Shape Up Series: Low Fat Apple Cinnamon Crisp

By: Finance Foodie

Thanks to my Shape Up Series, I've been on a serious cooking trek for lunch and dinner (Specific definition of cooking for me: anything that utilizes a large piece of kitchen equipment. Let's be clear, I'm no Julia Child here with all day to spend basting chickens). Therefore, I decided it was only natural to expand this new found usage of my kitchen to make healthy breakfast items. While browsing though the General Mills site, I found a lovely looking recipe for a hearty Apple Cinnamon Crisp using Cheerios. I've never been much of a plain cereal and milk kind of gal, so I was uber happy to take this recipe for a spin!

Hearty Apple Cinnamon Crisp
Calories/serving: ~340
(wish I could say I invented it, but it's modified from the General Mills website)
Note: I quartered the original recipe -- just in case the Cooking Gods were not on my side!

1. First I gathered all my ingredients: 1 cup sliced apples, 1/8 cup Quaker oats, 1/16 cup packed brown sugar Sugar in the Raw (I didn't have brown sugar handy), 3/16 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1/12 cup Smart Balance margarine, 1/2 cup Apple Cinnamon Multi Grain (once again, all I had in the pantry) Cheerios cereal.

2. Then, I pre-heated the oven to 350°F and arranged the apples in ungreased pan.

3. In medium bowl, I stirred together the oats, brown sugar and cinnamon; then I cut in the margarine with fork until crumbly.

4. Next, I stirred in the cereal and sprinkled over the apples.

5. Finally, I baked uncovered until golden brown (~20 minutes).

6. Presto it's done!

Stay tuned as always on Monday for my next weigh-in. Will I finally reach the halfway weight loss mark? You have to check back and see!

***Giveaway***
Congrats #29 - Valeen!

Cheerios wants to give one of my readers the opportunity to create my (well , technically their) Low Fat Apple Cinnamon Crisp and stay fit while doing so. They  will gift one lucky lady or gentleman a Cherrios Fit Kit that includes a gym bag, water bottle, cereal container and a coupon for a free box of Cherrios!

 There are THREE ways to enter
1. REQUIRED: In my comments section, tell me what is your favorite Cherrios flavor? (Mine is Multi Grain because it's lightly sweetened but the whole grains fill me up!). Also please include your email address so I can contact you if you win!
2. Follow Finance Foodie on Twitter (leave separate comment telling me this)
3. Reblog / Retweet this giveaway (leave separate comment telling me this)

Contest ends Friday, January 28, 2011 at 5pm EST. Winners will be chosen via random integer generator on random.org announced on the financefoodie.com site shortly afterwards that night!

Disclosure: Cherrios provided the prize pack and information for giveaway via MyBlogSpark