There is a wonderful little snack to will satisfy any sweet tooth you may have, and be heathly and low cal! It was seen in Good Housekeeping magazine.

Dried Apricots
Dark Chocolate melted
Chopped Pistachios or Almonds

There is approximately 35 calories each. Melt your favorite dark chocolate in a microwave safe bowl, dip 1/2 or so of the apricot in it and roll in the chopped nuts. They can rest on wax paper and when cool store them in a tin or other air tight container with wax paper layers. Great for dessert! Have three and it is only about 105 calories. They keep well too!

Some of my favorite substitutes for white food items have become Barilla Pasta, both Barilla Plus and Barilla Whole Grain. I use the Barilla Plus Penne pasta in the recipe to the left. My challenge is to get enough whole grain into my own diet and to get some into my husband as well. There has been a lot of trial and error. Those pasta's are real good. I have tried whole wheat pasta and don't like them. The Barilla Plus has grain and legume flours in them along with the semolina flour known to white pasta's. My husband cannot tell there is fiber in this pasta so it is a winner!

I have been in a search of good tasting whole grain breads too. One of my and my husbands favorite is Oroweat Whole Grain and Oat. It has a bit more sugar grams than I would like, but one slice is 3 grams of fiber and that is the minimum I would want in bread. I will also keep looking and trying products to add to my list. New products are always coming onto the market.

Sandy's Blog