Chocolate Breakfast Cookies

Hellooooooo! Wow, I seriously did not intend to take this long of a break before posting a new recipe here on my blog, but time around the holidays just seems to go even faster than the regular amazing speed of time. I may not have been blogging much over the last month, but that does not mean that I have not been cooking. Let's see, I have made peanut butter waffles, rainbow pancakes, quadruple batch of breakfast cookies, healthier version of bisquick and turned it into sausage balls and sausage pinwheel, peanut butter banana muffins and just today, chocolate breakfast cookies and homemade whole wheat pitas. My mom and I also canned potato soup, beef vegetable soup, chili, white chili and bolognese sauce. I am sure that I am leaving something out, but you get the idea that I continue to do lots of cooking and have lots to share.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts was the Sneaky Chef's new cookbook Sneaky Fitness. It has lots of ideas to sneak physical activity into your everyday routine in addition to more sneaky recipes. Today, we tried the recipe for chocolate champion cereal cookies, since the regular breakfast cookies are now a staple in our household. How do you think your kids would react if you offered them these cute and tasty chocolate cookies for breakfast?


The sneaky ingredients include purple puree (pureed spinach and blueberries), wheat germ, whole wheat pastry flour and old-fashioned rolled oats. NOTE: This recipe calls for 1/3 c. of purple puree and I usually recommend storing your purees in 1/4 cup portions SO you will have to use more than one serving of your stored purees or just make a triple batch and use one cup of puree. These cookies have a nice little crunch and look great when you dust them with powdered sugar. Most importantly, my taste testers whole-heartedly approved!! Seth actually ate three cookies for dessert tonight and I think they would make a great snack for pre-school. You could make this dough ahead of time and flash freeze on a cookie tray and store to bake in the morning and then top with powdered sugar.

Enjoy and I look forward to blogging again soon!

Eggo Emergency?

In case you have not heard there is going to be a shortage of Eggo waffles. If you would like to read more about this shortage just click here. DON'T PANIC!!! Especially, if these are a staple in your freezer. You can make your own - Yes you can! We just had these for breakfast and they are so easy to whip up fresh and cook. Even better, they do not contain all the preservatives of the store bought variety and they are SOOOOO much cheaper. I just calculated (yes, the girl from Kentucky can do some cipherin' but I have to admit that I am not wearing shoes at the moment) and it cost me $1.32 for the ingredients to make 16 healthy waffles! Of course, that does not include the cost of a waffle iron. But, if you click here, you can see the list of waffle makers available at Target and mine was only $19.99, although it is not pictured there.



My waffle iron calls for 3/4 cup of batter to make two waffles, but last time I used that amount of batter the waffles were a little too thick for me and would not fit as well in my toaster to reheat. So, I only used about 1/2 cup of batter at a time and they were perfect. What we didn't eat for breakfast, I then placed on a cookie sheet in a single layer and placed in the freezer for an hour or so to "flash freeze" them. Then, I simply placed them in a freezer bag for storage.

These homemade frozen waffles reheat just as well in the toaster. You may consider not cooking them until they are completely crispy if you are planning on putting them in the toaster to reheat. But, you may need to play with that.

For those of you needing as close to an Eggo as you can get, I did find this website where a chef created his version of the waffle. I have not tried this recipe yet, but wanted to share it and the website with you. Let me know what you think if you try them before I have a chance. I do like his suggestion of using pieces of dried blueberries in the batter for the blueberry flavor.

So, here is your chance to start the break from pre-packaged convenience foods and start making some of your own convenience foods at home. It does take a little planning and time to get started, but once you have these yummy waffles in your freezer you will forget about Lego or Eggit or whatever they were called. Did I mention how much money you can save???

You can do it!

Oops! Almost forgot to include the link to the recipe. It if from http://www.tammysrecipes.com/ and if you have time you should browse around for more great recipes.

"Buttered" Noodles

Can you really have healthy buttered noodles? Sure, if you get a little sneaky with it. This recipe is simple and tasty. I found it in the Deceptively Delicious cookbook and make it as directed. Just click on the title of this blog post to get the full recipe or you can go to the "Recipes" tab on the sidebar.

First, start with a healthy pasta such as Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Whole Wheat Blend Extra-Wide Noodle Style Pasta, Ronzoni Smart Taste Pastas (any shape) that contain 30% of your daily calcium, Hodgson Mill Whole Grain/Whole Wheat pastas or if you insist on white noodles then DeCecco spaghetti is one of the best. I used the Ronzoni Smart Taste Rotini.

Second, you will need to make a yellow squash puree which is so easy. Just cut the ends off of the squash and cut it into about one-inch pieces and steam (I use my Pampered Chef microsteamer) in the microwave or on the stove top for about six minutes or until tender. Then, just throw it in your food processor or blender until smooth.

One decent sized squash made about 1/2 cup of puree which was perfect for this recipe. Next, just combine the cooked and drained pasta with pureed squash, 1/4 c. of skim milk, 2 T. trans-fat free soft tub butter/margarine spread, 2 T. grated paremesean cheese and 1/4 t. salt.

This is the batch that I made for dinner last night and it was enjoyed by all in my household.


Seth enjoyed it, too! Cast and all!

Sorry that the posts have been few and far between lately. My husband was out of the country and my son broke his wrist, so things have been a little crazy. Hoping to be a little more frequent in posting in the near future.

Enjoy!

Happy Healthy Halloween

I am soooo sick of Halloween candy and my son has not even gone trick-or-treating yet. I know, I know, all things in moderation. But, seriously some of this stuff is just nasty. I'm all for GOOD candy. Alas, he loves it ALL.

I wanted to post this healthy cookie recipe that was tasty and easy to spruce up for the festivities of a preschool Halloween party. It is from the new Sneaky Chef cookbook that is due out in December. The recipe is for Smores cookies and calls for regular marshmallows on top, but I replaced those with pumpkin marshmallows to suit the occasion. In all honesty, they would be much better with just plain marshmallows, maybe you could find colored marshmallows for the occasion.

Here is the link for the cookie recipe and here is the link to the Sneaky Chef website with some ideas for making your Halloween more active.

Also, here is another link to a blog that I follow on my sidebar that has some other healthy, but yummy treat options for Halloween.

Happy and safe trick-or-treating.

Great Idea?

I love it when a plan comes together. You know what I mean. You think that you have a great idea, whatever it may be, and it actually turns out to be a great idea. As opposed to the times that you think that you have a great idea and it turns out to be a disaster. I know that the suspense is killing you and that you must know my great idea. Well, here you go. . .

I used the oatmeal pancake mix that I told you about in this post. I am sure that you have tried it by now and that it is a staple in your household. If not, we will talk later. I combined this recipe with orange puree and a little cinnamon for a yummy twist on traditional pancakes. This was super easy because I already had my pancake mix pre-made and then just added 1/2 cup of orange puree and 1/4 t. of cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice) to the original pancake mix recipe.


In the recipes section of my blog, I will call these "orange pancakes."

Next time, I think that I will try it with a little pumpkin puree. I hope that turns out to be another great idea. We'll see.

Enjoy!

Cheesy Animal Crackers

Here is another second chance recipe. I tried this recipe over a year ago and was not thrilled with my original results, but recently tried again with a few modifications.

This homemade cheese cracker recipe starts with pureed chickpeas, a little olive oil and lots of whole grains rather than a stick of butter and loads of cheese or the unpronouncable ingredients found in store bought crackers.

I did modify the original recipe by using sharp cheddar cheese instead of low-fat cheddar cheese. I just don't like what they do to the cheese to make it low fat, so instead, choose to use the real stuff in moderation. I chose sharp cheddar because I thought the crackers could use a bolder cheese flavor.



When you roll out the dough, I recommend that you do it in small batches so that you can get the dough thin enough to make crackers.

When you bake the crackers, I recommend baking them for 10-12 minutes and then turning your oven up to broil for a minute or so to make the crackers more crispy.

These are fun because you can choose whatever shape you want. I made these out of small Noah's Ark cookie cutters because the lesson in Sunday school today was about Noah's Ark. We also made some out of Halloween cookie cutters.

One can of chickpeas makes a quadruple batch of crackers. So, for sake of ease, just puree chickpeas in food processor and throw in enough ingredients to quadruple the recipe. These crackers store for weeks or freeze for months so it is worth the time to go ahead and use all of the puree while you have it in the food processor. Also, I mix all of the ingredients together in the food processor so that the cheese is completely combined. When I mixed it in the mixer the cheese remained kind of stringy and it looked like some of my crackers had hair (that's never good).

Lastly, these crackers have been taste-tested and approved by my fellow Mommy & Me ladies, their kiddos, my husband (but, please don't tell him they have chickpeas or cheese in them) and the Sunday school class at church.

Enjoy!

PROUD!

I know that this blog is supposed to be about sneaky food and cooking, but I am just so PROUD that I am about to pop! So, I had to share. . .because being a healthy mom is not just about eating healthy but being active and setting a good example for physical health.

About five months ago, my friend Christa over at Motivating Mommies, decided that she was going to run a half-marathon and challenged several of us to do the same. I am not sure why, but I thought this would be a good idea. Let me preface this by saying that I have never been a runner! I was the person saying, "Why would anyone want to run that far?" or "only if I'm being chased." But, something inside me said that I could do this. I just had to get my husband on board, because even if he didn't want to do it with me, I would need his help to accomplish the training. He said YES! So, we embarked on this crazy adventure together. He found this program online for a "couch to 5K" training. We started running 60 seconds at a time and this past weekend we actually RAN 13.1 miles. We were certainly not the fastest people on the road, but weren't the slowest either.

The best part for me was running the entire time with my husband by my side. You see, about a year and a half ago he broke his back. He suffered a T12 burst fracture in his spine in a freak accident while attending a toddler gymnastics class with our son. Our life was turned upside down, especially when we did not know what the long-term prognosis would be. This man that I married, who could have wallowed in self-pity and despair, chose to count his blessings. He only missed six weeks of work despite being in a hard shell brace for over three months and set an amazing example of how to handle adversity for our young son. So, when he said yes to this challenge we weren't sure how his back would tolerate so much running. I am so PROUD of him and of us. I am PROUD of the man that he is and has grown to be. I loved running beside him and hugging him as we crossed the finish line. I loved that we challenged each other when the other was not motivated and accomplished this goal together.

I am just so PROUD that I could pop. So, if we can do it, then so can you. Set a goal and as my friend Christa says, "Get up and move it!"