Breakfast Cookies, Water and Fibres!

I'm late with the Friday health post - again! Sorry about that, but I actually have a pretty good excuse: I was looking for the recipe that I wanted to share with you this week, which comes from the book Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine. That book teaches you how to sneak healthy food (veggies, fruits, fish, whole-grains, etc.) into your kids' food. However, I found that I actually like to fool myself with those recipes, and my favourite from the book is this one. Enjoy those healthy cookies!

 

Breakfast Cookies

 

* 2 cups whole grain cereal flakes (I use All-Bran)

* 3/4 cup Flour Blend (1/4 cup white flour, 1/4 cup whole wheat flour, and 1/4 cup wheat germ)

* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

* 1/2 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon cinnamon

* 1 large egg

* 1/2 cup brown sugar

* 1/4 cup canola oil (I usually use EVOO though)

* 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

* 3/4 cup low-fat ricotta cheese (I usually use low-fat yogurt instead)

* Cinnamon sugar for dusting (if wanted)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or spray with oil).
Using a rolling pin, gently crush the cereal (in a sealed plastic bag) into coarsely crushed flakes.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together Flour Blend, crushed cereal, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In another bowl, whisk together egg, sugar, oil, vanilla, and ricotta cheese. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix just enough to moisten dry ingredients. Drop single tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving about an inch between cookies. Flatten cookies with the back of a fork and then sprinkle tops generously with cinnamon sugar (you can skip this if you don't like it). Bake about 18 to 20 minutes, or until nicely browned and crispy around the edges.
Makes 16 to 18 large cookies.

These make for the best, guilt-free breakfast ever!

This week's challenge: Drink 8-10 glasses of water, every day.
This doesn't sound like a big deal, but drinking enough water is so important, and most of us don't drink more than 5 glasses, which is way too little. And it's also really fun to count your glasses of water throughout the day - believe me! :)

And finally, a few word on fibres.

 Great reasons why you should incorporate more whole-grains into your diet!

* They can possibly reduce the risk of cancer and heart-disease.

* Fibres help reduce the "shock" your body gets from eating sugar - which leads to you not getting the "afternoon snack craving".

* Fibres aid your digestion.

* Fibres help keep you satisfied for longer.

That's it for this week, stay healthy, people!
Love, Miss Diorista

P.S. Picture from http://www.knowledgera-theworld.blogspot.com/
And I have absolutely no idea why half of my post looks bolded - it doesn't look that way in the blogger format... any of you had this problem?

Chocolate Pudding Cookies!

I finally had the time to try out the Gingerbread Boy Mold that I got for Christmas (you can see my post about it here). I decided to make cookies, and bake them in the mold. Yum! They turned out to be so good, and well as so cute! Give them a try, this is my favourite cookie recipe so far!

Chocolate Pudding Cookies

150 g soft butter
200 g brown sugar
50 g white sugar
1 packet pudding mix - chocolate or caramel flavour
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
270 g flour (if using cocoa, use a bit less flour)
Cocoa, optional
1 tsp soda
150 g chocolate

Heat your oven up to 180°C or 360°F.
Mix together butter, both sugars, pudding mix and vanilla. Then add the eggs, one at a time, and stir in between.
Mix together flour, soda and cocoa (if using). Mix into the butter-mixture, slowly.
Chop the chocolate (you can use white or regular) and mix into the dough.
Form cookies with tablespoons (or make them into gingerbread boys!) and bake on a baking plate with baking paper on it. Bake for 10-14 minutes, less is more here, you want them chewy, ooey and gooey!

Oops... looks like somebody had an accident...

Love, Miss Diorista

Chocolate and licorice cookies!

I was super busy the last few days before Christmas, so I'm actually doing my Christmas baking now :) I really want to share this delicious recipe with you. It is very sugary, chocolatey and licorice-y... if that's a word! I made one batch, and half an hour later, it was gone. Needless to say, I quickly whipped up another batch - those are really quick to make, only about 30 minutes from the beginning to the end! Have fun baking :)

Chocolate and licorice cookies

3 egg whites
200 gr brown sugar
150 gr milk chocolate, chopped
300 gr shredded, chocolate coated licorice (Can't find it? Just chop some regular licorice)

Heat up your oven to 170°C or 340°F.

Whip together the egg whites and the brown sugar until light beige in colour and fluffy in texture. It should look something like this:

Now, remove your bowl from the mixer, and with a spatula (I got a red one for Christmas :), carefully fold in the licorice and the chocolate. Mix it as little as you can, you don't want to lose any of the air that you just whipped in the dough.

Doesn't it look yummy? When your dough is ready, place a sheet of parchment paper on a baking plate. Make cookies; about one heaped teaspoon makes one cookie - don't forget that those grow quite big in baking, so leave some space between them.

Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes for chewy cookies - longer if you want them crispy (I prefer them chewy :)

Enjoy!

Love, Miss Diorista

Halloween 2010 - pics!

I'm sorry guys, you're not getting any makeup-related posts from me these days! But they will come, don't worry :)
I just thought, since I didn't have time to post those pictures when Halloween was actually around, then I thought that I would show them to you anyway, in case you're already planning Halloween 2011! Well, what do I know, some people are just planners, you know? :)

Here, you can see my eyeballs... well, not my eyeballs, obviously! I still have mine :) Those are made from cake, mixed with icing. I got the idea from www.bakerella.com, go check out her amazing website if you haven't already!

With some great molds from Wilton, I melt some chocolate and made those. Each holds one Oreo cookie inside! (Don't count calories when eating those!)

This cake is a chocolate cake with chopped-up dates in it. The Halloween sprinkles come from Wilton (I believe I mixed up a few types of sprinkles, though).

You can't have Halloween without the pumpkins! Those are just simple vanilla sugar cookies, flooded with royal icing. I made the pattern with coloured sugar.

And finally, my cemetery. It is made from brownies, chocolate icing, and sugar cookies with chocolate. They were actually quite yummy :) (Idea from www.grosshalloweenrecipes.com)

So that was Halloween 2010 for me! Oh, and before I forget, the bats in the cemetery were given to me by some lovely guests - thank you!

Yours,

Miss Diorista

White Chip Chocolate Cookies

These are completely dangerous... those still working on the art of self-control are advised to stay far, far away. You have been warned.

I love shopping, but I have to admit that some things are more fun to buy than others. Obviously, makeup is always fun. Clothes and shoes, too. All kinds of dishes, cups and kitchen tools are another addiction of mine, along with books on recipes, especially for baked goods. One would think that nothing special would tempt me in the supermarket... but one would be wrong! Whenever I see something that I think would be fun to bake with - be it a new brand of chocolate, some kind of candy, or simply anything that catches my baking-eye, I have to get it!

So the other day, I bought a bag of white chocolate morsels by Nestlé. They were quite tasty and my cookies turned out great. I was about to throw the empty bag away when I noticed two recipes on the back of it... Of course, the oven was quickly turned on again!

I made some slight changes to the recipe, but oh my! This is heaven, I tell you!

So here we go...

'

'

White Chip Chocolate Cookies

(Adapted from Nestlé's recipe)

'

1 1/4 cup whole-wheat flour

1 cup rolled oats

1 package pudding mix (I used one with chocolate flavour)

1/3 unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 cup chopped chocolate (around 50-60% cocoa is fine)

1/2 cup chopped white chocolate

1/2 cup mint filled chocolate

'

Preheat oven to 350°F (or 180°C).

Combine flour, oats, pudding mix, cocoa, soda and salt in a bowl.

In another bowl, beat together butter and both sugars until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat well in between. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients. Stir all the chocolate in.

Roll into balls (I use really heaped teaspoons - these grow big in the oven!), place on baking paper and press them down a little with wet fingers or the back of a spoon.

Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, cool and enjoy!

'

Cheers,

Miss Diorista

'

P.S. Sorry about the little commas in thist post! The spaces were teasing me!