Hey precious people! I hope you've had a wonderful weekend that filled you up with light and joy. My weekend consisted of yoga, baking, gardening, working out, a bonfire, going to a graduation party for my friend (go Snelly!) and seeing some live music (Karl Densen's Tiny Universe-check it out, yo!) Not a bad weekend if I do say so myself!
I've been doing a lot of experimental baking lately with different types of flours like, brown rice and almond. I've had a lot of failures :-( I was telling Woody that sometimes I have these great ideas and they turn out awesome. And then sometimes I have these ideas that seem brilliant but end up being utter failures. Woody's response? "Welcome to being human." Touche, Woody, touche. He always knows the right thing to say ;-) After having too many failures with baking, I decided to work with something that never lets me down. Well, a couple things that never let me down. Peanut butter and Pamela's Baking Mix.
Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Gabriela's recipe
2 cups Pamela's Gluten-Free Baking and Pancake Mix
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chunky peanut butter
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut milk
1 cup mini chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, combine peanut butter, maple syrup, vanilla extract and coconut milk. Beat together until well mixed. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips. Roll the dough into bite sized balls and place on a lightly greased baking pan. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Makes about 35 small, round, perfect cookie balls of goodness.
So delicious. So soft. So doughy. SO good!
And then we have this:
What could this be?!
This is what Woody requested I make to bring to my friend's graduation party. (FYI: I brought this AND the cookies.)
This chocolate peanut butter heaven is based off of Woody's Favorite Peanut Butter Cups, only this time it's in bar form.
(The original recipe is either from How it all Vegan or The Kind Diet)
1/2 cup coconut oil
3/4 cups chunky peanut butter
3/4 cups graham cracker crumbs (I used gluten-free)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life brand)
1/4 cup coconut milk
In a sauce pan over low-medium heat melt the coconut oil and peanut butter. Add the maple syrup and graham cracker crumbs. Stir until well combined. I used an 11x11 casserole dish because it's just what was handy at the moment. Feel free to use something smaller if you want to have thicker bars. Lightly grease it with coconut oil and pour the melted peanut butter mixture in. Place in fridge or freezer until it hardens. Meanwhile, melt the chocolate chip and coconut milk. When the peanut butter mixture has set, pour the melted chocolate on top and then set back in the fridge or freezer for the chocolate to harden.
Be careful with these. They're a little TOO good. Everyone at the party pretty much went crazy for these.
I have been eating other things besides chocolate and peanut butter though. Don't worry :-)
Breakfast this morning:
Egg and veggie scramble with gluten-free pancakes topped with coconut-maple syrup. (I basically melted some coconut oil and coconut butter and then added maple syrup and it was one of the best things ever.)
So yeah, breakfast was awesome!
As was lunch:
Greens and tomatoes topped with a veggie tamale, goat cheese and guacamole with two different types of sauerkraut (that my friends made) on the side, with a few chips :-)
Let's see, what else? Oh! The other night Woody and I made a killer pizza. (Warning to vegetarians! This pizza contains meat!!) I just realized that totally gave the term "killer pizza" a whole new meaning :-( That wasn't my intention! What can I say? While I avoid meat most of the time, when the crazing strikes, I listen. Local, organic, free-range meat is where it's at!
Udi's Gluten-Free pizza crust, barbeque sauce, spinach, sweet potato, black olives and chicken apple sausage. Oh man, it was so good :-) Barbeque sauce on pizza? Awesome.
Doggie update:
They're being cute as ever.
Awww :-)
The other day I made a green smoothie for me and Woody. Woody drank his out of a jar and ended up leaving the jar out in the backyard all day. Well, at some point Django found the jar and had the best time ever licking it clean :-)
What's the matter, Kona?
I think she was a little jealous.
She's like, screw this.
Where's MY smoothie jar?
:-)
Hey, thank you all for your awesome comments in response to my question about blogging and time-management. It was helpful to hear about how you all flow with it all. I'm still trying to figure out what works best for me. But you all really had some great things to say, so thank you!
I have another blogging question. I have been trying to respond to all the comments I get, even it it takes a couple days to get around to it. I have no idea but, do you get notified when I reply to your comment? I'm not sure if Intense Debate does that or not. If not, do you ever check back to see if your comment has a reply? I would just feel bad if I responded to your comment and you never even knew!
Something to reflect on:
The other day I was having a conversation with someone and at one point they said something like,"I don't think there are ever any missed opportunities in life. Because it's always all unfolding!" This REALLY resonated with me. I like the idea of never having any regrets for things you didn't do and always just moving forward. Do you agree? What do you think?
Ok, I'm done now. Thanks for reading, my beautiful friends. I love you <3
