"Healthified" Cappuccino Blossom Cookies

So the other night I was going through a cooking magazine, I love these btw and came across these cookies.

Well, I modified it SIGNIFICANTLY to my phase 3 diet. I really loved these, they are my new favorite and not one lasted more than a day in my household.

Here's my recipe:

"Healthified" Cappuccino Blossom Cookies



3/4c Whey Protein (I use Jay Robb Vanilla)
1c Blanched Almond Flour (I use Honeyville)
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Instant Coffee (or espresso)
1/2c Butter, unsalted & softened
2TBSP Almond Milk, Unsweetened Vanilla
3TBSP Truvia
1TBSp Just Like Sugar Brown Sugar
1/4c chopped roasted almonds

Heat oven to 400 degrees

Mix the first 6 ingredients. Add butter, Truvia and the Just Like Sugar brown sugar and almond milk and then add the chopped almonds.

Roll into 1' balls and place on parchment paper on a large cookie sheet.

Then take a 1 tsp measuring spoon and make a well in each cookie. Set aside.

Chocolate Filling:

1/2c unsalted butter or coconut oil
1/2c Cocoa Powder
sweetener to taste (I like to use erythritol)
Heavy whipping cream to taste (i use this to make a milk chocolate)
1/4 tsp Instant espresso or coffee
1/2tsp salt

Melt butter or coconut oil in a sauce pan and add the butter or coconut oil. Stir well then add the sweetener and salt. (You can always run the sweetener and salt through a coffee grinder to make it into a fine powder, this will make the chocolate creamier.)

When the chocolate has cooled a bit but still pourable, take the 1 tsp measuring spoon and place 1 tsp into the well of each cookie.

Bake for 5-7 minutes.

You will have leftover chocolate, you can save this for future batches or pour into a shallow pan and bake chocolate bars out of it to store for later in the fridge. Or you can put the rest into a icing bag and make little chocolate chips with them for other recipes that would use these. Make sure to use the chocolate within 5 days.

TIP: You can always bake the cookies with the wells before you add the chocolate and then just add the chocolate afterwards and wait for them to cool off and the chocolate to solidify.

Long Time Away

I've been away for quite some time. Sorry about that!

My youngest (she is 18 months), Lola, became ill with some sort of virus. After a week of going to the doctors and not getting any help from them (she was lethargic from being so ill), my husband put his foot down and demanded anti-nausea meds. Well, they worked. After 2 popsicles her glucose was up to 71. Made us wonder how low it really was. Turns out she initially had a virus but instead of feeling better she felt worse because her glucose was so low. Once the med kicked in she felt better, ate and drank and was fine from there on. Thank goodness, it was a very stressful time for us. I would take her to her dr crying bc I felt so bad for her and knew something wasn't right. We're just glad she's fine now.

Well, from that I gained about 7lbs back, not that I was eating bad, but I just wasn't sleeping nor eating enough. I didn't take time out to make things like my peanut butter cookies, or oopsie french toast. I decided to do one more round. I am now going into my 2nd week of p3. I went down to 125.8 on my last injection day, which is lower than my last round at 129.2. Woohoo! So far I have been stabilizing within the 1lb range with the exception of a steak day. I'm still taking my vitamins too.

Eating the same as before, salmon for dinner or a steak or chicken, veggies cooked in butter with garlic or olive oil. I make my fruit smoothies daily with pomegranate juice, fresh blueberries and strawberries and those awesome goji berries. Which btw, are now available at Whole Foods and are actually cheaper than gojiberry.com. I can get them here for $22/lb, whereas the gojiberry.com site has them for $28 and that's with free shipping.

I have a recipe I'd like to finally share with you all. It's my version of Girl Scout Tagalongs. I shared this on the hcg diet forum as well, but decided to tweak it one more time, so the chocolate part is a bit different than the first version I shared on the forum. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Covered Cookies (my healthy version of the girl scout cookie)
I tweaked a version of Maria's recipe for the cookie portion (Marias health blog)
Peanut Butter Cookies
1/2c Vanilla Whey (I use Jay Robb)
1c Almond Flour (I use blanched)
1/4tsp salt
1/4tsp baking soda
1/4c peanut butter
1/4c butter (unsalted)
3TBSP Truvia
2TBSP unsweetened vanilla Almond Milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. You'll need to cut the peanut butter and butter with a pastry blender or by hand. I do it by hand. Add almond milk and sweetener.

These will be a little on the sticky side, you can always add a bit more whey protein if you like. I drop mine on the cookie sheet and then flatten them with my hand or with the bottom of a glass or some other cup.

I make mine small since I take 2 cookies and make like a sandwich with them.

Bake 5-7 minutes.

Filling:

I love to use this filling from Marias blog:

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup cream cheese
2 packets of Truvia

I personally like to use 3/4c peanut butter, I love peanut butter, lol.

I use this as the filling between 2 cookies.

Chocolate
1/2c butter or coconut oil
1/2c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4c Heavy Whipping Cream (I like my chocolate to be like a milk chocolate)
Sweetener, your choice, to taste. I like to use erythritol
1/2 tsp salt (I like to use celtic sea salt)

If you are using a powdered sweetener like I do, I highly suggest running it through a coffee grinder into a fine powder, this will make the chocolate creamier in texture. Same with the salt.

Melt your butter or oil over low heat. Stir in the cocoa powder with a whisk, sweetener and salt until completely melted and blended. I let mine cool down just a tad before I pour over my cookies.



I use wax paper and line all my cookies up and I spoon the chocolate over each cookie. Let cool and enjoy!

Update!

OK, so I haven't posted in over a week. No worries, everything is fine. I've been super busy. This is my 2 middle kids last week of school so I have been running around like a mad woman getting things together for class parties, etc.

Not to mention I recently found a relative I did not know i had as I had been doing so me research on ancestry.com. Very interesting and so cool!

So I will get back here in a few days with a few new recipes.

Have a good one!

Walking, Walking, Walking

Still walking. And Lola is loving her new routine. She just sits there in her jogger stroller and takes in the scenery, talks a little, snacks, drinks her water and that's it. I love spending time with her. When we get home it's already nap time and I get to cool down, shower and relax before she's up again. Today is day 4 of walking and I'm walking further and faster. It feels great. My weight is still up a bit but I'm still sore too and tom is in 4 days. It's expected with that combo. I figure I am walking a round trip total of 4-5 miles but I can't confirm that until I drive around where I'm walking. Unless someone knows of an app for Droid Incredible 2 that I can use. I was told there are apps to help me track my distance but no one knows what they are called.

By the way, my soreness is starting to get better. I'm thinking I'll be taking a nice hot detox bath tonight. We have a big day tomorrow so I may not be able to get my walk in, but since we'll be all over the zoo, I'll still get some exercise.


I made some peanut butter cookies last night that my husband just loved and quite frankly are even better then the almond cookies. I'll be sharing my version of the recipe next week when I compile a few of them. So next week will be recipe week. I probably won't be back here until Tuesday though since it's a holiday weekend, everyone is home and we are heading out. Going to the San Diego zoo tomorrow. Fun!

So Sore

So yesterday was day 2 of my walk. We walked for 2 hours. I really need one of those things that counts how far you walk. I'd like to know how many miles I'm doing, maybe 1 or 2 I'm guessing, one way.

My weight is the same as yesterday, but I'm still extremely sore. I mean it hurts to move my feet. But also feeling bloated and tom is due in 5 days. I also had slight spotting already so I have 2 symptoms now that may be affecting my gain on the scale.

Again, I'm not worried about it. I didn't have any breads or starches yesterday. I really do think I have a sensitivity to breads.

So I'm thinking I'm not eating enough fats as of late. It's really hard trying to keep track of all the stuff we should be eating. For breakfast I'll have 2 eggs cooked in butter. Lunch will be the chicken feta spinach sausages or a protein style burger with cheese. I also make a fruit smoothie with blueberries, strawberries and pomegranate juice and lots of ice and goji berries. Dinner will be veggies, salmon, steak or chicken. For snacks I'll have almond cookies with chocolate hazelnut spread or whipped mousse I make with cocoa powder and erythritol. This is the only sweetener besides truvia that my stomach can tolerate.

So what do you think? Where can I add in some more fats or does it all look ok? My weight has been fine with the exception of my recent gain from walking and being sore and tom. Also, I did a steak day last week when I had added bread and I thought I was ok, only to get really bloated. Once I did the steak day I was back down.

P4 is just as hard as I thought it would be.

Bath & Body products & Essential Oils, can we use them

So I get asked time to time about what bath or body products are safe to use while on the hcg diet. I have researched and answered many emails about this.

I am working on an ebook that will be a list I've compiled of hcg safe bath & body products (not every single product out there, but it will have a lot). I hope to have this finished by July. It will also teach you how to understand ingredients and help you identify which of your bath& body products are considered oil free or not. Not only that, but help you decide which products you can use should your regular products contain oils. I will also be answering any questions you may have once you receive your copy of my ebook.

Essential oils are like fragrances, they do not have the same qualities as a carrier oil aka fatty acid such as olive oil. They are fine for the skin. The method to which they are extracted is different from the way say olive oil is extracted. It is not the same. Just remember, an essential oil should never be applied to the skin neat, but diluted in an oil, but since oil is not to be used during phase 2, it's best to find an oil free product that may be scented with essential oils.

Here's something you may find helpful.

Essential oils do not, as a group, have any specific chemical or pharmaceutical properties in common. Instead, they are defined by the fact that they convey characteristic fragrances. They can be metabolized by the body, but not in the same manner as fatty acids, such as olive oil.

So, essential oils are not the same as a fatty acid even though it is an oil, it is not a fatty acid like olive oil.

Here is another bit of info, in working with essential oils myself for nearly a decade in my bath & body products, no more then .5% should be used as part of the whole formula. So if I have an 8oz bottle of lotion, only .5% of the total should be used. Out of 100% worth of ingredients, that's a very small amount. Essential oils are very concentrated, so any given formula does not require anymore, nor should anymore be used due to the fact that sensitivity or skin irritations can occur. So rest assure, if you have an oil free lotion that contains essential oils, you can still use it.

This and much more will be in my ebook that will be available for purchase over the summer.

Gain, oh no

So Lola and I went for another walk today. Today was for 2 hours as opposed to yesterday being 90 minutes. I really like going for these walks. I feel so great afterwards and not tired at all. Going up my street is like climbing on a stair master, on the full incline, lol. I live on a hill and a lot of streets around me are hill-y.

I also woke up extremely sore in the legs and showing a gain, today I woke up to 133lbs when I average anywhere from 129.2-130.6. Ugh, I know it's because I am sore/swollen from from my walk. I'm trying not to panic, lol.

I also noticed yesterday by lunch time I felt like I was starving. So I had a protein style burger. Today nearly the same, but not as bad as yesterday. But I had a Jay Robb protein shake made with whole organic milk. Those are so nasty to me. I like Isopure so much better. The Jay Robb shakes have that stevia after taste. I used it though because I am out of Isopure and I use the Jay Robb ones for my french toast and almond cookies as well as many other recipes.

I'm also noticing anytime I have bread, of any sort, I get bloated. I think it's something I may just have to learn to live without. I don't ever recall feeling this way in the past, bu then again, I never really paid much attention like I do now. Ever since this diet I have learned I cannot tolerate too much stevia (it gives me really bad headaches), I learned I'm allergic to penicillium (through allergy testing I had last summer) and which I learned the hard way, lol, it's in blue cheese, or any other cheese that has marbled blue and green in it and that sugar makes my stomach hurt.

I also have tom in less then a week so I figure I'll be experiencing some bloating soon from that as well.

Today I had 2 scrambled eggs for breakfast and a Jay Robb shake made with whole organic milk. For lunch I had chicken sausages. Here's a pic of what the package looks like and I get them from Safeway/Vons.



For dinner I am making stuffed mushrooms with parmesan cheese and ground turkey. Mixed veggies cooked with garlic and olive oil.

I am making a nice dessert tonight, a chocolate cake made with almond flour.

I'll be sharing some recipes next week. So check back daily!