Almost Healthy Sugar Cookies

Being that it's Valentine's week, I could not resist another yummy Vday treat post. And it is a seasonal favorite around our house... meaning that we make these for every season! Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter.... no joke Little Man adores these cookies! The best news? In the grand scheme of cookies, these are not horrible for you (but the taste will never give you away!)

Cookies:

1 1/4 cup Earth Balance Buttery Spread

1 cup sugar

1 TBSP Flax seeds

3 TBSP warm water

2 TSP Vanilla

4 cups flour

1 TSP Baking Powder

Frosting:

2 cups powdered sugar

1 TBSP Earth Balance Buttery Spread

1 TBSP Soy or Almond Milk

1/2 TSP Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 F

Mix flax seed and water together to make flax egg.  Let sit 3-5 minutes.

Cream together butter and sugar using electric mixer. Mix in flax egg and vanilla.

Add in flour and baking powder a cup at a time. 

You will need to hand hand mix the last cup!

When fully mixed, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Once chilled, roll the dough onto floured surface and cut out shapes. 

Bake on lightly greased cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes. (cookies expand so leave some space!)

Allow to cool completely prior to frosting.

Mix together powdered sugar and Earth Balance spread. 

Add in vanilla, then milk.

Stir until there are no lumps. 

For best results, use gel food coloring!

Paint your cookies and garnish with chocolate chips, sprinkles, red hots..... whatever works!

And since no real eggs are used in this recipe - the kids (and ME!) love to taste the dough!

Now, gather your ingredients and start baking!

Little Man decorating Mickey Mouse cookies

His skills have improved with lots of practice painting cookies!

Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies

What would we do without Pinterest? I recently came across this AMAZING recipe and I have made 2 batches of this super delicious cookies in less than 4 days! So I decided to link this up at the Dog Days of Winter Make It Linky Party. Did I mention that they are actually healthy??? Oh yeah... and I had to make 2 batches because I devoured them before I got to take any pictures of the finished product! Trust me and make these ASAP!

Of course, I like to mix it up a bit but here is the original recipe that I pinned.

Ingredients:
2 cups of Oatmeal (uncooked)
3 ripe bananas (mashed with fork)
1 1/2 cups of applesauce
1 small package of raisins
1 splash of vanilla
Cinnamon to taste

Optional:
1 spoonful of Peanut Butter
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup nuts or dried fruit of choice

Yes! This is really all that you need!

Preheat heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together vanilla, cinnamon, applesauce and bananas. 

Blend applesauce mixture with all other ingredients & let sit for 10 minutes.

Scoop 'dough' onto lightly greased cookie sheet. I opted to scoop it into muffin tins for better portion control on batch number 2!

Bake for about 25 minutes.

Remove from oven. Store in a covered container when completely cool.

Bananas all mashed

Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes 

All scooped into our muffin tins

All cooked and ready to eat! 

 Grab them quick before they are gone!

 I love that it tastes like a yummy bowl of oatmeal that I can eat on the go!

Banana PBJ Muffins

As I was thinking about my blog posts for the week, I looked at my list of blog ideas and noticed a trend. Every weekend I end up trying out at least one recipe! While the hubs is home to keep an eye on the rug rats its a nice break for me to try out something new and I have decided that Monday is now going to be Mange` Monday where I break down a new recipe that we love! And here is the first installment:

Banana PBJ Muffins

2 cups of flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 large scoop Natural Peanut Butter
1 large scoop Grape Jelly
2 tablespoons apple sauce
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk (could sub almond milk for dairy free)
3 ripe bananas mashed

1. Preheat oven to 375F

2. Mix together flour, brown sugar, baking powder

3. In separate bowl, beat peanut butter, jelly, applesauce, eggs, milk, and bananas

4. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients just till moistened.

5. Spoon batter into muffin cups. We use those awesome silicone ones! Bake for 25 minutes. Makes 2 down muffins.

6. Serve with peanut butter dipping sauce or honey for those picky eaters!

Here is the Original Recipe that I made changes to for those super yummy muffins. I popped half of them into the freezer and they make great on the go breakfasts for those crazy mornings when you don't have time to cook! I actually like them better when they are still a touch frozen!

And that nifty little gadget above? Its a PBJ spreader from Williams Sonoma!

PS. If you are looking for any furniture today is the last day of World Market's 50% off furniture sale. There are some crazy deals! The deals were so good that something new found its way home with us this weekend.... tune in tomorrow to see what it is!

Linking up at Serenity Now!

Spook-tacular Pumpkin Bars

No this is not turning into a food blog... but it seems the only bit of DIYing I have done lately has been in the kitchen! Man, its rough keeping the house clean and ready for showings with 2 kids and a dog (and thankfully we have had lots of activity!) I do have about 5 projects in the works but at the end of the day all its all I can do to drag myself to bed!

I have been itching to bake something pumpkiny but also wanted something dairy free so that I could enjoy it too! I came across this yummy recipe and without the icing it is totally dairy free! I have a go to dairy free icing that I was going to make but these bars were perfect without any icing for my taste.

Ingredients:
4 eggs 
1 2/3 cups granulated sugar 
1 cup vegetable oil 
15-ounce can pumpkin 
2 cups sifted all purpose flour 
2 teaspoons baking powder 
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
Using an electric mixer at medium speed, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin until light and fluffy. 
Stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda.Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and mix at low speed until thoroughly combined and the batter is smooth. 
Spread the batter into a greased 13x10 inch baking pan.  Bake for 30 minutes. 

Cut into bars.

Chicken + Bacon Mini Meatloaves

It's been a bit since I have gotten into the kitchen and really cooked a meal! In an effort to try and keep the kitchen clean, we have been eating grilled chicken or super easy to prepare meals lately. We had our 6pm showing move up to 4:30 so I was excited to get my hands (and kitchen) dirty!

We had been at the grocery store and I grabbed the key ingredients for this yummy meal, ground chicken breast and bacon! Now how can you go wrong with a recipe that includes bacon? 

I used this Unbelieveable Chicken Meatloaf as a base and switched things up a bit!

1 LB Ground Chicken Breast
1/2 cup Italian Breadcrumbs
1 Egg White
1 large Carrot (lightly steamed)
1/2 Red Onion
1/4 cup ketchup
1 TBSP Garlic Powder
1 TBSP Worchestire  Sauce
1 TSP Steak Spices
1 splash hot sauce
6 slices bacon

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
Dice the onion and the carrot.
Mix all ingredients (except bacon) in a large bowl.
Form the meat mixture into 6 football shaped balls.
Wrap each ball with a slice of bacon.
Place bacon wrapped balls onto a foil lined cookie sheet.
Bake for 20-25 minutes.

This was a huge hit at our house and I was shocked that Little Man even tried his little mini meatloaf and liked the first bite until it got too "spicy"!

Yummy Italian Skewers Appetizer

Happy Labor Day! Hope that everyone is getting to spend time with family and friends this weekend!

Our neighbors had a Fantasy Football Draft/Labor Day get together this weekend. It's always fun to walk next door and see everyone... and of course to stuff our faces! Everyone brought something to throw on the grill and then either an appetizer or a side. I like to mix it up and try new stuff so I set off to find an easy and delicious appetizer (and selfishly one that was dairy free so I could have some too!)

I happened upon Southern Living's 40 Party Appetizers article and my mouth was watering with all of the yummy ideas! How could I possibly choose something?

I somehow managed to decide on Italian Skewers. It is basically a Antipasto platter on a skewer which is great for large gatherings.

Source: Southern Living

Not only did it get rave reviews but it might have been the easiest appetizer to throw together! Plus it is so easy to mix it up with what you might have... I switched out green olives for Calamata (purple) ones and also came very close to adding on some cheese tortellini to make it a little heavier. I also made a couple with no cheese just for me!

All you need is to gather the ingredients and skewer them! Then a light coating of balsamic dressing and let it sit for a few hours!

I used:
1 block of mozzarella cheese
1 package salami slices
1 can of quartered Artichoke hearts
1 pint of grape tomatoes
1 small jar of Calamata olives
20 6 inch wood skewers
Balsamic Dressing (1/3 cup olive oil, 2 TBSP Balsamic Vinegar, Juice from half lemon, herbs to taste)

Recipe Link

Pancake Saturday!

As I have mentioned before, little Fia is a super happy and smiley baby! Unfortunately, this comes at the cost of eating dairy free! This is a challenge for me to say the least as I am a self professed cheese addict. What makes it even harder is that milk or milk protein is found in almost everything processed. So I jump up and down when I find an easy and yummy recipe that I can eat and my family finds to be tasty (and not too crunchy!)

Little Man loves to help with the cooking and one of his favorites is pancakes. I have spent the last 2 months or so making him pancakes (with milk as an ingredient) and watching jealously as him and the hubby enjoy a stack covered in maple syrup. It finally occurred to me to look up a dairy free version and I am happy to say that this Saturday I was able to partake in Pancake Saturday too!

Here is the link to the recipe.

1 cup flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup almond milk
1 flax egg (1 Tbsp Flax meal + 2 Tbsp Warm Water)
1 1/2 tsp vegetable oil

Sift together dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, whisk together wet ingredients until combined. Batter will be lumpy. We like to add some food coloring at this point to make it more exciting for the kiddos! We also added frozen blueberries once batter is poured in the pan.

Cook in a skillet over medium heat. Flip when bubbles begin to appear on the pancakes surface.

Dairy Free Blueberry Muffins

Its been a pretty lazy weekend here as we are all coming down with the dreaded summertime cold. I am praying that we are on the tail end of it, especially little Fia. She was up most of the night and I just feel so bad that I can't do much to make her feel better. It's a bit easier with the Little Man! If it involves cooking and Lightning McQueen he is a happy camper!

So what better way to use our new Cars muffin papers than to make some delicious blueberry muffins. The only catch? I have been dairy free for the better part of 2 months now thanks to my little lady. She is by no means allergic but she is the most happy and content baby with no dairy so its well worth the sacrifice!

I found a recipe to try and tweaked it just a bit. Here you go! The only thing I might do different next time? Double the recipe! We have 2 muffins left less than 24 hours later!

The Original Recipe thanks to The Kid-Friendly Home

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

1/3 cup almond milk

1 cup berries (fresh or frozen)

Topping:

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 Tablespoon ground flax seed

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees
• Fill a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners
• Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl
• Pour the 1/3 cup vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup. Add the egg, fill with enough milk to fill up the 1 cup.
• Pour into the flour mixture, stir and then fold in the berries
• Combine topping ingredients and mash with a fork or pastry knife until it resembles a crumble.
• Sprinkle the topping over the muffins
• Place on the middle rack in the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 minutes