Post-Workout Cookie Sandwiches Revisited

I gave my I'm-Real-Beat-From-Running-Someone-Get-This-Girl-A-Cookie-Sandwich recipe a moderate facelift yesterday. It's the same basic idea, just a few ingredient replacement. So here goes it!

Ingredients

1/2 cup vanilla protein powder (use a soy-based powder for vegan)

1/3 cup oat flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

4oz fresh ground almond butter

18 packets Truvia

1/4 to 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

2 tbls instant espresso powder

1 1/2 cups oats

1/2 cup mini dark chocolate chips

Do These Things Now

Whisk your protein powder, oat flour, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder together in a bowl. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, "cream" the almond butter, applesauce and truvia til smooth. Add the tsp of vanilla and the espresso powder. Mix some more. Add the dry ingredient mixture a half a cup at a time. It should seem pretty dry. If it seems too dry, add a bit more applesauce. Add the vanilla and espresso powder. Smoooooth. Fold in the oats and the chocolate chips.

Divide the dough in half. Take one half and plop it down on some wax paper. Wrap it up like a tootsie roll and roll it out into a log. It should be about an inch and half or so in diameter. Wrap tightly in the wax paper and let cool in the fridge for 4-6 hours. Repeat with remaining half of dough.

4-6 hours/one reading of The Hunger Games later...

Preheat the oven to 350. Line some cookie sheets with parchment paper. Take your doughy logs out of the fridge. Slice the logs into thinnish cookie disks no bigger than a half an inch wide. If they crack a bit, you can always reform them with a little of the fallen off dough. Press the disks down onto the cookie sheets, making them just a tad slimmer and peanut butter spreading friendlier. Add fallen apart dough as needed. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove and cool for a minute or 2 on the sheets, then transfer to cooling racks.

Assembly!

This is pretty straightforward. If it isn't, I'm afraid of how you got this far and no, this is not a pie recipe. Take one cookie. Spread a tablespoon of your favorite chunky peanut butter on the smooth bottom side. Top with another cookie's smooth bottom side. Giggle about "smooth bottom sides."

Nutrition Facts

Per cookie 

50 calories / 6g carbs / 3g fat / 2g protein / 1g fiber / 0g sugar

(based off the recipe making the 42 cookies I made)

Per cookie sandwich with a tablespoon of Maranatha No Stir Crunchy Peanut Butter

190 calories / 16g carbs / 14g fat / 8g protein / 3g fiber / 3g sugar

You Eat Post-Workout Snacks Like A Girl

Vegan Chocolate Espresso Oatmeal Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches. (whew.)

I have some pretty silly fears. Elevator doors closing on me. Falling down escalators. Falling up stairs. Falling on my face. (There is something wrong with my balance? There is something wrong with my balance.)

But those are the normal socially accepted  ones I typically admit. I also have food fears that I keep somewhat to myself. Oh who am I kidding, I don't keep anything to myself. You look horrible today, by the way. But yeah. Food fears. Fears makes it sound a little too wacky, I think. We'll call them food aversions. Eek. These include, but are not limited to, the following: cheese, bread, cereal, butter, oil, meat of all kinds, sugar. They come and go (eggs and milk used to be there too, so I'm open to modifying my psychosis) for various nonsensical reasons. So I've been adjusting my foods to be less scary, more approachable, friendlier, faster, stronger, better, cuter, more charming. Wait what? No, no. All that's perfect. And true.

It's common knowledge that I like my cookie doughs to look as
much like bowel movements as possible.

But where I struggle the most is carbs. Specifically post-workout carbs. And to make it worse, I've been falling in love with running these days. And as we're getting pretty hot and heavy, it's becoming readily apparent to me that I need to eat some damn carbs after those runs. For the sake of having enough energy to run again. But I don't want to eat a tuna sandwich everyday. Orrrr ever.

Is that oatmeal in there or little glimmers of sunshine?
(It's oatmeal.)

So I'm going to eat my post-workout snacks like a girl. Mostly because that is clearly the only way I know how. They're going to be Chocolate Espresso Oatmeal Cookie Peanut Butter Sandwiches. And they are going to be life-altering.

Ok. They are going be incredibly yummy. And a little funny looking. Oh and they're going to be - relatively - good for you. And vegan. Because why the fuck not, amiright?

Cute in that ugly you-must-have-come-from-turdy-batter way.
You know?

Adapted from this recipe.  Here's how...

Assemble these things:
3/4  cup of oat flour
1/4  cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4  tsp salt
1/2  tsp baking soda
6  tbls vegan buttery flavor sticks
2  tbls unsweetened applesauce
18  packets of Truvia
2  oz cooled espresso
1 1/2  tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2  cups of oats
1/2  cup of chocolate chips
wax paper and parchment paper

Do these things to those things:

1. Whisk first 4 dry ingredients together in a bowl. Set aside to let it think about what it did.
2. Cream the "butter" and applesauce with the "sugar" in a mixer. Make air quotes.
3. Add the espresso and vanilla. Is it smoothish? Let me introduce you to step 4...
4. Nice to finally meet you. Stir in the oats and chocolate chips with a spoon of sorts.
5. Divide the dough in half. Place the halves in their own wax papers. Roll the doughs into 2 log (you-know-what) shapes, about 2" in diameter. Wrap up and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Come back. Preheat the oven to 350. Parchment paper your cookie sheets.

1. Slice the logs into 1/2" wide cookies. I got about 3 dozen cookies out of this. The original recipe claims 48. I call bullshit on this.
2. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the tops look a bit dry.
3. Remove. Cool in sheets for a few minutes. Cool on cookie racks for many more minutes.
4. Assemble two cookies with a tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter.
5. LOOK WHAT I'VE CREATED. I HAVE MADE PERFECT POST-RUN SNACK!

Nutritional Info Per Cookie
56 calories / 8g carbs / 3g fat / 1g protein / 1g fiber / 2g sugar


Nutritional Info Per Sandwich 
202 calories / 19g carbs / 15g fat / 6g protein / 3g fiber / 6g sugar

This beats a tuna sandwich 99% of time.
Dolphin meat wins 1% of the time.

RATE ME!!

TASTE: 5/5 TASTES SO GOOD IN MY SWEATY RUNNER MOUTH. It also tastes good in my regular mouth. These would also probably taste good in a shoe.

EASE: 4/5 I made the dough on my lunch break today, but only after stopping at the grocery, eating some lunch, and some general fucking around. The hardest part was cutting the turd roll. And that was easy as Sunday morning. Or Wednesday lunch break.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 3/5 This is hard because my kitchen is a pigsty to begin with. As is the area by my kitchen (known from here on out as The Entirety of the Rest of My Studio Apartment) where I decided I didn't feel like folding my laundry yet. Oh me. I didn't add too much extra mess, however. Just a lot.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? STOP REMINDING ME THAT MY DOG IS AFRAID OF MY KITCHEN ALREADY.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 2.5/5 Yeah these guys are ugly. That's for certain. -2 points. But they are Vegan (+1), Sandwich Cookies (+1), and made entirely from my heart (+.5). And then -1 for that last comment. And add another +1 for healthy-ness. Have we carried any ones yet? Perfect.