Whole Wheat Oat Chocolate Chip Cookie Bar

Hola todos! Como están ustedes? Estoy muy bien. Gracias!

Yo horneé galletas el lunes pasado. Tenía una ganas para comerlas! Me gusta comer postres. Es muy mal para la salud pero los postres son muy delicioso.

Translation: Hi everyone. How are you guys. I'm very good. Thanks!

I baked cookies the past Monday. I felt like eating them. I love eating desserts. It is bad for the health but desserts are so delicious!
I wanted to bake something that was more on the healthier side so that I wouldn't feel bad eating them. I came across a recipe from eatgood4life.com and it looked very simple to make. I just had to make them. Well, I didn't have to but I wanted a healthier dessert. It ended up being really good. My mom likes it too.

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup olive oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups oats
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• dark chocolate chips (as much as you want) 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Line a 9 x 13 pan with foil or parchment paper. 
3. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla extract 
4. Mix in the rest of the ingredients. Mix until a dough forms. 
5. Place the dough in the pan and push the dough into the pan, so that it covers most of the pan. 
6. You can add extra chocolate chips on top if you want. 
7. Bake for 25- 30 minutes.
8. Take the bars out and let them cool completely. 
9. Cut them into bars and enjoy! 

Warning: These bars do crumble a little. However, they are delicious! I just had to make these just so that I wouldn't feel too guilty about eating sweets. 

Do you like cookie bars?

What baked goods do you "healthify"? 

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Scones

I'm addicted to eating sweets, as you can see. I even made these whole wheat chocolate chip peanut butter oat scones earlier in the week. I love scones but I don't like all the butter and saturated fat that goes in it. 

So, I decided to make these. They are so healthy for and yet delicious. What's even better is that they are really low in sugar (compared to other scone recipes) and are really yummy. No raw eggs are used in it and you can eat the dough raw if you want to (I baked mines). They taste really good to. 

The secret to to making these scones soft and fluffy is the addition of greek yogurt. Yes. I used greek yogurt. Actually, it was nonfat greek yogurt. It's high in protein as well (most recipes use sour cream instead). These scones are actually quite big, aren't they? And, guess what. They are lower in calorie than other scones. I'm so happy about that. They also taste so good! I guess I'll give you guys the recipe first before I go off talking about other things. =) 

Servings: 11
Calories: ~230

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup nonfat milk

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
2. In a small mixing bowl, sift together the flour, oats and baking powder. 
3. In another mixing bowl, cream together the peanut butter, greek yogurt, sugar and milk. 
4. Slow pour the dry ingredients into the peanut butter mixture. Combine.
5. Mix in the chocolate chips. 
6. Roll out the dough into a rectangle and cut into triangles. Arrange on a baking sheet. 
7. Bake for 20-22 minutes. 
8. Take out, let it cool and enjoy. =) 

 I hope you guys enjoy these scones! They are so healthy and delicious.

So, I have to do some elf4health recaps.

The elf4health challenge has been so much fun. I'm so sad that we only have one more week left. I'm really enjoying all these challenges. It's really making me more aware of my choices and my health.

Yesterday's challenge was yummy. We were to make a microwave mug cake. I used a bowl instead but I still made a single serving microwave cake. It's nearly fat free (except for the peanut butter I just had to add!) and I used whole wheat flour. It's not the prettiest cake but it was delicious. I will post the recipe later on.

During the week, I also finally made the spinach dip I was talking about last week. It was yummy! My sister even likes it, which is saying something. She doesn't say anything about the things I make unless it's terrible or if it's really good. So, the spinach dip was really good. Once again, I will post it later on. I'm sure you guys can wait. I probably will post the spinach dip recipe tomorrow since New Year's is coming up. I have a lot of recipes I want to share with you guys.

Another recipe I want to share with you guys is another mini donut recipe. However, this one is a regular recipe, not a healthy one. But, it was yummy. My sister wanted to eat some donuts, which is why I made them. It uses regular flour, not whole wheat. I also made a Vietnamese peanut butter dipping sauce to eat with egg rolls. I also have my mom's sweet potato and ginger soup recipe.  You guys will love the recipes I will post later on!

On the last note, I want to share this picture of the creek I walked by today on a walk with my family. It's so pretty.

So, do you guys like walking?
What are your favorite food that your parents make?

Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Oat Bars

Hey everyone! How are you guys? I missed doing a Valentine's Day post. I'm so sorry about that. I've been busy.
Anyway, my week has been okay. Valentine's Day was just like any other day. The only thing different was that people brought all these balloons, teddy bears and what not just for the special day. It's crazy carrying it around school, but it's a really sweet thing.
Now, let's get back to baking. As you know, I love granola bars. LUNA bars, Clif Bars, Larabars, you name it. I guess I just like any kind of bars in general. So, I decided to look for a delicious, healthy bar recipe that uses simple ingredients that everyone has on hand. The sad thing is that, I didn't have any chocolate chips on hand to make chocolate chip bars, but, at least I had peanut butter, the next best thing. I also have tons of oatmeal. So, I decided to make Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Oat Bars. You can add chocolate chips to it too. I will next time. Here's the recipe. Enjoy. :)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup fat free milk 
• 1  1/2  cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla or banana extract
• chocolate chips (optional)

Directions: 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
2. Butter a 9 x 13 pan. Or, cover it with aluminium foil. 
3. In a bowl, mix the peanut butter with the sugar. Mix in the vanilla extract. In another bowl, combine the oats, flour and baking powder. 
4. Mix the flour mixture into the peanut butter mixture. 
5. Mix it until combined. The dough should be crumbly. 
6. Pour in the milk and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips. 
7. Place the mixture into the pan and spread it evenly. 
8. Bake it for about 30 minutes. 
9. Take out, let it cool and then cut it into pieces. It will crumble if you cut it when it's hot. 
10. Enjoy.