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.

Because I Love You Muffins

aka (vegan carrot cake)


My boyfriend loves me. It’s true. I’ll tell you how I know.

Last night, I went out to hang out with other girls which is plain old weird if you know me at all because that is not a thing I tend to do. Girls scare me. So does large organized socializing. Eep! So, as any social anxiety prone young lady is apt to do, I made sure I was good and drunk for the occasion. Double eep! On my quest to get shitfaced, I drank entirely too much.

Pre-blackout. Pre-ruining that adorable crocheted top.
Pre-friend on my left babysitting me at the bar. <3

Typically I can get away with this because I’m a stone cold badass who can hold her liquor. But that state of “typically” also includes eating normal things on a regular basis - like carbs. And my daily intake of carbs has taken up to or less than 36% (115g or less, usually) of my diet for like...3 weeks now. Don’t ask me how I know this. (Ask me how I know this!)

100% Psycho

So what does my boyfriend do? He comes to my rescue. Knowing full well there was a solid chance I was going to be sick.
When I woke up, boyfriend of the year was asleep on my couch. He had set my Britta within my reach with a few other choice items. When he woke up, he didn’t give me shit, didn’t make me feel bad, didn’t say anything negative. Clearly, I made some poor choices last night. He even showed concern for my shoes, which...took the brunt of the evening’s festivities.

*SKIP DOWN TO HERE IF YOU’RE NOT IN THE MOOD FOR STORY TIME*

(JERKWAD.)

Moist. We're calling them moist.
Just go with it.

So my boyfriend loves me and I know this. And I love him because motherfucking DUH. So I made a frankensteined Vegan Carrot Cake Muffin in his honor. Then I named them Because I Love You Muffins. CUTE.
So let me explain a couple things I did to this recipe. In an adorable way.


Because I love you, I shredded a bag of carrots by hand so you wouldn’t have to eat less-than-fresh bagged shredded carrots.

Shredded for his pleasure.

Because I love you, I replaced the sugar with stevia and applesauce so you wouldn’t feel guilty about eating these.

I'll throw these empty packets away within the next few weeks.
Or so.

Because I love you, I used organic whole grain pastry flour rather than white flour so you can get a healthy dose of whole grains with a flaky cake instead of highly processed gross stuff.

Tell me,
do you see a beautiful young woman or an ugly old lady in this picture?

Because I love you, I took the oil out and threw some applesauce in since oil is yucky and applesauce is not.

Nothing says "I love you" like sludge.

Because I love you, I calculated the nutrition facts so your minor ocd that is totally not weird could get some exercise.

I was going for a tones of beige-ish in this photo.
Nailed it.

Because I love you, I’ll never get so ridiculously horribly intoxicated again. I bet.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get these things out:
2 cups pastry flour
24 packets of Truvia
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
3 cups shredded carrots
1 ¼ cups unsweetened applesauce
½ cup orange juice
½ cup golden raisins
¾ cup reduced fat unsweetened shredded coconut
½ cup chopped walnuts
Do these things to make about 24 muffins:
Combine the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl by hand. Toss the carrots and applesauce in. Mix mix mix mix. Add the orange juice. Mix mix mix mix. Add the raisins, coconut, and walnuts. Mix mix mix mix! Fill up a baking sprayed muffin tin with your batter. Stick it in the oven for about 35 minutes. (Since there is nothing raw in there, the inside is still delicious even if not all the way set. I was mostly just getting antsy.) Let cool. Devour.
Nutrition Facts per muffin
99 calories / 18g carbs / 2g fat / 2g protein / 3g fiber / 9g sugar

SEEMS LIKE ENOUGH MUFFINS.
(help.)

RATE ME!!!

TASTE: 3/5 ok they are totally delicious but I think there is room for improvement. I'm talking about icing, folks. I want icing in my mouth when I eat these muffins. It's all I've been thinking about for like, 20 minutes. That is so many minutes to think about icing. Also - they didn't entirely become cake-y in the middle so let's call them "moist."

EASE: 4/5 You don't even need a mixer! Bitch is easy like your mom! But just like your mom, it takes forever to grate the carrots. That is the -1 point there, if you wanna check out the judges card.

FILTH OF KITCHEN: 5/5 Truvia packets. Truvia packets everywhere. Applesauce where the Truvia packets aren't. The counter edging my kitchen sink is lined with carrot ends. There's probably a lot of things in my hair. Plus side: my apartment now smells a lot more like OOOOH than ewwww.

DID THE DOG EAT THE DOUGH? The dog thanked me kindly for the carrot stumps. They're his favorite. Next to everything else that goes in his mouth.

IMPRESS-O-METER: 5/5 I'm giving this the ultimate rating for a few key points: each muffin is under 100 calories, they are vegan, I'm hungover.