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.

Healthy Little Muffins

Hey there Healthy Little Muffin, you wanna hang out before work?
Maybe after the gym?
Do you want to be my everything?
My one and only?

I want you inside me.

Recently, I've been having this kinda weird love affair with protein and fiber. I eat double fiber bread. I drink protein shakes. I nibble on Fiber Choice tablets. Protein bars? We've shared some romantic evenings.

Tonight was the final straw. I bought dried prunes and figs at Whole Foods. Wholesale. I know. I'm really passionate about pooping.

So making a muffin that will make you poop, give you energy, and maybe even taste halfway decent seemed like the obvious next step. Because cookies would have been stupid. Please. What is this, amateur night?

No #2 has ever tasted so much a winner.

It's official. This is not amateur night.

Here's the rundown on this recipe since I sorta kinda whipped it up out of my kitchen:

Ingredients


Almost 1/2 cup superfine sugar + 2 packets of Truvia (I ran out of sugar...then I ran out of superfine sugar...this was almost amateur night...)
2 tbs butter
2 eggs
1 cup of fat free sour cream
2 cups of old fashioned oats
1/2 cup of oat flour
1/2 Oh Yeah! Cookies and Cream Protein Powder (why wouldn't I buy the only brand with an exclamation point in the name?)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 remaining dried figs, chopped
2 remaining dried prunes, chopped

You're This Close to a Fantastic Bowel Movement


Preheat oven to 425. That seems super hot, I know.

1. Cream butter and sugar in your mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time. Beat til brutalized.
2. Toss the sour cream and oats in a bowl to combine. Add them to your mixer and beat beat beat.
3. In a separate bowl (I plan to get your whole kitchen filthy), mix the dry ingredients.
4. Add the dry ingredients to your wet ones and mix on low until smoothish.
5. Douse your muffin pan with baking spray.
6. Evenly distribute the muffin batter into the 12 muffin tin. Add the random dried fruit you had left over into as many of the muffin pods you want. Be creative! Make a smiley fig face! Do not make a frowny fig face!
7. Stick it in the oven for 10 mins. Then reconsider how fucking hot that oven is. Turn it down to 375. Give it another 6 minutes. They look done? Sure, sure.
8. Let cool.
9. Allow yourself to enjoy how wonderfully the smell of muffins covers the smell of that entire bag of steamed spinach you whipped up earlier for dinner. Shhh...muffin time.

If my intestines were superhuman,
I'd eat every one of you, baby.

But wait!

I even have the nutrition facts for these little fuckers! These numbers may not seem like much but with such a low calorie count, I think they are moderately impressive. You get your fiber from the oats and oat flour and you could always add more prunes or figs to get a much more substantial amount. The protein obviously comes from the protein powder (per serving, it's one of the lower calorie, higher protein, lower carb ones available), the eggs, sour cream, oats, and oat flour.

Healthy Little Muffins 
nutrition facts per muffin


cal: 152
carbs: 22g
fat: 4g
protein: 7g
fiber: 2g
sodium: 249mg


RATE ME!!!


TASTE: 3.5/5 These muffins are really yummy and perfectly breakfast-y. I will say, they do taste healthier than gluttonous. But I think that's a positive thing? They are plenty moist thanks to the sour cream and the cookies and cream protein powder actually tastes really good on its own so it's only uplifted by the addition of oats. I am a really big fan of everything I am tasting in these muffins. And they had the potential to be terrifyingly bad.

EASE: 5/5 I just want to make a poop joke here so bad. So I will. The only thing easier will be passing my next bowel movement. HELLO.

FILTH OF THE KITCHEN: 3/5 I used alllllll the bowls in my kitchen. But to be fair, I have like 3-4 bowls in my kitchen. USE ALL THE BOWLS.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH?: The dog got a bath earlier tonight. The dog wishes he was dead still.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 4.75/5 Excuse me, I made healthy muffins with protein powder that actually taste fantastic. Where's my ticker tape parade? When will all this fist pumping I've done tonight be appreciated? Soon. So soon.



I have to go to the bathroom now.