Welcome to My Lab-Oooor-Atory!

Or my kitchen…same thing as far as today’s concerned! Hope everybody has had a great Saturday! I’d say about 60% of my daylight hours were logged in the lab kitchen today! Dang, I totally should’ve puffed flour in my face and took a pic! 😉

Let me first say that I am in no way a baker. I love to bake and I change things around sometimes and add ingredients, but as for coming up with a recipe from scratch? Yeah, I don’t speak that language…yet! But mark your calendars folks, because today was the day Heather made her very own cookie recipe for the FIRST time! Eeek!

But, before we get to the GREAT stuff, how about we look at some of the good eats enjoyed on this sunny (finally) Saturday?

Breakfast was a warm creamy bowl of protein packed “yoats” or “yoatgurt for long” as Janetha would say and a mug of lifeforce coffee.

Protein-Packed Pumpkin Yoats: (serves 1)

  • 1/2 cup rolled oats
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup egg substitute
  • splash of vanilla
  • dash of cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup pumpkin

1. Combine all ingredients except pumpkin in a small sauce pan over medium heat and           cook for about 5-6 minutes.
2. In the last few minutes of cooking, stir in the pumpkin.
3. Pour into bowl, combine with your favorite Greek yogurt (I chose Voskos Honey                 Vanilla) and top your heart out!

Toppings: Coconut cream (chilled coconut milk), fresh raspberries, and unsweetened shredded coconut.

After a trip to the store to get some essentials for my baking experiments, I came home and threw together a veggie wrap and a side of Julie’s rutabaga fries.

That’s a Wrap (sorry, couldn’t resist): Whole wheat tortilla, 2 tablespoons roasted pine nut hummus (yumm-o), spinach, carrots, and roasted red pepper.

Rutabaga Fries: 1/2 a medium-sized rutabaga cut into fries, sprayed with cooking spray and seasoned with a touch of salt, pepper, garlic and chili powders, and of course some smoked paprika and baked in a 400 degree oven for about 35 minutes.

Drinky-Drink: 1/2 cup POM Wonderful + 1/2 cup ginger-ale.

Loved these “fries”! Sweet P’s are still my fave, but it was nice to switch things up a bit! If you’ve never tried a rutabaga before, it is a root vegetable (in the same fam with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, etc…) and it has a nice natural sweetness to it that is only enhanced with roasting in the oven! Delish! Julie has a step-by-step video on her blog showing you how to peel, dice, and spice. Check it out here!

After lunch, I pushed up my sleeves and started my cookie creations with some nut buttering! Peanut buttering to be specific!

Look at that creamy goodness!

It’s a bit of a process (ha! pun totally intended) but the end product is so heavenly you’ll forget all about jarred stuff!

Peanut Butter Oat Cookies Biscuits:

  • 1 1/2 cups dry roasted unsalted peanuts processed until buttah
  • 1 medium banana, mashed
  • 4 chopped, pitted dates (about 1/3 cup)
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • (2nd batch added 1/2 cup rolled oats)

1. Throw all ingredients in food processor and process just until combined.
2. Using an ice-cream or cookie scoop, scoop batter out by 1-2 tablespoons and place on         greased cookie sheet.
3. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 minutes.

Before

After. Not much of a difference, huh?

Phase 2 included adding 1/2 cup of rolled oats to the batter:

The cookie kept an almost dough-like inside which I liked, but the dates and banana just didn’t do enough for the sweetness. They tasted like little peanut butter biscuits.

Next!

Yeah, I ran out of peanuts! But who cares when you have DARK CHOCOLATE almonds?

Fast forward through the 2 1/2 batches of dry semi-tasty cookies, sticky fingers, and a messy kitchen and behold the beauty of experimental success!

Everything-But-Sugar Oatmeal Cookies: (makes 48 small cookies)

  • 1 cup dark chocolate almond butter
  • 1 banana, mashed
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
  • 1 scoop (30g) chocolate protein powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
  • 2 cups rolled oats
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 cup dried cranberries
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

1. Combine first seven ingredients in food processor and process until smooth.
2. Stir together flour, oats, soda, salt, and cinnamon in a separate bowl.
3. Pour contents of food processor into bowl of dry ingredients and stir until combined.
4. Stir in cranberries and coconut.
5.  Spoon dough out by the tablespoon (I used my cookie scoop) and place on a greased         baking sheet. Wet your hands and flatten the cookie slightly with your fingers.
6. Bake in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 8-10 minutes.

Ok, ok so I got a little proud of my babies and took a TON of pics! What’s funny is that that’s not even HALF of them!

These are not your typical sugary oatmeal cookies. The only sweetness in them comes from the cranberries. I like to think of them as a flour flower child of a cookie and some good natural granola! Thank you again Miss Kayla for the inspiration that started this whole process!

Come on over folks, I’ve got PLENTY of cookies to share!

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36 Responses to Welcome to My Lab-Oooor-Atory!

  1. I wish you could food- mail people! Like instant food through the computer! ahh how awesome would that be??!!?!

    Your cookies look mighty tasty, I want to try the PB ones! (LOVED the pun! )

    What did you use on your rutabaga fries? they look perfect!!

    • I love plays on words…I’m such a dork!

      I used a tiny bit of salt and then just sprinkled pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, and smoked paprika on them until they looked good and spiced! You could really used just about anything on them, but I LOVE the smoked paprika!

  2. I totally have those same almonds and thought about putting them in the food processor, and you totally beat me to it!! 🙂 Great minds!

  3. oh my gosh! these cookie look and sound delicious! i love how simple the ingredients are!

  4. lindsay says:

    thats one fabulous labooooooratory! They kinda look like oaties. Delicious. I would have taken a bizillion pics too. 😉

  5. Erika says:

    Sounds like a great day! Any day that is filled with good food and lots of baking is a good day in my book! 😉

    I love those Cocoa-Roast Almonds! <3

  6. I bought a food processor over a week ago and I have yet to make my own nut butter! I have to get on that. Yours looks so good. 🙂

    • Making your own nut butter is the by far the BEST thing to do with a food processor! So sad I owned mine for over a year before I even took it out of the box! Now, it gets the most action out of all my appliances!

  7. Love the name – Everything-But-Sugar Oatmeal Cookies! All the cookies look amazing! Great ‘action’ shots of the peanut butter as well – I love making my own nut butter too! 🙂

    • I’m such a dork…it seriously took me longer to come up with the name than to actually make the cookies! Haha! Dark Chocolate Cranberry Coconut Oatmeal Cookies just doesn’t roll off the tongue very easily! 😉

  8. Ameena says:

    You are one creative baker! Seriously, I couldn’t come up with that many delicious things in a month! Everything looks delicious.

    And your photos are really amazing – makes me want to break out my Canon again, instead of my iPhone…but we both know that’s probably not going to happen! 🙂

    • Thank you! I’ve actually been borrowing a friend’s Canon for the past week, but all my other photos were taken with my iPhone! The new iPhone 4 has an amazing camera…just wish it took better close up shots!

  9. Woah! Very unique cookies! =) They look awesome!

  10. Could your food look any better. Those cookies look heavenly. Thanks so much for sharing. I am your newest follower!

    xo

  11. Congrats on your very first cookie recipe! They look super delicious! 🙂

  12. janetha says:

    loving those daylight photos of yoats. so beautiful! the cookies look wayyy good. i need to bake something.

  13. I ADORE those cocoa-roasted almonds. It’s kind of a problem. The idea of making nut butter out of them sounds horrendously dangerous.

    And I am definitely makign those oats at some point. They, too, look phenomenal. I need to pick more adjectives… 😉

    <3
    n

  14. Kayla says:

    Oh MAN! Great job on the cookies, girl! They look AWESOME!

    I just ran out of applesauce and I need to make dark chocolate almond butter! When I do, cookie making will begin! Again, GREAT JOB on these!

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  16. Your cookies look SO good! I can’t wait to try them! 🙂

  17. Holy dang! These look super, super amazing. I want to make them. Now that I think about it, I have some of those cocoa almonds in my pantry from my Hungry Girl loving days. I never even looked at the ingredients back then and haven’t touched them since, because I assumed they would be loaded with unnatural ingredients, not to mention sugar. Now I need to go look! Thanks. 🙂

    • Yep, they’re not too bad besides the modified food starch…probably used to get the cocoa powder to stick. Only 1g of sugar per serving! I think I like them MORE as almond butter though, especially warm straight out of the food processor!

  18. elise says:

    send some my way dude 🙂 i take an obnoxious number of pics of my food too. its ridic.

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