Easter goodies! Peanut butter cups and meringue cookies!

With Easter tomorrow, you will most likely be surrounded by yummy looking candies, cookies and chocolates. Fear not! I have delicious goodies that you can make to bring with you. One consists of a meal and a snack and the other will take barely any condiments and like 1/16 of a lean. So tomorrow, make sure you bring your PB cups for before or after dinner and then some meringue cookies to have anytime!

Peanut butter cups would be the first. I used the hot cocoa and packet of Stevia instead of Splenda (0 cal and natural sweetener). I also used small dixie cups to make them a bit smaller and got 4 PB cups out of the recipe. You can find the recipe at Sandy's Kitchen, but here is the recipe:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup

Ingredients:

1 package Hot Cocoa or brownie mix (1 Meal)

2 tablespoon PB2  or other powdered peanut butter (1 Snack)

1 packet of Splenda (optional)

Directions:

Mix 2 tablespoon of PB2 and Splenda with 1 1/2 tablespoon of water (until creamy but not watery). Set aside. In another container, mix hot cocoa with 3 tablespoons of water. Spread half over the bottom of a ramekin or silicone baking cup. Spread PB2 over the chocolate bottom layer. Spread the rest of the hot cocoa mixture over the top of the PB2. Place in freezer for at least one hour.

Servings: 1 Meal, 1 Snack and 1 Condiment (if you used Splenda)

The next goodie is a meringue cookie. I tried this today and definitely need to work on it, but it still tasted delicious. I divided mine into 12 cookies, which I decided would be 3 servings of 4 cookies each. That way you have 1 egg white per serving, which is the bulk of the calories. The teeny amounts of white vinegar, stevia and vanilla extract are negligible. I have changed the ingredients to reflect what I used, but you can find the original recipe here: https://nunaturals.com/recipe/294

Ingredients

• 3 large egg whites
• 1/16 tsp white vinegar
• Squirt of lemon juice
• 4 tbs White Stevia Powder or 1/4 tsp Pure White Stevia Extract
• 1/4 teaspoon Vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees F and place the rack in the center of your oven. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicon sheet.
2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low-medium speed until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat the whites until they hold soft peaks. Add the NuStevia, a tablespoon at a time (or if you use Pure White Stevia Extract add all at once), and continue to beat until the meringue holds very stiff peaks. Beat in the vanilla extract.
3. Spoon mounds of meringue onto the prepared sheets.
4. Bake the meringues for approximately 40 minutes, rotating the baking sheet from front to back (about half way through) to ensure even baking (if you have a convection oven, this is not necessary). The meringues are done when they are fairly firm and fairly crisp. Turn off the oven, open the door a crack, and leave the meringues in the oven to finish drying.