Sunday, January 31, 2010

Creamy Apricot Spread

I go through cycles with breakfast food. I'll eat scrambled egg beaters with reduced fat cheddar cheese for a few months, until I can't bear the sight of them any more. Then I'll eat Weight Control banana bread oatmeal made with Almond Breeze (low-carb almond milk), chopped banana, and PB2, until I can't stand the sight of it. Since my complete unfill last summer, I've been able to eat English muffins (toasted well done) and tortillas, although now that I've had a few fills my capacity for them is decreasing. For a few weeks now, my breakfast has been 1/2 of a "light" (100 calorie) English muffins spread with 2 teaspoons each creamy peanut butter and Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread, found with the peanut butter in Wal-Mart) and a few slices of banana. As fantastically yummy as that combination is, I'm getting tired of it. Also, I'm a little worried about the binge potential with Nutella (no episodes so far, but I'm keeping an eye on it).

So my next breakfast cycle will be this creamy apricot spread on graham crackers, with a few slices of banana. You could also use the spread as a dip for fruits and veggies, or put it on mini rice cakes (I'll bet it would be good on the caramel flavor).

1/2 cup sliced dried apricots (feel free to try other dried fruit, like cranberries, raisins, blueberries, etc.)
1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
2 oz cream cheese, softened (I use the reduced fat version)
1 tablespoon Splenda brown sugar blend
3 packets of True Orange (crystallized orange, found in the baking aisle near sugar) or 1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind
optional if you plan to use this as a dip instead of a spread: add 1+ tablespoon of skim milk

Whiz all the ingredients in a mini food processor until the apricots are cut up fairly fine but still visible as chunks.

Enjoy!

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