Home Cooking: Spaghetti Carbonara and Reduced Guilt Brownies



All you need to make Trader Joe's Reduced Guilt Brownies

Have I mentioned how much I love cooking/baking with my kids?  We're not quite at the point where they can help with every step safely but it is fun for so many reasons: the informal learning (pointing out the fractions on the measuring cups or reading ingredients and instructions), the opportunity to work as a team and bond over food, the memories of cooking as a child with my own mom that resurface when I watch the delight in the eyes of my kids as we cook.  If you have never cooked with your children, I highly recommend it! And if you have, I'd love to hear about recipes you enjoy making together.

While the Littler One napped, I pulled out a box of Trader Joe's Reduced Guilt Brownie Mix (fat-free but not totally guilt-free...but who's counting calories when you can eat a delicious brownie without fat??).  It's actually the first time I've tried this product.  The Bigger One never says "no" when I ask if he'd like to help me cook, bake or shop for groceries, which makes the experience that much more endearing.  All you need is non-fat vanilla yogurt (2/3 cup) and something to mix it.  Technically, you can mix it by hand, just fine, but I never miss an opportunity to pull out my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, even if it's just to make pudding.  It's a heavy piece of equipment, so I keep it on my counter to avoid dragging it back and forth from the pantry anytime I need it.  Plus, it's easy for the Bigger One to lock it into place and adjust the speed; I can tell it makes him feel like a pro.  Adorable.

He even wears his chef coat and a baseball cap like the real chefs do!

Then you pop it in a pan and into the oven...22-27 minutes later you have fat-free brownies.  Almost seems like magic, right?  So the Bigger One went off to play while the brownies baked and I perused my cookbooks for a recipe for dinner.  A Cooking Light recipe for cavatappi with bacon and veggies caught my eye but immediately made me think of spaghetti carbonara from my youth.  Spaghetti carbonara has crumbled bacon.  It is tossed with egg as the last step which cooks in the heat of the spaghetti.  My mom made this often when I was growing up.  It's delicious but has tons of fat and cholesterol in the original recipe.  We had turkey bacon in the fridge (3 grams of fat per slice, less than regular pork bacon) and eggs.  We were having lower-fat spaghetti carbonara for dinner!

My bowl and the plates for the LOs

A nice pot of spaghetti carbonara...carbo-licious!

I found a recipe on which to base my own version.  Please share your lower-fat versions if you have them!  I swapped the four egg yolks for four egg whites and two egg yolks (I might try just egg whites next time) and added some minced garlic to chopped onions (there is nothing that says "Something good is cooking" like the aroma of onion and garlic sauteeing in olive oil...absolutely nothing!).  I pulled out a bowlful of plain spaghetti and topped it with the extra Newman's Own Five Cheese Sauce from last night's meal for me.  As a healthy side, I steamed broccoli (extra-steamy so it'd get nice and mushy...which is the way the LOs like it best). 

The Carnivore got a heaping plate of the spaghetti, even though he's trying to avoid too many carbs.  He said it could have used a little more pepper and salt but otherwise it was excellent. The Littler One scarfed down the pasta and ate the broccoli with little prodding.  The Bigger One was in a mood and was driving me crazy by eating a tiny piece of spaghetti at a time.  Eventually he ate a decent portion but avoided the onions and bacon.  He seemed more interested in the broccoli.  I was jealous of their decadent dinner...there's got to be a way I can enjoy a similar feast without the meat.  I'll have to research meat substitutes that might successfully replace the fatty salty bacon taste.

And for dessert?  Reduced Guilt brownies. A whole mess of them...because after all, they're fat free!  Yum!

Very close in taste to "real" brownies