Chocolate Peanut Butter Maple Cookies

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Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial day weekend has passed, and to be honest, it didn’t even feel like an actual holiday. We are all still stuck indoors taking precautionary methods to avoid catching COVID-19. Personally, I’ve been craving travel, adventure, journey. I just want to go to the pool, the beach, a concert or even hang out at the mall with my husband. I know that sounds really ‘first world problemy’, so I’ll stop right there.

Anyone miss ‘normal’ life?

I miss my friends and seeing my family more often. Since I have been trying to concur my fear of flying, I was sooo looking forward to the California and Iceland trip we had planned this year, but that’ll have to be postponed until further notice. And I worry about businesses, every week I hear about major businesses that are falling apart, and mom and pop stores that don’t know what their next move will be. It’s a scary time to be in, I can’t even be sure of my own job stability now, how did we even get here?

Working from home isn’t all that bad though, there are joys in it. For me it has been a great time to take a breath and relax a bit. I don’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn, I have more time in the mornings and at night without a 1 hour commute to NYC. I can take life slower, enjoy simpler moments, do some self healing and self reflecting. This mandatory quarantine has really given all of us a chance to put life on pause, so we can actually live in the moment. And for that, I am grateful.

Gardening and Finding my Green Thumb

There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.

I’ve got to be honest, I’m not the gardener. My Dad is. My husband says I have the opposite of a green thumb, a red thumb. I unfortunately tend to kill any plant I get slowly over time. And I can’t figure out why! I’ve read plant journals, I’ve watched tons of plant videos, but still I have yet to find that balance. I think at first, I over watered everything, then I realized and overcompensated by under watering everything. I also overlooked some of the basic lighting requirements many of my plants had, and simply didn’t put them close enough to the window. This year, I want to change that.

My dad is my inspiration…

So after visiting up state and seeing my Dads AWESOME backyard garden, and his new hydroponics basement garden (SO COOL right!?), and my Father-in-Laws side of the house garden, I became inspired. I too wanted to grow something nutritious for us to enjoy this summer. I waited in home depots line many days to get all of the supplies I needed, wood to make a plant bed out of, and 880lbs of soil (manure, top soil, and peat moss), vegetables and herbs. We assembled it in the back of our apartment complex, where I got clearance to garden from the super, and built netting and posts around to keep deer away. And one week later, everything is growing BEAUTIFULLY! Almost everything I bought has doubled in size and nothing has been eaten by animals! I’m so excited!

If this works out, a few neighbors said they wanted to build a bed for themselves and garden next year, maybe even establish a community garden! It feels good to hear that the community is in support of the project. This year Tim and I are growing tomatoes, sage, parsley, dill, cilantro, lemon balm, mint, 4 different types of peppers, eggplant, and lots of basil!! Praying for a good crop throughout the season, as this is our first time doing this and we don’t really know what we are doing haha! My plan is to water it daily….and weed as needed. Hopefully that takes us through the season.

Who can ever have enough plants?

ALSO! I got more house plants!! Again, praying I don’t kill these beautiful babies! I always wanted a bird of paradise, and I found a GORGEOUS one at Home Depot, so we snatched it and so far so good! No brown or shriveled up leaves. I also have some new Monstera Deliciosas, some of which I will be selling cuttings of. And my mother in law nursed one of my favorite plants back to health last year, and gave it back to me for me to enjoy! So I have a mini jungle around my desk at home, and I LOVE IT! And we made a new TV stand to match the rest of our homemade living room furniture 🙂 To me, there isn’t anything better in a home than being surrounded by healthy greenery, and a happy husband <3

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Maple Cookies with a Twist!

Cookies make the world a better place.

Since I’ve been working from home, I have gotten the chance to try out some new recipes. And I’ll be sharing these recipes with you guys in the upcoming weeks (*shameless plug* subscribe to my newsletter if you haven’t yet)! Like for one, my husband and I bought a grill of Facebook Marketplace, and I’m pretty stoked about that. It’s a charcoal grill, so after watching a bunch of AvantGardeVegan‘s amazing youtube videos, I can’t wait to start grilling – vegan style!! It’s so funny, people ask me, ‘uh Nina but what can vegans grill?’. Oh poor poor souls, little do you know of the WONDERS of this delicious lifestyle!! For one, I’m thinking grilled peaches with homemade vanilla ice cream!! And grilled bbq tofu, fancy corn on the cob, grilled potatoes and broccoli florets, and to top it off, a GRILLED PIZZA! Let me not get ahead of myself just yet, I haven’t made any of these yet haha, but it’s in the works to do so! So hopefully that will go smoothly and I can share with you the success of grilling as a vegan.

But for today!! I’ve got SUCH a pick-me-up recipe. One that my husband deemed a ’10 out of 10′ recipe. CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER MAPLE COOKIES!!! Who here loves maple cookies *raises my hand*? You can stop right there, there isn’t anything more you need to do besides make this recipe. If you’re not a fan of chocolate or have a peanut allergy, substitute the peanut butter for ‘nut’ butter of your choosing, or enjoy the maple cookie portion of this recipe and your heart will be satisfied.

Who wants a LEGIT GOOD Gluten free dessert?

Got a peanut butter sweet tooth like me? Then add a dab of peanut butter on top! Have a love for all things chocolate? Then coat it in chocolate all around, on top, half, whatever your heart desires!! And if you’re like me and you love it all, then do it all!! What’s stopping you? Actually, one word of warning, these babies are dense, like 200 calories each cookie dense, so if you’re not ready to say no to yourself when you become addicted… maybe just stick to the maple cookie only part of this recipe, and minus the peanut butter and chocolate to make it a little lighter!

What I most love about it, is that most gluten free recipes I try turn out to be a bust. It’s very hard to bake without gluten! And without eggs. But this vegan and gluten free recipe has succeeded in texture, taste and ease factor. You can whip up a batch in less than 5 minutes to put into the oven! I love that it’s mainly made up of healthy almond flour, so if you’re trying to get more protein into your diet, heck this is one way to do it. If you have an almond allergy, I haven’t tried substituting it yet with coconut flour or all purpose gluten free flour, but I don’t see why you can’t. Ah, I just cannot wait to make more of these. One batch lasted us two weeks in the fridge, and already my husband is asking when I’m making more! This one’s a winner my friends. If my photos below don’t convince you to be a believer, I don’t know what will.

Eat, and be merry.

Go, enjoy life, eat cookies, get some fresh air, and ponder about what you are most thankful for in this moment. Write it down in a journal, pray or praise God for it, and find your inner happiness. We are all going through this tough time together, so let’s just be thankful for our health, and for each other. Until next time <3