Fess-up Friday: Guilty Pleasures

I roll over and look at the clock: 3am. Stomach growls angrily. It's the second time I've woken up this week because I'm ravenous. I know, this doesn't happen to normal people. Monday night and into Tuesday morning Stomach growled me awake at 3am, then again at 4am and 5am. And this is after I fed her a protein shake each time. She's high maintenance-the training cycle is starting to get to her.

Last night I decided to get up and not screw around with just almond milk and potein powder. I marched my ass to the freezer, pulled out two frozen bananas and threw them in the blender with protein, tofu, almond milk, and some cinnamon and ginger. Banana bread milkshake. The frozen bananas are magical; if you haven't tried putting them in a smoothie or throwing them in the food processor alone, you need to. I was amazed the first time I did it. In the food processor, they whip up to the consistency of Dairy Queen softserve. They turn a smoothie into something that one associates with health to something that tastes like pure gluttony. The smoothie turned out to be just enough to keep me asleep until I woke up, starving of course, to meet Iceman for some easy pre-race miles at 7:30. What the hell? Needless to say, the constant hunger has me a little...on edge.

Hunger, along the general fatigue that fairly intense 14-mile days wear on me, and after a while, it's possible you find me a little out of sorts. Today, I brought Meatball a pumpkin pie smoothie. Not being a fanatic about vegetable intake like myself, I opted to leave it non-greened and very normal-eater eyeball friendly. Apparently some coworkers thought it looked like "baby puke" when he pulled it from the community fridge. Had I put in some kale or spinach leaves, this probably would have been a fair assessment, however, the jar of  pureed pumpkin, spices, and milk was precisely the color of pumpkin pie. My mile- and hunger-induced irritability led me to decline his proposition that I defend my creation, because I'm fairly sure that my verbal filter has worn to nearly nothing at this point.

After the smoothie-criticism, I found in my inbox the 213847th email about picking up Girl Scout cookies that were ordered from a fellow grad student's kid. Stomach growls: I didn't order any effing cookies, so stop telling me to pick them up! And while you're at it, stop feeding those to your kids!

 Don't misunderstand me: I'm completely in favor of supporting your local Girl Scout troops. I'm definitely not against indulging in a cookie, but if you're going to indulge, I definitely believe that it needs to be worth it. Don't let those cute little faces distort your pallette. The cookies are mediocre at best. They sure are damn convenient, with them potentially being delivered straight to your door, but no way do they beat a homemade cookie. No way! I have a real weakness for little red-headed kids. I love them, so I'll admit that if one of them came to my door selling these things, despite not being able to eat a single bite of them, I'd still buy some. But the cuteness of the Girl Scout luckily does not permeate an email from her dad, so I didn't have to throw away any money.

Having a bit of a fetish for all things chocolate-PB and in addition all things coconut, naturally Tagalongs and Samoas are my favorite of the colorfully-boxed varieties. Earlier in the week after reading one of the cookie reminder SPAM messages, I decided that I'd make some of my own, sans garbage refined ingredients and with plenty of fiber and protein. The Tagalongs were the first to be born. After adding the 10th flour variety to my baking arsenal (via Subscribe and Save) and rising at 5am on Wednesday to meet Thing 1 at the track for some 5k pace work, I immediately used the time to kill to get to work on some coconut-ty copycats.

Aren't they pretty little things? Meatball lent me his fancy camera to play with, so the shots are a bit of a step up from the ones the Camera+ on my iPhone produces. This brings me to perhaps my guiltiest of pleasures:  paparazzi photography. I've grown quite fond of simply walking around campus, or anywhere else for that matter, with my camera out and  ready to shoot. It's invigorating to feel a little like a menace behind the lense.

 

Now, that I've teased you, I have to tell you something: I can't even count the number of times I've baked or cooked something using my own ad hoc "recipe" (i.e. throwing shit into various pots and pans using techniques only slightly more advanced than trial-and-error) and not recording exactly what I'm doing along the way. The Samoas are product of this method. They turned out quite well. Being entirely grain-free, I was worried about their texture being too dense; Bob's suggests replacing up to 20% of a recipe's flour with coconut flour and adding an additional equal amount of liquid. My worries were all for naught; their texture was rich and moist, but they were indeed a cake-like cookie. Baking powder and baking soda could rework the texture, but further experimentation will be needed for conclusive information.

Raw Protein Tagalongs


Ingredients


For the shortbread cookie:
6 large medjool dates, pitted
1/4 cup unsalted cashews
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp vanilla protein powder
1/8 tsp sea salt


For the peanut butter filling:
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp unsalted peanut butter (I used sunbutter which was just ask good)
4 tbsp date paste
1 tsp coconut sugar

For the chocolate coating:
10 oz. dairy-free chocolate chips (I like these guys)

First, prep the shortbread cookie base: in a food processor, process the cashews into a fine meal, being careful not to over-process and wind up with cashew butter. Pour into a bowl and set aside. Process the dates until they form a thick dough which will ball up and spin around the outside of the processor bowl. Break apart, and return to processor bowl, adding the cashew meal, protein powder, salt and honey. Pulse until all ingredients are combined and form a dough.

Place the ball of dough on a piece of large parchment paper. Fold the parchment over the top of the dough so that it is sandwiched between the parchment. Use a jar or rolling pin to roll the dough out until it is about 1/4 inch thick. Unfold the parchment, and using a cookie cutter (or a wine glass if you don't have a cookie cutter that doesn't resemble some holiday-inspired shape)  to cut out uniform circles. Place the shortbread disks in the freezer to set.

Combine all the ingredients for the peanut butter filling in the food processor until well combined. Spoon onto shortbread cutouts and place in freezer to set for a minimum of 30 minutes.

After the cookies are hardened, add the chocolate chips (I split them into 1/4 cup batches) to a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 15 second intervals, being careful not to burn them. Placing cookies on a clean sheet of parchment paper, spoon the chocolate onto each of the cookies, spreading evenly to cover one side. Once one of all the cookies are chocolate-coated, place in freezer until they're cooled. Remove, flip, and repeat to coat the other side. Cool in freezer again, or shovel one quickly into mouth. I think I like them better warm and messy and fudgey.