Healthy Date Nut Cookie Recipe & Crayon Art!

 

Merry Christmas POPsters!

I am soooooo grateful to have all of you in my life right now. Last year at this time, I had just quit my job, was trying to figure out life in Boston, and this blog and YouTube were just activities I was doing recreationally. Now, creating new content for you guys is a part of my daily life and I want to THANK YOU so much for continuing to keep our Blogilates community alive and thriving. I wake up every morning wanting to do more and more for you. So big hug!

OK, so yesterday for Xmas Eve I was inspired to make holiday cookies for our family. A student of mine at the gym made me some AWESOME Date Walnut bars that made me melt. They were literally the best best best bars I had EVER had in my life. They had real butter and sugar in them (not gonna lie, loved it) but I wanted to try to make a healthy version. Uh oh…you know me and baking. Things can get bad when I try to healthify EVERYTHING to the max. Well lemme just tell you that the angels were on my side today! These cookies came out wonderful! Everyone loved ’em and they were clean clean clean! Here’s the recipe – please try them and let me know what you think!

INGREDIENTS (yields about 18 cookies):

– 1 cup oat flour

– 1 cup dates, chopped

– 1 cup nuts (I used cashews and pecans) chopped

– 1/2 cup Stevia

– 1 cup unsweetened apple sauce

– 2 tsp baking powder

– 1/2 tsp baking soda

How to make oat flour? Just blend up some oats! This was my amazing discovery of the day! Don’t buy oat flour! Just make it! Much cheaper. And quite gratifying.

The ingredients in a bowl!

About to pop the goods in the oven. Bake at 350F for about 18 min.

There they are!!! They were soooooo good. I am eating one right now with some tea as I type this. Personally, I think they were a weeee bit too sweet so I will cut the Stevia even more next time. You can find the original recipe with butter and sugar here on Divine Taste’s blog.

Next, my sister and I wanted to do some artwork. I haven’t had time to do ANY SORT of art since I made those waterbottle flowers inspired by Anthropologie. That was more than a year ago.

Jackelyn found something on Pinterest involving crayons and a blow dryer. So this is what came out of it!

Cool yeah? All you have to do is buy a blank canvas (you can get a pack of 2 from Michaels for $10 but with their 50% off coupon, each canvas is only $2.50! SCORE!!!), some crayons, a hot glue gun, and a blow dryer. It takes about 30-45 sec for the crayons to start melting but it’s pretty epic when the first one “bursts”. Make sure you angle the drippage. This means you need to rotate the board as you blow.

BIG NEWS!!!! Get ready for the first ever oGorgeous giveaway!

I’ll announce the deets on Monday. This is for everyone who has worked so hard this year to lead a healthy lifestyle. And it’s to motivate you to do even more in the new year. 2012!!!

Have a Merry Xmas!!! And for those of you that don’t celebrate it, Chinatown is open for business 😛 <– our parents used to take me and my sister there on Christmas day back in the day.

<3 Cassey

 

6 thoughts on “Healthy Date Nut Cookie Recipe & Crayon Art!”

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  1. Jose says:

    Salut,Je suis fan de leur 1e jeu fitness et j’attend la sotrie du 2e J’ai lu des infos dessus que je partage ici :Ce sera compatible avec le Wii Balance Board et le Wii Motion Plus.Il y aura des programmes d’entraeenement e0 customiser anime9s par des vrais entraeeneurs via vide9os et audio voix-off.Il y aura des exercices standard (117) et de core techniques (4), ainsi que des techniques de respiration, relaxation, et me9ditation.Les hommes en profitent de plus en plus de Pilates pour renforcer le centre, ame9liorer la souplesse, l’e9quilibre et un de9veloppement uniforme. Le Pilates est un excellent technique pour tout le corps et fournit une base solide pour cross-training avec des autres sports.En fait, je fais des e9tudes pour devenir prof de Pilates. Merci!

  2. Michaela Roberts says:

    How fabulous. What a brilliant nugget of information. I got a new mini blender for Christmas (just what I wanted!.. yes, really) and I can’t wait to try zapping some oats into flour.

    Happy Christmas.

  3. Saim says:

    What a lovely post. i dont celebrate xmas but will still be having a roast dinner, and as nothing is open in this country i’ll just relax @ home (& maybe do sum pop pilates).

    Cassey, hope you and rest of community have a wonderful day.

  4. Julie says:

    I saw that crayon art thing and would love to try it!

  5. S says:

    and the cookies look delish too 🙂 but that bag stole the show, i wanna win!

  6. S says:

    That bag IS gorgeous!!!