Balance and a Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie

Balance. It's all about Balance.

Oatmeal, blueberries, walnuts and a smidge of agave for a bit of sweetness. 

Cause I would like to eat these all day long....

I love sweets. I really do. 

I think I've been doing pretty well with my eating habits but my sweet tooth gets me every time, especially if I have any kind of emotional stuff going on. I have a terrible time with emotional eating but I do find if I limit myself to certain foods and not just go for broke and eat anything and everything in front of my face...I do better. 

I became a vegetarian in January and don't regret that for one moment or miss meat for even a millisecond. I've been gradually working my way to a more vegan based diet but I love eggs so much, I'm not sure if I can give them up. But, as of late, my body has been telling me different so I may HAVE to give them up.

My mornings breakfasts, typically around 8 am, is usually a smoothie with a banana, strawberries, blueberries maybe some mango thrown in there with chia seeds and almond milk. Blend that all up together and it works out to be a great breakfast and holds me over until lunch at around noon. Lately, I've switched my breakfast up a bit having oatmeal, blueberries, walnuts, ground flax and some agave for a bit of sweetness. This seems to work very well for me and I don't get hungry and my sugar levels stay pretty level. 

At lunch I usually have two hard boiled eggs and some carrots or veggies of some kind.  I like to make my own hummus, which is super easy to do, and eat that with some pita bread or dip my veggies. I try to eat enough at lunch so I can skip dinner or just have a snack. 

But then...

My sweet tooth calls. I don't why I make this stuff! I love it though and if I didn't make it I'd go buy a big bag of oreos and that's just yuck. 

So! I've been working on some healthier options for my sweet tooth. I've been playing around with some cookie recipes eliminating the eggs and butter. The Chocolate Peanut Butter chip cookies I made yesterday, pictured above, I made without butter. I used Smart Balance vegetable oil but would like to try making them with vegan butter or olive oil. I've made them using flax egg. (tablespoon of ground flax and three tablespoons water) and it worked pretty well!

Here's what I did yesterday.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 kosher salt

1 1/2 cups peanut butter chips

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and lightly spray your cookie sheet or use a non stick pad.

With a blender or hand held mixer, mix together the oil, sugar and eggs until nice and creamy. Add vanilla and mix well.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the dry to the wet slowly to blend the cookie dough. Try not to over mix. Add the peanut butter chips and mix gently. 

The dough is a bit more crumbly and the chips don't stick well to the dough but that's ok.

I use my hands to grab about a Tablespoon of the dough and roll it in my hands to make a ball. Place on the cookie sheet and flatten it down a bit with your hands. These cookies don't spread much in the oven, so you can place them about 2 inches apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. I baked them for around 10 minutes for a chewy in the middle cookie but since I  like a more crisp cookie I usually bake mine for around 12 minutes. Remove to cool on a cookie rack after a minute or so. Store them in a closed container and they last for a few days but you'll eat them first. ;0)

These cookies are very chocolatey and the peanut butter chips take them right out of the park for me.

And, they're dairy free! Hopefully I can keep messing around with it and come up with a healthier version with no eggs.

 I'm having fun trying to make sweets better for me! No taming the wild sweet tooth beast here.