Tasty Recipes from Recipe Wizards

When Mr. Tidbit counted the Progresso soups last week, he hadn’t meant to slight Campbell’s, which has zillions more kinds of soup than Progresso.

What particularly impressed Mr. Tidbit when he checked the other day was the number of varieties of Campbell’s condensed cream of mushroom soup now available. Campbell’s makes five kinds: original, 98 percent fat free, Healthy Request, 25 percent less sodium and low sodium.

Mr. Tidbit was baffled. How much fat is in the less-sodium versions? How much sodium in the less-fat version? How much lower is low sodium than 25 percent less sodium? And how healthful is Healthy Request?

Well, here is how they stack up in calories, fat and sodium per serving:

Original: 100 calories, 6 grams fat and 870 milligrams of sodium.

98 percent fat-free: 70 calories, 2.5 grams fat and 630 milligrams of sodium.

25 percent less sodium: 110 calories, 8 grams fat and 650 milligrams of sodium.

Low sodium: 160 calories, 12 grams fat and 65 milligrams of sodium.

Healthy Request: 70 calories, 2 grams fat and 410 milligrams of sodium.

In short, the lower the sodium, the more fat the soup contains. (Apparently Campbell’s feels it needs one or the other.) The most balanced reduction seems to be in Healthy Request, which has less fat than the 98-percent fat-free and less sodium than the 25 percent less sodium.

For the heck of it, Mr. Tidbit dug out his 20-year-old can of Campbell’s regular cream of mushroom soup (don’t ask why he has a 20-year-old can of soup), and found that it had the same calorie count as today’s, but 1 more gram of fat and 50 milligrams less sodium.

No pomegranate?

Mr. Tidbit keeps trying not to mention new flavors of existing products. But he can’t help but feel that this new Pepperidge Farm cookie, by piling on so many new elements, deserves a nod: Soft Baked Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Dark Chocolate Almond Cherry. Next week, a lower-sodium version?

With a batch of hometown bakers bringing organic cookies to your door, life is sweet.

O’Cookies Wholesome Bites ($12.50, 12 cookies) come from sisters Meghann and Erin O’Leary, formerly of Fort Lauderdale. Now based in Dallas and New York, respectively, they launched their organic treats in 2007 as a healthier way to satisfy the family sweet tooth.

O’Cookies are available in 10 flavors, including vegan Dark Chocolate Raisin Oat. It’s a long name for a little cookie. You’d think it’d be tough to get so many flavors into a 25-gram treat, but these delights deliver with a burst of sweetness, along with organic whole wheat, oats, raisins, dark chocolate, flax seed and coconut oil.

They’ve got chew, they’ve got crunch, but no animal products or additives. Two Wholesome Bites contain only 90 calories, 1.5 fat grams and 65 milligrams sodium. They’re petite but pleasing. O’Cookies are available online only at www.o-cookies.com.

While you’re online, check out www.ginnybakes.com for organic Ginnybakes cookie mixes ($10, 9.4 ounces, about 22 cookies). Miami Beach, Fla.’s Ginny Simon, self-styled holistic nutritionist and the goddess of Mindful Organics, does most of the work by measuring and assembling most of the ingredients. You add eggs, butter, vanilla and a smidge of labor and get fresh-baked cookies. Flavors include gluten-free Blueberry Walnut Oat Bliss and Chocolate Chip Cherry Love.

Ginnybakes mixes are packed with fruit, nuts, chocolate and other healthful, organic favorites, including agave nectar and flax seed. However, though we obsessively followed the directions, our cookies came out too hard for our taste. One Chocolate Chip Cherry Love cookie has 100 calories, 2.5 fat grams and 115 milligrams sodium.

Made by hometown women, both products are sweet and organic but not cheap. (Shipping is extra.)

Home-baked cookies need not be pricey or difficult. I’ve been making these meringues (adapted from the Tampa Junior League’s ancient, award-winning “Gasparilla Cookbook”) since I was 9. Egg whites, sugar and vanilla yield a batch of ethereal treats for roughly a buck. As a kid, I beat the egg whites by hand. I don’t know why. A mixer does the job in no time.

MERINGUES

The recipe may be doubled. Meringues keep in an airtight container for a week or may be frozen for up to a month.

2 egg whites

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 drops white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon ice water

Heat oven to 250 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or spray them very lightly with oil.

Beat egg whites at highest speed of an electric mixer until they triple in volume and form stiff peaks, 5 to 8 minutes. Add sugar and continue beating. The egg whites will lose some oomph. No fear, keep beating for another 5 minutes or so until they regain their volume.

Add vanilla, vinegar and ice water. Keep beating until the mixture turns glossy and full, stiff but not dry.

Drop meringue onto prepared pans by the teaspoonful. Bake for 1 hour. Cool completely before storing. Makes 1 dozen.

Per serving: 36 calories (0 percent from fat), 0 fat, 0 cholesterol, 0.6 g protein, 8.4 g carbohydrates, 0 fiber, 9 mg sodium.

(Ellen Kanner writes about vegetarian concerns. She blogs at www.edgyveggie1.blogspot.com.)

ZAPPED OATS

Dark chocolate oatmeal might seem overly adventurous, but it’s quite tasty. At least the BetterOats variety. The firm’s instant cereals are a snap to zap, and they come in tasty varieties such as Apples & Cinnamon, Maple Streusel and Berry Blast. They use 100 percent whole-grain oats and pieces of real fruit and chocolate. A box containing 5 pouches sells for about $2 at supermarkets nationwide. Visit betteroats.com for information.

TRIPLE-GRAIN TRIUMPH

Plocky’s Three Grain Tortilla Chips might be good for their diabetic-friendly healthfulness, but the chips will make the whole crowd happy. The rounds stand up to a variety of dips, and the whole-grain corn, cracked whole wheat and whole brown rice meld deliciously. The 7-ounce bag is available for about $3 at plockys.com and in natural food stores nationwide.

INDULGE, NATURALLY

Naturally Nora sure knows her way around a dairy- and soy-free kitchen, and she’s sharing her expertise through baking mixes. We whipped up her chocolate brownie (Fantastic Fudgy Brownies) and frosting mix (Extraordinary Vanilla), and our tasters dug right into the all-natural indulgences without the usual chaser of trans-fat regret. The mixes are available for $4-$5 on amazon.com and at many supermarkets nationwide. For information, go to naturallynora.com.

CHAMPIONS 2.0

Don’t call this a replacement for original Wheaties, it just wouldn’t cut it, but it is a pretty charming sister cereal. Developed with input from a physician and big-time athletes like Peyton Manning and Albert Pujols, it aims to keep performance and health in mind, but this time with a variety of flakes and puffs and a sweet honey-cinnamon flavor. Available in supermarkets nationwide for about $5.

TCHO-COLATE HABIT

Tcho-A-Day 30 suggests self-medication by chocolate: 14 individually wrapped dark chocolate squares (.28 ounces each) prescribed for “inspiration, happy heart, coping, focus, optimism and even euphoria.” Buy the one-month supply bottle for $20 or a “Discover the Flavors” pack of four 60-gram bars for $21, on tcho.com.

PICK THIS PEPPER

Alessi’s Piccantino pepper cruncher combines transparent silicone red rubber and polished steel for this cute and kitschy, but useful, gizmo that helps you grind, spread and store dried red chilies without having to handle them. Available at the end of March for $26 at unicahome.com.

GET SAUCED

Beyond Maison Le Grand’s clever space-age packaging, it’s what’s inside these squeezable packs that has us thrilled. The spreads and sauces – including Garden Pesto, Spicy Tapenade and Lemon Confit Aromatic Sauce – are fresh and taste as though they were crafted with care (not on a conveyor belt). Pouches are about $7 at markets including Whole Foods stores.

BOOK ‘EM

Put pen to these embossed 240-page journals, part of the Passions Collection from Moleskine, to document noteworthy wine or food experiences. Jot down tips, observations and recipes, and add one of the included stickers for easy labeling. Reference pages in the recipe journal include a calendar of in-season foods. The wine journal has a glossary of wine descriptors. The 8-by-5-inch notebooks are $19.95 at moleskineus.com.

SETTING THE BAR

We’ll admit, the lackluster look of Marathon of Miracles’ wrapper did nothing for us, but these all-natural chewy food bars are great. The two varieties, fruit and nut or dark chocolate and nut, share a substantial, crunchy base of almonds, peanuts, and pumpkin, sesame and sunflower seeds. Buy a box of 12 for $24 at marathonofmiracles.org/food.html.

The Keebler folks don’t crank out new versions of their Wheatables “made with stone-ground wheat” crackers every five minutes. If you had asked Mr. Tidbit a month ago, he would have said your only choice, besides original “golden wheat,” was “toasted honey wheat.” But now there are Wheatables Nut Crisps, either “roasted almond” or “toasted pecan.” (Mr. Tidbit will not attempt to differentiate between “roasted” and “toasted.”)

Until he saw the package, with a picture that shows pretty clearly that these are Wheatables, with (as the back of the box says) “a sprinkling of delicious nuts,” Mr. Tidbit unthinkingly assumed that Nut Crisps would be crackers made of ground nuts, so he was disappointed. In fact, now that he’s over that, he can say without reservation that Wheatables with a sprinkling of nuts are very nice.

(And, if you care, Blue Diamond offers several kinds of Nut Thins crackers, which are made with rice flour and pecan meal or almonds.)

LOTS OF STUF

The Nabisco folks, on the other hand, do crank out new Oreo products every five minutes. The latest is a surprising (even to Mr. Tidbit) version of Oreo Cakesters. Don’t know Cakesters? Picture a slightly oversized Oreo, in which a thinnish puff of dark chocolate cake replaces each of the two cookies in the sandwich.

Got that? OK, now you’re ready for the big news: DoubleStuf Cakesters. And take it from Mr. Tidbit, while the DoubleStuf Oreo cookie contains plenty of extra filling, the DoubleStuf Cakester is even more doublestufy. Each DoubleStuf Oreo cookie weighs 25 percent more than a regular Oreo cookie. But each DoubleStuf Cakester weighs 33 percent more than a regular Cakester. (There are 12 regular Cakesters in a box, but just 10 DoubleStuf Cakesters.)

Note: At 125 calories, 6 grams of fat and 11 grams of sugar, the regular Cakester is not exactly a diet item; the DoubleStuf Cakester weighs in at 175 calories, 9 grams of fat and 17 grams of sugar – and inside the box, they’re in 350-calorie two-packs.