No excuses, No worries, Have a cookie!

Good morning cookie.

Prep for this bad boy is one bowl, and a masher. In the morning we have 30 minutes to get toddlers and a husband out the door.  This is do-able. This is simple. This is also nothing new.

It is more of the reminder that you need to eat your breakfast with in 4 hours of waking. 

Sure you can do some fasted cardio. But you STILL need to eat breakfast. 

(Saving fasted cardio for another day.)

Skipping breakfast you'll just be screwing yourself later. It can lead to over eating later, and that will make you gain weight. Why not have the largest meal that will help you concentrate, that will give you energy, and that you have all day to burn off? Research confirms that dieters who skip breakfast tend to gain weight over time (Neumark-Sztainer et al. 2006).                     

                                                                                                                                 

My nutritionally substantial dash and go breakfast: Cookies! 

Having something with the name COOKIE and tastes like a COOKIE for breakfast is a good thing. You will be less likely to indulge on sweets later.

Try a "cookie" that contains s few simple ingredients like Banana, oats, and peanut butter. 

Then add raisins, nuts, and a few chocolate chips!

This mix below is 137 calories per cookie. Eat 2 or 3 (for home or on the go) with your choice of healthy beverage. Or one with some eggs or fruit (eating at home), but still substantial!

1 cookie alone won't cut it you really want to aim for 1/4 to 1/3 of your calories eaten in the morning.

Oven:350

Bake:15 min

2 VERY ripe bananas

1.5 cups oat meal ( Old Fashioned) 

1/3 cup peanut butter (Natural, organic)

1/4 cup raisins

1/4 cup Jumbo chips (jumbo worked out to put 3-4 chips on each cookie)

*cinnamon

*Stevia 

* to taste

Double up! My favorite basic granola bars, and Lemon Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate chip and coconut, just addictive.

Lemon crinkle cookies have to be the funnest thing to make, and doubled up with my all time granola bar recipe it made for a fun day.

I wanted to start out easy, using my basic and best granola recipe . Since I found this one I really haven't  strayed. It's a fun one because you can switch out your mix ins and you can't mess it up. It's one of those recipes that I use as a base recipe when building my own. But with all my other granola bar posts it just wouldn't be right to not share my daughters favorite. I was having one of those days where I didn't make a mess, and I went back to back baking.

I started off with my granola bars. They are super easy and quick.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup honey Or Agave

4 1/2 cups old fashioned oats

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup white flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup chocolate chips

(optional) ¼ cup or more of any mix ins (Coconut, dried cranberries, raisins, nuts)

1 ¼ cups of cups of chocolate is a lot of chocolate BTW. Just thought I would add. You can play around with amounts too. I do ¾ cup chocolate and ½ cup of 'other'. No chocolate it always an option, because these are addictive, and you will at some point break down make more for the 10^th time but you will have to break the chocolate cycle (whew)!


Once every thing is mixed, add your choice of mix ins.

Whip your butter and honey in your mixer until nice and soft. Add oats, mix thoroughly, then add your flours, and baking soda. Mix again until blended. Once you have an nice mixture add your mix ins. Press your mixture into a greased 9 x 13 pan for a thicker bar. What I like to do is use a cookie sheet and use a rolling pin dusted with flour to flatten them. As they cook they will rise slightly. Bake at 325, 25-30 until lightly browned around the edges. Thinner ones will be done sooner.

Use a powdered rolling pin to flatten if using a cookie sheet. I accidently used my larger pan here. I so wish I grabbed the smaller ones because I needed the big one for my lemon cookies. Go figure.



In the beginning I had a very bad habit of flipping them out of the pan way too soon. Every freaking time people, and I would just break them. My husband says: “If you have an urge to flip them wait 10 more minutes.” Damn him and his logic. So to feed my ancy-pants I cut them in the pan after a short cooling time, remove to a cooling rack to finish. That way you can chomp on them while the chocolate is all melty. See, why let them cool all the way right?!?


Still can't cut in a straight line.

Lemon crinkle cookies, easy. Get started while you're baking your granola! Go!

These are just divine, they are light, and airy, and I had a lot of fun making them. My favorite part was rolling the dough in the powdered sugar.

Ingredients

½ cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1-½ cups flour
½ cup powdered sugar

Whoops over mixed, thats OK though!

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking sheets with non-stick cooking spray and set aside. 


• In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.


• Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest, and juice. Scrape sides and mix again.


• Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar.


• Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly.


• Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate.


• Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar.


• Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.  Bake for 9-11 minutes or until cookies and cracked on top. 


• Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Once I coated my goo, I was able to pick it up and form my irregular ball... lol


I finally got some technique two trays in. I cupped the ball and rolled it. Not so irregular any more.

Lightly golden, perfect.

See where you have to just mix briefly, yeah I didn't see that. It's OK if you over mix. The batter won't ball up, but if you scoop it out and drop it into the powdered sugar it will do what you once after you coat it. 

Baking!

Enjoy! **Nom Nom**

Holy Yolks Batman! Whey cookies, and an egg yolk beauty recipe.

So the world (of gluten free protein cooking) has gone anti-yolk! I have been really loving making these breakfast protein cookies of sorts. During the week I don't have time to make the type of breakfast I cook on the weekend. So these little protein whey cookies rock my world. It's been recommended that it's best to eat with in one hour of waking before your coffee or tea. Who has that sort of time? Not I. I have been making my recipe   using the whole egg when they have been calling for the egg white. I just can't  waste food like that, and I have had no immediate use for just the yolks.

As you know I have a full on pantry in my bathroom and I like to whip up food concoctions in the bathroom for my face.  Well I guess its time to add hair concoctions in there too! Where am I going with this? If you haven't guessed I have a use for the yolks now. 

I have always known eggs are great for the hair but I haven't been in the market for hair treatments  Until I ran out of my Wen (the only high beauty expense I have). In the past 15 years I have gone from black to blond so many times its just insane. I would cut it regret it and then go get a weave, bad! I have never have been a wash and go girl. My hair was such a hot mess and I am in the rebuilding process. So I have made a commitment to growing out my hair with out wearing a weave. With the biotin and Wen I have been a human Chia Pet. But with out my Wen, it's time to hit the kitchen!

So here you go, for every non-egg yolk recipe, heres a yolk use recipe... Hmmm... cooking and hair... I could not have combined something you don't want when eating. So lets just call it, and  file it under healthy and natural :-)

Here is my most recent protein cookie. I had to search a lot of body building sites. But these just make sense to me. 

Chocolate Whey Protein Cookies Recipe

6 egg whites
7 scoops oatmeal (1 3/4 cups)
2 tsp brown sugar OR brown Sweet’n Low®
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup un-sweetened apple sauce
4 scoops chocolate (or vanilla) whey powder
2 dashes cinnamon
1 tsp virgin olive oil
1 tsp maple extract
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 325, bake for 20 minutes, Makes 1 dozen cookies…each cookie has around 14g of protein

Make your breakfast, eat, now make your hair breakfast.

• Use 1 or 2 egg yolks, depending on hair length/thickness.


• Whip it! Whip it good! Until watery.


• Use one table spoon of olive oil* for each yolk.


• Dilute mixture with lukewarm** water and stir.

When adding to hair focus on your ends. But don't neglect your scalp because thats where you want healthy growth.

Now here's the fun:

* You may also use Sunflower oil. Because if you have been oil pulling its already on your bathroom counter.

[Sunflower oil contains gamma linolenic acid, which is an omega-6 fatty acid. Such fatty acids are essential to hair health, says Spencer David Kobren in his book, "The Truth About Women's Hair Loss: What Really Works for Treating and Preventing Thinning Hair."] Source

Sunflower oil also has been beneficial for conditioning greasy hair. Like there's a conditioner for every hair type, there is also an oil too.  Also in my research I found out even more about my new favorite oil.

Sunflower oils is also odorless and can be used with other scented oils for a scented treatment. Also it's a polyunsaturated oil, so it can be used as a leave in treatment. That great omega-6 fatty acid will give a soft feel, and prevent breakage. 

And this is super important:

** When I say wash hair in lukewarm, I almost want to say cooler than that. Unless you want breakfast on your head. I do not have a remedy to remove scrambled egg from hair. I am also not responsible for any plumbing problems.