Friday, July 13, 2018

9 ways to use powdered peanut butter

Aldi's brand - SimplyNature
I'm still kind of in awe of powdered peanut butter. It is amazing to me that it has so few calories but still basically tastes the same as regular peanut butter. I found this magical substance, "astronaut peanut butter" as I like to call it, when I started Weight Watchers. It was quickly apparent that there wasn't room for full-fat peanut butter in my daily point plan.

There are bunch of different brands available including PB2, PBFit, PB Trimmed and TruNut and these come in a variety of flavors including chocolate, honey and salted caramel. I posted a taste test of all of the ones I have tried and will update it when I have tried more types!

If you have bought some but aren't sure to how to use it, here are all the uses I have come up with so far:

1) As peanut butter
Peanut butter toast and fruit dip!
This is the most obvious way but really, when mixed with water you will barely notice the difference.
I prefer PBFit for "regular" peanut butter use. I put it on toast, in wraps and dip fruit in it.

2) For baking
You can replace up to half of flour in recipes with powdered peanut butter! This will make your recipes healthier by adding extra protein. It is also fewer Weight Watchers points than flour. You can try this in my black bean brownies, where I added it instead of flour to make them more cake-y. You probably can't replace all of the flour in regular recipes with the powered PB so you might need to experiment a little bit; I have had success replacing up to half of the flour without having to make other changes.

3) In smoothies
Drizzled on a banana crepe
Instead of using protein powder, you can add peanut butter powder to your smoothies to add extra protein. It can also make them peanut buttery, which is great with certain fruits like bananas. Blended fruit does have points on Weight Watchers, so keep that in mind.

4) As a dessert drizzle
Instead of indulging in something like chocolate sauce, you make a drizzle to put on top of your favorite dessert such as ice cream. To use it like this you want to mix it with water as normal but add a little more water until it's a thinner sauce consistency. I would start with an extra tsp of water and add 1/2 tsp increments after than until it's how you want it. Chocolate flavored versions are really good for this.

5) Add flavor to plain yogurt
Peanut sauce
Plain yogurt can be really boring, a little peanut butter powder can help to jazz it up. I would add about 2 Tb for 1/2 cup of yogurt. Try this with the chocolate, salted caramel or vanilla flavors for more variety.

6) Make peanut sauce
Especially if you are doing Weight Watchers, you need something to jazz up your daily chicken breast. Peanut sauce turns your boring chicken into chicken sate! Doesn't that sound exotic? Here is a recipe for you to experiment with.

7) Use it in high-protein peanut butter pancakes
This was one of the first ways I used powdered peanut butter. I bought some Krusteaz high-protein pancake mix and used some PBFit with it to make 2-point peanut butter pancakes.

8) Make these frozen PB pops
You can try out these frozen almond milk popsicle with this recipe from PBFit.

9) In oatmeal
After my original list of 8 ideas, I have since discovered that peanut butter powder is delicious in oatmeal. It's funny because I wouldn't think to put peanut butter in oatmeal normally but a little of the PB power (I just add a little extra of the water/milk/almond milk I'm using for my oatmeal and stir it in) is amazing. I also suggest adding a few mini chocolate chips and cinnamon. It's basically dessert oatmeal.

This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in July 2017 on the Weight Watchers Freestyle program. This post may contain affiliate links, if you make a purchase using one of these links this blog may receive a small commission. Thank you for your support.

Monday, July 2, 2018

Chicken Shawarma - grill or Instant Pot

This recipe came about because after doing Weight Watchers for a while, I was bored with all the ways I normally make chicken. My go-to chicken marinade has been a balsamic & soy sauce concoction that my husband turned me on to but after months of eating so much chicken we were bored with it and needed to try something new.

With that in mind, I decided to try chicken shawarma and making a homemade tzatziki sauce.

I hadn't made tzatziki before but all of the store-bought tzatziki I had tried was disgusting. It was nothing like the delicious yogurt sauce our amazing local Mediterranean Deli had! So I thought I would give it a try and it was surprisingly easy and delicious. I see a lot of tzatziki sauce in my future.

To get a good flavor, I suggest to marinate the chicken at least 4 hours but you can do overnight or 24 hours if you have the time. The longer you marinate, the better the flavor!



Ingredients
3 large chicken breasts (about 2.5 lbs)
1 cup of fat free chicken broth (for Instant Pot only)

Marinade
3 Tb olive oil
Juice of one lemon, freshly squeezed
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 tsp table salt
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp paprika, smoked or Hungarian recomended
1/2 tsp chili powder
fresh ground pepper to taste
2 pinches of ground cinnamon

Tzatziki sauce
1 cup of plain, fat free Greek yogurt
1 Persian cucumber or 1/3 of a regular cucumber
Juice of half a lemon, freshly squeezed
1/2 tsp table salt
freshly ground pepper to taste
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 tsp of dill weed (or to taste)

Directions:
Slice the chicken breasts into long strips, I got approximately 10-11 strips from the 3 breasts. Place the strips of chicken a Tupperware container or gallon sized Ziploc bag. Using a garlic press, mince the fresh garlic and add to the chicken. Add the remaining marinade ingredients to the container, toss the chicken to coat thoroughly and allow the chicken to marinate for at least 4 hours. Overnight or 24 hours is recommended.

For the Instant Pot:
Place 1 cup of fat free chicken broth in the bottom of the IP. Place the trivet in the bottom of the pot and place the chicken strips on top of the trivet. Lock the lid in place and close the vent. Set the IP to high pressure, 10 minutes. When the cooking cycle completes, quick release the pressure and serve.

For the grill:
Mixed tzatziki, yum!
On a heated grill, grill the chicken strips until the internal temperature reaches a minimum of 165 degrees, approximately 10 minutes per side and serve.

For the Tzatziki sauce:
Finely dice or grate the cucumber and add to a small bowl. Add all of the remaining ingredients and stir thoroughly.


I like 1/4 tsp of dill to 1 cup of tzatziki but you might need to experiment a little to see how much you like. Dill has a strong flavor, so tread lightly! My husband happens to love dill and he always adds more to his sauce, you might like more too!

The grilled version had a nice char on it and was very crispy but I when it was reheated it was little drier also. The IP version was more moist and juicy. If you wanted it to have the char, you could broil it for a few minutes or sear it after it's cooked but it's really good straight from the Instant Pot!

For Weight Watchers, I count 1 point for each strip of chicken for the olive oil in the marinade. The Tzatziki is zero points!

This blog is not affiliated with Weight Watchers in any way. Points were calculated in July 2018 on the Weight Watchers Freestyle program. This post main contain affiliate links, if you make a purchase using one of these links this blog may receive a small commission. Thank you for your support.