Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

I recently went to the doctor and had my blood work done again.  Once again my LDL levels were borderline high and I was told to start using fish oil twice a day and have it recheck in 3 months.  Fish Oil?  Yuck, I hate fish and seafood.  I do know there is a good flavored fish oil out there but it is expensive. 

So once again I am revisiting the oatmeal options.  I like oatmeal, but detest eating it as a cereal.  I know they have oatmeal cookies in the store, but I have tried them and they are as hard as can be and not very tasty.  So I decided yesterday to look on-line and see if I could come up with something that would be a little more desireable.  I found the perfect match!  It is ALL good for you.  Every ingredient!  I decided that since I had all the ingredients that it was worth a shot to find a new breakfast item for me.  When they came out of the oven, I was really eager to try one.  I didn't wait long before I took my first bite.  Do you want to know if they are good?  Why yes they are!  So I am very excited to share with you a very HEALTHY oatmeal breakfast cookie that is soft and moist.  If you don't like the craisins, leave them out.  I find they add a nice touch to them! 

I was also a little nervous about using flax seed, but I did it anyway and found that it is great in foods.

Enjoy!

Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies
Ingredients
1/2 mashed banana (I used 1 large)
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (or non peanut)
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed (or an add’l 1/4c flour)
1/4 cup nonfat milk or vanilla protein powder (+2TB of water if dough is too thick)
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup dried cranberries or raisins
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly coat two cookie sheets with cooking spray; set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together banana, peanut butter, honey, and vanilla.
In a small bowl, combine oats, flour, ground flax, milk powder, cinnamon, and baking soda.
Stir the oat mixture into the banana mixture until combined. Stir in dried cranberries.
Using a ¼-cup measuring cup, drop mounds of dough 3 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets. With a thin metal or small plastic spatula dipped in water, flatten and spread each mound of dough to a 2¾-inch round, about ½ inch thick.
Bake, one sheet at a time, for 14 to 16 minutes or until browned. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container or resealable plastic bag for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 2 months; thaw before serving.

Oatmeal Muffin Remake

This last month, a good friend of mine has been encouraging to get back into shape.  She passed her Personal Trainer's Test and now is licensed to help other people.  To get her started she asked for some friends to help her get some practice in and I volunteered.

I have really been encourage by her.  She gave me some tools to get started. 
1)  Drink a lot of water-96 oz was recommend.
2)  Increase your fiber
3) Work out 3 times a week and a couple times a week do some strength training exercises.
4)  Use Loseit.com to start having an awareness of how many calories I was actually taking in.  It's not really calorie counting, but building an awareness or calorie consumption and portion control.  Two things I was horrible at.
5)  She has also educated me about using more natural ingredients, not processed sugars etc....  So I have started sloooowwwwly changing ingredients out in my home and experimenting with healthier ways to make things.  She also mentioned that natural sugars and ingredients will burn off quicker then the processed sugars.  I thought that was pretty interesting.

So I hit a low point this week with just being busy the last two weeks, Thanksgiving food etc.  I was at the doctor's office in the middle of the week and they weighed me.  I expected some good things, but was disappointed.  Mainly because I didn't weigh myself to begin with and I have no idea of where I started.  I did notice a change in me but I was still frustrated.  Until today.  I had another session with my friend today and she measured me.  I have actually lost a couple inches around the waist and some more elsewhere.  I guess I did make progress!  Since she brought her scale with her, I decided to weigh myself and was pleased that it was less then it was a few days ago.

So as I continue my journey to get into better physical shape.....  I will leave you will a remake of my Oatmeal Muffin Recipe.  It was a decent recipe before, but now I LOVE IT!!!  I couldn't believe how substituting ingredients would make a difference.

Oatmeal Muffins {BEFORE Makeover}
1 Egg
1 Cup buttermilk {1 tablespoon vinegar + 1 Cup Milk}
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Packed
1/3 Cup Shortening {Crisco}
1 Cup Cooking Oats
1 Cup Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray with cooking spray and bake 20 minutes.

Oatmeal Muffins {AFTER Makeover}
1 Egg
1 Cup buttermilk {1 tablespoon vinegar + 1 Cup Milk}
Instead of 1/2 Cup Brown Sugar Packed Used: 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 Cup Molasses + 2 teaspoons
Instead of 1/3 Cup Shortening {Crisco}= USE:  2 1/2 Tablespoons Crisco and 2 1/2 Tablespoons All Natural Applesauce
1 Cup Cooking Oats
1 Cup Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Spray with cooking spray and bake 20 minutes.  Makes 1 dozen.  Approximate calorie per muffin is 140 Calories.

Notes: 
1)  Changes of ingredients were made in Red. 
2)  I didn't try to change the flour to some wheat as I wanted to see how the other changes turned out. 
3)  The batter may appear a little runny, just make sure and scrape your bowl good before scooping out.  These turned out more moist then they used to.
4)  Since molasses is used they will bake darker in color so don't worry.  They have a great flavor!!
5)  When substituting applesauce for the shortening, they recommend that you only replace half of the ingredient with applesauce and using shortening for the rest.
6)  You can substitute up to 3/4 the sugar content amount with molasses, but they don't recommend any more past that.  I just did half to start out with.

Day 3--Charleston

We saved the tour of the Ghost Ship for the last day. 

What is the Ghost Ship? It is the U.S.S. Yorktown ship that was sunk at the battle of Mid-Way.

A second ship was built in order to keep the Japanese from knowing they had sunk the original ship.

The day started out pretty chilly.  The wind was blowing pretty good creating a nice "mist" blowing off the water.  We caught the college sail boats competing on the water just off the side of the ship.  I don't know how they kept from capsizing and we saw several that almost did!

I won't show all my pictures, but I definitely know my husband would not fit on this ship!

He is 6'5" and he had to stoop alot and bump his head walking down the steep steps from level to level.

I can't remember how many was on the ship.  Maybe around 3,000.

See this recipe for 10,000 Chocolate Chip Cookies?

Can you imagine making that many??

We finished up the day going back down-town and walking around.

Then we decided to go to a different area of the beach

and walk before going back downtown again for dinner.

Can you tell that downtown historic Charleston was our favorite place?

 

Day 2 Continued

Day 2--Charleston

After a visit to Fort Sumter, we decided to head on over to Boone Hall Plantation.  It is a really pretty place and it's long drive back to the house was beautiful.  Imagine driving your carriage or wagon...  Boone Hall Plantation had been used for several movies.  I can't remember them all, but I will point out the parts that stand out to me.

Boone Hall plantation has had several different owners.

The original plantation was not as we see it today.

Plantation homes were built with wood and not ornate.

The ornate homes were built by the owners back in Charleston.

Besides the obvious crops that were grown here, like cotton,

Boone Hall was the top producer of pecan trees that supplied a

huge quantity of the countries pecans.  When one of the hurricanes

hit Charleston, that ended that.

The first building built on the plantation was this smoke house.

Live Oak trees with Spanish Moss. 

The oak trees are deciduous and stay green all year around.

Behind this live oak is a river that is connected to the ocean.

Owners would ship their goods out on barges to Charleston

when the tide came up.  The plantation didn't seem far from Charleston,

but back then it took a bit to get from Charleston to the plantation.

This was the easier way to get their goods out.

Nicknamed "Slave Street",

These homes were the place where the household slaves stayed. 

Field slaves lived in wood shacks in the fields.

*One thing that stood out to me was this:

Upon touring the 1st floor of the home,

we learned about the slave trade.

A shopping list was saved by one of the

lady's of the home and first on the list was

"one slave girl = $980"

$980!  I couldn't believe how much

they spent for the use of a slave.

I also viewed a record of slaves that came to

Charleston and was amazed by the

amount of slave that came. 

You do the math. 

This was over 100 years ago....

Also note that more slaves were sent to the

Caribbean and other areas besides the U.S.

The number is staggering.

Boone Hall Plantations cotton gin under restoration.

When the cotton gin was invented, they built

their own cotton gin.

Walking around the plantation was neat. 

I was a little disappointed that we didn't get to tour much of the home.

We were only able to view the first floor because the upper floor was

occupied by the current owner who comes there once in awhile.

Over all it was a beautiful afternoon, and

I really enjoyed learning more about our countries history.

We followed up the day with eating out down-town again at Poogan's Porch.

Pic from Poogan's Porch.

My meal was so good!  It was worth it to have a nice date night meal with my husband.

Charleston Adventures

Day 2-

We decided the night before to go ahead and do the Ferry Ride out to Fort Sumter.  The weather was supposed to be in the 70s that day and the following day, rainy and in the 60s during the morning.  I'm so glad we did!

We drove back downtown to Liberty Square to take Spiritline Ferry out to Fort Sumter.  I was a little worried about the boat ride as the last boat ride I had been on, we got sea sick.  I knew that it wouldn't happen with the Ferry ride, but you always wonder.  The ride went smooth and the smell or salt water in the air was invigorating!

The bridge in the background is Arthur Ravenel Bridge.

This was built for a measly half a BILLION dollars.

Pennies if you like....

But it is beautiful!

It is 1 1/2 miles long.

The Ghost Ship above...

More details on a later date.

Charleston is called the Holy City because it made a point to secure religous freedom in this city.

The downtown area is filled with Steeples and old churches are absolutely beautiful!

Fort Sumter was actually built on a sandbar. 

Granite pieces were brought in so they could build

a 3 story fort on this site. 

Only 1 story remains today.

Historic Downtown Charleston

Day 1-Evening

After leaving Folley Beach we decided not to even go back to the hotel.  We figured if we did, we would not get out and enjoy everything we wanted to see.  We were surprised at how easy it was to find our way around, especially with a map of the downtown area.  We were also pleased that it didn't take us as long to get around Charleston.

When we hit the downtown area, we mapped out where we were going to park.  As we were driving around we kept missing our turns, but it ended up that was a good thing as we found the restaurant we would go eat at the next night.  Along side of that, there was a parking garage right by it so we were happy we new how to at least get there the next night.

Once we parked, we found ourselves wandering around downtown, and I took a few photos before it got dark.  The architecture was so beautiful.  I wish I had taken more, but I did not.

We did find a good place to eat that night.  I never tried grits before, but I did try some of my husbands.
It was a Shrimp and Grits plate topped with a Ham Chorizo sauce.  I don't like seafood, but I did try the grits and it was SOOO good.  I'll would love to find a recipe to duplicate it.

After we ate that delicious meal, we did more walking.  A bunch more walking.

Figured out my night vision flash here. 

Thought this was really pretty.

On the Pier they had benches and swings under the

shelter stretching out into the river that connected to the Ocean.

It was a lot of fun sitting on the swing just talking

and watching the boats on the river.

I didn't realize this but Charleston gets a lot of

Cruise ships that dock here everyday.

I think my husband told me that Charleston is the

#6 top spot to visit in the United States.

I absolutely know why now!!

But what good is a trip if you don't ever get a little lost....  As with every time we go somewhere we always loose our way.  It took us a little while to maneuver out of downtown Charleston because every time we thought we could turn one way to make it back to the bridge, we would run into a one way street...  in the other direction!  We ended up north of where we should have been, but we quickly found our way back to the hotel after that!  We never had a problem after that getting lost down town.  At least we got to see some more awesome old buildings in the dark!

Pineapple Fountain at Waterfront Park

Good way to end our Day One!

Just me and my husband!