Recipes from the wedding, continued...

Cherry Cheesecake Bites
1 bar of neufchatel cheese or low fat cream cheese
1 regular size tub of Cool Whip
graham cracker crumbs
salted butter
Splenda for Baking
Topping of your choice-we used no sugar cherry pie pilling and canned cherries

Sorry, this is another one I don't measure. It all depends on if you are making a full size pie (in which, you can actually buy a shortbread or graham cracker crust already made) or cupcake size individual pies. Combine graham cracker crumbs, a little splenda, and enough melted butter for the crumbs to hold together. Press on the bottom of whatever baking dish you decide (if you do cupcake size, make sure to use cupcake liners) and bake for about 10 minutes at 350F. While the crust is baking, combine the cream cheese, cool whip, and a little splenda. Beat with a mixer until all mixed and smooth. Since we did ours in cupcake sized pies, we piped in the mixture into the cups with a big icing tip. If you are doing a whole pie, you can just dump the mixture into the cooled crust and make a well in the middle for the filling. You can put whatever filling on top that you like. We've used blueberry pie filling as well. Since I don't like really sticky filling, I added the canned cherries to cut down the thickness and they turned out great.

Cake Balls from the reception
1 box of cake mix, whatever you prefer including ingredients it calls for
1 small tub of frosting (whatever coordinates with the cake you choose)
1 box of almond bark
double boiler
skewers
Bake the cake according to the directions on the box. We also did a homemade blackberry cobbler since that is Clay's favorite dessert so use your imagination. Let the cake/cobbler cool after baking. Cut off any edges that get overcooked and are hard. Crumble the cake in a large bowl and mix with the frosting. I found that it is a better consistency to roll into balls if you only use half a tub of icing, otherwise it gets too runny and the balls will crack much easier. Let the cake/frosting mixture cool in the fridge for about 2 hrs. Once cooled completely, remove from fridge and roll into balls about the size of golf balls and place on a baking sheet. Once the sheet is full, place into the freezer for at least six hours. At this stage, you can freeze and put in a ziploc bag for a month before dipping them in almond bark. When you are ready to dip, remove from the fridge a few at a time. If you take out too many, they wil start to thaw and get pieces in your almond bark. Place about six pieces of almond bark into a double boiler to melt. Skewer a cake and dip completely into the bark. Move the ball around as it somewhat hardens so that it doesn't drip. We had a long piece of styrofoam to put the skewers in as the balls dried completley. If you don't have one, you can also use a big tub of rice to stick them in until they dry. If you are doing cobbler balls, the juice will drip out of the skewer hole, so you need to go back and add a little bark to close it completley. Once dry, you can refrigerate for a week or freeze for months. If you freeze them, let them thaw a bit in the fridge before serving. When my mom told me there was a ton of my wedding cake leftover, I joked that we should have made cake balls out of it!

Cottage Cheese Pancakes
I didn't make these last weekend, but we talked about them. Soo easy to make and super healthy.
1 cup of oatmeal
1 cup of lowfat cottage cheese
1 dash of vanilla extract
4 egg whites
2-3 tablespoons of vanilla protein powder (I use Lean Body)
Combine everything into a blender and blend until smooth. If the mixture is too runny, I add a little more protein powder just like you would flour in normal pancake mix. Pour onto a hot skilllet sprayed with a little Pam Baking spray. Once cooked, I like to cover a short stack with chopped fruit (bananas, strawberries, etc) and a little sugar free syrup. Yum!

Mom, I'm not sure I still have the link to your breakfast casserole. Could you please add it in a comment or send it to me and I will post? Love you!