A breakfast cookie recipe & some exercise to boot!

To all of my friends who observe Lent, I wish you a "Happy Ash Wednesday."  I hope you enjoyed Fat Tuesday, but not too much.  I recently learned that a Welsh tradition is to eat pancakes on Fat Tuesday.  I forgot all about it until after dinner last night.  Oh, well.  I'm not Welsh anyway, although my husband is... a teensy, weensy bit.  We will have to remember this old tradition next year.  I make a killer blueberry pancake that would have fit the bill quite nicely, even if it is a bit indulgent for our style of eating.

This girl settled for stirfry for Fat Tuesday.  I did mess around in the kitchen a bit afterwards coming up with a breakfast cookie that I thought was do-able.  See, I work out early in the morning and then head off to work.   I hit the office about 20 minutes before my start time so I usually eat my breakfast then.  Sometimes, though, especially if I've had a really good workout, I'm really, really hungry on the ride in and need a little somethin' somethin' to hold me over til I get to the office.  A breakfast cookie or granola bar is perfect to eat in the car.  I'm still going to tweak this recipe a bit to get it a little lighter.  The "dough" is fairly heavy, and I found two cookies to be very satisfying as a meal.

The ingredient list is long and I did feel like I just opened up the cupboard, adding a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  I think you can make adjustments where you feel it necessary, adding different spices, etc.  I used a large cookie scoop -- the kind you use for making muffins -- so my cookies were fairly large.  I bet they probably have 3 Tbsp or so of dough in each cookie.

Here's the recipe:

3 bananas, mashed
1 Tbsp nut milk
1 Tbsp pomegranate juice
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp maple syrup
1 c. whole oats (not instant)
1/2 to 3/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 c. unsweetened coconut
1/4 c. raisins or other dried fruit
1/4 c. peanut butter (or other nut butter)
2 Tbsp sunflower seeds
1 Tbsp ground flaxseed
2 tsp cinnamon

Heat oven to 350 degrees. 
Mix all ingredients together in large bowl.  Line baking sheet with parchment paper.  Using a large scoop, place about 3 Tbsp of dough onto baking sheet and press down gently with damp fingers.  Bake 20 minutes or until slightly brown and firm to the touch.  Cool and remove to racks. 

 These cookies will provide you a lot of energy to power up your workout or to fuel you after sweatin' to the oldies and to keep you going until lunch.

Speaking of exercise, I thought I would share with you two of my favorite exercises I do on a regular basis.  Monday is my leg workout day and at the gym, I usually find an empty room (the basketball court is nice) and do some crazy moves, working all the muscles in my legs.  One of those exercises I love is killer for the outside of the hip/butt area.  I've heard it referred to as a windshield wiper, but when I "googled" that exercise I got something totally different that I think only Hercules himself could do.  I'm going to try to explain as best I can and then you give it a shot.  Maybe one day I'll let someone make a video of me doing it (it will be a cold day somewhere when THAT happens).

So you're in a downward dog position.  That's where you're on your hands and feet in an upside down "V". Right? Like this:

downward dog

Then you lift the right leg up high and twist it over the left leg and touch it to the floor. Do this ten time on each side.  Trust me, you'll feel it in the upper leg and glute. 

Another exercise that I like starts in the same down dog position.  Now, stretch yourself out to an upward dog position.  Do this quickly.  Now quickly return yourself to the down dog position.  Do that cycle ten times without stopping.  This is a great stretch for your back, your abs and a good shoulder workout in the process.

upward dog

It would seem that the names I was given for these two exercises both are either wrong or are not the common name because when I Googled "banana swing" this is definitely not what I got.  In any event, try these two out and if you come up with a name for them, let me know.

Enjoy your midweek & I will be back her Friday with some sort of mumbling.  I'm off to begin my Lenten journey.