Thank you, September Sponsors!

I want to give a HUGE thank you to my sensational September Sponsors! This is the first month I offered sponsorship opportunities and I hope you all took the chance to click on their ads and check them out! If you haven’t yet, here’s your opportunity:

Featured Sponsor: Emily Tonn, Lifemax Independent Distributor -  Mila, The Miracle Seed

Did you know chia seeds are one of the healthiest superfoods out there? They're a natural source of Omega-3s & antioxidants and are high in fiber and protein. There are also tons of health benefits to adding them to your diet including aiding in weight loss, boosting mental clarity and helping to regulate blood sugars. Mila is a brand of 100% natural raw chia seeds specifically selected for maximum health benefits. Emily sent me a bag to try and adding them to my juice at breakfast really kept me feeling full all the way until lunch and also helped me sleep better! For more information on Mila and the benefits of adding chia seeds to your daily diet, check out the Web site of my awesome Featured Sponsor, Emily Tonn.

Medium Sponsors:

One Step Closer, Another Pound Lost – Alexis chronicles her weight loss journey as she attempts to lose half her weight with Weight Watchers

My Bizzy Kitchen – Biz offers a great mix of healthy, delicious, diabetic-friendly recipes

Thank you so much to all three of you for supporting Emily Bites!

I’m currently still accepting October Sponsors!
Do you have a blog, etsy store or web site? Looking for ways to attract more readers or customers? Want to expose over 94,000 people a month to an ad for your site?

Emily Bites gets over 390,000 page views a month from over 94,000 unique users. That’s a lot of potential new readers for your blog or customers for your online shop!

I’m offering several different sponsorship opportunities, so there is bound to be one that is a good fit for you. Check out the Sponsors tab at the top of the page for more information.

Thanks for reading!

Chicken Tortilla Soup

There’s a chain of casual dining restaurants in the Midwest called Max & Erma’s, and when visiting my brother in Ohio I discovered their sinfully good Chicken Tortilla Soup. I came home desperate to find a knock-off recipe, but since much of their soup’s deliciousness presumably comes from creamy cheese and fried tortilla strips I was doubtful I was going to find one that could be lightened up. Luckily, I stumbled across a recipe on food.com that used a lot of cream based soups and I knew I could easily substitute the light versions. The recipe originally served 15 but I halved it and made a few other changes/substitutions. It turned out great. It’s creamy and has just the right amount of kick for me. I never would have guessed I could get so close to the restaurant flavor using canned soups, but it's really similar!

2012 Update: This was originally one of the first recipes I posted, and as it’s perfect for Fall football-watching, I wanted to encourage readers to dig through the archives and make it this season. The problem was that the photos I took of it back in December 2010 were just plain awful. I decided to make it again and take new photos, and while I was at it, I tweaked the recipe a little to improve it overall. After receiving a few reader comments that the soup was too thick, I thinned it out a bit by adding a cup of water which made it enough for 8 servings. This allowed me to add tortilla strips to the recipe while keeping it at only 4 Weight Watchers Points+ and 160 calories per cup.

This is a great recipe for football season and also for potlucks, because you can easily heat the soup up in a crock pot rather than on the stove top. I brought it to work back in 2010 for just such a potluck and it was a huge hit

Butternut Squash Soup

To me, this soup says Autumn is here. On a crisp, chilly Fall day, coming home and curling up with a bowl of this soup is as comforting as it gets. Once you get a mouthful of how rich, creamy, and velvety smooth the texture is, you’re never going to believe that a cup is only 155 calories, or only 4 Weight Watchers Points+. This is also a great soup to serve company. I recall my mom serving both this and White Chicken Chili along with crusty bread and a big vinaigrette-tossed salad with dried cranberries, nuts and blue cheese to guests for a “soup and salad” dinner and it was a huge hit.

I’ve heard that some people have issues peeling/cutting butternut squash. I used a large chef’s knife and a serrated vegetable peeler and I had no trouble whatsoever. It takes some elbow grease to cut through the squash, but I managed without too much effort. To make it easier, I hear you can poke a few holes and microwave the squash for 2-3 minutes before you cut and peel it to soften it up a bit. If you need more help, here’s a great tutorial!

Pumpkin Pie Frozen Yogurt

It’s after Labor Day and you know what that means…the beginning of pumpkin season! I have been so excited for Fall recipes. Now that football is here and temperatures are just starting to drop I have apple, pumpkin, cinnamon and squash on the brain! I was planning for my first Fall recipe to be my mom’s Butternut Squash Soup, but as those of you who follow me on Facebook already know, I messed that up and have to remake it. Oops. Get your spoons ready though, because it’s coming soon!

I decided this Pumpkin Pie Frozen Yogurt was actually the perfect recipe for this time of year because it combines an end of Summer frozen treat with rich Fall pumpkin flavor.  This frozen yogurt really captures the flavors of pumpkin pie filling, and it’s hard to believe ½ cup is only 89 calories/2 WW Points+! I’m not going to lie, I treated myself to a whole cup for only 4 Weight Watchers Point.

I absolutely recommend the ice cream machine I have. I use a Cuisinart model and it’s so fast and easy to use. You simply keep the machine’s bowl in your freezer and whenever you want to make ice cream, frozen yogurt or sorbet you mix up the ingredients, put the bowl on the machine, start it up, pour in mixture and in less than 20 minutes you have ice cream! No rock salt or ice required. 

Recipe Roundup: Football Favorites

Are you ready for some football? I know I am…and all the yummy snacks and hearty meals that go along with it! I decided to put together a list of the top 10 football watching recipes from my site, and it was hard to narrow it down! I think I came up with a good list, but if I left out your favorite, let me know in the comments section. The following are recipes that are waistline-friendly, man-approved, appetizers and entrees alike that are sure to get you in the mood to cheer your team to victory. Game on!

In no specific order…

French Dip “Cupcakes”

Buffalo Chicken Chili

Cheeseburger Pizza

Buffalo Wing Hummus

Bacon, Cheddar & Beer Risotto

Slow Cooker Buffalo Chicken

Pepperoni Pizza Mini Puffs

Taco “Cupcakes”

 
Slow Cooked BBQ Beef

Southwestern Egg Rolls

*Honorable Mention: Chicken Tortilla Soup* - I really wanted to include my Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe on this list because it tastes amazing and it’s perfect football food, but the photos are awful. It was one of my first recipes and I’m planning to update the photos in the next couple weeks. Until then, don’t count this recipe out as a Football Favorite! I just didn’t want to use such an unappetizing photo in my roundup. I will add it in as the 11th player once new pics are available!

GO BILLS!!