Susan Saradon's Skinny Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tonight I came home thinking I need a dessert! It's Friday night and after a long week (can't really say a long hardworking week, more just long) I figured I need a treat. After passing up the offer of drinks at Hooters with some co-workers, I thought about the usual ice cream run, not good having a drive-thru Baskin Robbins less than five minutes away. But I then thought about the guilt of showing up to my free bootcamp class tomorrow morning after eating that, so I decided to look online for some "healthy" yet tasty dessert recipes with the little chocolate chips I had left in my house.
I came across Bethanny Frankel's version of Susan Sarandon's Banana-Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. Now I'm not sure if this is her healthy version of Susan Sarandon's recipe or she actually made this for the actress, as I know she is a celebrity chef, but I thought hey if they are good enough for Susan Sarandon, they will be good enough for me. Now a few warnings here. 1. You have to like the taste of banana for these cookies to work for you. Luckily I do. I have a banana almost every morning with my oatmeal so this is kind of like my breakfast just with chocolate chips thrown in and in a different way. (Oh maybe I'll have them for breakfast too...) 2. The dough is VERY sticky! It was a little difficult to get the chocolate chips mixed in enough so I tried mixing in the chocolate chips by hand and came back with a fistful of dough. I would recommend refrigerating the dough for about half hour and it's easier to make into a ball for baking.
So after 15 minutes the smell of chocolate chips and banana filled the house up and I sneaked a peek at the lumpy dough that had fluffed up to a nice textured cookie. It took some restraint to wait until they were cool enough to eat without burning my mouth. In the words of Tony the Tiger - they were GREAT! So try these cookies if you have a sweet tooth like mine and a guilty conscience like mine. They were very tasty.
A tip for storing your cookies and keeping them soft that I got from my mom years ago. Store them in a air tight container with a slice of bread. The bread will get hard and soak up all the air that would have penetrated your cookies.
The recipe is as follows: (copied-right off the internet)

Ingredients:
1 cup oat flour
3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup plain soy milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 ripe banana, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or other favorite nut
1/3 cup semisweet vegan chocolate chips (such as Tropical Source)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Combine first 6 ingredients (through sugar) in a bowl. Whisk together oil, soy milk, and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add wet mixture to dry ingredients; stir to combine. Fold in banana, walnuts, and chocolate chips.

2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop dough onto pan with a small ice-cream scoop. Bake 25 minutes or until golden brown, turning baking sheet halfway through. Let cool on a wire rack.

Prep: 10 Minutes
Cook: 25 minutes
Makes 16 cookies

Nutrition: And look they are good for you....
Calories 138; Fat 8g (sat 1g, mono 4g, poly 2g); Cholesterol 0mg; Protein 2g; Carbohydrate 16g; Sugars 9g; Fiber 1g; Iron 1mg; Sodium 114mg; Calcium 16mg

Lemon Chicken

Tonight I came home with the same thought, what should I have for dinner. I knew I had chicken breast thawed in the refig and needed to cook them before they went bad. My first thought was an easy go to recipe,lemon chicken, but the version I usually make is made with a ton of butter, flour and oil. So I decided to experiment. Ok, I've never really been good at that before, but I figured it's lemon and chicken bad can I mess it up.
So I cleaned the chicken and coated them with whole wheat flour and lemon pepper. Then I put lemon slices inbetween the chicken and threw on some rosemary and thyme on top. Cooked it for 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven.
While it was cooking I mixed together 3/4 cup of chicken broth, 1/4 cup of limecello liquor, some fresh lemon juice and salt and pepper. Usually I use 1/4 cup of oil and 3/4 cup of lemon juice, but I'm trying to be healthy here, so substituted with chicken broth.
I then turned the chicken and poured on the sauce and cooked it for another 20 minutes.
Add some 90 second rice and your dinner is done. I'm not sure what the calorie count was but it had to be much lower than the original version.
It was pretty good, I might use less herbs next time as though were pretty strong and more lemon juice than liquor. But overall a successful experiment and easy dinner.

Chicken Chop Suey

I never thought Chop Suey was a real thing, I always thought it was a joke or something you said when you did a karate chop. But tonight I tried to make it for the first time. It was super simple and only took me about 30 minutes from start to finish. It was very tasty and I have plenty leftover for lunch and probably dinner tomorrow night. It also made the house smell like homemade chinese food. I would recommend it highly for a healthy take on chinese food (except maybe the fried wont ton part). Recipe is as follows:

Preheat over 375degrees F. Toast 1Tbl of sesame seeds in a small dry skillet over med-high heat, stirring frequently, until lightly colored, about 2 minutes.; set aside. In a small cup, dissolve 1 1/2tsp of cornstarch with 1Tbl of sherry.; set aside.

Brush a baking sheet and the eight wonton skins lightly on both sides with 2tsp of canola oil. Season with salt and bake until browned and crisp, 10 - 12 min. Transfer to a rack and set aside.

In a large heavy skillet or wok, heat 1Tbl canola oil over med-high heat. Add 2 thinly sliced scallions, 3 sliced cloves of garlic, 4 cups of sliced cabbage (cored), 1 8oz can of bamboo shoots(drained and sliced), 3.4 thinly sliced celery and 2 cups of sliced mushrooms and stir fry until the cabbage is soft and wilted, 3- 4 minutes. Add 3/4Tbl of sugar, 3/4 cup of chicken broth, 1 1/2Tbl soy sauce (low Sodium), and 2Tbl of sesema oil and coof for 3 minutes. Add the sherry-cornstarch mixtures and if the mixture is a little dry add another 1/4 cup of broth.
Add 2 cups of cubed cooked chicken (I used the canned chicken) and heat throughly.

Serve over cooked brown rice and sprinkle with the sesame seeds and rush the wonton skins on top.
Enjoy!

A few of my favorites

My mom used to get mad everytime she got a roll back from the store because half of it was always taken up with pictures of the cats. I guess I've always enjoyed taking photos of our animals and now I have 2 dogs that can't really escape me or my camera that easy. Even though Charlie has started to turn his head away and squint whenever I came at him with camera in hand. Maggie is has years of experience in front of the camera and is an old pro and gladly stays in whatever position I ask her to.
I like to describe my dogs as 2 children that don't speak English. I'm sure there will be many more photos (or portraits as I like to think of them) to come, but for now here are a few of my favorite past pictures of my kids.

Maggie exhausted after a hard day of sleeping

Charlie waiting for me to return with more cookies


Maggie and Charlie at Christmas

Charlie's professional headshot

Maggie's professional headshot

Chris and Sunny's Wedding Party

Saturday night, Chris and Sunny gathered all their engineering co-workers to their big beautiful house to celebrate their recent nuptials at V. Sattui in Napa (http://www.vsattui.com) .
Their backyard was a perfect place to host a party, complete with waterfall, grill, refrigerator and fireplace (even though on this summer night it was not needed).
Chris pulled out the regulation table for a friendly game of beer pong. Tony pulled ahead winning several of the matches, until he came up against the wringer Jenny and rookie Alicia (new to beer pong not drinking). Tony and Blake lost the first match, but then claimed it wasn't fair as Blake got thirsty during the game and ending up drinking one of their cups of beer.
So a rematch showdown happen, with winner claiming bragging rights. It was one cup, first one to sink it won. After many, many tries Alicia finally sank the ball into their cup and claimed victory.
Tony and Blake will never hear the end of this.
It was a great time and perfect weather and setting to celebrate the wedding of Chris and Sunny.

Labaneh dip

I first fell in love with this light creamy, mint flavored dip at Cafe Morocco(off Alhambra and Folsom Blvd). http://www.cafemoroccosac.com/
Labaneh is like cream cheese but without the fat. I used Greek Yogurt as I don't have the time or patience to actually make Labaneh. Then I added a teaspoon of olive oil, 2 teaspoons of fresh lemon juice, 1/2 teaspoon of minced garlic and a tablespoon of chopped mint. Mix it all up and then you can eat it with homemade pita chips (just 10 minutes in the oven) or use it as a spread on chicken for a great greek-inspired taste. It's very good and low in calories, which is good because I usually eat the whole thing in a day.