Christmas Cookies

Until last year I never did Christmas presents for the girls' teachers.  I don't know why but, I just didn't.  {Does that make me a horrible parent?}  But, last year I decided to do cookies for them. I figure that I would want edible gifts if I was a teacher.  {I mean seriously, how many "World's Greatest" or "#1 Teacher" mugs and knick-knacks does a teacher need?!??}

Last year I made "traditional" cookies, loaded with butter and sugar.  After the fact I decided that I wasn't being true to me by making them like that.  A vegan wouldn't buy eggs to make cookies with.  Someone who follows the Paleo diet probably wouldn't make non-Paleo cookies.  Why am I going to make cookies that I wouldn't even feed my kids??  I decided to alter all the cookies, except 1, to be low fat.  People love the flourless peanut butter cookies so I make them every time I need to bring cookies somewhere.  

Peanut Butter
From Martha Stewart
makes 16

Ingredients
1 cup peanut butter
.75 cup sugar
1 egg
.5 t baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  
2. Mix together all ingredients
3. Roll 1 Tablespoon of dough into balls and place on cookie sheet
4. Bake for 12-14 minutes.  Rotate halfway thru.
5. Cool on pan for 5 minutes before transferring to cookie sheet. 

Chocolate Chip
From: Happy Herbivore Light & Lean
Makes 16

Ingredients
.33 cup plain applesauce
.5 cup brown sugar
1 t vanilla
.25 cup nonfat milk
1 cup flour
1 t baking powder
1 T cornstarch
.5 cup chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Grease cookie sheet
2. Combine all the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients (except chocolate chips) in another.
3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet
4. Fold in chocolate chips
5. Drop on cookie sheet and bake 7-10 minutes.  Rotate halfway through.  

Oatmeal Raisin
Quaker Oatmeal "Raisin" Cookies
This recipe originally calls for chocolate chips but, I substituted raisins and dried cranberries for the chocolate chips
makes 5 dozen

Ingredients
2 cups pureed zucchini
1 cup brown sugar, packed
.5 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 T milk
2 t vanilla
1.75 cup flour
1 t baking soda
2.5 cup oatmeal
4 cups dried fruit (I used raisins and cranberries)

Directions

1. Heat oven  to 375
2. Mix zucchini puree and sugars together
3. Add eggs, milk and vanilla
4. Mix in flour, baking soda, and oatmeal.
5. Fold in fruit
6. Drop by the tablespoon on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake for 9-11 minutes.

Banana Bread

Adapted From:  Cook This, Not That 350 Calorie Meals

Ingredients

4 ripe bananas (about 2 cups)

.75 cup Greek yogurt 

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

.75 cup sugar (I start with .25 cups and figure out how sweet it needs to be)

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.  (I used a 4 loaf mini pan)
2. Puree bananas, yogurt, eggs and vanilla in a blender or food processor
3. In a separate bowl mix together the remaining ingredients
4. Fold banana mixture into flour mixture
5. Pour into pan and bake for 50 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.  The mini loaf pans take about 35-40 minutes  (if the top starts to brown before the inside is. done then put tin foil over the top) 

Do you have any good healthy cookie recipes?  Do you alter normal recipes to make them healthier?

K is for Kale

I have recently grown to love kale.  There are soooooo many health benefits to kale! Here's the list of vitamins and minerals in 1 cup of raw kale:

Vitamin A - 133%
Calcium - 10%
Vitamin C - 134%
Iron - 5%
Vitamin B-6 - 10%
Magnesium - 7%



Plus, there's only 33 calories and almost 3 grams of protein.  

To most people oatmeal is a breakfast food.  Probably because when people think oatmeal, they think sweet, and packed full of sugar.  In my eyes, it's just like every other grain.  Hell, if you can make rice into pudding, then you can make oatmeal for dinner!  When I told Ken and Kaylee about my dinner plan they both wrinkled their noses and were not too happy about it.  [Funny thing is, the dinner I made them ended up messing up.  If they hadn't been grossed out by my idea they would have had a lovely dinner]  

I personally used Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Hot Cereal.  Any oatmeal will work though.  This recipe is super simple and is quite customizable to your taste.

Kale Oatmeal




Ingredients
1 medium onion, diced
8 oz mushrooms, chopped
4 cups kale
4 servings of oatmeal 
enough vegetable broth to make your oatmeal (according to package directions)

Directions

1. Saute onions and mushrooms
2. Add vegetable stock and kale, simmer 20 minutes until the kale is soft
3. Prepare the oatmeal according to package directions
4. Stir kale mixture into oatmeal or spoon oatmeal into bowls then top with vegetables.

How do you feel about oatmeal?  Is it a breakfast only food or can you replace dinner grains with it? 

Cookies For Breakfast

Seeing the look on a 4-year-old's face when you tell them that we are having cookies for breakfast is priceless.  "COOKIES??!!??  REALLY??"  Well, these cookies are the perfect breakfast item.  Low calorie, fat and sugar.  Kaylee and Mo were only surprised when I told them "You can't have more than 4."  You should definately try these for breakfast tomorrow.  Make sure to keep them in the fridge since they don't have any fat.  The only fat in them comes from the oatmeal.  No fat = no preservatives which means that they will rot if you leave them on the counter.

I made these because I had a bunch of overly brown bananas and needed something to do with them yesterday morning.

Super Banana Breakfast Cookies
Adapted from: Watching What I Eat: Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies
Makes 12 cookies
Calories: 82
Fat: 0.8g
Sugar: 7.0g
Protein: 1.7 g

1 1/2 cups oatmeal
3 bananas
roughly 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup craisins
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon  or pumpkin pie spice

Directions

1. Preheat oven 350
2. Mash 2 bananas and mix with vanilla
3. Mash the 3rd banana and add enough applesauce to equal 1 cup. (mash the banana then put it in your measuring cup and top it off with enough applesauce to reach 1 cup)
4. Mix everything together
5. Let rest for 10 minutes
6. Drop onto cookie sheet and bake for 20-30 minutes.

They are perfect for the on-the-go morning family.  Oh and if you wanna be fancy you can whip up a maple glaze for the top.  Combine a bit of maple syrup with some powdered sugar and drizzle on top.  YUM!

Curveball Week

I'm a bad mom.  My house ran out of milk last night.  I thought I had enough to last me until this morning but, it all got drank with dinner.  This is what my kids ended up with for breakfast.

Awwww, poor babies??  I think they're pretty damn lucky that we had no milk or they would have been stuck with boring cereal.  I wish I had taken a picture after I stirred it tho.

Curveball Oatmeal (serves 2)
2 servings of oatmeal, cooked to your liking (I used the directions on the tub)
4 T sugar-free maple syrup
4 T cocoa powder
2 T chocolate chips

• Stir everything together until the chocolate chips are melted and the cocoa powder is distributed evenly
• Divide evenly among 2 bowls 
• Finish with a splash of skim (or non-dairy) milk to cool and/or thin it out 

I added a sprinkle of cherry craisins to theirs.  For mine I reduced the cocoa powder to 1 1/2 Tablespoons and added half a banana and a splash of soymilk.  (I used soymilk in the girls too)

Calories --281
Fat --  7.2 g
Cholesterol -- 2 mg
Sodium -- 161 mg
Carbs -- 57.9 g
Fiber -- 7.7 g
Sugar -- 6 g
Protein -- 8.1 g

See?  It looks decadent and unhealthy but the calories aren't all that bad.  

Life loves to throw me curveballs though, just like the oatmeal.  This weekend life threw me another curveball.  I finally (after about 2 months) got my motivation back to exercise.  But, when I woke up Saturday morning determined to workout, my knees were killing me.  I've been in serious pain since then.  Now I'm on the hunt for a zero impact mega calorie burning workout.  Now isn't that a big FU to start off the holiday season?? 

Now off to the chiropractor.  Hopefully they can work the issues out of my knee. 

Do you have any curveball recipes?