Blueberry Avocado Muffins

I'm over halfway through my spring stay-cation. And while, I'm disappointed it wasn't safe to go to Aquiles and sad I didn't get to see my kids in La Union, it's been nice. (Although I now have a really big tent for no reason, and I refuse to take it back…because that would involve going inside WalMart… So, anyone up for a camping trip?)

I've gotten to sleep at night. Like go to bed by 10 or 11 and sleep until 7ish. Actually get things done during the day. I have missed that life. I've gotten to hangout with lots of different friends. I got caught up on TV & Netflix…and started into some new shows… I'm going to FINALLY finish a project that I started forever ago. I've made dinner a couple times (nothing epic…last night was literally, "there is all this stuff I need to use, let's make something out of it" night). 

But I needed to share my muffins from this morning. Totally delicious. Like seriously. And pretty healthy as far as muffins go. The original recipe is from Gimme Some Oven via Pinterest. But I changed it up a bit. I took out 1 cup of AP flour & replaced it with WW (you could replace the flour totally with a GF mix…more power to you). I took out all the processed sugar (3/4 cup) & replaced it with 2 TBSP raw honey. I added a little extra cinnamon. Between using WW flour & the extra cinnamon, my muffins turned out not looking so green, which I think is kind of nice. They look more normal.

Blueberry Avocado Muffins

For the muffins:

1 cup WW flour

1 cup AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 ripe avocado, seeded & peeled

2 TBSP raw honey

1 tsp vanilla 

1 egg

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

Streusel topping:

2 TBSP melted butter, slightly cooled

2 TBSP AP flour

1/4 cup raw sugar 

• Preheat the oven to 375*F and prepare a 12-cup muffin pan.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon.
• In your KitchenAid stand mixer bowl, add the avocado and beat until relatively smooth. Add the egg & beat until completely combined. Add the honey, vanilla & yogurt, beating until just combined. Add half of the flour mixture, beating until just combined. Then repeat with the other half. Gently fold in the blueberries by hand. The batter will be very thick & sticky. No worries. 
• Spoon the batter (or I prefer to use a cookie scoop) into the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle with streusel topping (optional). Bake for 25-ish minutes or until done. Just keep an eye on them!

Enjoy!

{Snack Time} Apple Dippers

I can't say that I've been cooking a lot lately. I'm all about what's basically ready to eat. Food that someone else makes for me is even better. So, I thought I would share one of my new favorite snacks. It's incredibly easy. Super yummy.  

Just mix up about 1/3-1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt with a spoonful of peanut butter, a splash of vanilla, and a dab of honey or agave (I don't always do this). 

I like to dip granny smith apple slices in it, but I'm sure other apples or fruits would be just as tasty. I just prefer some crunchy tartness! 

{Flourless} Chocolate Chunk Blondies with Sea Salt

I got in a little baking amongst everything else going on today! I had found this "healthy" sweet treat recipe on Pinterest a while back. I'm so glad I finally tried it! Plus, it was a good excuse to break in my recent Target find:

Pretty great, right? These blondies are flour-free, egg-free, refined sugar-free...but not taste-free. The big secret ingredient? Chick peas. Mixed up with honey and natural peanut butter. ANYTHING is better with peanut butter. (Fine, I realize that may not be completely true...but mostly.) I broke apart some Velata discs for my chocolate chunks. Great choice. I promise there is a difference in the taste between regular chocolate chips/chunks and Velata. It's kind of epic. 

Being me, I under-baked these babies. So mine turned out very soft and gooey. Yum. I couldn't tell you what they might be like if you actually bake them for an appropriate amount of time...but I'd imagine they still taste good! Enjoy!

Flourless Chocolate Chunk Blondies with Sea Salt

Inspired by: Ambitious Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 can (15 oz) chick peas, rinsed and drained

1/2 cup natural peanut butter

1/3 cup honey

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup broken Velata premium chocolate pieces 

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350*F. Prepare an 8x8 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
• Combine everything except the chocolate into a food processor (really, a Ninja or Vitamix is best). Process until the batter is smooth. Fold in the chocolate chunks. 
• Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan. Sprinkle a little sea salt on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes clean out of the center and the edges are slightly browned. 

Greek Yogurt Waffles

Food! Yay! I still have a couple more travel posts to get up, but I wanted to post this before I forgot what I changed. It's been a fairly lazy Saturday. I almost slept-in until 9, which is pretty late for me...which is sad. I was starving when I woke up. Like I wake up and I am so hungry that I'm nauseated. Everyday. Does anyone else have this problem? I have to have food (and coffee) pronto. Anyways, my late morning is still early for everyone else...so I grabbed a Larabar and coffee, and then got my P90X-2 on for the day. At which point it was about 1130, and the others were beginning to surface. So I made waffles. I'm all about eating breakfast as many times as possible. 

I feel like it's been a really long time since I've had waffles. I guess we just generally do pancakes. But waffles are great because they have like built-in syrup holders. You can also get in more peanut butter this way. Totally brilliant. I slightly modified this recipe from Lauren Conrad's website. These waffles are definitely better for you than the normal ones. Greek yogurt, honey, whole wheat flour, coconut oil... and still super tasty! Even the brother ate them up.

Greek Yogurt Waffles

Ingredients:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 1/4 cups milk

1 TBSP-ish honey

1/2 tsp vanilla 

Directions:

• Plug in your waffle iron so it can heat up.
• In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients together and mix.
• In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients and mix them together.
• Pour the wet mixture over the dry mixture and whisk the two together.
• Spray your waffle iron with some non-stick cooking spray. (This may need to be repeated between waffles.)
• Scoop about 1/3 cup of batter onto the waffle iron. Cook until it's as done as you like it. Repeat until all the batter has been used. About 10 times. 

Enjoy!

Note: You may be able to see this in the picture, but they were very soft. I couldn't tell you if that's because of the "healthy" stuff or because I tend to (intentionally) undercook things like waffles. I mean, they're more done than any of my pancakes ever get (I like those to still run batter when you cut in). So mine are floppy, but tasty. I guess you could try to cook them more thoroughly. 

Healthy Dark Chocolate Brownies

Healthy? Brownies? Yes. Well, pretty much. I adapted this recipe from Averie Cooks to my liking. Much of the butter is cut out by using a mashed (very ripe) avocado. Sugar? Try honey and molasses. (Although I did sprinkle the top with some powdered sugar...) The result? Soft, fudgy, chocolate goodness. I will say that if you do not like dark chocolate, you will not like these. But for those of you who are like me, this is the perfect chocolate fix! You could make them sweeter by cutting out the molasses and using all honey. And you could use regular cocoa powder instead of dark. But I like my chocolate seriously dark.


Healthy Dark Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:
Flesh from 1 very ripe Hass avocado, well mashed
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg
1/2 cup + 1 TBSP pure honey
1/4 cup molasses 
2 TBSP coffee (from your morning brew)
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup unsweetened dark natural cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda 
1 packet instant coffee (I used Starbucks Via Italian Roast...the stronger, the better!)
1/4 cup gluten-free or all-purpose flour

Directions:

• Preheat the oven to 350*F and generously spray an 8x8 glass baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, add your avocado and make sure it is well mashed. The riper the avocado, the easier to smooth it out.
• Add the melted butter, egg, honey, molasses, coffee, and vanilla. Whisk to combine. Continue to whisk out any green streaks or lumps.
• Add the cocoa powder, baking soda and instant coffee. Whisk until incorporated and free from lumps.
• Add the flour and mix just until combined. Don't over mix.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and gently smooth out with a spatula. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the top has just set, it's not jiggly in the center, and the edges have firmed up. The toothpick test doesn't work here. These are fudgy, so crumbs will stick to a toothpick. Don't over bake.
• I sliced them up and had one warm about 20 minutes after pulling them out of the oven. You could may choose to chill them. Enjoy! 

Apple Peanut Butter Snack Bars

It's no secret that I love peanut butter. And I like baking things with peanut butter. I was pretty excited when I came across these yummy Apple Peanut Butter Snack Bars on Pinterest. Not only do they have peanut butter, they do not have flour or refined sugar...and they taste great! If you get the right oats, they can even be gluten free. Score, right? I think so. I adapted the recipe from Happy Healthy Mama. Basically, I just added a little extra cinnamon because I like it. The bars are very soft and a little gooey. Super easy to make. They are extra good with extra peanut butter on top. (I'm serious about my peanut butter fetish. At one point, I was going through 2 pounds a month. Easy. Sometimes more...) These bars make a great afternoon snack, or you could cut them larger for breakfast. Enjoy!


Apple Peanut Butter Snack Bars

Ingredients:
2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup shredded apple (1 medium apple)
1/4 cup natural creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup local honey
2 eggs
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp natural vanilla

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8 or 9x9 (depending of if you want them thicker or thinner...I went with thicker) baking dish and set aside.
• In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients and mix well. Transfer the mixture to the baking dish and press it down evenly.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the edges are slightly browned. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.

{Grain & Refined Sugar Free} PB Cookies

These are the other (somewhat healthier) peanut butter cookies I made this past weekend. First of all, the dough is incredible. Seriously, seriously incredible. The texture is like a fluffy frosting. Really, if you wanted, you could omit the egg and baking soda and use it as a peanut butter frosting. Or fruit dip. Or just eat it with a spoon... However, the cookies themselves have a really weird texture. They don't taste bad, in fact, they're kind of addicting. It's difficult to describe. They're moist and have this amazing peanut butter flavor. I have found that the texture is better if the cookies are frozen. (The cookies are still soft when frozen.) A little Nutella adds a nice touch. 


PB Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup natural peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
8 oz plain Greek yogurt (I used Fage 2%)
1/2 cup local honey
1 tsp natural vanilla
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 egg 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and your choice of grease.
• Mix everything up in a bowl or use your stand mixer. Like I said, the texture will resemble a fluffy frosting. 
• Use a cookie scoop (about 2 tsp), placing the drops of dough about 2" apart on the cookie sheet--they will spread!
• Bake for about 10 minutes or until the edges are slightly golden.
• Let cool for a couple minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Makes about 36 cookies. Enjoy!

Giant Gooey Cinnamon Biscuits

I made some giant gooey cinnamon biscuits for Mother's Day breakfast yesterday. My inspiration for these tasty treats came from The Kitchn, via Pinterest. However, I couldn't get over putting two cups of heavy cream in what was going to be four biscuits. Then, I discovered what all went into cinnamon chips. I did some serious revamping. I swapped ingredients and eliminated some steps. The result was great! They were delicious, and everyone enjoyed them. I'll admit that I did go ahead and pour on a mixture of organic milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Live a little, right? However, I think that the biscuits would still be tasty without that. Maybe some homemade jam instead? You could probably also make eight smaller biscuits. Here's the recipe---


Giant Gooey Cinnamon Biscuits
Original recipe from The Kitchn, with modification help from Alaska from Scratch

Ingredients:
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP baking powder
1/4 tsp cream of tartar 
1 TBSP natural honey
1 1/2 cups plain Greek yogurt (I used Fage 2%)
1/4 cup reduced fat organic milk
4 TBSP cinnamon chips (see recipe below)

Topping (optional):
Reduced fat organic milk and powdered sugar to desired consistency. I went with more of a "soak-y"glaze than icing. Add vanilla to taste. 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease an 8x8 baking dish. 
• Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk together. Add honey, yogurt, and just enough milk to make a fairly sticky dough. Mix until combined.
• Dump the dough onto a floured surface and pat or roll out into a square. Cut into quarters. 
• Place about 1 TBSP on cinnamon chips in the middle of each square. Fold the edges over, making sure the cinnamon chips are covered and there are no holes. 
• Place the biscuits into the baking dish. Bake for about 16 minutes or until the tops are golden brown. 
• Pour glaze/icing on and serve warm. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Chips

Ingredients:
3 TBSP ground cinnamon
2 TBSP unrefined coconut oil (in place of vegetable shortening)
2 TBSP honey (in place of corn syrup)
1/4 tsp vanilla

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees. Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet and grease well. 
• Mix everything together.
• Dump the mixture onto the parchment paper and flatten it out to a 1/4" thick or so. 
• Bake until the mixture has completely melted and is somewhat bubbly.
• Cool completely before cutting.

Store what is leftover in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer. Coconut oil has a lower melting point than vegetable shortening so the cinnamon chips will soften quickly if you leave them out.

Leftover Oatmeal Muffins

When we had family in for graduation, I made some slow cooker overnight oatmeal. I got that recipe from The Gracious Pantry, which is probably my new favorite place to find "clean" recipes. The oatmeal wasn't too bad, and it was nice having something ready to eat in the morning. I would recommend not adding the raisins in until the morning though. The definitely soaked up a lot of the liquid, so they looked pretty funky...and the brother couldn't handle it. Anyways, we had a little over 2 cups left, so I went on a quest to find a recipe for leftover oatmeal muffins. I found a recipe that I liked the basic concept of from Full Tummies. As I was reading comments, someone else had made some suggestions...so I took things I liked from both recipes and made my own! The muffins turned out really well. They kind of remind me of a very moist bran muffin. (You could probably add more flour, if you want a dryer texture. I like things pretty moist. Then, I don't need condiments.) They got eaten up pretty quickly, and even the brother liked them! (Little did he know I had used the oatmeal he didn't like to make them.) 


Leftover Oatmeal Muffins

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cooked oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 TBSP coconut oil (melted)
2 TBSP unsweetened applesauce
2 TBSP honey
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

(If your leftover oatmeal is plain, you may consider adding cinnamon, vanilla, or whatever you like!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease your muffin pan (the recipe makes 12 good sized muffins). I pretty much just threw it all in our KitchenAid stand mixer and mixed it up. Then, divide the batter between each muffin cup. Bake for 25-ish minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy! 

Honey-Ginger Trail Mix

I feel so blessed to have been able to spend last evening with the wonderful women of Gamma Rho. It's been rough not getting to see anyone outside of nursing school and not getting to do anything non-nursing school related...especially Spring Sing. Anyways, our fabulous Chaplin organized a mini retreat for this evening, and it was a blast! It was so good getting to see so many of my sisters. Great games. Great crafts. Great songs. Great devotional. And, of course, great food. As a senior, I was suppose to bring a "healthy" snack. I didn't want to do just a fruit or veggie tray. I wanted to be a little more creative. I hunted around and found a good looking recipe from Chex. (Definitely maybe not as healthy as an apple, but surely better [for you] than cake.) I was actually surprised by how well it turned out. It was definitely a hit. Several gals wanted the recipe, so here it is...more here is what I did:

Honey-Ginger Trail Mix
(Chex Ginger-Honey Crunch)

Ingredients:
6 cups Honey Nut Chex cereal
1 cup dried banana chips (I didn't actually put any in because the grocery store didn't have any to buy when I was there...but I bet they add a nice touch)
1 cup unblanched whole almonds
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 cup flaked coconut
1/2 cup sweetened dried cranberries or dried pineapple (I did a 1/2 cup of each)

Directions:
In a large microwave bowl, mix cereal, banana chips and almonds.
In a 2-cup microwavable measuring cup, microwave butter, brown sugar, honey and ginger until mixture is boiling; stir. Pour over cereal mixture; stir. Microwave for 1 minute; stir (repeat this step 3 more times). 
Stir in coconut, cranberries and/or pineapple (I cut my pineapple tidbits into quarters).
Spread onto jelly roll pan (lined with wax paper) to cool. Power cool in the fridge, if you want.
Store in an airtight container...if there's any left!

 

For some reason I am not sleeping tonight, which is always fantastic...said no one ever! I'm not sure if it's the 1-hour rest period I had in the middle of the afternoon or the fact that I apparently put the "energy" variety of Crystal Light in my water that I took to the retreat...maybe a combination of the two. On the plus side, I have breakfast made for the next 6 days (post coming soon), the kitchen is cleaned up, and I have fresh sheets and towels. I really wanted to workout, but I have a feeling that the people who live below me would not appreciate me doing Plyocide right now. I thought about working on taxes, but that seems a little ambitious. Oh, well. Maybe a movie? Or smell the new Scentsy fragrances again? That's always fun. Well, I'm off to find something else to do! Happy Saturday!