Monday, June 16, 2014

Healthy Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies + Erin Condren GIVEAWAY Winner!

Happy Monday, Y'all!
I hope everyone's weekend was full of fun, relaxation and delicious food -- mine definitely was... maybe a little too much delicious food.
WHAT AM I SAYING?  You can never have too much!
 
On Friday night Peter and I went to Ninfa's (a local Mexican Restaurant) and we devoured a large bowl of queso.. and a few margaritas.
Saturday my family and I made a spur the moment decision to go to the New Orleans, Audubon Zoo, which was beautiful by the way! We ate at the World Famous -- Mother's Restaurant. If you are in New Orleans for any reason whatsoever go to Mother's (pronounced Muh-thur's).
 
This was my second time going but it's something about the atmosphere of that place that is unlike any other! I got the Turkey Ferdi with cheese and it was the size of my face, which I was totally okay with.
Sunday, my family and I decided to get the day started early. We headed to 7:30AM mass then went over the Frank's Restaurant for their famous breakfast. It was delicious. I got the Eggs Benedict (of course) and it was incredible. It was a large piece of smoked ham, topped with two grilled biscuits, 2 poached eggs, covered with a rich, creamy, Cajun style hollandaise sauce + shrimp!
Oh yeah... there were shrimp!
That night, we went with my Mom's side of the family Father's Day celebration at Tokyo Café -- a hibachi restaurant in Baton Rouge! I love sushi + the atmosphere at a hibachi especially with your family is so fun! I ended up getting 3 rolls of sushi, so did my Dad, and so did my sister, not realizing how ginormous they would be... We ended up taking home most of it! Yaya, left overs for lunch today!

Overall, I definitely had a good, food-filled weekend!

Now onto some delicious cookies!
I made these cookies last week and am beyond excited to share this recipe with you guys -- "You guys are gonna luv dis" (Paula Deen voice).
 
Here's a fun fact: my favorite cookies in the entire world are Subway cookies. Specifically the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut with the Sugar Cookie as a close second. But the nutrition facts on that not are the best.
220 Calories, 29g Carbs, 11g Fat 2g Protein.
 
They are amazing, but definitely not worth all of that fat.
 
I recently was given a jar of Coconut Butter from Nikki's Coconut Butter to review (which I am now obsessed with. I chose the Macadamia Nut Cookie flavor because like I said before, I love those cookies!
It came in a few days ago and I have been dying to try it out because:
1] it was my first time trying out Coconut butter... ever.
2] I was desperately craving a good cookie.

And I think I solved my problem.

I love Nikki's because they only use pure, natural ingredients. These are the ingredients for the Macadamia Nut Cookie flavor:
Organic Coconut, Roasted Macadamia Nuts, Dates, Organic Honey, Organic Vanilla (Vanilla Beans, Alcohol, Water), Sea Salt

I love that you can pronounce everything, have seen them before and are all mostly organic! The texture was pretty cool too -- I tend to use coconut oil a lot so I thought it would be similar to that, but it was more of a mix between a jar of Almond Butter and Coconut Oil combined!
Now let's bake those cookies!

Ingredients:
2 TBSP Nikki's Macadamia Nut Cookie Coconut Butter
1 scoop Vanilla AboutTime Protein Powder
1/4 cup Egg Whites
1/4 cup Almond Meal
1 TSP Honey
1 TSP Vanilla Extract
1 TBSP Walnuts
1/4 cup Dark Chocolate Chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine all ingredients into a medium sized mixing bowl and mix well!
3. Lay one sheet of wax paper over a baking sheet. Use tablespoon to make 1 TBSP sized cookie servings. I was able to have 11 cookies!
4. Bake for 8-10 Minutes or until edges begin to turn golden brown.
5. Enjoy!
These cookies were amazing. Especially out of the oven they just melted in your mouth -- Madison (my sister) and Peter gave these a thumbs up!! I was actually super nervous about these because I kind of just made up the recipe on the spot -- I don't always like to measure things or know how much to put of what so I winged it and decided I should probably measure it so I could share with you guys : )

My favorite part about these cookies is the nutrition info! You could have 3 of these cookies and still be under the amount of calories that 1 of those other cookie equals!

Nutrition per Cookie:
65 Calories, 3.0g Carbs, 4.2g Fat, 3.8g Protein
*Recipe makes 11 cookies
 
And they are not lacking in flavor whatsoever -- I may, or may not, have eaten some for breakfast too!
 
Now that we all have cookies on the brain, let's get to the winner of the Erin Condren Giveaway! *drumroll please....* 
Congratulations to Kim Haley!!-- the winner of the Erin Condren $50 Gift code GIVEAWAY!
You have been emailed with all of the info -- so look out for that! : )
 
Thanks to everyone who participated in the giveaway. I honestly thought 2 people would submit their names + share the post or anything like that... but overall there were 939 entries!! I cannot thank you guys enough!
 
I may or may not have another giveaway with a different company coming up soon -- so stay tuned! This giveaway may or may not be food related! ; )

 
 
Have a fit + fantastic day!
 
 
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Follow Nikki's Coconut Butter:
 
 
 *Disclaimer: The AboutTime and Nikki's Coconut Butter products were sent to me as a promotional item for my review. I love the products anyway and was more than happy to promote them on my blog. I received no compensation and my opinions are mine and mine alone.

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