Coconut Cocoa Oat Cookies…whatever

I really wanted to bake something chocolate last week, which is sort of odd for me, because I really wouldn’t say I’m a chocolate fan. I like chocolate, but if given two choices, I’m almost always going to pick the non-chocolate option. Needless to say I had some fancy Cocoa powder that I wanted to use, and a craving to make a slightly healthier cookie too. Mr. Gaunt LOVES cookies, but he kind of hates my healthy cookies. I was hoping the cocoa powder would make them less “healthy tasting”. The recipe I used is:

1 1/4 cup rolled oats (not instant)
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup Coconut Oil
3 T Agave

1/2 Cup shredded coconut

Mix all together, bake at 350 for about 12 minutes.

I used this recipe, but made a number of adjustments. My cookies were ok, but not fluffy, so following her recipe more directly might yield better results.

I thought they were yummy in a dark chocolate, not too sweet sort of way. Which is good because then I only eat like 1 a day.  As usual I think Mr. Gaunt could take or leave them. Don’t worry, I’m planning to make him this cake for his birthday next month. Full, fat, full sugar.

Can I also just say that I am super obsessed with PicMonkeys Halloween features. It makes me want to deck out my front porch all goolish!

Amazing, I know.

 

Still Eating Kale.

Did you now Kale is a winter vegetable? Isnt that odd, its main season is December – February! However we live in a magic world where you can get it year round! I actually have some local Purple kale in the fridge Im gonna put on a pizza later this week. Last week in an attempt to eat a head of kale before it went bad, I made this yummy dinner.

The Ravioli is from Costco, and not something I would normally buy. Its Garlic Brie Ravioli that was surprisingly low in fat, and it sounded amazing! In the end it was only ok. I actually prefer to eat it raw (I know its weird, as a child I loved raw Tortellini) because when you cook it, it’s really hard to keep them from opening and boiling all the cheese out. After making like 15, I probably only got 8 that still had cheese in them…lame.

For the toppings, I sautéed a white diced onion with some minced garlic and mushrooms. Then added a large amount of chopped Kale to steam. Meanwhile I broiled some cherry tomatoes with olive oil in the oven. After the kale was soft I added a little more Olive Oil, Red Pepper Flakes and Parmesan, and salt and pepper.

Put on top of the ravioli, and it was quite yummy!  Id do it again, only with whole wheat pasta.

Vegan Apple Banana Mini Muffins

My friend Jenny made these for Liam to have in the morning for breakfast. She joked that she made mini ones to be baby size, but Liam just eats 4 or 5 of them. There still extra cute in mini form, I chose to make mini just to reduce my portion size.

About a week ago I broke down and bought Organic Unbleached Flour instead of my usual Whole Wheat Flour. As much as I LOVE WW Flour, it’s not the best for baking, and I really like to bake. When Jenny gave this recipe to me it wasnt Vegan. The recipe called for 2 eggs, which I substituted for 2 overly ripe bananas, works perfect! Also I switched the regular butter to Earth Balance Vegan Butter. Lastly it calls for chunky Applesauce, but I only had smooth, so I diced up a small apple and threw that in with it.

They turned out amazing! So moist and yummy! Perfect for breakfast and a mid day snack, they don’t need butter or anything. I will be making these often. Jenny freezes them and throws them in the microwave for breakfast, seems like a pretty good idea.

VEGAN APPLE BANANA MINI MUFFINS:

Ingredients

6 Tablespoons Vegan Butter Melted

1.5 Cups Organic Unbleached Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Salt

2 Very Ripe Bananas

2/3 C Brown Sugar

1 Cup Organic Unsweetened Applesauce

1 Small Apple

Directions

Preheat oven to 375

Spray mini (or big) muffin pan with PAM

Melt Butter in large bowl

Add Bananas, Applesauce, Diced Apples and mix well

In a separate bowl mix all dry ingredients.

Combine Dry ingredients with Apple mixture, stir well.

Fill muffin tray 3/4 full

Bake for 20 minutes.

These would also be good with some walnuts in them too!

In other fun news I will be ordering a Cherry Pitter and a Food Dehydrator tomorrow! I also got the latest issue of Clean Eating Magazine and it is FULL of amazing summer recipes I need to try, including Roasted Cherries that will be so much easier to make with my cherry pitter.

My food diet has been going amazingly well, I am down 4.5lbs since Monday morning! Crazy! I did however cheat tonight, a good friend of Mr. Gaunt’s is moving tomorrow to Arizona and wanted to take us out to dinner. I picked going to Merels one of our favorite restaurants, because I knew they had some good vegetarian options. I ended up getting a Veggie burger with a fruit cup side, plus a basket of yam chips and guac for the table. I limited myself to only a few chips and just half my burger, plus FOUR giant glasses of water to make me too full to keep eating. Still feeling a little guilty I made sure I went straight to the pool when we got home. Usually I swim 20 laps and then do another 1/2  hour of water aerobics. Tonight I stepped it up and did FORTY LAPS! Wowza! It felt amazing. I have now done 5 consecutive days of lap swimming, go me!