"Real Food Recipe": Coconut Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies

These are so good! We have them a lot...perhaps too often where we're going to get sick of them! I started with this recipe from the Jewish Hostess here and doubled it and adapted it to a coconutty option. Mmmmm....coconut.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup oats
1 cup coconut (shredded, unsweetened)
1 tsp. baking powder (technically, this is a bit processed)
1 tsp. baking soda
2 Tbsp. ground flaxseed
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup coconut butter (you find it near the PB and other nut butters)
1/2 cup grain-sweetened chocolate chips (like the Sunspire brand)


Mix all together and roll into balls about 1.5" in diameter and place on a prepared baking sheet. I usually use a cookie sheet lined with parchment.

I like to flatten them a bit after that. Because there's not a lot of fat in these, they don't spread all that much on their own when you bake them.

Bake at 350. My daughter and I like them best after just 10 minutes and I leave the sheet in for a total of 16 minutes for the rest of the family. If you try them, I'd love to know what you think! Enjoy!

"Real Food Recipe" Muffin Monday: PB Chocolate Chip Muffins

Years ago, Easton "made up" the idea for peanut butter chocolate chip tomato garlic muffins. Well, all together that was obviously disgusting but with the first two, he was on to something. I searched for a recipe and this one quickly became a family favorite. In fact, it's the only muffin recipe all 5 of us enjoy. I've since adapted that recipe to work for us and our new cleaner eating (and my busy/lazy lifestyle). The original recipe calls for a painstaking process of sifting the dry ingredients together and adding in the wet. Beating the eggs in a separate bowl. Yada yada yada. Ain't nobody got time for that! I dump it all in a big bowl all at once and hit it with my hand held electric mixer. Boom! (It's just as good, I tried that long way the first time.)

Anyway, here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 Tbsp. melted butter (I use unsalted)
1/2 cup honey (pure, local honey, if you can!)
1/2 cup milk 2/3 cup peanut butter (straight up natural PB)
2/3 cup grain-sweetened chocolate chips (like Sunspire)

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare muffin tins. I use paper cups. This recipe gives me 12 regular muffins and 12 mini muffins. Beat all ingredients together with an electric mixer and spoon into muffin cups. I put in the regular sized muffins in the oven first for about 5 minutes while I fill the mini muffin tray and clean up. Then I add the mini muffins in with their regular sized friends and bake for 15-17 minutes longer. So, 20-22 minutes total on the regular ones. Enjoy!

My oh-so-helpful notes to you:
When making the transition to our cleaner eating, we did it slowly--just like when I'd introduce the kids to whole milk from breast milk....you know, a quarter of the milk in their cup was whole, the rest Mommy's. The next time a third or a half. So I did the same for transitioning our family to whole grains. In the case of these muffins, I did a 3rd of the flour as whole wheat, then 2/3rd, then all of it. No one ever complained. Maybe I could've gone all the way right off the bat but even I was a little unsure of how I'd like it. Plus I had some white flour to use up.

I usually melt the butter in the microwave in a 1/2 cup measuring cup. After I add it to the bowl, I use that same "greased" measuring cup to measure out the honey for the recipe.

If you're not using a natural peanut butter where the ingredients is more than just: peanuts, then be really careful about the sugar and salt already in your PB before adding the "extra" the recipe calls for.

When making these muffins I usually double the recipe....sometimes I make a whole extra pan and freeze the uncooked batter in their cups and cover with foil.

 
As we usually do "Muffin Monday", I'll pull it out of the freezer on Sunday night and stick it in the fridge to thaw till Monday morning. Then I just uncover and bake as usual. Sure saves time on busy school mornings!

Or, sometimes while making a batch, I might make a "muffin mix" for next time with just the dry ingredients. I store it in the pantry with the remaining "wet" ingredients I'll need to add taped to the top.

Saves a little time and I don't miss the prepackaged Betty Crocker things quite as much.

We love to eat the big muffins on Mondays and then on Tuesdays I'll often send a few leftover mini muffins to school with the boys for their morning snack.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes--Clean(er) Eating

The comment from Kelly yesterday was a perfect idea for another blog topic: our diet change.

I made quite a few new friends this year thanks to Dalton being in half day kindergarten. Standing around with the other parents waiting for their half-dayers, a lot of us really bonded. Anyway, one of these moms (my now good friend) sells Juice Plus and is fairly into nutrition. (We don't take Juice Plus, however.) I always thought we had a fairly decent diet but she gave me a CD to listen to featuring one of my favorite trusted sources: Dr. Sears.

He got to talking about processed foods and other topics which got me thinking right around the same time as a lot of my Facebook friends started "liking" the 100 Days of Real Food blog. At first I was annoyed, like, "what's not real about what I'm eating?" Turns out.... a lot!

My wheels got to turnin' and I started looking into it all a bit more. I read Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" and we started talking about making some changes to consuming a whole lot less processed foods. Jason was totally on board but sort of confused about what we were going to eat. I told him we'd eat the same stuff as before, just healthier versions: whole grains, organic options, more things made from scratch. Like, one of our favorites was veggie fajitas. But instead we'd do whole wheat tortillas and organic veggies and organic black beans. Instead of his trusty "Lean Pockets" which he brought to work several times a week I made my own pizza pockets from scratch with whole grain dough, cheese I grated myself, organic tomato sauce, fresh organic produce "toppings". In lieu of the frozen bean and cheese burritos he brought on other days, again, I made my own with dried beans I fixed in the Crock Pot and whole grain tortillas. We often had a lot of leftovers for him to bring to work as well. He rarely ate out anyway.

On New Year's Day, Jason and I sat down to watch Food, Inc. on Netflix and committed to no longer getting disgusting, mass-produced meats. We've always eaten meatless at least a few times a week but we were going to eat even less meat...more of a "side" and less the center of a meal when we did have it. Any meat we consumed was going to be organic and local (when possible) from then on. Grass fed beef, free range chickens, no hormones, no antibiotics....that sort of thing.

We started sort of slowly, we used up a few things we still had in the pantry, packed up and donated others. I got to spending a LOT more time in my kitchen and Jason did some more reading on his own. One of the ideas that particularly resonated with him was Dr. McDougall's "Starch Solution". It goes against so many of the "high protein, low carb" fads lately and instead is actually very high carb and says people don't need as much protein as America makes us think we do. McDougall's diet is also free of animal proteins....so it's basically vegan, but honey is okay. It's not about animal rights for him (the poor, exploited bees) but just no animal protein. No meat, no eggs, no dairy (no fun ;) ). Not even seafood which, if you know J, is a huge shocker! He took it that extra step from what we'd agreed on when we first began this change.

As you might guess, Jason's diet is not for me. Not for the kids either. However, I am the family chef and I'm not about to be making all sorts of things J won't eat so I had him take over the meal planning. I still buy everything and make it, but, as far as "what's for dinner?" that's on him now. So we never have meat. I'm okay with that. I never loved meat but I am a dairy person, fo' sho'! Now I eat it at breakfast or lunch or when we go out.

The kids and I maintain more of a whole, real foods kind of approach. Less "science"....so, when Jason's recipes call for "egg replacer" or "soy milk" I refuse to use them. If I bake muffins for our family breakfast, I use the milk and eggs it calls for and Jason eats it anyway. He doesn't really want the fake, lab produced stuff either. But, when possible, he avoids all such things. It's working for him. He was never overweight to begin with but lost 15 pounds (on his 5' 6" frame!) through diet alone. He is super skinny. With high carbs, people! :) He does supplement with a B-12 vitamin now that he's avoiding animal products.

If the kids are at a birthday party or something, I don't make a big deal about what they're eating....pizza with white flour? Fine. Birthday cake with artificial flavors and colors? Whatevs. I don't want to be "that mom" or for my kids to feel weird. I don't want to give them a complex. But they are learning about making good choices. It helps that so many of our friends are somewhat like-minded and bring "raspberry bars" for birthday treats or at least make their cakes from scratch with organic ingredients.

I took the kids out for dinner recently and Easton was so excited he was going to get to have chicken. He read the grilled chicken option versus the chicken tenders and asked which was healthier and then chose that....with a side of steamed broccoli! And he ate every bite.

I showed Mr. Map-Maker some really cute cupcakes that looked like globes and Autumn saw them and reminded me, "Moooooommmm...artificial colors!" :)

We were reading a label at the grocery store and I asked myself, "Sugar? Why'd they have to put sugar in this?" and Autumn went, "Sugar...blech!" Someone overheard and asked me how I got my kids to feel that way. ;)

Basically we're now a mostly meat-free household. I've made the kids hamburgers on occasion with acceptable beef and made homemade whole grain, baked chicken nuggets a couple of times. Grilled chicken too. But Jason and I don't eat it. I don't even miss it, honestly. I do believe humans are made to eat meat...I just don't. My kids can but it gets expensive to get the quality stuff we now insist on. So they eat it much much less.

We do only whole grains when I bake at home. No refined sugar...just local honey and pure maple syrup. Not all our produce is local and organic but we try to go that route where possible. We joined a CSA for the summer and get loads of fresh veggies from a local farm. We've always had local organic (whole!) milk delivered. We looked into local restaurants that meet our "requirements" for whole grain options and ideally local ingredients when possible and we pretty much only go those places if we eat out. And we just try to do minimally processed foods: no refined grains, no refined sugars especially high fructose corn syrup, nothing artificial like colors or flavors, nothing that isn't a recognizable food on an ingredients list (which hopefully isn't too long a list in the first place). We're certainly not perfect and I make more exceptions than I might ideally like but we're certainly improving.

In addition to the weight Jason's lost, Easton has calmed down a lot. He's always been an energetic boy and we love that about him, but he often could have really dramatic mood swings due to low blood sugar and he was often one of the more disruptive kids in school (just talks a lot). Without knowing that we'd made these changes to our diet at the beginning of this calendar year, E's teachers noticed he'd mellowed and matured. Impressive! He's still very energetic...that's who he is, I just like that he's less disruptive. He focuses better. Also, I don't think Easton's been sick at all since we've changed our diets. Like, not even a cold! You can't help but think it's somewhat related.

I'll likely be sharing quite a few of our favorite recipes and ideas for what we actually eat for those interested.

Christmas In July (Again)---Elfin' Around

I've been getting encouragement and compliments lately on my "good writing skills". Really? Me? Anyway, that prompted me to look back at some old blog posts....I don't know that I'm a good writer, more like I had good material. These kids are a hoot! But reading the old stories which I have no recollection of whatsoever in my present memories made me a little sad that so much has gone unblogged all these years. I switched to sharing mostly things about the kids on Facebook which is great and all and means it's really only my friends (and not those who unfriended me) seeing what we're up to but it's not the same as being able to click back through my old posts.

One of the things that kept me from blogging as much in the past was my frustration with uploading pictures. That's still an issue but I set it aside for today to do an Elf on the Shelf post. It's an easy place to start...if "starting" what it is I'm doing. I'm not sure...

Anyway....

I bring you, "Wizby: Year 4" (Here is Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3, by the way).

This was our first Christmas here in our new house and Wizby had some new spots to explore. The kids were worried he wouldn't know where to find us so Easton sent an email to Santa with our new address asking him to please let Wizby know our new whereabouts. He must've shared because the day after Thanksgiving, Wizby showed up in Dalton's room with a new small tree and a Bing map with our new house circled on it. (The boys used to share a room--and a small tree--but now they all have their own rooms and "needed" a 3rd tree.)



The next day he was already tricky to find. Eventually we discovered him in the pantry with some elf pals:



Ah, back in the day when we used to eat all sorts of processed things. Our pantry looks much different now, actually.

One morning the kids awoke to find him sleeping in their bathtub in Autumn's sleeping bag!

He was snuggled up with some new seasonal "soft friends" for the kids:



Another morning we found him on the table near our front door sporting festive cups for each kid:


And bungee jumping with a Slinky from the light fixture over the stairs:



He pulled out the Angry Birds game and brought each kid a tiny Angry Bird ornament wearing Santa hats:


He must've enjoyed his bungee jumping night because he went for a little more thrill-seeking when he rolled himself down the stairs inside a roll of toilet paper:


We couldn't leave him there all day, however (the cat loves toilet paper), but rules are rules and NO ONE is allowed to touch an elf, lest he lose his magic. So, Easton grabbed our "Elf Yourself" microphone from last season and changed his voice to "elf" to explain to Wizby that we'd be carefully lifting him up by touching the toilet paper and Easton didn't want him to panic:


One morning he was hanging out happily in the car:


And he'd drawn a self portrait on Dalton's dry erase easel....not too shabby for drawing in the dark, eh? ;)


On the day of our housewarming party, Wizby must've known it would be risky to be out and about with all the guests milling about. We found him tucked away in the master bathroom napping in a box of Kleenex:



And once we were done showing off our new house, he showed up with Santa hat chair covers sitting in a poinsettia we received as a housewarming gift.


One Tuesday morning he showed up in the garage with a date!


You like his sport coat and how he's parked right in between our cars? Rascal!


The following morning we found him sunbathing in Easton's room in a bikini!



Not only was he in beachwear, he'd changed the clothes each kid had laid out to swimming suits, flip flops and goggles!


Another day he'd brought a festive treat of Christmas Goldfish (awww, processed, artificially colored Goldfish, my kids sure miss you....) and wrote secret messages that later showed up as "bruises" on our bananas:


He knocked the star off the top of our Christmas tree and replaced it with himself!


I guess some fellas didn't like that idea much....they held Wizby hostage!




Super hero Green Lantern was trying to free him, it seems:


The next morning we'd discovered all those "bad guys" were tied up themselves:


And Wizby and his rescuer were taking it easy in a Crock Pot hot tub with a few lovely ladies:


The following day he was in the master bathtub on a boat:


He'd brought some sponge capsules for fun!


Oooh, turns out they were Christmas shaped:


He spelled out some advice with M&M's (awwww, we miss you too, M&M's!):


And he brought some wintery mirror clings for the powder room:


He gift wrapped the clothes the kids had set out for the next morning! Oh, Wizby....


He disguised himself as a wise man with a candy cane staff and came to see the Baby Jesus:


He lined up with the nutcracker collection but brought some Christmasy puzzles for each kid:


The kids woke up for church with red (ish) Rudolph noses!


Wizby!!!

At least he was sporting a rosy nosey too:


I was sleeping in that morning, I have no idea how the kids discovered their red noses. Oh well.


He perched in our ornament wreath listening to Easton's "Son of Neptune" Audio book one day:


He brought each kid their very own snowglobe for their rooms which is great because they are always trying to steal mine:


He brought a fun Charlie Brown Christmas book with fun sounds:


And gave each kid a "grow your own crystals" kit with a snowy theme:


He dressed like firefighter Barbie and sat in a vintage firetruck in the laundry room:


One of his less inspired evenings, he posed in the missing vertical blind hole.

(We hate those things but still haven't decided what to do instead...ugh!)

Poor guy only ever gets to see Christmas decorations. We discovered he'd pulled out some Halloween décor and was dressed as a ghost!



And on his final night leading to Christmas Eve he crepe papered the kids' doors:





Of course that was the night that Dalton threw up a time or two (can't remember at this point) and mama had to hurdle the papers to get to him. Ugh! But this way works too:


And there you have the 2012 elfin' season. With less than 5 months to go, I hope he's already making more plans for 2013.

(Thanks for stopping by!)