The Winner!!!!

This week was a rough week. Its a good thing it went by fast because I am exhausted. We won't even talk about our diet other then the week started out bad, bad eating peaked on Tuesday, but by this morning I was where I started. So we'll just pretend Mon/Tues/Wed didn't happen. I also took on a 3rd job, (pretty much no money involved, ha!) and it turned this week into one giant stress-fest. Luckily I have amazing people around me that help carry the burden.

So, now its Friday, and I want cookies. And I happen to have avocados. I also happen to be going to Costco this weekend so I don't have to worry about hoarding them for meals. Use 'em up!

I found a recipe using avocados instead of butter. These were delicious. Here's my secret with the avocado. Use a large one, or, if in doubt, 2 small ones (Costco Avocados use 1, Walmart avocados, use 2! haha!). The first time I made them, they were delicious! Moist and cakey and fluffy like a scone and oh so good!!! This last time--not so much. I used a much smaller avocado, and I should have used 2. They were dry. This is not deter me though. I will make them again, and use plenty of "green gold." Also, don't cheap out on the chocolate chips. My second batch I used to less to save calories. Ha! Go big or go home.

Now mine didn't turn out as green as the picture on Pinterest, but this is my own real life picture. And don't pity me, I do have a cookie cooling rack. But its in the back of the cabinet, and I'm not pulling crap out to get to it. Paper towels are easy. Plus you can wipe up all the crumbs from everything else and toss it out.

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Chocolate Chip Cookies with Avocado (aka: St. Patrick Day Cookies)

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 40 Cookies

Serving Size: 1 Coo

Light, fluffy and soft gluten-free chocolate chip cookies made with fresh avocado.

Ingredients

1. 2 1/4 cup gluten free flour (I used Trader Joe's) or regular flour
2. 1 tsp. baking soda
3. 1/2 tsp. salt
4. 1 cup avocado, mashed
5. 3/4 cup NuNaturals Presweet Tagatose or sugar
6. 1/4 cup brown sugar
7. 1/2 cup egg substitute or 2 eggs
8. 1 tsp. vanilla extract
9. 1 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325F
2. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or Silpat
3. In a large bowl add flour, baking soda and salt; set a side
4. In large bowl, cream avocado, sugar and brown sugar until light. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract until smooth. Gradually add flour mixture; mix until combined.
5. Stir in chocolate chips
6. Drop by well rounded teaspoons onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 8 - 10 minutes until lightly golden brown.
7. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for about 3 minutes, then let them cool completely on a cooling rack.

Warning on this: The batter is sticky. Not like sugary sticky, but like getting-the-batter-off-the-spoon- takes-some-work sticky. And there is not "shaping." Dropping the batter from the spoon to the pan is about as shapely as your going to get.

I got this off pinterest, but the real link is http://www.peanutbutterandpeppers.com/2013/02/18/your-going-to-think-im-crazy-chocolate-chip-cookies/.

The perfect Diet Cookie--Squished Banana Cookies

I can make a decent cookie. If I try hard enough, ie: not using a mix. But this week I had a sick kid so I was home a little more than usual. (Like I got to spend a DAY at home!!! Yippee!!!!) So, for the experiment I used this little goody I found on Pinterest:

Get Skinny / 2 large old bananas 1 cup of quick oats. You can add in choc chips, coconut, or nuts if you'd like. Then 350º for 15 mins.

The consistency didn't seem right. I added more oats. Then I tasted it and it had a bitter old banana flavor (My bananas weren't THAT old!). So I added sweetener. Then more. That wasn't working so I went for the real stuff. SUGAR. About 1/3 of a cup (I was trying to stay close to the recipe). Still no. Added a little brown sugar. Then about 1/4 cup flour. Then I found another variation on Pinterest that added 1/3 cup applesauce. At this point, what the heck, I've totally defeated the healthy part anyway! Join the party!!! With the added flour, it had more of an acceptable consistency.

So, the big reason this is the perfect diet cookie?! You won't be tempted at all!!! You will take one bite, and that will be enough. (As my husband said, "These are TERRIBLE!") They do look like the picture, so kinda pretty. Maybe if you were having guests over and you wanted to look domestic...just don't let them eat them....

Now I should have a disclaimer: I'm sure that there are people that could whip this up and it would be excellent. There are just those kinda people out there. I'm not one of them. I'm average. Maybe my bananas weren't right. Maybe I peeled them wrong. Who knows. 

BUT, I did get to use my new shark vacuum. Its pretty awesome! It has a swifter attachment type deal. It was pretty much the most exciting part of my day. Yay! =)

Change

My husband and I have been trying to lose weight. C is down 25 pounds. I am down 10. It sucks. Our "eating lifestyle" changed the beginning of February. Every morning since then he has gotten on the scale and pronounced, "I'm down (insert 1/2+ lb here)." I try to weight myself after he leaves. Because I know he will always be encouraging and ask, but I know about those 2 cookies I ate yesterday. (Its down from 6, so thats a start!)

So in my quest to balance delicious goodies with watching calories and fat, I have of course, turned to pinterest. Because anyone knows that you can slap a pretty picture on the internet of some delicious treat and say, "Healthy! Hardly no calories! No fat!" Well, this is my mission to actually find the needle the in haystack. And then proceed to tell everyone about it. So far, my track record isn't looking to good. But heres that journey. First try: COOKIE DOUGH GREEK YOGURT

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Greek Yogurt. Cookie Dough Greek Yogurt - add 1 tbsp pnut butter, 1 tbsp sweetener, 1 tbsp mini chips, and 1/4 tsp vanilla to Greek yogurt.

Now, I know you are also looking at this and saying, "Wow! That looks delicious AND easy! I can do that!" Because that is exactly what I said. 

Its a LIE. All a lie. Don't waste your time. Now, this isn't the exact one I used. I deleted it. In anger. But it was pretty close. And I don't know if I did something wrong (but lets be honest, not a lot to screw up here) but it was not good. Not TERRIBLE. But I didn't eat it. And I wouldn't feed it to my dog or anything. Its super popular on pinterest. I'm guess thats because not many have acutally tried to make it. But now you know. Your welcome. =)

Next time I will try the cookies using 3 simple ingredients: bananas, instant oats, and chocolate chips.

Testing Testing

So this is pretty much my first blog. I am new to the whole blogging thing, but hey, it's cheaper than therapy, right? So I keep thinking, what purpose will my blog have? I don't really know, to be honest. I think it will be a mixture of ranting, recipes, and life lessons. That sounds good.

I do know that right now I am typing on my iPad, and as far as editing, it sucks. So maybe I will have typos. And words will be changed because autocorrect is a bitch.

So please, leave comments. We can have adult conversations through comments. (not nasty adult conversations, I mean like adult as in interacting with someone over the age of 5!) because really, that's all that moms really want. But I'm sure we will still talk about boogers and poop, because hey, that's what moms do.

So it asks me for this title thing, and as I'm trying to figure one out, all I can come up with is I have 2 boys. They were both born in June, one will be six and the youngest will be one. And we have an ugly dog. She has bad teeth, and a bad underbite. She's a puggle, great the kids, hard on the eyes. But, she's so ugly, she's cute, in my opinion anyway. According my husband, she's just ugly. I will post a picture someday. If I figure that out....

So my first blog---here will be my amazing thing to share for the day!!!! Drumroll please!!!!

Corn dog muffins!!!

I found this on pinterest, but it works and is totally amazing!

You will need:
Muffin tin
Cupcake liners
Can of Big Franks
1 easy peezy mix of cornbread mix (got this at the dollar store. Marie Callenders kind. Can't go wrong!)

Put your liners in the pan, cut the big franks in half and lay 1 in each liner. Then cover with the cornbread mix. Don't overfill the cups! Bake for a good 20 minutes. (you have to use your judgement on is one, the recipe I saw said 10 minutes, that was not correct!)

I only made 6 because I didn't know how it was going to turn out. They turned out great! Kiddo loved them, as did the hubby! They turn out kinda crumbly, so I used a fork to eat them.

So there we are, let's see how this blogging thing goes!!!!