Chocolate Chip Oat Cookies

Finally, a recipe! On a whim, I decided I wanted to bake some cookies. I was in the mood for something sweet so I decided I wanted to try my hand at some cookie baking, but I wanted to keep them healthy. Now...I will say...these are some pretty robust cookies. They aren't for the eater who loves a pre-cut, doughy, Nestle Tollhouse cookie (that's for you Purina employees). They are hearty and the texture reflects that. But they're healthy and accompanied by a scoop of frozen yogurt (as I ate them), they're pretty good. One reason I chose to try this recipe is because all the mixing can be done by hand (because I don't own an electric mixer...yet). Here's the recipe and some photos. *Forgive the poor quality of the photo, I had to use my phone.


Ingredients:
1 cup of packed brown sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup sifted cake flour
2 tablespoons canola oil (I actually used sunflower oil, and they came out just fine)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or raisins)
2 cups rolled oats
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp. cinnamon

Move your oven rack to the middle and preheat it to 350 degrees.

Whisk the sugar, applesauce, egg white, oil, vanilla in a bowl until smooth and stir in the chocolate chips. *The original recipe called for raisins, but I had planned on bringing these to work and not everyone likes raisins, so I substituted chocolate instead. If I were making them for myself I would have used raisins. And if you don't have cake flour or don't want to buy it, you can substitute regular all purpose flour or even use rice flour if you want. *If you want to make them Gluten-free, then use gluten free flour.

Stir together the oats, cake flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet and mix together.

The batter will be rather thick, but that's to be expected. The recipe uses healthier alternatives for the wet ingredients so there's no "creaming process" of the butter, eggs and sugar like a lot of cookie recipes.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, or spray it with cooking spray and drop the cookies onto the cookie sheet, 1-1/12 inches apart (a tablespoon's size of batter should do). Bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown on the top. *I usually cook the first batch of any cookie the full amount of time, this way I can judge if I want to cut back on the time a little. And it cuts down on opening the oven so often to check them. I baked the rest of the batches about 12 minutes, to make them less cakey. The consistency of the cookie will be different, unlike that of most cookies, but they taste good.

Once they're done baking, take them out, cool on a wire rack, serve and enjoy!

Hope you liked the recipe, try them out if you like or make your own version of them! Happy eating!

Fact: Bears eat Beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

What a fun fact up there huh? I bet you really wanted to know that too. Or you're thinking "wtf is that about?" Well, if you're as big of a fan of The Office as I am, then you'd know that's where it came from (the American version, although the British version is outstanding also). It has relevance I promise, I didn't just throw a random quote in there. Although that could be fun...

I'm going to give a rundown of facts about myself, because apparently I'm that self absorbed or think that all of you care to know this information. I'll do my best to make these some "not-so-average facts." Honestly though, I just really wanted to talk about something other than shoulder presses at the gym or how much I hate cooked carrots. *Side note: I'm gonna put my foot down and say that cooked carrots might be one of the worst cooked vegetables ever invented. Challenge me.

FACT:
1. I hate snakes. They make me physically ill.

2. My favorite food is lasagna. I love it. More than Garfield.

3. I like to consider ice cream my Achilles's heal - no matter what hellthy mindset I'm in, offer me ice cream and I'll fold like a napkin.

4. For a very long time I thought that the Ethan Allen furniture store was named Ethe and Allen.

5. Also when I was younger I thought that the people working the drive-thru at McDonald's were actually inside the menu "box." I was always shocked at how they fit in there. Not a bright child.

6. I've never seen Dances with Wolves. (although...who has really?)

7. My favorite dessert is yellow cake with chocolate icing. Unless there's ice cream...then I'm forced to eat both.

8. At one time in my life I owned the single for TLC's "No Scrubs." Hey...it won a Grammy.

9. I was my grade school and area Knights of Columbus' spelling bee champion. Biggest trophy I've ever won.

10. For a grade school talent show, I performed a lip synced version of Ace of Base's "I Saw the Sign" with a fully equipped air band.

11. When I was in college, my drunk food of choice was often sugar free pudding cups.

12. I'm not a "middle piece of square pizza" kind of girl. I prefer the edges. Same goes for brownies. Or any food cut into rectangular shapes.

13. I make the world's best french fries. FACT.

14. I want to perfect the art of sugar cookie baking.

15. My favorite character on The Office is Stanley.

16. I have no desire to run a half marathon, full marathon, or anything with the word marathon in it.

17. I enjoy a good cardigan.

18. My confirmation name is Cecilia. Patron Saint of musicians and poets.

19. My favorite alcoholic drink is a gin and tonic. Just one of the many traits I inherited from my mother.

20. My least favorite meal growing up was round steak. *cue vomiting sounds into a trash can*

Now, wasn't that fun?! I'm sure it was. Soon I'll be trying to get some recipes up here and be on the lookout for a future post about some "best practices" when it comes to eating well.

BTW, I bought a dress a few months ago that I recently wore to a reception, and I had planned on wearing it to one this weekend also. Until I had this conversation with Aaron (I may have paraphrased a bit for brevity):

Aaron: "What dress are you wearing this weekend."
Cassie: "I was planning on wearing the one I just wore last weekend, why?"
Aaron: "I think you should wear a different dress."
Cassie: "Well then I'll have to buy one. What's wrong with the other one, does it look bad?"
Aaron: "No...I just think you're too skinny for it now, you should get something better."

God love him. :)

My Workout

I know it's been awhile since I've been on here, but although I've been a tad absent from here, I sure haven't been absent from the gym. I get into moods with the gym and right now I'm in the mood where I absolutely love going and I don't too tired. I mean, I work hard and I get sweaty (boy do I get sweaty...) but I'm not ready to fall over afterward like I used to. Bobby still kicks my ass training and I am ready to die after I workout with him, but this post is really about what I do to workout on the days I'm not training.

My workouts vary quite a bit. I don't like to do the same thing too much because I get bored and then the workouts feel really long. It also depends on my mood. Like when I'm feeling kind of lazy or just not feeling the whole workout thing, I usually just walk. BUT even when I walk I always walk at a pretty steep incline. I usually start the incline out at about 1 or 2 with the speed at 3.0 (minimum) to warm up - I'll do this for about 3 minutes. Then for the next few minutes or so I increase the speed and incline. I don't walk at a speed any faster than 3.4 (because eventually it becomes hard to keep up). But by the time I get to 10 minutes I'm walking at 3.4 speed at anywhere from a 7-10 incline. It's like walking up a very steep hill. And I'll do this for 15 or 20 minutes (but it depends on how I'm feeling that day). Then I might hop on the elliptical or stair master for 10 minutes and call it a day.

That's one way I'll get a workout in. If I'm feeling extra good then I'll run for 30 minutes (the whole 30 minutes -that gets kinda hard for me haha, I get winded!) But...if I'm feeling really spunky, then I'll do some interval training. Which, I have to say, is starting to become my favorite way to work out. My workouts go by so fast and I feel really good when I'm done. I'm not very attractive when I'm done haha, but I feel good!

So I start out on the treadmill for 15 minutes and I start with a warm-up. 3.0 -3.2 speed for 3-5 minutes, incline at 1-2. Sometimes I use the whole 5 minutes, especially if I'm reading a magazine b/c then the timer is covered up. So here's how the treadmill breaks down (just want to clarify for any of these workouts, I don't know if it's how their supposed to go, I just found what works for me and do that):

3-5 minute warm up, 1-2 incline
3 minutes 4.0-4.2 speed, 2.5 incline
2 minutes 4.5 speed, incline at 3
2 minutes 5.0 speed, incline at 2.5
2 minute 5.5 speed, incline at 3
1 minute 6.0 speed, incline at 2.0 (it gets really hard to get through this when the incline is really high)
1 minute 4.5 speed, incline 2.0
1 minute 4.0 speed, incline 0

So after that I hop on the bike for 10 minutes. Here's how it breaks down:

1 minute, level 5, 78-88 rpms (keep it between this range)
1 minute, level 6-8 (I do 7), 105-110 rpms
*alternate between this for the next 6 minutes. Once you're at 8 minutes, do 2 minutes at level 5 for 78-88 rpms

After the bike I get on the elliptical for 10 or 15 minutes. I don't really get into messing with the resistance on this too much, just because I never felt like it, haha. So I just set the resistance at 7 and sprint every other minute for 10 or 15 minutes.

Then I'm done! I'm pretty tired after all of that and but I still feel really good. I find that the interval type training does me pretty good because it keeps me on my toes. I won't always keep the treadmill, bike, elliptical order, I'll switch things up, alternate the times, etc. But I try and keep the speeds and stuff consistent.

So yea, there are my workouts! I only do this stuff on the days I'm not training so generally that's Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (sometimes Friday if I feel like going, but the gym closes kind of early). Training with Bobby only sometimes involves cardio so I try and make the most of the days where that's all I do.

Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather! If found a trail I want to start running outside but I'm not much for running on pavement so we'll see how that pans out. :)