Nuts for Cheese

I've been perusing the Super Charged South Beach Book and I'm super-charged about trying some of their new menus. I've read the intro/philosophy/basics so many times, that now I just jump immediately to the recipes. So far, I've selected a number of main courses that sound pretty yummy and can reappear as the next day's lunch and/or dinner and maybe a lunch again. (I can't see me cooking a different meal every night, it's just not my style) And I plan to share these dishes in the blog, and tweak them and re-mix them as long a I'm able to maintain their relative calorie, carb and fat counts. And I also plan on spending a good portion of my paycheck at the grocery store and possibly developing some gastro intestinal issues due to the enormous quantities of fresh vegetables involved. So thank goodness for cheese. Cheese is supposed to be binding. Right?

Well, speaking of cheese, which you know I love, there is a dessert in phase 1 that was truly created for me. It's called Peanut Butter Delight- and it's a creamy, rich-tasting concoction of peanut butter and ricotta cheese that makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The first time I made it I ate 3 times the recommended amount. However in reality, the 1/2 cup serving is very satisfying and decadent. Yes, decadent.

Here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Delight (from The South Beach Diet Super Charged) makes four, 1/2 cup servings

2 cups part skim ricotta

1/4 cup all natural peanut butter

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

4 packets of Equal or other sugar substitute- use real sugar if you like, I'm just not sure of the exact amount you'd need

8 dry roasted peanuts chopped (my contribution)

South Beach recommends that you process the ingredients in a blender. Do that if your blender is not tempermental. Mine is, so I use a hand mixer first and combine all ingredients until they are nicely incorporated. Then I transfer the mixture to my blender and whirl away until I see a silky, smooth, ice cream-like consistency develop. Refrigerate and then serve with chopped peanuts as a garnish. I think that little bit of peanut crunch is nice with such a creamy dessert.

I haven't done a re-mix for this, but my first thought was Nutella instead of peanut butter. Then I read the Nutella label and saw the sugar number was 21 grams versus the 3 grams in the peanut butter. So I guess that will have to wait until next year. Which reminds me, Happy New Year!