No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites

You know those nights where you just want to eat cookie dough for dinner? Yup, me… every single night. I have no shame in admitting that there were multiple times during the year where I would whip up a batch of my Healthier Dark Chocolate Walnut Cookies and not even bother to turn the oven on. Oops… how’d that happen?!

No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites!

 

There’s just something so comforting about eating batter straight out of the mixing bowl. It doesn’t matter if it’s brownie batter, cheesecake filling, or lemon bars. I can’t wait to get most of it into a pan so I can plop down in front of the tv or my laptop (good habits here, I know) with a spoon and scrape down the sides. I always end up making myself so gloriously sick off of the dough that when the final product is actually done, I’m completely sugared out. No complaints from this girl 😉 .

Mañana just happens to be my birthday and I plan on making a biiiiggg batch of cookie dough to celebrate. And, as birthdays go, I’m going to be indulging in lots of other delicious eats this entire week including an all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ dinner on Friday, a fun night out with a big group of friends tomorrow, and most likely a family dinner when the pops gets back from a business trip. With all that good food around, I wouldn’t say no to lightening up a dish or two without compromising flavor.

Hence, these No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites were born!

No-Bake Cookie Dough Energy Bites!

They’re everything I could want in cute mini ball form and are loaded up with morsels of walnuts and mini chocolate chips in every bite. Not only that, but the base is completely made of oats and wheat bran, making these little energy bites super filling and full of fiber. And almond butter! My newfound love that happens to cost $10+ dollars at other grocery stores, but I found for cheap at good ol’ Trader Joe’s. Sending that store big hugs right now <3.

Feel free to eat these babies straight out of the bowl or roll them into portable little bites to give you that extra boost you need to fuel you through your day!

 

Skinny Yogurt Muffins with Sunshine Glaze

Skinny Yogurt Muffins with Sunshine Glaze. Only takes one bowl!

Let me just start by saying BEST MUFFINS EVER. Glad I got that off my chest, whew. 

I’m a chocolate-girl down to my bones. Take me to a bakery and I’ll always pick a chocolate croissant or fudgy brownie over anything else. Fruity flavors have always been the side show. Kinda like the previews before the movie actually starts. You eat them and are like okay… this is tasty, but where’s the real stuff? Bring me the real stuff!

 That’s why I’m completely shocked myself that this recipe is perhaps one of my favorites ever. Bold claim, no? 

Oh, and funny story about this next picture. It turns out getting the perfect action shot of drizzle is a lot harder than it looks. Initially I had Kyle on spoon duty, but the boy just cannot drizzle for the life of him. The first round of pictures came out looking like a bird had decided to take a huge dump on my fluffy muffins… yeah, not too appetizing. After a few more unsuccessful poo- photos, I handed my DLSR camera to Kyle and took matters into my own hands. It turns out that he can handle a fancy camera on manual settings, but can’t put glaze on a muffin. But you know what? Everyone has flaws and I guess I can maybe still like him. Maybe. After all, isn’t that what love is? Accepting each other regardless of their baked-good topping prowess? 

Skinny Yogurt Muffins with Sunshine Glaze. Only takes one bowl!

I’m a cheater. A lot of people think that having a food blog translates to me being a food snob, but the exact opposite is true. Feed me all the packaged Kraft mac and cheese and you know what? Turkey and stuffing microwavable dinners might actually be one of my favorite things ever. When recipes tell me to sift in the flour (ain’t nobody got time for that) or let butter comes to room temp over night (nahh, it’s going in the microwave 3 seconds before I use it), I scoff.

While I love Ina Garten, the idea of having to make my own chicken broth by scratch to use for gravy is just a romanticized idea of cooking for me 😯 . That’s why, I’m a cheater. These muffins are the product of a cooking lie. They’re made with *gasp* the help of a baking mix. 

Skinny Yogurt Muffins with Sunshine Glaze. Only takes one bowl!

But YOU GUYS. They’re SO GOOD!!!! 

Big, fat berries in every bite and the most delicious glaze you’ve ever tasted. You can even throw in a handful of nuts for some extra goodness. The glaze tastes like sunshine and is bright and lemon-y and perfect. Along with being my shmookie pookie poo, Kyle is my guinea pig when it comes to my recipes. After these came out of the oven, I asked him if he wanted to try some sunshine. Luckily, the boy doesn’t question me anymore and just opens his mouth. In goes the sunshine and out comes the oohhs and ahhs. His response? “Sunshine is the perfect name for this!”

Also, let’s pretend I didn’t just refer to him as my schmookie pookie poo. Let’s also disregard that I googled “the most disgustingly cute names to call boyfriend” to find it. Go big or go home.

Also! No butter! No oil! Just greek yogurt and eggs to help bind everything together into one amazing batter that is mixed together in just one bowl. My apartment has the smallest kitchen the world has ever seen and dishes add up reeeaal fast in our sink. Things get out of hand and it seems like the minute I start cooking or baking my kitchen turns into a place of chaos and dish-anarchy. One bowl recipes are my saving grace. Especially when one bowl leads to this.

Be still, my heart.

Skinny Yogurt Muffins with Sunshine Glaze. Only takes one bowl!

 

 

Dark Chocolate Strawberry Shortbread Cookies

Chocolate covered strawberries in cookie form! So delicious and easy!

So THIS is my ideal Friday morning.

Wake up slow. Brew some coffee.  Get some cookie dough going (most of which will never see the oven). Enjoy some blog reading while my cookies are baking away. Alternate sips with bites because coffee+a little sweetness = my personal heaven.

Sometimes it’s worth skipping your 8 a.m lecture for a lazy morning.

PicMonkey Collage

Can I marry my Tiffany Blue KitchenAid Mixer?

When I was younger, I used to go to the local ice skating rink with my mom and sister when the summer heat was in full blast. I remember always envying those cute little skating outfits that they had on sale and my 8 year old self seriously contemplated becoming a professional ice skater so I could twirl around in them. Unfortunately, my mom made a rule that my skating career had to last more than a year before I was allowed to get one, and that was just too big of a commitment. So anyways, we would skate for an hour or so before heading off of the ice to take a break and grab a snack. They had a couple of vending machines next to the wooden benches that were filled with your standard candy and chips, but my mind was always made up before I even put my coins in. I wanted cookies! And not just any cookies, those Knott’s Berry Farm Raspberry Shortbread Cookies. With a hot chocolate in hand, I would nibble my way around the outside edges till that last glorious bite remained. 

Chocolate covered strawberries in cookie form! So delicious and easy!

Now that the weather has been reaching the mid-90s lately, I’ve been craving those cookies! My mind just can’t seem to get them out of my head, but I’ve checked my local grocery store and womp womp womp, I couldn’t find one package. I cried for a few hours, then realized that I’m a food blogger and I could probably make them myself. Hooray! 

Chocolate covered strawberries in cookie form! So delicious and easy!

These are basically the grownup version of those tasty shortbread cookies. You get a buttery and perfectly sweet shortbread base that you then smother with strawberry jam and a dark chocolate drizzle. And guess what! You can cover the whole top with the good stuff, so no outside nibbling is required to get the perfect bite. I guess that’s what being a grownup means- no one can dictate how you eat your cookies! 

I baked these in the morning before leaving for another lecture, and midday I got this text from my housemate, Kelty. When I got back, there were only 10 left out of the 25+ that I had made. I’ll take that as a success! 

image-1DSC_2183To cut the cookies, I used the smallest biscuit cutter from the Norpro Scallop Biscuit/Cookie Cutter pack I ordered a few weeks back. If you don’t have a cookie cutter, just roll the dough into a small ball before flattening it to the right size with your hand.

The base shortbread layer comes from the lovely Ina Garten

 

Healthy Dark Chocolate Walnut Cookies

Hover over the image to pin the recipe to Pinterest :)! 

Healthy Dark Chocolate Walnut Cookies. These are only 100 calories each and SO good!

When I say healthy, I mean healthy in terms of cookies. Because really, what’s a cookie without a little sugah and buttah? Can you even call it a cookie without the two?

So here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take just a leeeettle sugar and buttah, throw in whole wheat flour and heart-healthy oats, and top everything with dark chocolate and walnuts. The result? The BEST “healthy” cookie ever. Seriously. 

I had my “assistant” helping with my cookie baking today. And by helping I mean eating.

Cookie Baking assistant

Kyle was just filled to the brim with compliments for these cookies and I don’t know if it was the sugar or what, but he was especially expressive with his feelings for my baking today. Imagine me sitting at our kitchen table, trying to get some work done, with Kyle next to me, glass of milk and cookie in hand. 

  • “I really really really really like these.” (Yup, 4 whole “reallys”.)
  • “I’m on a cookie high!”
  • “LOOK HOW GOOD THIS BITE LOOKS”
  • “Cookie eyepatch. I’m crazy!!”

KYle cookie

The boy has good reason to love them so much, though! These cookies are ridiculously good and you can’t taste the reduced sugar or whole wheat flour in the least! They have the most wonderful hearty and fluffy texture and are bursting with walnuts and fat chunks of dark chocolate chunks. Honestly, they don’t taste healthified in the slightest and they may just be my new favorite cookie. And for only 100 calories each? That means you can stuff 5 in your mouth!! Uhhhm. YES PLEASE. 

Healthy Dark Chocolate Walnut Cookies. These are only 100 calories each and SO good!

Make these. I promise you’ll love them :). 

 

Today I’m linking up with WIAW to share these tasty cookies! Head on over for more great eats!


Blueberry Pie Oatmeal

Healthy Blueberry Pie Oatmeal! Done in just 10 minutes and so delicious!

One of the most important things in life to me is the pursuit of pie. Pie is very, very dear to me. 

It’s that one food that really just drives me crazy. That flaky crust and gooey caramelized fruit…oh baby! The trick is to get juuusst the perfect ratio of crust to fruit and then you stuff the whole thing in your mouth and just… Bliss. Someone catch me, I’m fainting. 

And don’t you DARE forget that big scoop of vanilla ice cream to compliment each bite. You see, I’ve got it all worked out. You get slow-churned, half-fat vanilla ice cream so you can justify an extra piece of pie. Life is all about balance. That is, until you eat twice the amount of ice cream to go along with pie round #2 because it is a sin to have one without the other. And who wants to be a sinner? NOT ME. 

Healthy Blueberry Pie Oatmeal! Done in just 10 minutes and so delicious!

 But sometimes you just don’t have access to pie. If you’re like me, you leave it at your boyfriend’s apartment because you don’t have any self control and would literally make yourself gloriously sick off of it. It’s those sad, sad moments when you need to improvise on how to get your pie fix. 

 And sometimes miracles happen. Like when you’re able to get all the flavor and deliciousness of pie into a bowl of oats and your mind is blown and your tastebuds start to dance! 

 Not only can I satisfy my primordial need for pie, but I can do so in a healthy way! Instead of lathering on the processed sugar, the blueberry pie compote is made with just a half tablespoon of natural honey per serving and the rest of the sweetness comes from the blueberries alone. Oh! And it’s fast too! From start to finish, this recipe takes me just 10 minutes, which is perfect for someone who is always rushing in the morning like me.

Healthy Blueberry Pie Oatmeal! Done in just 10 minutes and so delicious!

 This is one of those breakfasts that can get me out of bed in a jiffy. I kid you not when I say I look forward to waking up so I can get myself perched next to a bowl of these oats. They’re that good! 

 So if you’re like me and have an insatiable sweet tooth, give these fabulous Blueberry Pie Oats a go and get ready to load the train to flavor town. Choo choooooo!

Blueberry Pie Oatmeal!  

Today I’m linking up with What I Ate Wednesday to share this recipe! Thanks, Jenn for hosting!