I’m trying to feed the fam more healthily in addition to lose a few more pounds, and any bread or cookie with fruit or veggies has always qualified as healthy in my book.;) Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that I can inhale the entire loaf of bread just because it contains a zucchini or carrot. Additionally, not all baked goods containing fruits and or veggies are all that healthy for you. Add some butter, sugar, eggs, oil, all that good stuff to the mix and the healthy aspect goes right out the window. I stumbled upon this recipe yesterday when looking for something to do with a few bananas that were past their prime and voila, Healthy Banana Almond Coconut Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies!

The cookie itself is a bit different from your regular cookie, no egg, no flour, no sugar, but still VERY tasty and it satisfies that need for a baked good without being terribly bad for you. And for my weight watchers buddies, 2 cookies have 3 points. Not bad! Here is the link from the 101 Cookbooks blog, enjoy! And below is the recipe as written in the blog, I substituted olive oil and sweetened coconut, that will be our little secret, k?;)

Nikki’s Healthy Cookie Recipe

You can use unsweetened carob, or grain sweetened chocolate chips, or do what I did and chop up 2/3 of a bar of Scharffen berger 70%. I sort-of shaved half the bar with a knife and then cut the rest into bigger chip-sized chunks. You can make your own almond meal by pulsing almonds in a food processor until it is the texture of sand - don’t go too far or you’ll end up with almond butter. And lastly, the coconut oil works beautifully here, just be sure to warm it a bit - enough that it is no longer solid, which makes it easier to incorporate into the bananas. If you have gluten allergies, seek out GF oats.

3 large, ripe bananas, well mashed (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil, barely warm - so it isn’t solid (or alternately, olive oil)
2 cups rolled oats
2/3 cup almond meal
1/3 cup coconut, finely shredded & unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
6 - 7 ounces chocolate chips or dark chocolate bar chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, racks in the top third.

In a large bowl combine the bananas, vanilla extract, and coconut oil. Set aside. In another bowl whisk together the oats, almond meal, shredded coconut, cinnamon, salt, and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until combined. Fold in the chocolate chunks/chips.The dough is a bit looser than a standard cookie dough, don’t worry about it. Drop dollops of the dough, each about 2 teaspoons in size, an inch apart, onto a parchment (or Silpat) lined baking sheet. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes. I baked these as long as possible without burning the bottoms and they were perfect - just shy of 15 minutes seems to be about right in my oven.

Makes about 3 dozen bite-sized cookies.

Lilac Dress Boutique opened last year in Alameda, California and it is simply a DARLING little dress shop. The space is gorgeous, the wedding dress selection is fabulous, the non-wedding (bridesmaids, prom, and just your every day cute dress!) attire are too die for, and the best part of the whole shop is the owner! Pilar is just lovely. Scarlett LOVES to go visit ‘the brides’ as she says because Pilar always sits her on her lap and reads her a book. She is really sweet and she stocks her shop with the most beautiful things that you don’t see everywhere.

I can’t keep up with her designers as she is always getting new dresses in, but I think her wedding gown designers are Nicole Miller, Lynn Lugo, Adele Weschler specifically the Eco-Couture collection. All gowns are priced below $2,000 and the selection is wonderful. Here is a sexy Nicole Miller number:

And these Adele Weschler’s:

The Ready to Wear designers are BCBG, Yoana Barachi, Nanette Lepore, Susanna Monaco, Tibi, Trina Turk. I could get into real trouble whenever I go over to drop off some more bridal jewelry because I always end up trying on new things!

And Pilar just started designing her own private label dresses and they are just as lovely as she is, look at this darling dress:

If you are close to Alameda and need a wedding dress or a cocktail dress or just want to pop in and say hi, go see Pilar you will not be sorry.

This blogging thing has had me stumped for a while. The main goal of blogging is to have new content to draw people to my site to sell jewelry after all that is what I do. But then it also serves the dual purpose of allowing me an outlet to blab about whatever I have going on and those of you who know me know I like to blab about all kinds of random stuff. But sometimes I get all caught up in myself and how other people view me and the stuff that I write here, how it affects the perception of me and what the heck does spaghetti and meatballs have to do with bridal jewelry anyway???! And then I get stuck in my own head and don’t want to write anything here AT ALL.

But I have come to a monumental (not really, sometimes I tend to exaggerate a teeny tiny bit) decision. I am going to just start blabbing about everything again. I first started blogging/blabbing on the internet when I was planning my wedding and I became friends with other wedding obsessed brides to be and we all shared in the trials and tribulations of wedding planning. It felt safe because we were all blabbing about wedding stuff and our biggest decisions were blush vs. bashful. And even though at the time, we agonized over which way to go; if we chose blush our great Aunt Tootie might be offended and if we chose bashful our Mother would definitely not approve, the horror! But in the end, either way we chose, it was really not that big of a deal. I know, I can’t believe I am saying it out LOUD. But there it is.

The decisions I make today are a wee bit more difficult and have much bigger consequences so sharing them with the internets is much more scary. BUT I have come to the realization that I am only accountable to myself. Seems like SUCH a simple concept, but in reality very hard for me to put into practice.

So, in the words of the inimitable Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, ‘I feel like letting my freak flag fly.’;) ROCK ON.