Healthy Holiday Cooking

I love to eat, but I sure don't want super high calorie foods on my holiday table. One heavy meal won't hurt a person, but generally it is the left overs that hang around for days after calling at you to finish them off.

Stuffing is usually made with broth and butter. Nix the butter and use non-fat, low sodium broth. You won't even notice the butter missing. Add bits of Fuji apple, almonds or walnuts for healthy fat and some dried cranberries to the mix.

Yams and sweet potatoes just need to be baked or boiled and instead of coating them with butter and brown sugar, just dust them with cinnamon and butter buds.

Mashed potatoes can be made with non-fat milk and butter buds, or whipped butter since a serving is lower in fat due to the whipping process. Steam the veggies and add Olive oil or Flax oil just before serving with some nice sea salt, instead of cooking with bacon.

When making deserts, replace oil with the same amount of apple sauce and use canned non-fat milk when it calls for milk or cream. White sugar and corn syrup can be replaced with any number of sweetners made from fruit or brown rice. A pie crust can be made with 2/3 C soy milk replacing the butter and most of the oil, though you still need at least a couple TBL's for a pie crust. There are plenty of low-fat ice creams and non-fat or low-fat versions of whipped cream as toppings for deserts.

I hope this helps give you some ideas of how easy it is to replace some of the heavy ingredients that make holiday foods so calorie dense. This way even the leftovers won't weigh you down for days on end.