How are you doing today? Wow, this weekend went by pretty fast! Why do weekends always fly by? Must be all that “time flies when you’re having fun thing”. Anyway, what have you been up to? I said goodbye to my out of town guests today. They got here Thursday as I mentioned and it was fun, but now I can relax a little bit more and hang out in my super-old-but-comfy-clothes in the house, and not wonder what I am going to whip up next to feed this brood? When entertaining, even though I make a conscious effort not to stress or embark upon anything unfamiliar in the kitchen, it always seems that meal prep and kitchen time is way too much and labor intensive! Does this happen to anyone else? But hey, it’s not forever and everyone was duly impressed with what I made. Including the PB Cup Brownie Cupcakes with White Chocolate Icing.
Thanks for letting me know you guys liked the looks of these! Seriously, they are so easy and took me less than 25 minutes from start to finish, including baking time!
Thank you all soooo much for your major props and congratulatory comments and emails you sent me regarding the Completion of my 500 Hour Yoga Teacher Training coursework! It meant so much to me that you all seemed as genuinely excited and happy about my milestone as I am! I actually spent this morning filling out my paper work to send into Yoga Alliance so that I can become a new card-carrying 500 Hour Teacher, asap!
Thanks for all the great comments, too, about your milestones, goals, and accomplishments that you’re proud of. Truly, I feel like I get to know you guys more and more, all the time, and it’s awesome! Who wants to blog if you don’t know much about the people reading your blog? Not me! I want to know the details about all of you!
And I’m glad you enjoyed my Highlights and Recap Post Yesterday.
From Spiralized Zuke Noodles with Homemade Peanut Sauce
To Overnight Protein Oats
Vanilla
And Chocolate
To No-Bake Vegan Rum Cake Balls
If any of the pictures caught your eye, make sure to check out my Highlights and Recap Post!
Moving along Today to a Couple New Recipes!
You know when you have a couple bananas on your countertop and they’re getting to that point where you really need to use ’em or lose ’em? And you’ve already made plenty of Vegan Peanut Butter Softserve with the ripe bananas…
….Enter my Newest Vegan Sweet Treat Recipe!
Averie’s Vegan Coconut Banana Cookie Bites-Gluten & Soy Free
1 Ripe Banana
1 c Almond Flour (or use any combo of wheat, white, pastry, cashew, flax seed, rice, etc flour)
1 c Coconut Flakes (I used sweetened)
2 Tbsp Coconut Oil (this is not critical to the recipe so if you don’t have it, don’t stress, but it just makes it extra delish!)
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
1 Tsp Cinnamon
Optional: 1/8 to 1/4 c Sugar (Omit Sugar Entirely if you wish, or sweeten with Lucama Powder or White Stevia Powder or NuNaturals Baking Blend)
Yields: 18-20 golf ball sized cookie bites
Optional Tweaks and Add-In’s:
Roll in coconut flakes at the end
Add 1 Tsp Cloves/Nutmeg/Lemon or Orange Zest to the Mixture
Add raisins, carob/chocolate chips, dates, dried fruit such as apricots, dried plums, or gogi berries to the mixture. Chocolate Coconut Banana Cookies sound pretty awesome to me!
Directions
Combine All Ingredients
And Blend
Form Golf-Ball Sized Bites or Balls with your Dough and Dehydrate or Bake in the Oven (use a low oven such as 200F and you can also keep the door ajar to keep the temp even lower)
These are the Before Pics
I dehydrated these at 155F for 4 Hours and then let them sit out in the open air for 8 Hours.
And the After Pics
I don’t have the patience to dehydrate at 105F or lower temps most of the time...Plus, when I crank up the heat in the dehydrator it helps me formulate recipes that can do double-duty for those of you with ovens, only, and that’s probably most of you.
As I discussed In This Post, Dehydrators are Not Really Necessary for most people, and I Gave My Thoughts about What Appliances to Buy Before a Dehydrator…my 2 cents only, of course. I mean I love it, but I also love my 29.99 spiralizer and my coffee pot too! Remember this post about my Favorite Kitchen Appliances? I cover this type of info in That Post.
After Dehydrating & Sitting Out in the Air
Another Coconut Banana Bite: Top & Bottom Sides. They are soft in the middle and just slightly crunchy on the outside. Sweet and coconutty, but not overpowering. Perfect, just the way I like them!
Remember This Post when I got together with Madeline for Coffee last week?
Well, she posted that I gave her a few of these to try (and she said I could use this quote): She said she “moaned with delight when she put these in her mouth.”
From Her Post: “Oh my stars was this good! Of course, I would expect nothing less from the amazing raw vegan cooking queen, but this was killer.”
Ok, that’s high praise! Thanks, Madeline! Honestly, it’s really nice having a non-family member taste-tester because it helps me find out what other people like. I like chocolate. Scott likes cold treats. Skylar will eat anything I give her…haha! It’s nice to see what different people’s palates think of various foods and treats! If some of you lived closer, I’d love to have you taste test for me, too!
And if you have extras, you can put them in a container and either refrigerate them, or not.
Some of the greenery I enjoyed this weekend included: mixed greens, red cabbage, sugar snap peas, brock, cukes, tomatoes, Brussles, & carrots
Tossed with my homemade Vegan Slaw Dressing
Dessert was a Combo of Vegan Homemade Coconut Oil Chocolate…
…And Vegan Banana Coconut Cookie Bites
Midnight Snackage was 2 Tbsp Organic Popcorn kernels, placed in a brown paper bag, then placed in the micro for 90 seconds. And after popping, I sprayed the popcorn with cooking spray and doused with cinnamon & sugar 1 Packet NuNaturals Stevia
I know Julie, Abby, Paige, The Hippie, and tons more of you love your popcorn, too. Who else loves it?
Yoga Today is an Astavakrasana (8 Angles Pose) Variation
While I was doing my yoga, so was Skylar. That’s her downward dog.
And her dancing & smiling lil face!
Tip of the Day: My Tropical Traditions Coconut Peanut Butter Give Away!
The Give Away goes until Tuesday, February 23, 2010 and if you Need to Enter, Click Here to Win some Coconut Peanut Butter! Seriously the combo of PB and Coconut. Hello, I’m in Love!
Questions:
What’s Your Fave Popcorn Topping?
For me cinnamon, nooch, chocolate chips all are awesome! Other than the Sunspire or Enjoy Life brands, what’s your fave brand of Carob Chips?
What was the best thing you ate all weekend?
Vegan Homemade Coconut Oil Chocolate takes the cake for me, I think. But Honestly, I do love veggies and never get sick of them!
Huge Topic Shift and I haven’t followed the whole story very closely at all, nor have I watched the press conference, but Scott was telling me about Tiger Woods’ Press Conference.
My question is…
If you were his wife would you stay with him or leave him? Why?
Have you ever been cheated on? How did you find out? What did you do? What would you do if you found out that your partner was cheating on you? Stay, Leave, Counseling, Try to Work it Out, Forgiveness but Never Forget and Run for the Hills asap? What do you do when there’s children involved? Just some non-food, food for thought!
Sometimes it just makes my inbox so much more lively when we talk about things other than food…haha!
Stay Tuned For Raw Vegan Chocolate Mousse that’s 4 Ingredients and 5 Minutes…
Having read this I thought it was really informative.
I appreciate you finding the time and effort to put this content together.
I once again find myself spending a significant amount of time both reading and leaving comments.
But so what, it was still worth it!