A little while back I shared a recipe that I found on the KetoRecipes subreddit for Jalapeno Cheese Puffs (Recipe). I won't bore you with a dissertation on the "Keto" diet; but it was something I was looking into because my weight loss had stagnated. Well they came out very good and J, M, and I all liked them. They work out to about 180-190 calories each which isn't bad, but since I normally like to eat 3 in a sitting I was hopeful I could cut that down some as spending 500-600 calories on one meal makes it hard to stay under my calorie limit since I do enjoy my Coke. The calorie limit and diet in general are a topic for later in the week though.
I got this bright idea of subbing out the cream cheese and cheddar cheese for "no fat" versions. By my rough calculations this could take the calories from 180-190 each down to 60-70 calories which would mean that my preferred serving size would be in the 200 calories vicinity which would be great. Well I was making dinner the other night, I had gotten some lobster tails on sale and while I'm not a fan of them - I lovingly refer to them as water roaches - J and M like them, so I got them each two as they weren't overly big. I had intended on making a chicken dish, either White Chicken Enchiladas or Chicken Parmesan casserole to go with it, but my chicken wasn't thawed all the way and I hate to rush that. So instead I made some minestrone soup since the two of them like that. Normally I like to cook myself, but truthfully the soup was a pre-packaged food service sized bag that simply needed to be reconstituted. I threw that in the crock pot - my only concern being it needed to get to 180 degrees and I wasn't sure if that would happen (which it did) - and moved on to what would I eat.
I settled on trying the lower fat puffs from above, so J went to the store to get some fat free cheddar and fat free cream cheese. Now a quick gripe. Why does fat free shredded cheese come in 1 3/4 cup bags when regular shredded cheese is in 2 cup bags? That being said I went to prepare these; and preparation was not really any different except that I noted the cream cheese wasn't as "sticky" as regular cream cheese but I really didn't concern myself with that. In fact I didn't get concerned until I checked them about 20 minutes in (they bake for about 40 minutes). They were excessively white instead of a more orange-ish color that they normally are. I wondered a bit and then went back to my other preparations. I've gotten pretty good and prepping the lobster tails and they only broil for a couple of minutes so I had timed it that the puffs would come out of the oven, the tails would go in and everything would be ready on time (8:45pm on M's work nights which this was).
Well I went to pull the puffs out and put the tails in and now I did get concerned as they just didn't look right. I set the muffin pan out to cool, I normally let them cool for 5-10 minutes and then turn them out so they can firm up a bit. Well as soon as I took them out of the oven, they "fell" - by that I mean the centers collapsed down - I had never seen them do that before. I let them cool for nearly 10 minutes while the lobster tails finished and I set the table for J and M. I plated their tails and put out the vegetables and soup bowls and turned my attention back to the puffs. I normally take a thin knife and work it around the edges to loosen them from the muffin pan and then flip out onto a clean cookie sheet. When I went to try this I could tell that they weren't nearly as firm as normal and this became a concern. I was able to flip them out, but the consistency wasn't nearly what I was used to - they weren't running, just overly soft - to the point that I had to reform a couple of them into shape.
I added one to M and J's plates asking them to try them and grabbed a couple for myself as it was to be my dinner. Not a great dinner for me, but I had hoped to bank some calories so J and I could go out the following day so it was a good trade off for me. Since I try to be a "good wife" <G> I always try and make sure that at least J and usually M are served and eating before I get to my food and this was no exception so J tried hers first. She tried to compliment it but the look on her face said otherwise. I then waited for M and she didn't say much but she had the same look. I went ahead and bit the bullet and tried mine. They were *bad* - I mean really *bad*. Now in fairness if I had never had the original recipe I might have been able to deal with it, but compared to that recipe these were not something I wanted to eat again. I went ahead and tried two more hoping they'd be better and they weren't. We quickly decided that the calories saved were NOT worth it in this case.
Now of course I'm stuck with enough fat free cream/cheddar cheeses to make another batch so I gave thought to trying half regular, half fat free to use it up. However, when I saw M the following morning she said her husband actually liked them - he tries to avoid fat and I guess these were in his wheel house. I strongly encouraged her to have him finish them and told her that when/if he wanted more I had the stuff to make them that way again, but would NOT be doing so for the rest of us, I'd rather lower my portion size to 1 or 2 than suffer through those again. Lesson learned, fat free is NOT always worth it. :)
- M
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