Have you heard of the cookbook Eat What You Love?

I hadn't until 2 weeks ago.
The hubby's grandfather had had surgery & a lecture about taking care of himself & being careful with his diabetes. I was trying to think of something to buy or make to send to him when he went home from the hospital & decided that I would bake him up some diabetic friendly treats. Of course I then needed to find recipes & I called the one person I always call when I need food advice & help - my mom!

She'd heard about the Eat What You Love cookbook on QVC & said it sounded like just what we needed to get started.  We found our copy at Barnes & Noble & met for lunch to talk about what recipes we should try. We ended up with an entire day of baking planned & six recipes earmarked to shop for! Why make one batch of muffins when you can make two? And some breakfast bars...and chocolate cherry bars...and...yeah. You get the idea. :)

The first thing we baked up were some bran muffins with craisins. Neither of us are super fans of the bran muffin, but we decided that these were actually pretty good. Our biggest fear for these recipes was that the sugar substitute would make everything taste odd or off. Happily, it didn't!

Recipe #2 was the Chocolate Cherry Bars. I loved this one! The sugar-free cherry pie filling did have a bit of that sugar-free flavor, but the chocolate cake-like bottom was so very yummy! I'd definately make these again. I would even use the chocolate base for some healthy cake brownies. Yum!

Speaking of cherries, we also whipped up these little Cherry Berry Pie Cups. This is so crazy easy! 1 can of sugar-free cherry pie filling + 1 pint of fresh raspberries + 1 package piecrust = The most adorable little cherry pies ever! We didn't actually eat one of these because it looked odd when we went to package them up to have one missing. But I think I'll use a varitaion of this recipe next time I'm in charge of dessert for family dinner. So freakin' cute!

Recipe #4 were some delightful Carrot Cupcakes. These were super tasty! And I'm not just saying that because I love carrot cake! They were moist & cinnamon-y delicious. Although, I would have loved some cream cheese frosting on mine - & will add that when I make them again for my family. :)

The one thing we made that I neglected to get photos of were the pumpkin oatmeal Breakfast Bars. They were pretty good as well. A little dense, but maybe that's how breakfast bars are supposed to be? They had good flavor from the pumpkin & cinnamon & would be pretty good for a quick snack on the run.

The last thing we made was a couple batches of the Nuts & Bolts Sweet & Spicy Snack Mix. This was our least favorite of everything we tried, & the one thing we both said we probably wouldn't make again. The first batch - following the recipe - ended with a pile of burnt snack mix. The second batch we took out 10 minutes before we were supposed to & came out looking much better. However, the egg whites used made it so we had to break apart the mix, & we found the cajun seasoning used to be a little too spicy for our liking. I guess we could have just used less seasoning & maybe it would've worked out just fine. But, my mom already makes a really yummy snack mix that we know & love. So what we actually took away from this Eat What You Love recipe was a way to make her original snack mix lower in sodium & tweak it to make it more healthy. It's never a total loss when you try something new - you always learn something!

Our next challenge is to delve into the abundance of entree recipes offered up in Eat What You Love & see what other healthy choices we might like. Really, what could be better than eating what you love if it isn't to eat the best possible version of it?