Soft and ADDICTIVE peanut butter choc chip oatmeal cookies

This foot injury has been really affecting my day-to-day life. Duh!

My morning run/bike is replaced now with limping and hopping to the kitchen taking my first dose of pain killer of the day... My climbing/yoga at night is now called vegging in the couch with a kindle or with some brainless show running on netflix. I keep telling myself, it'll be over soon and everything is OK and life is still good but it's hard... considering how restless I am, it's hard!!

So I go into the kitchen and get my bake on... somehow the smell of cookies/butter is strangely soothing and my dirty little secret is, I don't even like eating sweets all that much. I mean I like sweets, mostly Asian sweets, such as mochi or anything stuffed with red bean paste... but cookies or cakes just usually don't sound all that great to me. But that doesn't affect my love in making them... especially making them for Casey and seeing his boyish smile on his face when he has them.

Last night, I came upon a recipe on BrownEyedBaker... oatmeal, chocolate chips and peanut butter... need I say more? I'm making them! Of course, with a little bit "healthy" twist.

Adapted from BrownEyedBaker

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 15 BIG what we call PAPA cookies and 12 BAOBAO cookies

Dry:
1/2 cup white whole wheat flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup chickpea flour (yes, I sneak it in anywhere I can)
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup rolled oats
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Wet:
1 ounce unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 ounces canned pumpkin
½ cup creamy peanut butter
1/4cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. On medium speed, cream together the butter, peanut butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and beat to combine.
3. While the mixer is running, whisk together all the dry ingredients with a wooden spoon.
4. On low speed, gradually add the flour until just combined.
5. Use a large cookie scoop (I used 1/8 cup measure) and drop dough onto prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Dip the scoop in water in between dough to make it come out more easily.

Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden. Cool on a rack and then store in an airtight container at room temperature.

The verdict: Casey had about 10 of them and kept saying... there is no way you did your usual "healthy substitution" trick because they taste sinfully good. Ohh well, what can I say? :)

Back on the injury thing... I've started a weight lifting routine (Yes, you can call something a routine when you've done it twice :P) loosely based on this. I need to get more weights and a pull-up bar (only have a couple of 5lbs from a century ago and they make me feel so too "girly" :P) I did day 1 (Chest & Triceps) and day two Day 2( Back & Biceps) yesterday morning and last night (skipped some because there are just no at-home-free-weight alternatives) and day four (Shoulders & Abs) this morning. Yes, I'm impatient like that and can never follow a plan just as it is... maybe that's why I'm always injured? :P No that's not even funny to joke about right now!

Good news, I biked to work today!! Biking is actually so very gentle on your foot!! :D

Two Breakfast Delights

My breakfast is usually a rotation of yogurt, cereal and oatmeal.

For yogurt, I usually mix it up with some rolled oats, oat bran, cut-up apples, berries the night before and just grab and go in the morning. For an extra treat when I have time in the morning, I'll enjoy my yogurt with "cantaloupe bowl", topped with oats, cereal (just discovered the "Ezekiel 4:9" from goodforlife), flaxmeal.

For cereal, it's usually a creative/crazy mix of all things possible. Different kind of cereal, raw oats, flaxseeds, nuts, fruit, etc.

Oatmeal is pretty standard, oats+oat bran (I actually prefer the texture of oat bran in my porridge type things)+flaxmeal+mashed-up banana/cut-up apples/berries/pumpkin+dash of cinnamon. Warm and filling.

Recently, I've added two wonderful things to the rotation. The everything-you-can-throw-in muffins and Casey's favorite breakfast cookies. They're both really low in sugar and fat while high in protein and fiber. Portable and filling. What else can you ask for, right? Now the recipes:

Monster Breakfast Cookies adapted from here:
Mix the wet ingredients (in the stand mixer in my case)
1 ounce butter, softened
3 ounces canned pumpkin
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 egg (I've also used 1tbsp flaxmeal+3tbsp water mixture with success)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl:
1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup chickpea flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt or a little more
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Mix them up together, scoop out 1tbsp a time on a cookie sheet lined with parchment, slightly press the dough on top (I've made 24-30 cookies depending on how I "scoop" that day). 12 mins in 350 oven. I usually bake half the batch and put the other half in the freezer on the cookie sheet (or plate in my case, our freezer doesn't open up wide enough for a cookie sheet to go in). Put the frozen cookie doughs in a container or a ziplock bag. Next time, just bake directly from frozen, takes about 2-3 mins more.


Serving Size 19 g
Calories 65 Calories from Fat 23 % Daily Value*
Total Fat 2.6g 4%
Saturated Fat 0.7g 3%
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 8mg 3%
Sodium 51mg 2%
Total Carbohydrates 9.8g 3%
Dietary Fiber 1.0g 4%
Sugars 4.1g
Protein 1.8g

Throw-whatever-in-muffins:
Wet:
1 banana , mashed
2 eggs
1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
2 shredded carrots
1 tbsp flaxmeal mixed with 3tbsp water
1 cup soy milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dry:
1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup oat bran
1/3 cup chickpea flour
1/3 cup millet + buckwheat
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix-ins:
Get crazy, I mixed in shredded coconut, frozen peas/corns (YES, I'm crazy), blueberries

20min@375. Slightly sweet and filling. Just GOOD!

Warm apple crisp

This is the dessert we made for the Thursday dinner party as well. It's a big hit and tastes like a piece of heaven with vanilla ice-cream on top. I made it the night before, cooled it on the counter when we went to sleep and put it in the fridge covered with foil. I deliberately poked holes on the foil thinking it might prevent it to become soggy. (I'm not sure if this helped, but it's not soggy at all when we served it)

This recipe is adapted from Ina Garden's recipe, I usually find her recipe to be too sweet just as is, so I reduced a lot of the sugar it called for.
Fillings:
4 granny-smith and 2 McIntosh apples (Very big apples)
Grated zest of 1 orange
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 C granulated sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg

Toppings:nocoupons
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C granulated sugar
1/4 C light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 C rolled oats
2 sticks cold unsalted butter, diced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the orange juice in the a 9 by 14 inch oval baking dish.

Peel, core, and dice the apples. Drop the apples in the dish and coat them with the orange juice while dropping. Combine the apples with the zests, sugar, and spices.

To make the topping, combine the flour, sugars, salt, oats, and cold butter in a big bowl and mix with hands. Scatter evenly over the apples.

Bake for 1 hour until the top is brown and the apples are bubbly. Serve warm.

When I reheated them the second day, I did 10 mins on 350F and 5 mins under 375 F. I might try doing 375 F all along next time, because as delicious as it tasted, the topping didn't look as "golden" as I would like it to.

Whole Wheat Coconut Biscotti

Adapted from cooking light

Dry:
3/4 C white whole wheat
3/8 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/16 tsp ground nutmeg
1/16 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 C flaked sweetened coconut

Wet:
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/4 C white sugar
1/8 C light brown sugar

Mix together the wet ingredients till it's sick and a little fluffy (abt 1-2 mins). Mix well the dry ingredients in anther bowl and mix them in with the wet. Mix well until it forms a very sticky wet dough. Don't be afraid to "knead" the dough with your hands (spray them first so you won't lose half of your dough)

Preheat the oven at 300F. Shape the dough as a 7*5 rectangular and bake on a lined baking sheet (with parchment paper or aluminum foil). Bake for 40 mins. Take it out of the oven and cut it with a pizza cutter into 10-15 slices. Pick every slice to stand upright and bake again for another 20 mins. Cool for them to harden up.

My signature cookie -- the world's best oatmeal raisin cookie

They're so good... I never got a chance to take photos before they were gone.

They're moist, chunky, chewy, soft... heavenly. And did I mention it takes absolutely no effort or "weird" ingredients to make! 10mins to throw everything together totally from the pantry and 10mins later, done!!

You definitely need to try it and let me know if you love it like we do :-)
Wet:
1 stick of butter softened
2/3 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Dry:
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour (AP flour should also do)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Plus:
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup pecans, chopped (didn't have them this time and didn't bother)

Preheat the oven@350
Mix together the wet ingredients in a big bowl till the texture is very smooth. Mix together the dry ingredients in another bowl.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and mix well.
Add the plus if used. (Chill the dough if you could wait... I never really can nor does Casey)
Scoop and drop them on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10-12min.

ENJOY~

Oatmeal Muffin with Streusal

What's better than a muffin on a rainy Sunday morning? After a crazy halloween night on Franklin St... got up this morning craving some baked goods for breakfast. Found this recipe on recipezarr, did some alterations and substitute as I always do.

Recipe as posted:
Ingredients: (6 muffins)
1/2 cup rolled oat (old fashioned oatmeal)
1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar packed
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce (I didn't have apple sauce, so I grated about 3/4 of an apple and snacked on the rest while making the dough :-p)
1 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup rasins
dash of nutmeg

Directions:
1. Soak oats in milk for 1 hour. (I only soaked it for about 15 mins with the raisins)
2. Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. I added rasins for extra flavor and thought nutmeg would go well with the apples, so added it too. I didn't bother adding cinnamon though. I've decided to make a streusel topping at that point and that would have enough cinnamon flavor.
3. Spoon into a muffin pan that has been lightly greased or sprayed with nonstick spray
4.Bake at 400 F for 20-25 minutes. (I baked for 25min exact, I might go about 1-2 mins longer next time)

I made crumble toppings using the recipe I found somewhere:
1/4 C AP flour
1/4 C brown sugar
2tbp+2tsp butter
1tbsp water

The streusel is not as crumbly as I would like it to be, so I added some oats and about 1/6 more AP flour to make it the consistency I prefer. I love crumble toppings with oats.

The muffins turned out great. I absolutely like the flavor and the streusel! The texture felt a little bit too wet for me (maybe because I was too hungry to wait for it to cool and set more) Definitely worth the effort (or not. I love how simple the recipe is) Casey loves them too! I might reduce the amount of apples next time and see if that's going to help the texture. Did I say I love the taste? Ohh yah, but let me say it again. They taste great!! Healthy in a good way! I love anything made with oats... will definitely make this recipe again, maybe with some chopped nuts next time :) Great with coffee for breakfast... would be great for an afternoon snack too.