Little Man and I have a playdate to go to tomorrow and I've been wanting to do some baking lately, so I pulled out my copy of The Best of Clean Eating Magazine and decided that today would be the day I make Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Holy Moly.  They are i.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.e.  

Almond Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Best of Clean Eating Magazine

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unsalted almond butter, stirred well
• 3/4 cup Sucanat
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp sea salt
• 3 oz dark chocolate (70% cocoa or greater), broken into small pieces

Instructions:

ONE: Preheat oven to 350°F. In a medium bowl, stir together first 5 ingredients until blended. Stir in chocolate.

TWO: Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes. Remove to a wire rack and let cool for 15 more minutes.

Another photo to tempt you...

Try these!!! I think I like them more than regular Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Sooooooo - After taking the winter off of running, I finally got my butt up off of the sofa and started going again.

Just finished week 1 of Couch to 5K and today was able to do 9 of 9 runs for a total of 9 minutes of running!

I've fallen off of the clean eating wagon for the past couple of days.  Hubby brought home some ice cream and if anything is my weakness, it's ice cream.  Especially Chocolate Peanut Butter flavored ice cream.

Okay - Need to stay on track this week.

I did it.  After one lazy-ass winter, I have started to do Couch to 5K again.

It gave me a reality check on how incredibly unfit I am.  I was able to do four of of the nine 1 minute runs.  I have a lot of work to do if I want to do some 5K's or my ultimate goal of a Half Marathon.

I've been craving sweets lately.  I'd do anything for an endless supply of Salted Caramel Budino from Mercatto:

but I know deep down inside that it would truly botch all of the hard work I've done in the past 9 months.


So, rather than destroy all of my efforts, I pulled out my Best of Clean Eating Cookbook and decided to try my hand at Black Bean Fudge Cakes.  I love a really good fudge brownie.  These are definitely fudgey.


I didn't follow the directions to a T.  I did it in a 13x9" pan (I just got a new Le Creuset pan this morning) - this resulted in really thin brownies, and I would absolutely make them in a smaller pan next time to ensure optimal fudgeiness. I also opted to not add walnuts.  I prefer a nut-free brownie, I don't love chunks in my food, and wanted to cut down on the fat in the brownies as well.


The finished product with, um, a row missing... I blame the toddler. He loved them!

They had a sort of springy texture... once you get past this, they're really quite delicious.  And I wonder if doing them in a smaller pan would change this at all.

Up close:

Black Bean Fudge Cakes from The Best of Clean Eating Magazine

Ingredients:

• Olive oil cooking spray
• 1 oz dark organic chocolate (70% cocoa or greater)
• 1 1/2 cups soft-cooked black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 eggs
• 1 egg white
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 heaped cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup raw organic honey
• 1/4 to 1/2 cup unsalted walnuts, chopped

Instructions:

ONE: Preheat oven to 350°F. Mist 8 individual ramekins or 1 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray.

TWO: Melt dark chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat with 1 tbsp water mixed in.

THREE: Combine melted chocolate, beans, eggs, egg white, oil, cocoa powder, baking powder, vanilla, applesauce and honey in a food processor; process until smooth. Stir in walnuts and pour mixture into prepared ramekins or baking dish.

FOUR: Bake in preheated oven until the tops are dry and the edges start to pull away from the sides, about 20 minutes for ramekins and 30 minutes for baking dish.

Today I took the little man with me for a visit to Planet Organic in search of Vegenaise.  We found some Vegenaise, some Annie's Bunny Grahams and grabbed a bunch of kale.

I'm pretty sure that Kale chips are one of my current favorite things.  So crispy, salty and oh so good for you!

My recipe for Kale Chips is pretty simple:

Preheat your oven to 375*F

Pull off of the stalks - I find the easiest way to do this is to face the leaves up (or down, really doesn't matter), and run your fingers up the sides of the stalk.  The leaves will come off when you do this and when it gets far enough it'll break where it's tender enough to eat. Voila!

Wash the leaves and spin in a salad spinner.

Spread the leaves out fairly evenly on a baking sheet.

Drizzle with 1 Tbsp Olive Oil (use more if you're using more than one bunch of kale)

Sprinkle with Salt.  I use about 3/4 tsp.  It's such a personal preference.

Bake for 5 minutes, rotate pan.  Bake for 7 more minutes.

Here are my fresh chips right out of the oven

Every time I make these I really can't believe how honest to goodness good for you they are!  

I woke up this morning and tossed on some clothes quickly since I could hear the little destroyer making noise in his room and to my surprise a t-shirt that used to be very snug on me is very loose on me now.  We're talking hanging so low in the front that my bra shows loose.

So to celebrate this I decided it would be a good day to spend some money - I did work on good Friday after all, so why not?

So I headed over to Lululemon's new website and picked up a 50 rep bra in Grapeseed:

and a modern racer tank in citron:

I've been oogling clothes from Lulu for a while now, and I have to admit I'm pretty excited for these to come!

I really find lunch is the hardest meal of the day for me.  It's when I usually end up eating poorly and then my day goes to hell in a handbasket from there.  Recently I spent a bit of time a Bulk Bark picking out different grains I'd like to try.  One of these was wheat berries.  They sounded interesting enough.  Wheat berries are the whole wheat kernel - completely unprocessed.  They have a reasonable amount of protein (7g/cup) and are high in fibre (9g/cup) and relatively low calorie (220 cal/ cup).

So I boiled some of these bad boys up - takes about 90 minutes to cook them.  Joy of Cooking says to cook 1 cup of wheat berries in 3.5 cups water for 90 minutes or until split and chewy.

I was working the next day and work can really put a kink in my plans to be healthy, with Hero Burger a 2 minute walk away, so I quickly sauteed up some artichoke hearts, pitted some kalamata olives and broke apart a bit of goat cheese and voila a mediterreanean grain salad that isn't drenched in oil or fats!  Oh - and it's delish!