Peanut Butter, Banana, and Chocolate Protein Cookies

I workout now.  Seriously.  Planks, crunches, squats, and now even jumping jacks.  I haven't worked out since I was forced to while I was in the military.  We have three kids and got a pool last year.  My poor tummy has seen better days.  I told my workout buddy (i.e. the girl who texts me to stop being a baby when I whine about our routines we do on our own time) that when I bend over to touch my toes my stomach hangs down like my very own udder.  Welcome to heifer-dom.

I'm at a healthy weight, I'm just way out of shape.  The problem with all of this working out is that I'm starving.  Constantly starving!  I also got rid of any junk food we had to tempt me so now the hubby and kiddos insist that they're starving.  Thank God for Pinterest.  There are soooo many recipes for healthy crap on there!  The first one I came across was this one.  Mine came out NOTHING like the picture so I had to tweak it into my own recipe.  Big surprise.

Bratty Protein Cookies

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease your pan.

In a bowl smash two ripe bananas.

Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract and 2/3 cups of unsweetened applesauce.  You can add a little honey, too, if you want added sweetness. Then mix in 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter.

In a separate bowl (or on top of your banana mix if you don't want to dirty another dish) mix 1 1/2 cups of oatmeal, 1 scoop of vanilla flavored soy protein powder, and 1/3 cup of dark chocolate chips.  Mix everything together until it looks like (duh) cookie dough.

Drop spoonfuls of your dough on to your pan and then pat them down into cookie shapes.  My first batch I left as little balls thinking they'd spread like typical cookies.  Wrong.  I had funny little lumps instead.

The original recipe said to cook for 30 minutes but mine were done within 15.  Let them cool and then remove from pan.  Makes about 2 dozen--don't eat them all at once.  :)

Healthy Schmealthy

Running a blog pretty much sucks.  It takes time that as a stay at home mom to three kiddos is something I have very little of.  It takes cool ideas and nifty writing skills.  So, I kind of shied away from Bratty Budgets.  I was more concerned with keeping the house clean (didn't work out), organizing my life (yeah, right), and focusing on life beyond my laptop (so far so good).  Buuut, I miss Bratty Budgets.  So, I'm back.  I figure I'll have a few sporadic posts here and there and it'll just have to suffice.

Anywho, update time.  I'm out of shape and my comfy jeans are too tight.  Button those babies up and I've got some serious muffin top overhang going on.  I'm cool with the extra weight but it'll be summer pretty soon and I plan on spending a lot of time in the pool.  This means sucking it in won't be good enough.  My family is now miserable as I have yanked all the unhealthy crap out of the cupboards and replaced them with fruits and veggies.  I read that you can eat veggies all day, as much as you want, and it's good for you (meaning the overhang shouldn't multiply like it would eating a whole bag of Ruffles).  The hardest part about this is fruits and veggies aren't for lazy people (me).  It also means the older kid's spend twice as long packing their lunch for school.  So I tried to make it easier.

I made a snack drawer in the fridge.  So far it consists of individual baggies of cherry tomatoes, baby carrots, and grapes.  I've also thrown in string cheese and a few cups of fruit.  I also have lots of other fruits and veggies but I'm not sure how to incorporate them into the snack drawer or the cabinet.  How long does kiwi last once you slice it?  What about clementines after they're peeled?  If you know, please pass it on to me. Otherwise I'll be doing some more googling.  For now, this is a good start.