sugar cookie dough cashew butter cups

Remember last month when I made Sugar Cookie Dough Almond Butter? The almond butter only lasted a couple of weeks, but  knew it was going to have to be made again! I’ve also always wanted to make homemade nutbutter cups. So, combining the Sugar Cookie Dough Almond Butter along with chocolate in a bite sized candy? Sign me up!

The first step includes making a batch of the nutbutter of your choice (or using something already prepared). This time is was Sugar Cookie Dough Cashew Butter with confetti colored sprinkles – mmm :).

Then you’ve got to pick the almond bark/chocolate of your choice and melt away. Even though it’s not real chocolate, we used almond bark because of the ease in melting – but next time I definitely want to try it with dark chocolate!

Layer chocolate – cashew butter – chocolate in a small cupcake wrapper and top with sprinkles (or topping of your choice – nuts, sea salt, nothing at all). And then allow to cool. The almond bark cooled nicely at room temperature, but sticking these in the freezer is definitely not a bad idea either!

• 1/2 batch Sugar Cookie Dough Cashew Butter
• 1/2 block of almond bark or 1/2 bag chocolate chips (or another melting chocolate)
• sprinkles

1. Using a small cupcake pan, place a cupcake wrapper in each section.
2. Fill the bottom of each wrapper with a small scoop of chocolate – just enough to coat.
3. Dollop a teaspoon of your cashew butter on top of the chocolate base.
4. Cover with another small scoop of chocolate.
5. Sprinkle with sprinkles.
6. Allow to cool and then ear/serve!

We made these to bring with us and share and they were a definite hit! We didn’t come back with a single cup.

It’s hard not to love chocolate + nutbutter mixed together. It’s my weakness ;).

homemade chocolate brownie clif bars

Thanks to Sister for the below post, and for making these delicious Clif-inspired bars! They were absolutely delicious!

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The first time I ever had a Clif bar was about 1 year ago. I instantly feel in love with these snack items! My absolute favorite flavors were Chocolate Brownie, Banana Bread and Carrot Cake. I used to eat about 3-4 Clif bars a week because they were just THAT good! But then, I started to have problems eating gluten… and oddly it was actually Clif bars that first started giving me problems… So I had to shed a few tears and say my good byes to these most delicious treats.

Last year when I was in the heat of my Clif bar eating, I tried making a homemade version to save some money ($1-$1.25/bar). The recipes I could find online used peanut butter so I gave that a shot. While this recipe did create a tasty granola bar, well, it wasn’t really a Clif bar per se… And I think this was because no flavor of Clif bars have peanut butter in them?

Well, I have been missing these bars so much lately that I finally decided it was time to try making them again. I looked and looked online to see if I could find other types of recipes for these bars but they all ended up coming back to that original recipe that I knew didn’t create a totally authentic version of the Clif bar. After some searching and calculating, I ended up coming up with a bar that uses many of the ingredients used in the Clif bar with a few modifications to make them nutritionally compatible to a store bought bar.

A regular Chocolate Brownie Clif bar has 230 calories, 4.5g fat, 5g fiber and 9g protein. My version came out with 248 calories, 7.2g fat, 2.5g fiber and 8.8g protein. Not totally there but pretty darn close!

While these still don’t quite emulate the gooeyness of regular Clif bars, the FLAVOR was almost spot on, if not even just a little bit tastier! But the one thing these have over store bought Clif bars is the fact that they are GLUTEN FREE! Yeah! Now, if only Clif would start making their versions gluten free…

Chocolate Brownie Clif Bars

• 1 cup oats
• 1 ¼ cup brown rice cereal
• 2 T flax
• 2 T cocoa powder
• 1 T chocolate chips
• 2 scoops protein powder
• ¼ c brown rice syrup
• ¼ c date paste (pour 2/3 cup hot water over a cup of pitted medjool dates. Let them soak for about an hour, and then blend them well using a Vitamix or food processor)
• 2 T coconut butter

1. Line 8” baking pan with wax paper and lightly sprayed with cooking spray or wiped with coconut butter.
2. Once pan is prepped, mix first 6 ingredients in medium sized bowl. Bring brown rice syrup, date paste and coconut butter to a boil.
3. Once hot, pour hot liquids over dry ingredient and stir well.
4. Spread mixture in prepared pan and allow to cool completely. Cut into 6 squares.

Note: I used Whey protein powder for the protein powder which is not sweetened but was vanilla
flavored. If you use different protein powder, you might need to work with the flavor a bit to make
them sweet enough/not too sweet.

chocolate banana softserve

I hadn’t made banana softserve in a really long time. I fell in love with the stuff last year when I was avoiding dairy, and it definitely helped with any ice cream cravings! Cold weather seems to take away my wanting of cold desserts. I’d much rather have a cup of steaming hot cocoa than a bowl of something frozen when I’m already chilled to the bone ;). Well, last week when I made this it was unseasonably warm – and it was actually after my first Yoga Body Bootcamp so I was quite steamy for a few hours! Ice cream + smoothies were on my mind, and I figured that there was no time like the present to make something to cool me off.

• ~3 frozen bananas (take the peeling off before freezing)
• 1 TBS cocoa powder
• ~1/4c milk (almond, soy, regular, chocolate)

1. Place the banans and cocoa powder in a food processer and start blending.
2. Once everything has blended for a few minutes and is starting to get softer, add in a little milk at a time to reach your desired consistency.

This recipe is really quite simple – as long as you own a food processor or a blender ;). And no good glass of ice cream is complete without some sprinkles!

Need any last minute dessert ideas for V-Day? Look no further!

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls with Valentine’s M+M’s <— Need I say more?

Decadent Date & Pecan Brownies <— No bake + absolutely devine

Sugar Cookie Cutouts <— Make sure you use a heart shape cutter 😉

Chocolate Cutouts <— Again, with a heart shape cookie cutter!

World’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookie <— Would definitely be cute made into a bar cookie in the shape of a heart, with a ton of frosting on top 😉

bacon waffles

The combination of savory and sweet make the absolute best breakfast combinations. I tend to always lean toward sweeter breakfasts – pancakes, french toast, pannenkoeken, oatmeal… but they’re often missing that savory component that really brings it to the next level, in my personal opinion anyways.

It’s been awhile since we’ve bought any breakfast meats, but the idea for these waffles made us be sure to put some on the list. Feel free to sub your favorite brand of bacon, turkey bacon, tofu bacon, tempeh bacon… you get the point.

This recipe is originally from Heather Eats Almond Butter, but then adapted by Ashley from Edible Perspective, and then updated a little more for this version.

• 1/4c coconut flour
• 1/4c ground flax meal
• 1t baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 2t cinnamon
• 1/2c milk
• 1c egg whites (around 6 egg whites)
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1t vanilla
• 1 serving bacon, cooked, cooled and crumbled

1. Start warming up your waffle maker (a pancake griddle would work too if you’d like pancakes instead of waffles).

2. Using your blender, put in the eggs and blend for 30 seconds.

3. Add in all of the other ingredients, minus the bacon, into the blender and blend for an additional 30 seconds.

4. Let the batter thicken for 5 minutes, and then stir in the bacon.

5. Once the waffle maker is heated and your batter has rested, spray the maker with oil and place large enough scoops to fill up each section.

6. Let cook until golden, checking occasionally to make sure they don’t overcook.

I topped with peanut butter + maple syrup, enhancing the savory + sweet flavor combination. Breakfast perfection.

almond flour chocolate coconut cookies

I recently bought almond flour. I had resisted for so long because it is expensive, and I didn’t really see the benefit in it over other gluten free flours on the market. Well, Sister and I recently decided to rethink all of our white gluten free baking ingredients (cough*bisquick*cough). I will never fully give it up for when I want to bake something special, but I definitely don’t need to be using it as much as I have been!

I’ve tried oat flour, coconut flour, sorghum flour and bisquick in the past to make some delicious recipes, but bisquick was by far the best for baking cookies that were almost identical to their gluten-filled counterparts. I found this recipe for Paleo-inspired chocolate chip cookies using almond flour, but wanted to make it more deluxe. Girl Scout Samoa cookies may have had something to do with the flavor combination… ;).

• 2 cups almond flour
• 1/4c cocoa powder
• 1/4c ground flax
• 1/2t salt
• 1/2t baking soda
• 1/2c grapeseed oil
• 1/4c agave
• 1T vanilla extract
• 1/2c chocolate chips
• 1/4-1/2c shredded coconut
• 2T coconut flour (if your dough ends up being too moist)

1. In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients. I did this somewhat in stages, but it doesn’t matter a whole lot.

2. Roll into balls, flatten slightly, and then press some additional coconut on the outside of the dough (optional).

3. Bake in a 350* oven for 8-10 minutes, being careful to not overbake them or burn the coconut.

4. Allow to cool slightly on the baking pan as they are fragile right out of the oven, but they set up really well!

Coconut + chocolate, a winning combination. If you’re really wanting all the flavors from Girl Scout Samoa cookies, I bet this Salty Medjool Caramal sauce would be an excellent topping.

These not only taste amazing, but are gluten free, grain free, refined sugar free (depending on the chocolate chips/chunked chocolate you use), egg free and dairy free. Not too shabby.

french toast breakfast

Breakfast is by far my favorite meal of the day, and French Toast is easily one of my favorite breakfasts. I’m surprised that I don’t make it more often because it is super easy, but it may be best to keep it as a weekend specialty to stay away from being too sugared up during the week :).

Some French Toast recipes look pretty time consuming, and have so much cream, sugar and eggs in the base that the dish ends up being super rich. This coating is definitely not that way, but when the bread is lightly dipped in the mixture it turns into absolute deliciousness. I’m not sure where this recipe originated, but it’s how my mom has made French Toast for years!

The below recipe is for roughly two servings (3 pieces of bread per person)

French Toast

• 6 slices bread of your choice (if you’re gluten free, I highly recommend Udi’s Ancient Grains Millet-Chia Bread – 6g protein + 6g fiber per serving and super good!)
• 1 egg
• ~1/4c unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• splash of vanilla extract
• cinnamon

1. Whisk the egg, almond milk and vanilla extract together in a bowl that the bread will be able to dip into (think wide but somewhat deep – if you’re making a bigger batch a pie dish would work).

2. Dip each piece of the bread in the egg mixture to lightly coat and place immediately on a preheated griddle.

3. Top the wet top side of the bread with a sprinkling of cinnamon, and then flip once the underside is golden brown.

4. Top with anything you’d like – butter + powdered sugar are definitely my favorites, but you can become more gourmet if you’d like!

When I was younger I would top each piece of French Toast with syrup and then powdered sugar for the best sugary concoction I could make. I was definitely one sweet child ;). Nowadays I use just as much powdered sugar as necessary so I can still taste the bread and cinnamon underneath. I’m also sure to pair it with something healthier, like scrambled eggs or greek yogurt for extra protein, or a juicy ruby red grapefruit.

valentine’s m+m’s

At least this February-inspired recipe had more success than my baking fail!

As a “holiday” I really have no patience for Valentine’s Day. I really could care less when February 14th rolls around. The only redeeming quality V-Day has for me are the pretty colors of Valentine’s m+m colors. Red, pink and white are a great combination… it’s just unfortunate they have to come out around this “holiday” ;).

I decided to pick up a pack of these spontaneously at Target when I was getting a heating pad and ICEE hot for sister’s back. I told myself awhile ago that I wasn’t allowed to buy m+m’s… mostly because they disappear way too quickly! At one internship I had last year, the front desk had two m+m characters with unlimited amounts of m+m’s… it was way too easy to grab a few when walking by ;).

Because of how fast they usually disappear, I figured it would be good to space them out a bit with some cookie dough. Yes, cookies disappear quite fast as well, but they can be given away much more easily to family + friends than a handful of m+m’s, haha. At first, I thought of making the World’s Best Chocolate Chip cookies with m+m’s instead of chocolate chips… but then I had another idea. How about Peanut Blossoms adapted with m+m’s? Oh, and adding in an extra ingredient that makes them a little nutritious to top it all off? Well, nutritious may be a bit of an over-statement…  but at least better than they were originally!

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Balls with Valentine’s M+M’s

• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup natural peanut butter (I used Skippy)
• scant 1/4c brown sugar
• scant 1/4c organic white sugar
• 1/4c ground flax
• 2t vanilla
• 4T unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 3 to 3 1/2c gluten free bisquick
• 2t xanthan gum
• 2t baking soda
• 1t salt
• valentine’s m+m’s
• sugar, for rolling (optional)

1. Cream together the butter, peanut butter and sugars until all creamy.

2. Add in the flax, vanilla and milk. Mix to combine.

3. Put in the xanthan gum, baking soda and salt, and then gradually add in the bisquick until the dough is no longer sticky and will roll into balls. Doing your dry ingredients this way helps keep this to a one-bowl recipe!

4. Add in the Valentine’s m+m’s (as many as you desire) and stir to combine. Place in fridge.

5. Once chilled (to hold shape better and help the m+m’s not melt as much), scoop the dough into balls (I used a small cookie scoop and then rolled into round balls). Roll into additional sugar to coat the outside of the dough.

6. Place on to a lined baking sheet, and bake in a 375? preheated oven for 10 minutes.

7. Remove from the oven and move to a cooling rack.

Oh boy were these tasty. I was at first expecting them to turn out more like a regular cookie, but these reached semi-doughball cookie status. I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome :). The added flax is barely noticeable, only a few speckles here and there but you almost get the sense that it’s specks of chocolate. And one awesome bonus of using the flax? It makes this an egg-free recipe so you can eat as much dough as you want, ha!

baked corndogs

Last week I had a few brilliant ideas for some meals to make this week. One of those brilliant ideas? Homemade corndogs. Oh man has it been forever since I’ve had a corndog! When I used to make them at home in the past, I would definitely gravitate toward a pre-packaged variety, one of the favorites being Morningstar Farms. I thought this veggie variety was delicious and not too unhealthy (or at least nowhere near as unhealthy as ones you would get at a fair!).

Luckily, being corn dogs, it’s easy to convert this recipe to be gluten free. Yes, I understand that baked corndogs really look nothing like their fried counterparts (or maybe it’s just me not being able to get them to compare), but the taste is pretty darn similar and the nutritional info is a heck of a lot better. Plus, you can do with the recipe what you will.

• 2/3c cornmeal
• 1/3c sorghum
• 1t baking powder
• 1.2t salt
• dash chili powder
• 1 egg
• ~1/3c milk (unsweetened almond, regular, soy – not vanilla!)
• 1T honey
• 4 gluten free hotdogs (I used Smart Chicken – but feel free to sub any beef or veggie dog you like the best!)

1. Combine all of the dry ingredients and whisk together.

2. Add in the egg, milk and honey and stir to combine. The mixture should be thick, but still spreadable.

3. Pat off the hotdogs with a paper towel and them dip/smear them in the cornmeal mixture. You can be pretty creative at this point and use whatever method works best!

4. Bake in a 425* oven for 15-20 minutes.

My hotdogs pre-oven were definitely not going to win any beauty awards, but I thought the breading would stay on for the most part.

The cornmeal breading did sink off a little bit, but not enough to make it a complete fail of a recipe :).

Want to make these more of a finger food? Cut each hotdog into 3 or 4 pieces and make a mini corndog variety. Perfect for an appetizer or snack! I’m also thinking these would store well in the freezer, and just need to be reheated in the oven or microwave when that corndog craving hits. Serve with a side of steamed broccoli slaw, and you’ve got a perfectly healthy and fun weeknight meal.

You can pretty much sub any spice into the cornmeal breading to give it a unique twist (spicy, mexican, italian) and changing around the type of hotdog inside will also change the flavor considerably. Also adding some shredded cheese in the breading sounds like a pretty good idea ;). You can spice it up, add in other ingredients or just make a special topping to jazz up these corndogs for any occasion.

world’s best chocolate chip cookies

Now don’t get me wrong, I would eat pretty much any type of cookie I could get my hands on. Especially if there’s chocolate. Or frosting. And sprinkles. Anyways, I know cookie recipes really have been taking over my blog lately, what with my 12 days of cookies before Christmas, but these are not Christmas cookies. These are every day and any day cookies.

The best cookie, in my honest opinion, are cakey chocolate chip cookies. Ever since childhood these have been by far my favorite, but I was never successful in making them. They would always turn out too flat, too buttery tasting, I could never get it right.

Little did I know that I would finally find a way to make my favorite kind of chocolate chip cookie while being gluten free. You mean gluten free cookies don’t have to be dry, hard rocks? No, no they do not. I’m not sure if regular bisquick would result in the same type of cookie, but there is just something about the gluten free bisquick that I am just a little obsessed with. Betty Crocker, please feel free to send me unlimited supplies of gluten free bisquick. I will send you some cookies in return. Thank you.

• 2 1/4 cups gluten free bisquick
• 1t xanthan gum
• 1/2t baking soda
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• scant 1/4c brown sugar
• scant 1/4c organic sugar
• 1t salt
• 2t vanilla extract
• 2 eggs (I used egg whites this time because we were out of real eggs!)
• 1c+ chocolate chips (Guittard semi sweet)

1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

2. Add in the salt, vanilla and eggs.

3. Once that is mixed together, add in the baking soda and bisquick until everything is combined.

4. Add in the chocolate chips.

5. Scoop into larger scoops and place onto a parchment covered baking sheet.

6. Bake in  350* oven for 12-14 minutes, flipping halfway through.

*Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies.

I am still shocked with how delicious these cookies are. I will never go back.

banana bread pancakes

I feel bad for not providing any new recipes since before Christmas… So that’s already almost a month. I really wanted to post something, but haven’t made anything recently, and if I tried during the week my pictures would turn into a major fail – sun, why do you hate Wisconsin in the winter? Thinking back to filling my (NEW!) recipes page this past weekend, I came across this picture on my hard drive…

 

Mmm, those look like delicious pancakes! I searched over my blog to see if I ever posted the recipe, and it turns out this one went un-posted. I even had a named post in my draft posts with only the ingredients put in. At least I had gotten that far! And when, you may ask, was this picture/recipe taken and made? September 15th. Oh goodness, that’s quite a long time ago. I wish I could say for certain that I loved this recipe, but to be quite honest, I can’t really remember… but I certainly wouldn’t have saved the picture if they were bad!

• 1 c oat flour (ground using gluten free oats)
• 1t baking powder
• 1/4 c rolled oats
• 1/4c ground flax
• cinnamon
• 2 bananas
• 1/2 c unsweetened vanilla almond milk
• 2 eggs
• vanilla

1. Mix together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

2. In a smaller bowl, mash the banana and then add that, the milk, eggs and vanilla to the dry ingredients.

3. Stir everything together and then cook on a griddle until done.

At least all pancake recipes are cooked basically the same way! Served here with some delicious chicken breakfast sausage.

I imagine these would taste like banana bread… and that sounds quite tasty. I think these might have to be recreated this weekend, along with a bunch of other recipes :).