The song says this is the season to be jolly, but I feel slightly tricked. I’m pretty sure the original lyrics were probably “Tis the season to be completely stressed” or even “Tis the season to be cranky”. But it was too difficult to find words to rhyme, and even harder to convince children to sing it, so they changed the lyrics to be more upbeat. As you may have guessed, today was a ‘pull my hair out’ at work kind of day. Luckily, one of my co-workers forced me out of my office and fixed the eye twitch that had developed before it turned into a full blown facial spasm. *Thank you!*
One of the things–other than exercise–that relaxes me happens to be perusing recipes. This afternoon while on a 5 minute break I pulled out the Android and opened up one of my favourite blogs Oh She Glows and one of the first things I saw happened to be a recipe for Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I had all of the ingredients so I decided to make them as soon as I got home. I contemplated going to Spin class and sweating out my frustrations, but my knee is a little off today and I didn’t want to add “limping” to my list of things that had gone wrong today.
Before I go any further, i’d just like to say that these are without a doubt the best gluten free vegan peanut butter chocolate chips cookies i’ve ever had AND they passed the nearly impossible Regena cookie criteria–yummy cookie dough. Oh, I know i’m not 6, but there is something about cookie dough I love. My mom would never let us eat it as children because of the raw egg. Since she doesn’t read my blog, I have no trouble admitting that my sisters and I were quite good at distracting her so that one of us could steal a giant spoonful for us to share. *Sorry mom.* In my unhealthy university days I have definitely made cookie dough with absolutely no intention of baking cookies. However, gluten free, vegan dough is typically quite unpalatable. The texture is usually gritty, flavour is off, and worst still is the consistency because of the flax egg. Not the case with this dough. Yum.
Definitely give these cookies a try. Next time I will try using coconut sugar. I think it would add a rich caramel flavour. These are not uber healthy, skinny jeans, bikini abs cookies…but let’s be realistic here THEY’RE COOKIES! The important thing to remember with these (and anything really) is moderation. But for the record, they’re crazy good and i’d love to see you stop at just 1.
Dry ingredients-Oat flour, almond meal, baking soda, salt, baking soda
I spilled my first flax egg and had to start over.
So many amazing ingredients, how could these NOT be good?
Vegan Gluten Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Oh She Glows
Yield: 24 cookies
Ingredients:
1 flax egg: (1 tbsp ground flax mixed with 3 tbsp water)
1/4 cup coconut oil (solid form)
1/2 cup natural peanut butter
1/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
3 tbsp organic cane sugar
1 1/5 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp fine grain sea salt
1 cup gluten-free rolled oats, blended into a flour
1 cup + 2 tbsp almond meal
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix together the flax egg and set aside for3-5 minutes so it can thicken up.
2. With an electric mixer, beat coconut oil and peanut butter until combined. Add both sugars and beat for 1 minute more. Beat in the flax egg and vanilla extract until combined.
3. Combine all dry ingredients into a bowl and mix into wet mixture. Beat for 1 minute. Fold in chocolate chips.
4. Shape 1-inch balls of dough and place on the baking sheet. There is no need to flatten the balls as the cookies spread out a lot. Place balls 2-3 inches apart. *I say this because nothing annoys me more than cookies baking together*
5. Bake for about 10-12 minutes (My oven is insane so I baked 9 minutes) until lightly golden. The cookies will be very soft coming out of the oven, but they will harden as they cool. Allow to cool for 5 mins. on the baking sheet and then transfer to a cooling rack for another 10 minutes. I dare you to not touch them while they’re still warm.
When they came out of the oven the smell was so incredibly rich and tempting that I immediately drafted this workout. I was a little more ‘tense’ than I had realized, and ended up skipping for 10 minutes straight rather than the 2 minutes at the beginning of cycle #1. This was a pretty tough workout. I only made it 2 times through…the 3rd time I got to burpees I was so tired I couldn’t get off the ground to do 1. So I called it quits.
My day was off to a rough start, but it ended well. Thanks to a good workout, a nice hot shower, and a few fresh cookies i’m happy to report i’ve had a change of heart…it is the season to be jolly. 🙂
Spin Bikes and Opaque Tights 