Category Archives: Cooking

I really try and stick to delicious food but my health radar has gone off quite a bit now that we have a little one, and cancer has been running rampant in both of our families lately. It seems like a never ending cycle. My motto is delicious food; if it tastes healthy than it may taste like cardboard. I am not interested in that, and we all know my husband will not eat something that isn’t tasty.

My husband works two jobs right now being that it’s tax season. I honestly hate this time of year, we never really see one another and for most of the week he barely spends time with our son. It is hard on me, but I know he is doing it for a good cause and to help support us. I must say I am very grateful I am able to stay at home. I know it is really hard on him not being able to spend time with me and especially our son as he is quickly growing like a bean sprout.

In the midst of cooking, cleaning, trying to sell the house, raise little man, take care of my husband and somewhere in there manage to pull myself together; I try and have snacks around the house that are tasty, not store bought but easy to keep around. My husband is a runner; he gets up early in the morning and runs five miles while I remain in a deep, cozy sleep. When I say early, I mean 5:30 early. He needs a boost to get him going in the morning and after he runs, we have a ravenous on our hands. He needs to eat all day long. And believe me, you want him to, otherwise you get a cranky man on your hands. He has low blood sugar so we need to keep this man fed. In the morning before he runs he drinks our spinach shake that is actually very yummy. I am very big on texture and the simple game my mind plays on me. Spinach? Come on, this sounds terrible, I don’t like spinach unless it’s in a salad. I can hear the noise rumbling in your head right this very second. But wait a minute, this truly is delicious. It tastes like Odwalla super food. Get the recipe and test it out yourself. I blend it very well to make it smooth. It tastes like whatever fruit I use at the time. The whole family actually loves it. I had to withhold from my husband what I actually put in it to get him to try it, once he said he liked it, I let him know what all I had threw into this concoction and he was shocked.

Anyway, you can get the recipe for my spinach shake but in the mean time he also loves to grab-n-go with these peanut butter breakfast cookies. He took them to work and he is such a sweet man, yes he is, he raves about my cooking to coworkers and they always ask him what he has in his lunch that day. Well these breakfast cookies became such a hit that not only was he sharing them with everyone at work they all asked for more. I do like to spoil them now and again and send some baked goodies to brighten their day. The best part was that he had told them all how healthy they were and some even said that they taste better than normal peanut butter cookies that are not healthy for you. So trust me, relax, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy a breakfast cookie or two.

Ingredients

• 1 cup butter (coconut oil or applesauce)
• 1 cup Honey (sugar)
• 3 eggs
• 1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ½ cup of peanut butter, preferably all natural or almond butter
• 2 cups brown rice flour (all purpose flour works as well; make sure it’s unbleached)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 2 cups rolled oats
• Chopped pecans or mixed nuts
• Sunflower seeds
• Flax seed
• 1 cup coconut (optional)
• Chocolate chips (optional) I don’t add these as it takes away from “healthy” and I simply don’t prefer them

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment, silicone baking mats or nonstick spray.
2. In mixer beat together butter (applesauce or coconut oil), honey and peanut butter for 2-3 minutes or until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Beat in vanilla.

1. Whisk in the flour, baking soda, salt and beat well. Add rolled oats. Stir in the nuts, raisins, coconut, and chocolate chips.

1. Drop the batter onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing the cookies about 2 inches apart. They don’t spread out much so you can keep them pretty close.
2. Bake the cookies for 8-12 minutes (I prefer 9 minutes). The longer you bake the cookies the more crisp they will be.
3. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. (They freeze well too, not that they will last long enough to freeze but you can try)

I must say I made these on Monday and by Thursday they were completely gone. Now normally I make them once a week on Sunday and they last the whole week. This time however while I was painting our bathroom on Wednesday with a girlfriend, I didn’t have time to make lunch and heated up leftover Lentil Soup. By the time 4pm rolled around, I realized we had been munching all morning and early afternoon on these breakfast cookies that they had quickly disappeared.

**I make these often and I make them all different ways using the options above; applesauce, coconut oil, different nuts, chocolate chips, almond butter, etc. but prefer the original list above the most.

As you’ve heard me say many times I make homemade granola. It’s so yummy I make it every week. I got the original recipe from my sister but don’t follow the amounts at all. It’s not the type of recipe you really need to follow exact amounts on. If you want it more chewy and clumpy, add more honey. If you don’t want it very clumpy, add less. Pretty simple! :)

Ingredients:

• 8 cups oats
• 2 cups bran flakes
• 1/2 cup Oil (either EVOO or Vegetable)
• 3/4 cup honey
• 1 cup coconut
• 2 tbsp vanilla
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• almonds, pumpkin seeds, pecans,etc
• flax seed
• cranberries, golden raisins

Preheat oven to 375

In a large bowl combine first 5 ingredient and mix thoroughly. Add remainder of ingredients except cranberries and cater to your taste when you choose to add nuts. Omit adding cranberries or raisins until the last 10 minutes of baking to keep them from burning. Grease a 9×13 pan and dump in mixture. Bake for 10-15 minutes and stir thoroughly, bake an additional 15 minutes until light brown.

**Note: I scoop out the granola while still warm to keep it from sticking to my glass pyrex pan making it terribly difficult to clean. I have a plastic container I use for cereal and have a measuring cup I keep in there at all times to make it easy for scooping. :)

I absolutely love this with Vanilla Coconut milk. Adds a great sweet twist to cereal.