Why, I'm not really sure but baking some quick muffins at 6 o'clock in the morning sounded like a fantastic idea!  So, I whipped up some spiced cranberry muffins to bring into work because I cannot leave all of these muffins at home. I would eat them, ALL of them in one sitting. This cannot happen.

Anyhow, I had a Costco size applesauce sitting in my fridge for some time that needed to be used (I'm starting to notice a trend here.  Can you see it?).  Why my family chooses to ignore it in the fridge, I'm not sure.  Wait, I know. Because I live with men and boys.  They go for the easiest thing they see, apparently applesauce isn't that easy to prepare (open the bottle, pour into a bowl, add some cinnamon if desired and enjoy!). Sorry, I'm having a couple side thoughts travel through my brain.  Back to my story: I have wanted to try substituting applesauce for oil for some time now to see how different the product would turn out.  Yes, I admit I'm a bit slow to get on the applesauce substitution train.  My reasoning behind it is because a few years ago, my friend was substituting applesauce for oil in a cookie recipe.  Now, what she gave me to try, was absolutely horrible!  I kid you not, love her, not her substituted cookies.  Needless to say, this turned me off to this substitution for quite some time.  As it turns out after my experiment, this can work out pretty good. Now my first attempt was a bit dry, but I've tweaked it (again) and I think these are so much better.  They have a good sweetness and are perfect with a cup of tea or coffee for a quick on the go morning rush. 

Heat the oven to 400 degrees
1/2 Cup Whole wheat flour
1 1/4 Cup All purpose flour (you can omit the whole wheat and use all purpose too if you want, so use 1 3/4 C total flour instead if you do this)
1/3 Cup Zero calorie baking sugar (or you can use regular sugar, or a different sweetner substitute)
2 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp Ground ginger
1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon
1/4 Cup applesauce
3/4 Cup milk
1/4 Cup Greek yoghurt
1 Egg
1/3 Cup Dried Cranberries

• Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, set aside.
• Mix the wet ingredients together in a smaller bowl and  mix into the dry ingredients.
• Combined until you make a batter and add the cranberries and mix together.
• Line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners or lightly grease.
• Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full.
• Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
• Cool on a wire rack.

You can also omit the ginger and cranberries and add 3/4 Cup blueberries to the batter instead.  These turn out really good as well.

Fat Free Veggie / Cracker dip

My family loves veggie dips, but we do not want to incorporate all of the extra fat and oils that can be included in store bought dips.  For this reason, it forced me to come up with a really good base dip for veggies and crackers.  Once you make the base, you can add anything else you want to customize this and make it your own.

The base:
1 package Fat Free cream cheese
1 small tub (16 oz) of Fat Free sour cream (Nonfat Greek Yogurt works too)
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp dill
3 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Mix it all together.  I use my Kitchen Aid with the paddle attachment.  This makes it nice and creamy.

Here's a short side note story.  I recently purchased one of those huge bags of peeled garlic from Costco, but I never seem to use it all before it goes bad.  Well, I found a site that tells me how to pickle my garlic cloves in the fridge and I did this weeks ago.  The point of my rambling, is that I used some of this pickled garlic and the vinegar with it and made a FANTASTIC garlic dip.

On to the extras.  As I stated above, you can add most anything to the dip and make it your own.
In my pictured dip:
4 cloves pickled garlic (plus 2 Tbsp of the vinegar)
1/4 tsp dried Thyme
1/8 tsp ground Sage
1/8 tsp ground Ginger
1 tsp chopped dried red onion
1/2 tsp chopped chives
1/2 tsp chopped parsley


If you want to make this more like a dressing for salads, you can thin it out with milk to the consistency you desire. I've also been known to add shredded carrots and cucumbers to the mix if it's meant more as a spread for crackers or sandwiches.

If you are interested in other preserving methods for garlic, here is the site I found.  The refrigerated garlic is at the bottom of the site: Preserving Garlic