Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies (and dinner)

The baking continued after the zucchini bread this afternoon.

Honestly — I never knew zucchini was so versatile, specifically with baking.  Honestly the Bread turned out very well, but I expected that.  I have heard of and had zucchini bread before, and knew I had created a nice little recipe with this one.

The chocolate chip cookies, I was a little more nervous about.

I know what you’re thinking, because I was thinking it a little myself, too.

Zucchini in cookies? Really?  They’re going to taste HEALTHY, I want a cookie (and they do, but not in a bad way at all! Even Zach, who isn’t a big fan when I healthify desserts, loved these!)

Try them:  trust me, you’ll be glad they’re healthy when you won’t be able to resist their deliciousness 🙂

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 4 oz applesauce (or individual cup)
• 4 tbsp of room temperature butter
• 2 cups of oat flour
• 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups of chocolate chips
• 2 cups of minced zucchini (I used the food processor)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 and grease cookie sheet
• Mix together the applesauce, butter and sugar until it creams in a large bowl
• Mix together the flours, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a separate bowl
• Beat the eggs and add them to the wet ingredients
• Slowly begin to add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients
• Add in the zucchini in small batches
• Fold in the 2 cups of chocolate chips
• Cook at 350 degrees for 8-10 minute

Yields about 8 dozen small cookies…but you know I don’t make them small.  I actually froze a good portion of the dough for later use — this seriously makes a TON, but I had a ton of zucchini to use and I love cookies, so that’s a-ok with me!

With all the baking and taste testing that I did today, I was tempted to skip through dinner, but I knew I had to get something substantial in my belly.

On the menu tonight:  Open face sammies and side salads.

The sammies were on the sourdough bread we picked up from the farmer’s market.  Served with heirloom tomato (also from the market), onion, spicy mustard and basil from our garden.  So fresh and light.

The side salads were mixed greens (market pick up)  and grilled peppers which were left overs from mexican night with a sweet onion dressing + siracha (of course).

And now, I’m off to relax with my family and enjoy the last little bit of weekend we have left.  I hope you all had a great weekend, and please let me know if you try any of these recipes!  I’m pretty proud of them 🙂

Absolutely Amazing Zucchini Bread (and Amato’s)

Before I get to the good stuff (and trust me, it’s good) — I want to share my brunch this afternoon.

Amatos Ale House

Zach and I have been to Ale House many times for dinner — it’s actually one of the first places we went and helped sell us on our neighborhood when moving to Denver.

Today, we wanted to try it out for brunch, as we’ve heard a lot of great things about it as well.

The upstairs has one of the best outdoor patios and views of Downtown Denver in the entire city.  I love it.

Zach and I started brunch with a couple brunch drinks 🙂

Mimosas were on special, I couldn’t pass.

For brunch, I went with an Apple Chicken Sausage Omelet with a side of fruit and wheat toast.

It was AWESOME, and a lot of food.  Zach  had to help me with it, even after a run!

Zach also wanted to put his meal out on the blog, as it was pretty amazing.

Vanilla porter soaked cinnamon raison bread  french toast with bacon.  I can vouch, it was awesome.

While the service was very weird today . . .  that didn’t take away from the overall experience.  It was a beautiful morning, the drinks were good, and the food was GREAT.  I highly recommend Amato’s for both brunch and dinner.

With full bellies, we headed to Vitamin Cottage for the extra ingredients I needed for my busy afternoon of zucchini baking!

And with that, it’s time to get to the good stuff.

I’ve spoken multiple times of the huge zucchini my coworker gave me from her garden earlier in the week.  This puppy was no regular zuch, and I knew I was going to have to break out the big guns to use this one.

I spent a good chuck of time comparing recipes to eventually create one of my own.  Let me tell you — both Zach and I agree this one deserves a pat on the back.  Not to mention, I made it pretty freaking healthy!

Absolutely Amazing Zucchini Bread.

Ingredients 

• 1.5 cups of All Purpose Flour
• 1.5 cups of Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 tsp of salt
• 1 tsp of baking soda
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 2 tsp of cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 4 oz of applesauce
• 4 oz of oil
• 2 cups of granulated sugar
• 4 tsp of vanilla
• 2 cup of minced zucchini (I used the food processor and had mine very minced)

Directions

• Preheat oven to 325 and oil/butter 8 by 4 bread pans.
• Mince up 2 cups of zucchini (about 2 small zucchinis)
• Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl, set aside.
• Beat eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar together in a large bowl.
• Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet ingredients in small batches until they are completely combined.
• Fold in the zucchini
• Pour batter evenly in two pans and cook for 40-60 minutes (I am at elevation and mine took 45 minutes).
• Let sit for 20 minutes before removing from pan.
• Yields 2 loaves.

I’m enjoying a piece as I write this — and let me tell you, it’s amazing.  You wouldn’t know how healthy it is!  Please, enjoy!

Coming Later Tonight:  Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies.  YUM!!!

Music to Memories

Good morning all!

Sometimes I hate that I am in MST, an hour or two earlier than my family and friends in the Central and Eastern time zones.  But on these past two mornings, when I’ve woken up at 800 or 830 to all my healthy living bloggers and friends writing about their morning workouts, I’ve been thankful. 

It’s pretty freaking motivational to come on here, before I’ve even brushed my teeth (don’t judge) to see all of you who have busted out 10 miles, or 20  miles on the bike.  It’s much harder to skip my own workout when I see you all getting out there.  So, Thanks for that! 🙂  Just another reason I love this community!

So, since I was woken up and sparked quickly by motivation from you all, I got to my recovery run pretty quickly.

Workout For the Day:  Recovery run:  4.12 miles in 40 minutes (40 minutes steady run, walk it out until 40).

I was a sweaty beast after this run.  I was really reminded of one of the benefits of recovery runs while working too:  learning to push through on fatigued runs.  There were many moments I was ready to pull the trigger and stop, but that half marathon PR I want sticks with me…so 4.12 miles later I was a happy lady and done for the day.

Music and Memories

I had a moment while running today.  As I mentioned, I struggled quite a bit this morning on my run  (not that there are ever many runs where I don’t struggle).

I had my ipod on shuffle, and in my last faithful 10 minutes, when I really needed it, a song came on that instantly brought me back in time.  THE STARTING LINE.  All of my girlfriends and I used to love The Starting Line.  I know there have been many a nights where we all rocked out, and I may or may not have even seen them live once or twice in college.

Honestly, when the song came on, I couldn’t stop smiling. Instead of running, I kept thinking like I was with all my girls, dancing and jumping around in our basements, and all of a sudden running didn’t seem so bad anymore.  I enjoyed it again.  Ironically enough, once the first song ended, another Starting Line song followed (Ipods don’t really do a great job of shuffling…).

It was the best 10 minutes of a run I’ve had in a long time, all because of the deja vu I got sent into thanks to a song tied to lots of memories.

Anyways…

I didn’t take any post-run pictures, as I thought you all have seen enough of those for the time being.  But, Zach did think he was cute this morning and decided to take pictures as I was trying to walk out of the door.

So flattering… you all know I love you to post those, considering I already look like a sweaty beast.  Nope, that’s just my natural morning glow.  Zach is one.lucky.man.

🙂

Zach just told me he wants to go out to brunch this morning (YAY!) So I’m going to jump in the shower! I love going out for brunch, and we hardly ever get to do it.

I’ll be back later today with recipes.  Remember that gigantic zucchini I’ve been talking about? It’s going to be turned into some great baked goods later today!

 

Question of the day:  What music/songs bring you back in time?