Although Arlene would go on to cook on other TV programs, At Home stopped producing new episodes in 2013. The last full season was in 2012, which makes this show Arlene’s final Christmas cookie episode! With help from Laura, she makes chocolate chip cherry cups, chocolate marshmallow melts, orange white chocolate chip cookies, pecan nougats, double chocolate nut cookies, and more!
Garden Vegetable Cheesecake
Instead of a dessert cheesecake, this is a savory one that can be served for lunch or dinner.
Ingredients
Cracker Crust
- 2 cups cheddar cheese crackers, crushed into coarse crumbs (low fat is good)
- 4 tbs melted butter
Cream Cheese Filling
- 1 package low-fat cream cheese (8 oz)
- 1 cup plain unsweetened yogurt
- 1/2 cup pimento-stuffed olives, drained
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped into chunks
- 1 stalk of celery, cut into chunks
- 1 small onion, cut into chunks
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1 dash red pepper hot sauce (to taste)
Instructions
- Crush cheese crackers in a bag with a rolling pin, or with a food processor. Stir in melted butter until crackers are evenly coated. Dump 1/2 of the crumbs into a 9" springform baking pan, and save the rest for later. Press cracker crumbs into pan with a sturdy spoon or bottom of measuring cup.
- Combine yogurt and cream cheese in a blender or food processor. Blend until smooth. Add chopped vegetables and seasonings, and blend again, until mixture is combined but vegetables are not totally liquefied. Refrigerate for 24 hours, and the mixture will set up. To serve, remove from refrigerator and slice. Garnish slices with remaining cheese cracker crumbs. Enjoy!
- Note: Almost any kind of vegetables can be used for this recipe. For a different flavor, try sauteing vegetables in a skillet first, then allow to cool before adding to cheesecake mixture.
Low Fat Chicken Salad
This easy recipe comes together fast and tastes great!
Ingredients
- 2 cups cooked chicken, chopped
- 1 can crushed pineapple, drained (about 8 oz)
- 1/2 cup chopped celery
- 1 cup white grapes (sliced, if you want)
- 1/2 cup low fat or fat free mayonnaise
- 1 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tsp dried tarragon
Instructions
- Combine mayonnaise, lemon juice, and tarragon in a small bowl and whisk together.
- Combine cooked chicken, crushed pineapple, celery, and grapes in a large bowl. Stir to combine. Pour mayonnaise mixture into salad and stir to combine and evenly coat. Refrigerate until ready to serve on toast, crackers, or on a bed of lettuce. Enjoy!
Low Fat Southern Style Bread Pudding
An old favorite, made in a lighter way.
Ingredients
- 6 cup bread cubes
- 2 servings egg substitute (equal to 2 eggs)
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 cups skim milk
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 1/2 cup chopped apple
Instructions
- Spray an 8" baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Dump bread cubes, raisins, and apples into baking dish and distribute evenly.
- In a bowl, whisk egg substitute until frothy. Whisk in sugar, spices, and milk. Pour mixture over bread cubes and fruit, making sure to spread it evenly. Using back of spoon, press on cubes so that they absorb the egg and milk mixture. Let chill in a refrigerator for 1 hour, stirring mixture halfway through.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake bread pudding for 40 minutes or until custard is fully cooked and set up in the middle. Remove and let cool 5 minutes. Cut and serve (it goes great with low-fat frozen yogurt). Enjoy!
Transcript
- Well, hello, and welcome to “At Home” today. We’re so glad you could be with us. It’s always good to have the family drop by and say hello. We hope that your day’s been a good one, and we hope that you’re gonna kick back and just relax a little bit, and get your paper and pencil handy, because today we’re doing some lowfat, low-calorie recipes, and I think you’re gonna enjoy them. We’re trying to bring special diet need recipes occasionally so that everybody can kinda keep track of the particular diet that you’re on. And I have to brag a little bit though, because I have to show you some really cutie pies. Kids that are so special in my life, because they just are, that’s all. They’re my great-nephews, my two nephews. You met Mark, he’s been on the show, and he’s cooked for us. Then his brother, Randy, I have to tell you. Now, this is Mark. Now, he’s on the open of the program, that little boy that sits at the table. Now he’s all grown up, and this is Joshua. And his dad is Mark, and he is going to first grade. Look out, school. Okay, then this is Mark’s brother, my nephew, Randy, his wife, Diane, and I told you before about Corey. Do you believe he just celebrated his first birthday? That’s baby Corey, and he loves to wear sunglasses, you know. And here he is. And Josh just takes care of him so beautifully, they’re great cousins. He just looks after him in the most wonderful way. Here he is, he was at Grandma’s one day and I stopped by to see him, and I just snapped his picture. And look at this. Here he is, Mr. Baseball. Is he a doll? That’s our Corey. What a treasure it is to have family, and how wonderful it is to have little ones growing into your family to keep traditions going on to, and keep your family growing, and the Bible says that when you have children, you’re blessed. Now, I know sometimes, come on, moms, sometimes when they’re driving you crazy, you’re thinking, you call this blessed, God? Yes, God calls it blessed, because family is a blessing from the Lord, and children are a heritage of the Lord. And if your home’s blessed with children, then thank God for them, and just remember, in the good times, when they’re tucked in bed and you say, oh, they’re the cutest little things I’ve ever seen, aren’t they sweet, to the times when they’re running around under your feet, and you’re trying to get things done and you can’t get the laundry done, you can’t get supper on the table ’cause they’re driving you nuts, they’re a blessing. No matter what, they’re a blessing. Invest time into them. Invest yourself into your children. You, your husband, or your wife, invest yourselves into your children. You cannot do anything better than that in life. I believe that they are a priority with God, and they oughta be a priority with us. So we feel like we’re really blessed with our kids, and we just love them to death. They’re sweet. That Corey is the most pleasant little– Well, you know, they’re all pleasant. These babies, they’re sweet, though. All right, let me just go run down a few things about lowfat, and trying to get into a diet mode, if this is where you are. And these are some helpful hints to get, like when you dine out, or if you’re hungry for certain things, this is gonna help you over those times when they have the greatest stress. When everybody else is eating that real thick ranch dressing, and you’re saying, oh my goodness, I shouldn’t have that, but it tastes so good. Let me give you some hints. Okay, number one, always have your salad dressing on the side. Don’t let them pour it all over your salad. Light is the best, if you can get it. In other words, if they have a light dressing, use that. And if you can’t, take the regular dressing, and mix it with, like if you have two ounces of the regular dressing, mix it with two ounces of vinegar, or two ounces of lemon juice. In other words, cut the strength of it in half by adding a little tartness to it. It tastes good, but it cuts the calories or the fats way down. Number two, on your baked potato, use nonfat yogurt instead of sour cream. Honest, it tastes great, and you can use all of that that you want. So you can put on there as much as you want. Number three, in a Chinese, Thai, Indian, Mexican, or Japanese restaurant, order extra steamed rice when you order your entree. Take it home, and then what you do is just eat half of the entree that night, take the extra rice home, and then have it for your lunch, or have it for another meal the next day. In other words, don’t eat everything that’s on the plate, the whole entree. Number four, eat plenty of un-buttered bread before and during your meal. Eat plain Italian bread instead of oil-soaked garlic bread. That, you know, French bread and Italian bread has no fat in it, and most of it doesn’t even have sugar in it. Does have some salt, but if load up on that, you’ll fill up on that, then it’ll be easier for you to say no to the stuff that really has a lot of fat in it. Number five, for dessert, have sorbet, sherbet, fat-free or lowfat frozen yogurt, angel food cake, or better yet, how ’bout a piece of fresh fruit? There’s something for dessert. Okay, number six, a few simple snacks, these are some ideas, frozen seedless grapes, or peeled then frozen ripe bananas, that’s the first one, a sliced bagel, preferably a whole wheat, stuffed with a tomato, red onion, lettuce, and mustard. That sounds good on a bagel. How ’bout a cored apple sprinkled with cinnamon, nutmeg, and then microwaved? And the last one, when eating out, in general, order vegetarian foods, seafood, or poultry entrees instead of beef or pork. Order at least as much extra rice as a Chinese food entree. And in Italian restaurants, order entrees that are largely made of pasta. Don’t go for the meatball platter, or the sausage platter. Order a pasta, because the pasta is really good for you, and doesn’t have fat. And order, like spaghetti or linguine. And when you go to a movie theater, ask for air-popped popcorn. That’s one of the hard ones, boy, because that butter they put on there is to die for, and it really will probably kill you in the end. But anyway, no, seriously, air-popped popcorn. These are just some ideas that can help you over the bumps when you’re just craving for something. Get some, frozen grapes are delicious. We’ve had them before. Well, we’re gonna get started. We’ve got a couple of recipes I think you’re gonna enjoy. One of them is for a lowfat bread pudding that you bake in the oven. And some other surprises, we’ll be right back in just a minute. Here’s today “At Home” hint. Here is today’s “At Home” hint. To make a lighter boxed macaroni and cheese, instead of using the margarine and the milk as the package directs, mix 1/3 cup nonfat plain yogurt with the cheese packet. It makes the texture creamier, and has a tangier flavor. If you’ve got a helpful hint that you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you, so send your hint to “At Home” hints, CTV, Wall, PA, 15148-1499. Well, the first one that we’re going to be making is called a garden cheesecake, and I’ve got to tell you that this only has 180 calories, and it’s very, very good. It’s something that you make the day before. What you take is some of these, any kind of a snack cracker that has a cheese flavor to it, you crush it up into crumbs, all right. And then what you do is add some melted butter to it. Now, you’re not gonna eat a big piece of this. It’s like 1/16 of the whole pie is what a serving size is. But you’re going to mix some melted butter, and you could use diet margarine in that, I’m sure. Probably the taste would be a little bit different. And I know that there’s one product line that you can get that has a diet cheese cracker, so you could really cut this real low in fat, if you wanted to. I try to bring you lowfat, low-calorie, or diabetic, so that there’s a variety, because I know a lot of you have different needs. Not everybody is on a lowfat diet, not everybody’s on a diabetic diet. So I’m trying to bring variety to you. Now, what you do then is just combine your Oleo or your margarine, and this is better to use in a nine inch springform pan, because it works really well. And you just press with a fork, just press the crumbs together, just like so, all over the bottom of the pan. Okay. There we go. To evenly cover it. If you don’t have a springform pan, you really need to get one, because there’s lots of uses with it. If you’re gonna make a cheesecake or whatever, it’s important to have that. Okay, you’re gonna save the rest of the crumbs, ’cause it’s gonna go on the top of it. Just leave that sit there like that. Now we’re gonna put an a eight ounce of softened cream cheese. Need a bus pan. Okay. And we’re gonna add to that, we will be adding, this is cream cheese, and we take one cup of unflavored plain yogurt, that’s what that is, just plain yogurt. Gotta reach here and get a utensil. Okay, and this is in the blender. You probably could do this with a mixer, but I think maybe not since we have to chop up some of the vegetables. I think you’d better try it with the blender, because that’s what it calls for. And basically, just to begin with, you wanna start that process. Just start it the lowest you can. You’re only gonna blend this until it becomes smooth. And you can tell by the way it labors, if it’s smooth or not. Now, when it becomes free sounding, then you know that it has incorporated together. Now we’ll start, thank you very much Andy, now we’ll start adding our vegetables. First it’s a half a cup of drained pimento stuffed olives. And then one medium green pepper that we’ve left in large pieces. And you don’t cut that in real small pieces, because if you do, it’ll be so pulverized you won’t even see it in there. The smaller the pieces, it’ll just liquefy, so cut it in big chunks. One stalk of celery, cut thickly again, too. One small onion, cut in fourths. This is a little bit much, I don’t think I’m gonna put all that in there. All right, now, we need some salt. Use a teaspoon of salt. I know you’re impressed, I’m using this measuring spoon. I’m impressed myself, it’s there, I’m using it. Okay, a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce. I may as well just do it right. There’s our teaspoon. Okay, and a fourth of a teaspoon of paprika. 1/4 teaspoon, you have to be careful ’cause sometimes this can be potent if you got the hot stuff. All right, and a dash of red pepper sauce. Now, you can use Tabasco or Louisiana red sauce, or whatever. That’s a good dash, ’cause this is gonna have some kick to it. All right, now all we’re gonna do is again, we’re going to turn this on. This will take a little time. Okay, for all of that to incorporate. And it will keep mixing, and mixing, and mixing. Make sure I have everything, I think I do. And you only do this just until everything has liquified, and you can see it’s still chunky in there, but you don’t want it to be totally thin and runny, because then it’s no good. And you take this, and you pour this right on your crusts. See how thick it is with the vegetables? It’s a great way to use vegetables to, let’s say doctor them up a little bit so, you know, this a lot of good vegetables in here. And if you wanted a thicker pie, you could use an eight or nine inch. I think the one we made ahead of time, we did use a nine inch pan, because it makes it a little bit thicker. But if you wanted to serve more people, you could certainly make it in this one. This would be a great idea for a lunch. A nice luncheon, somebody’s coming over and you wanna do something a little different, this would be it. All right. And then I just take the rest of these crumbs that have been mixed, and you just sprinkle them on the top. And when you serve this, you’re gonna garnish with some additional vegetables, like a little piece of, maybe some cucumber, maybe a couple of radish roses on the side. This is so easy, can you believe this, ’cause you’re just gonna refrigerate this for about 24 hours. You don’t cook it, you don’t bake it. This is all you do to it, that’s the whole recipe right here. You cover it, and you put it into your refrigerator, and I think this is a great way to use up some of the vegetables that maybe you get overwhelmed with, you end up with too much. These aren’t the only vegetables, you could do any other kind of vegetables that you’d want to, too. Refrigerate for 24 hours, cover it and refrigerate. Okay. All right, now what we’re gonna do, we’re gonna make chicken salad. And this is a lowfat chicken salad. This is something that is, everybody likes chicken salad, and chicken is one of the dieter’s friends, believe me. Dale, how much time do I have here? Okay. This is so simple, I’m just gonna put it together for you and let you see. First of all, you take two cups of cooked chicken, and this is boneless, skinless. You boil it just with a little bit of onions and parsley, and then you chop it up in nice little pieces, just like that. And we’re going to take, let’s see. We’re gonna take our pineapple, we’re gonna add that. That’s a small can of crushed pineapple that we’ve drained. And some chunks, now, don’t cut your celery too, too fine when you put it in a salad like this. You wanna be able to bite into a chunk of celery, ’cause it tastes better. That’s about, let’s see, how much celery, half a cup. Then we have some white grapes that we’re going to add to the bowl. That’s just a cup, so far, all right. Now, this is a half a cup of fat-free mayonnaise. And we’re just gonna take some juice of a lemon, and we’re gonna add to that. That’s about, oh, a tablespoon of lemon juice. And, this is tarragon, this is a different spice that we don’t usually use, but it works well with this. And what you wanna do is just mix. This is the dressing for your chicken salad. Mix this up. Just like that. I think I might add just a little bit more lemon juice to that. Let’s see. Have you ever seen one of these little reamers? This is handy, and they don’t cost very much at all. If you see them, grab one, because to juice an orange or to juice a lemon, I’m telling you, this is great. Only thing you have to watch is that you don’t get the seeds in there, sometimes you do, then you pick them out, okay? All right, so it just needs to be a little creamier, that’s the consistency that I think will spread around, spread over this a little bit better, okay. Mix it very well, and then you just pour it into our salad. Nice, lowfat. This one has 199 calories per serving, but listen, it only has two grams of fat. It’s pretty good, isn’t it? And this recipe serves six, so you get a pretty decent amount of a salad for those calories, and for those grams of fat. I know it’s really hard to get motivated, if you’ve ever stepped back from dieting and you think, boy, you know, I was doing so good and then along came whatever, whether a picnic, or Christmas, or somebody’s birthday, or you just were feeling sorry for yourself, or feeling bad for yourself, whatever the reason is, it’s important that you get back on, because you’re important. And I’m not talking just to you, I’m talking to me, too. I’m talking to both of us, because it’s so hard to walk away. You get a taste for it again, and then it’s hard to back away and say, no, I’m not gonna have that, because everything in you is saying, I wanna taste it again. But you know, we gotta do it. We just have take control of the situation, and we have to decide, we are going to try it again. So let’s get motivated. And this is a good way, we’re showing you ideas today. When we come back from our break, we’re gonna show you how to make a lowfat southern bread pudding. We’ll be right back in just a minute. Well, if you’ve just joined us, we’re doing lowfat, low-calorie dishes today. We’ve already prepared a garden cheesecake. Yes, I said cheesecake. And it’s already in the refrigerator, chilling down. And we’ve prepared a lowfat, low-calorie chicken salad, and we’re gonna be showing you all of these at the end of the program. Now we’re doing the lowfat southern bread pudding. We have six cups of bread cubes here in the dish, and that’s just slices of bread that you cut. Then we wanna spray our eight inch square baking dish with PAM, okay? Just, okay, we’ll spray that. And what you do is place the bread cubes into the dish, and you wanna pack them in there. This is six cups, now. Whoops. Get back here, you. All right. Let’s distribute those evenly into this pan. Now, this is gonna refrigerate for about an hour before you bake it so that all the moisture is absorbed into there, but let me tell you what we have to pour over that. First we’re gonna take some Egg Beaters, and we need 3/4 of a cup, so that’s one carton, plus half of another carton. And we’re gonna beat them in a large bowl like this, until they get kinda frothy. They need to froth up a little bit. You can do this with a mixer if you wanted to, or a little hand blender, whatever, but you can also do it with the whisk. And this has to be frothy. Pretty good, almost there. Next we’re gonna add some sugar to this, and this is a half cup sugar. And we’re gonna add some vanilla, which is about a half teaspoon of vanilla. Let me see, what else. How ’bout some nutmeg, and some cinnamon? We’ll add those. Those are kinda basics for what we’re doing here, because that’s really a big part of a basic bread pudding recipe. You have to have the cinnamon and the nutmeg, just makes it taste good. This is all foamed up here like this, just like that. Okay, now we’re gonna add two cups of skim milk. Okay. Now before I pour this over this, I wanna add my raisins. And you could do this ahead of time if you wanted to, but I’ll tell you why it’s not important to dirty another bowl, because you’re gonna mix this at the half hour mark, while it’s in the refrigerator chilling, and this is just half a cup of sweet apple, and a half a cup of raisins, and you’re just gonna mix them around, just like that. Well, you could do it in a bowl if you wanted to, but it really honest to goodness does not matter, because we’re gonna pour this over our bread cubes, raisins, and apples. And of course, we want this to be absorbed. We’ll cover it and put it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. At the end of 30 minutes, we want you to bring it out, take a spoon, and just press down so that all the bread keeps getting absorbed. You have to do that. You can even stir it around if you need to. Just press it down, press it down, make sure all of it gets absorbed. Now, then you let it refrigerate for about another half hour. And when you’re done, you preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and you bake it for 40 minutes to one hour. Now, I say that because some stoves are quicker, some ovens are quicker than others. So test it at 40 minutes, and if you’re able to put a knife in the center, it comes out nice and clean and there’s no juices flowing in the pan, then you know you’re there. If not, keep adding five minutes or so to it, all right? We’ll be back in just a minute, and here’s how you can get all the recipes you’ve seen today here “At Home”. We’ll be right back.
- [Announcer] To receive the recipes presented on today’s program, plus many more great recipe ideas, send your best donation and a stamped, self-addressed, business-sized envelope to At Home, CTV, Wall, PA, 15148 1499. You’ll receive Arlene’s heartwarming newsletter, Enjoy!, featuring an entire month of “At Home” recipes, including today’s mouth-watering dishes. Be sure to include the Enjoy! issue number with your request.
- Well, don’t forget now to include your self-addressed, stamped, business-sized envelope when you request today’s recipes. I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We have given you some ideas for lowfat and low-calorie meals. Individual things that you can prepare for your family. Let’s take a look at our garden cheesecake, isn’t that beautiful, colorful, and it tastes so delicious. A nice wedge of that has only 180 calories and just two grams of fat. Then, you can see on our plate here, we have just put a bed of lettuce, added a couple of little cherry tomatoes. This is our lowfat chicken salad. And we’ve added some of the little mini pitas, which are very low in calorie, and also, you can get the variety that has no fat, it’s really important. When you’re doing no fat or lowfat, try to cut the fats out. Read those labels, that’s your biggest help. And then for our dessert, it’s the lowfat bread pudding, and we’ve added just a scoop of no fat vanilla yogurt, frozen yogurt to the top of it, and it makes a nice, a really nice addition to the bread pudding. I hope that we have kind of inspired you today to try one more time. I hope that you’ll think about how important it is for you to feel good, and to be happy with the way you feel, and the way you look. And if we can encourage you by some of our lowfat recipes, I hope we have today. You’re important, do it for you. Don’t do it for anybody else. Don’t do it for your husband, for your kids, do it for you, because you are very important in yourself. Lord bless you today. I hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow. Be sure to join us the next time, ’cause it just wouldn’t be the same without you here “At Home”. We’ll see you then.
- [Announcer] Fresh produce provided by Jordan Banana, wholesalers of fresh fruit and vegetables in Dravosburg, Pennsylvia. Appliances provided by Dacor Distinctive Appliances, a reflection of your good taste. Groceries provided by Foodland, where the answer is always yes. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
Thank you for keeping Arlene and all the wonderful delightful episodes available.
She and all were a joy to watch and still is.
Although my Mother passed into God’s realm in 2020, we both would watch at home together. So much happiness, fun!
Hello Dawna! We’re glad to have you as part of our “At Home Family.” I’m so glad these episode bring back good memories for you.