How is everyone doing today? The downside of having two Tuesdays off in a row (Election Day then Veteran’s Day) is that this week seems soooooo long. To break up the week, I made some cookies last night! We had a bunch of carrots with their hats on about to turn to the dark side, so I used them up in these delicious little nuggets. 

Here is what I used: 

• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 2 egg whites
• 4 T butter 
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1 t vanilla 
• 1 T cinnamon 
• 2 cups whole wheat pasty flour 
• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Here is what I did: 

After I peeled and shred the carrots, I combined them with the egg whites. In another bowl, I creamed the butter and brown sugar. Then I added the carrot mix, vanilla and cinnamon. In a third bowl I mixed the flour, oats and baking soda. Then I added the dry mix to the wet mix and poured in the chocolate chips. I baked them at 350* for about 15 minutes. I made pretty small cookies, so the recipe yielded almost 5 dozen little cookies.  I can’t be 100% sure as my dough consumption may have amounted to 2 to 3 cookies. 

These are good, fairly healthy, crispy little cookies. I dare say they could be a breakfast. I mean that have oats and a vegetable!

In my old Lawyer Life Sunday was seriously the absolute worst day of the week. I was miserable with dread and fear. Now I have more normal feelings about Sunday: sad the weekend is over, wondering where the time went, but looking forward to Monday.  Life is so much better now. I had lots of fun things to eat this weekend. Let’s review, shall we? 

Pizza, Pizza! 

I really wanted pizza last night, so I made some. I even made my own dough! Yeah yeah. I found the recipe at Happy Herbivore’s site. I will definitely be using this recipe again! It was simple and worked well as a blank canvas for my toppings. I didn’t use sugar (I got plenty of that later) or oil, and it was still tasty. Much more subtle than some pre-made wheat dough balls I’ve used. The only change I would make next time is to pre-cook the dough a little before adding the toppings because I really enjoy crispy thin dough. 

I made two small pizzas. The first was hummus, spinach, caramelized onions, chickpeas and feta cheese. The second was sauteed spinach, tomatoes, parmesan cheese, garlic powder and lots of feta. 

With the leftover chickpeas I did one of my favorite things. I baked them with a little but of garlic and chili powder. I bake them for awhile because I like them crunchy! They make a perfect salty snack. Ya know what I realized? Now that I eat unsalted beans I cannot imagine eating the salty version. Why is there salt in those cans? Why? 

Hummus Taste Taste

I conducted an informal hummus taste test yesterday. 

Left: Cedar’s Original Hummus Tahini  - on sale at Whole Foods

Right: Simply Enjoy Original Hummus – on sale at Stop & Shop. 

 

I love bean dips, including hummus. I ate so much of it this weekend! Anyway, I’m here to give my humble opinion that the Simply Enjoy Original Hummus is da bomb (oh yes, I just said that). As you can see, it’s a little lighter in color than the Cedar’s brand. I am guessing it has less Tahini in it and that’s why? I say that because you can’t taste the Tahini as much in the Simply Enjoy brand. Both are tasty, but the Cedar’s is a little more powerful, a little tangier than the Simply Enjoy. Where Simply Enjoy really excels is texture. It’s thick and creamy, whereas as Cedar’s is a little runny and grainy. Mmmmm hummus. 
 

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Chip Pumpkin Cookies

I also baked some cookies for my grandparents. They’re Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Pumpkin Cookies. I followed my favorite Toll House Cookie recipe, but added 1 cup of canned pumpkin, an extra cup or so of flour and 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.  Also, my grandpa can’t eat chocolate anymore, so I used carob chips. I am going to use these more in baking. I love how they get crunchy when baked! 

 

Because Back to Basics Month is a personal challenge and not one of absolutes, I do not feel badly about eating a few. I was inspired by Michael Pollan and in In Defense of Food he speaks about not being afraid of food. I was certainly not afraid of these little cookies! Anyway, I do want to try my best for the rest of the month to remain on track with the Back to Basics challenge, but a couple of homemade cookies never hurt anyone, right? Also it’s much much harder to eat “clean” on the weekends! I am looking forward to Monday for a restart. 

Some other things to look forward to this week:

ProBar give away contest starts tomorrow! 

Mark is coming on Thursday for some Halloween fun! 

Trader Joe’s opens in Rhode Island on Friday. 

My mom has eaten and reviewed several flavors of Rachel’s yogurt and is going to share her opinion on all flavors! Yeah yeah.

Ok, I am so hyper right now. Bye.