No Flour, Butter or Sugar - Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies!

Alright, after my initial 'parenting ain't all it's cracked up to be' post I figured I would follow up with something a little happier so... I MADE COOKIES!

Now, these aren't the regular old chocolate chip cookies with flour, butter, eggs and sugar. Heck, before making these I didn't even consider these cookies because.. well... the ingredients are too healthy.

The recipe is one of those screen grabs that circulate around Facebook being shared by everyone and rarely being made... they're kind of just there to make you look like you eat healthy. Surprisingly, this one was actually tested out and recommended by a couple of women in my mommy group... they said it was chewy and almost like raw cookie dough. Yeah, okay... sure sure... there isn't any butter though.. or tasty things like sugar. It's literally chick peas, peanut butter, honey, baking powder and vanilla extract. And yes, that first ingredient I listed is CHICK PEAS!

Anyways... here is the screen grab I worked my magic from: 

Once you get past the ingredients it sounds pretty simple right? Well, it is.. and I took a bunch of pictures to prove it : )

                                    

 1. Collected my materials from around the kitchen, nothing fancy or anything... and I didn't have Natural peanut butter so despite the warning not to use regular.. I did anyways (I'm such a rebel!)

2. Pre-heated oven to 350.

 3. 'Ah heck, they're dry enough' chick peas. I just rinsed them in the can a few times with water took them out and poured 1 1/4c of them onto paper towel and dried them like that.

  

 4. Yeah, I'm fancy and used my baby bullet as a food processor since I don't have one. I added my 1/2c + 2tbsp of regular peanut butter along with the 1/4c of honey, 1 tspn of vanilla extract and 1tspn of baking powder.

 5. Baby bulleted the crap out of the chick pea mix... starting to look a lot more like cookie dough.

I had to stir a lot in between pulses because it just wouldn't mix in nicely... I blame the peanut butter. You can see the stir marks here... also, it might just be me, but he looks pretty pleased with himself.

 6. Added 1/2c of semi-sweet chocolate chips... maybe a little less since I couldn't help but munch on a few before pouring.

  

 7. Rolled and set them on the parchment paper. I made them a little smaller than what the recipe stated but did flatten them a little. 

8. Although the recipe says about 10 minutes, when I checked them they were still really moist and not browned... about 3 extra minutes did the trick and this is how they came out looking... not bad... they look like cookies.

9. Taste test! They actually turned out pretty good considering the ingredients... I was pretty impressed. I had the family try them when everyone was home and they passed the taste test with them also also DB said he wasn't all too fond of the texture. 

The cookies weren't of the crunchy sort though so anyone looking for that should look elsewhere. They were very moist and continued to be moist even the next day when I ate the last lonely cookie sitting on the plate.

The recipe made a total of 17 cookies, the last 5 of which I added extra vanilla and they turned out fantastic... so lesson learned, I'll double the amount of vanilla extract next time I make this recipe... and you can bet I WILL make these again since I felt a little less of a fatty gobbling these babies up.

Until next time! xo

It Ain't Easy

  It's 1:30pm on a bright sunny day in Toronto and I am sitting here writing to you to tell you that it isn't easy. Whatever your thoughts are about how motherhood will be, they will be dashed as soon as that screaming little bundle of joy comes in to the world.

 This life you have lived for 20, 30, or even 40 some-odd years, until now, has been about you. You could go to the mall, the movies and a restaurant at any time. You could make a quick trip to the corner store for some milk and actually have it BE a quick trip. You can just leave, no problem, no worries.

  Now, a lot of people go into this career thinking it will be simple. Getting a baby together doesn't take too much time, right? Changing them takes no time at all and babies sleep most of the day away anyways. Actually, you're probably going to be bored out of your mind sitting home all day with your little one. There is no way that your child will ever be a nuisance, you'll just use some of the nifty techniques you read in a book to get them quiet and BAM back to watching your favorite show. And after that show, you can go to the mall and pick out a nice new pair of shorts cause it's getting pretty warm out.

Yeah, good luck with that.

One thing I have learned in the past 6 months is that life changes in an instant. You no longer want to spend all your money on outrageous purses and outfits. Those days are over because now... now you feel guilty. You will want to spend that extra money on extra baby things. Things you probably don't need but they are just too cute to pass up. And yourself? Well. You have enough stuff as it is... do you really need more?

Another thing. There will be days when your baby will just cry for no reason whatsoever. You will try everything, rocking, playing, feeding, changing... nothing will help because in that moment, they are more interested in crying... nevermind that it's driving you up the wall. And on these days, you might even cry yourself. Heck, some days you'll cry even harder than you're little one out of sheer exhaustion and being fed up with not knowing what to do. There will be nights where you will be woken up every couple of hours because your baby just wants to eat... or be changed.. or simply just wants to do anything but sleep.

You will have advice coming out of every orifice from every person you've ever known. Whether or not they have kids won't matter. Their kids could be just born or out of the house for 20 years... it won't stop them from imparting their 'wisdom' on to you. And will that advice work? Maybe.. sometimes. Other times the advice will be so crazy it will be all you can do just to smile and nod at the oh so wise opinion giver.

And just to let you know, sometimes things won't turn out how you always pictured them. Sometimes bad things happen and you just have to deal with them. There is no way that 4 years ago you could have told me that my daughter would spend the first two months in Sick Kids.. and that by the time she was 24 hours old she would have her first surgery. I would not have believed you. But it happened. Stuff happens. It's up to you to move forward past all that bad stuff and see how great it really is to be a parent. Because there will be times when you think you won't be able to make it... there will be some really bad days. But you know what? You'll survive. You're not the first woman to find this way harder than you imagined, and you will not be the last.

Just sayin'... it ain't easy. But hell, despite all the crap, it's worth it.

This blog will be my way of getting out the feelings associated with being a mom.. with living daily life and trying to have fun with it. Sometimes I will include happy stories about overcoming barriers and other days it will be that I had a really bad day. Some days it might just be a sweet recipe I've tried out and want to share with everyone, other times my attempt at being crafty. Overall, it's just going o be my story of motherhood as it is, no sugarcoating allowed .