Delicate Peanut Butter Cookies and A Confession

For the love of peanut butter and cookies!! These lovely babies were a concoction from quite awhile ago, but hey, better late than never right!? So these cookies were inspired by my desire for some Christmas cookies. Yes, a long time ago. Of course, we had all kinds of other cookies in the house, but no healthy ones. So I hopped up off the couch, crutched to the kitchen and sat on a chair with my leg on another and stirred that dough. You are probably wondering what on earth I am talking about. Well, like in my previous post, I was hung up because of my surgery.

Thank God for my wonderful mother! If it wasn't for her, we would not have these wonderful cookies to enjoy. I mean she is amazing in many other ways too. Always there when you need her. Anyways to the cookies. I am quite obsessed with peanut butter...if you haven't figure that one out yet. It is definitely a staple food in my diet. Thus, after my surgery what was I craving? Well of course, peanut butter and cookies!

So what better than to put the two together to make peanut butter cookies! Some times I am amazed at how creative I am. These cookies are seriously amazing. My whole family loved them as well! Always a good thing. They literally melt in your mouth. These peanut butter cookies are more rich than sweet, which makes them absolutely perfect for my taste! And they are so easy to make! If I can make them while having one leg and two days out of surgery, I think anyone can manage these delicious cookies.

And now on to my confession. Well, there is a saying "third time's a charm". It just so happens that it took me three times of making these cookies to get pictures of them before they were eaten. Needless to say, they could have been posted long ago if my family (mostly I) didn't eat them so fast.

Peanut Butter Cookies
Yields 20 small cookies (1.5" to 2" round)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup coconut sugar
1 egg white
1/4 cup spelt flour
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. baking soda

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium size bowl, combine peanut butter, sugar and egg white, stir until mixed thoroughly.
3. Add the remaining ingredients.
4. Roll dough into 1 inch balls and press down with a fork.
5. Bake for 5-8 minutes.
6. Let stand on pan for a couple minutes before transferring to cooling rack.
7. Allow to cool almost completely or they may crumble in your hands.

Enjoy! Try not to eat them all in one sitting. It is hard!!

A Chocolate Bar, A Little Taste of Heaven

I have had the ingredients to make chocolate for about seven months now. So I finally decided it was time to experiment. And oh boy! I am glad I did. My mom was quite happy too. (She is quite the choco-holic to say the least). I have seen multiple recipes for chocolate before, but none of them fit the idea that I had for it. So what did I do? Well like always, set aside time between studying and take everything out of the cupboards that I think I will need and start throwing ingredients in.

I am just so happy that it actually turned out the first time! I mean it better for how many times I taste "tested" it while making it. You never know when the flavor might just change on you...even when nothing new is added. That's my motto, and hey, it hasn't proven me wrong yet! This chocolate is an all around winner in my book!! there are many different ingredients/flavors that you could put in this chocolate to make it your own. My personal favorite was goji berries and cocao nibs. Another flavor that I made was roasted almond, sea salt. That one was my mom's favorite. So play around with your already favorite flavors and spice it up for your preference!

Now on to the ingredients. Cocao butter is the basis of this chocolate. It can be hard to find, but it is necessary to create such soft chocolate. This chocolate literally melts in your mouth. To find out more about cocao butter and another chocolate recipe visit My New Roots. Also, you may or may not notice that this recipe has cocao powder instead of the more popular cocoa powder. Cocao powder is a superfood. Yes! One of the most loved foods is good for you! However, like all things it is only good in moderation. Sarah Britton writes more about cocao on her blog My New Roots (which is one of my favorites!)

Heart-warming, Mouth-watering Homemade Chocolate
Yields roughly 3 oz. 

Ingredients:
1/2 cup cocao butter
1/4 cocao powder
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
1 Tbsp. coconut sugar
one pinch sea salt

Directions:
1. In a double boiler, melt the cocao butter.
2. Once melted, add in cocao powder, maple syrup, coconut sugar, and sea salt. Stir until combine.
3. Pour into a mold or in a pan lined with parchment paper.
4. Let cool completely and make sure they are hard before removing.
5. Store in the fridge to ensure they do not melt if warm out. Best to remove from fridge a few minutes      before serve/eat them.
6. Enjoy!

My advice...try not to eat them all right away. Not as easy as you may think!

Possible Flavor Combinations:

Roasted Almond Sea salt: load up on almonds and light on the salt
Goji Berries and Cocao Nibs: load it up!
Vanilla Coconut: 1/2 vanilla been scraped
Espresso: add 1 Tbsp. espresso powder
Add some hemp seeds for a little crunch
Be creative!