Muffins and Cookies

I've been baking a LOT lately! Our graduation pictorials are coming up and I'm on a desperate bid to lose weight. More importantly, my mom has banned  us, once and for all, from all packaged foods (Rice Krispies, Oreos, and even Late July cookies are no longer allowed) and so we've been MAKING our treats instead of buying them.

 I also recently learned about carbohydrate sensitivity* and I think I suffer from it. The rains have also caused classes to be cancelled, giving me time to get creative in the kitchen. So it's like the whole universe has aligned to get me baking pastries from real ingredients that are actually good for you! Imagine! A treat that isn't nasty for your body or for your waistline.**  I've recently tried baking with whole wheat flour (something I've wanted to try for such a long time, but haven't had time to do) and I discovered that it was really easy to bake with!

So I made cookies with whole wheat flour, flax seed meal, whole oats, dark chocolate chips, butter, and coco sugar (which isn't really sugar – it's evaporated coconut juice and can't raise your glycemic index). The ingredients are all so real, and the only "fake" thing I used was vanilla essence, as I still haven't gotten around to making my own.***

It's barely sweet, and very chewy, and very delicious! We love having it warm, with organic milk, or with tea.

I also made banana bread. I know, that looks more like a muffin than banana bread, but it IS banana bread! As with the cookies, there is not a single smidgen of uberly processed and bleached white flour (which I think is a terrible, ugly, unhealthy thing) – it is all whole wheat and flax seed meal and beautiful organic eggs and coconut sugar. I also added in some cocoa powder and chocolate chips because I really am the biggest chocolate junkie that ever lived.

My sister loves it!

Right now, I've got a pan of carrot cake waiting for me to frost it! I also used entirely REAL things for it and will blog about it soon. The frosting is just divine!

Cheers,

Daryl

*Basically, some people have a harder time digesting carbohydrates than others. They get cranky, irritable, and addicted to carbohydrates – once they pop, they can't stop! My take on this is that we live in such a chemical world now, and most of the common carbohydrates we see are not real.  My mom has been talking for forever about real, slow-cooked, non-mass produced food, and I've been reading tons of books on food for as long as I can remember. But I never really took all the food advice around me to heart– I've been making such a huge effort to avoid fake things (I stay away from prescription medicine, drugstore deodorants, etc) but I never thought about just how synthetic our everyday carbohydrates are! I knew that they're bad for us and spike our glycemic indexes like crazy and that they promote cancer and all those things, but I never thought of them as fake chemicals. Table sugar is not even sugar anymore- it's a bastardized version of real sugar, which is what's left when sugar cane juice is evaporated. The junk in Snickers, Twix, and regular supermarket ice cream is just insane. Anyway, here's my point – some people can't cope with certain antibiotic medicines, since they're fake. Some people are more sensitive to lung poisoning (aka smoking) and alcohol than others. And some people just react worse to all the fake sugar than other people (and they are thus labeled carbohydrate sensitive). I hope you got my drift!

**I already have a list of these wonderful treats that are also treats for your body: 

1. Salad with a poached egg and parmesan cheese

2. Greek yogurt with berries and whole grain granola

3. A smoothie with organic milk, flax seed meal, a banana, and blueberries

4. Seared salmon with cauliflower mashed potatoes

and many, many, more! I'm trying to wean myself off of things that taste good while I'm eating them, then make me feel so sick after.

***Yes, you can can actually make your own vanilla essence. I didn't know that either! The thing with mainstream vanilla essence is that it isn't really vanilla and is actually TOXIC for your health.