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Saturday Night + Dark Chocolate Avocado Cookies
My Saturday evening was a low-key night at home. Sometimes, when the weekend comes around I am ready to dress up and go out with friends. Other times I’m so ready to spend time at home in comfy clothes and messy hair. Last night was one of the latter. It was a perfect compilation of making a healthy veggie-filled dinner, sipping on Sprout’s coffee, listening to new music (Echosmith’s album obsession), watching the latest Grey’s Anatomy episode, reading some of 50 Shades of Grey (more on that further down) and spontaneously creating a vegan-ish, gluten-free, and (most importantly) super-chocolately dessert.
Last weekend was full of craziness; next weekend I have all sorts of fun plans. So I really didn’t mind a casual Saturday night at home this weekend. It was so relaxing :)
Before last night, I hadn’t watched any television shows (including the news or Sports Center *gasp*) in over two weeks. Too busy playing catch-up from missing a week of school due to my internship! But now that I’m getting back on schedule, I had the series finale of Parenthood and the return of Grey’s Anatomy waiting for me in my Hulu queue.
In between though, I was struck with inspiration to raid my kitchen cupboards and create something for dessert that was still semi-healthy. Also….Sprout’s had avocados on sale this week so I bought 5. Then all 5 proceeded to ripen at the same exact time. This is my alternative to guacamole:
That adorable mug is from one of my best friends, Miss Chelsea! It is too perfect for me. (Chelsea and I are no strangers to baking with avocados, either!)
Chocolate Avocado Cookies:
Makes 20 soft cookies
- “meat” of 1 very ripe avocado
- 1/4 cup stevia (or substitute regular sugar)
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup Chobani Greek yogurt (0% fat, plain flavor)
- 1 egg
- 1 tps. vanilla
- 1 Tbs. instant coffee granules
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup oat flour (ground oats)
- splash of almond milk (approx. 3 Tbs)
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix the avocado, stevia, and sugar with a mixer until smooth.
3. Add in the yogurt, egg, and vanilla.
4. In a small bowl, combine oat flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and coffee granules. Add this dry mixture to the wet mixture. Stir to combine.
5. Add in almond milk as needed to thin out the batter.
6. Use a spoon to place batter on baking sheets. **Note: this batter will not flatten out or expand, so the “shape” it goes on the pan is the shape it will come out in.
7. Top cookie dough with chocolate chips. Bake for 10 minutes, and allow to cool before enjoying with a steaming mug of delicious coffee or a cold glass of milk. Sharing is highly recommended.
The recipe really was just an experiment, and thank goodness it turned out. My roommate and I polished off that place seconds after this photo was captured ;)
Now on to my reading material…. I love to read. My book shelves at home are completely filled with novels I’ve read but can’t bare to get rid of, mostly fiction. When I received a book for Christmas that I had already read, I decided to exchange it for 50 Shades of Grey and finally see what all of the hype is about.
Guys…… the writing style and the conversations between the characters are so weak, it ruins my interest in the plot! I know this book has millions of fans and maybe it improves? I wanted to finish reading the book before the movie comes out next week but honestly, I’d rather just read some blog posts instead :)
What’s your ideal Saturday night?
Pumpkin Hazelnut Cookies
It seems like every year, pumpkin recipes become more and more popular. With websites like Pinterest and the growing number of food bloggers, we are flooded with more pumpkin-y creations than ever. I am just as pumpkin-obsessed as the next, and have already enjoyed my fair share of pumpkin spice lattes, pumpkin spice oatmeal, and pumpkin-stuffed raviolis. However my FAVORITE pumpkin treat is soft and fluffy pumpkin cookies.
Fortunately for me, my friend Chelsea is just as much a fan and we planned an afternoon of baking in her adorable townhome. We started with an easy Cake Mix Cookie recipe from Julie over at Peanut Butter Fingers and altered it a little. To show you how unbelievably easy this really is, the ingredients are as follows:
1 box of cake mix
1 (15oz) can of pumpkin
Whatever mix-ins you want
So the original recipe called for Spice Cake. But our Target had the smallest cake selection ever so we were given the choices of chocolate, vanilla or carrot. Carrot is close enough, right? I mean it’s got orange flecks in it….
The carrot ended up being a GREAT call because it has the cinnamony spices and color in it plus orange carrot pieces that we can pretend are pumpkin ;) Chelsea and I made a batch of milk chocolate chip pumpkin cookies first.
After they came out so well, I made a second batch with Hazelnuts and White Chocolate Chips to bring to the Ping Pong Party. I kind of learned from the first batch:
A.) The shape/form you put the dough on the pan, is the shape they will come out. They do not expand/rise/flatten. They still look pretty “doughy”
B.) For the second batch I opted to use about 80% of the can of pumpkin instead of the whole thing. They were less doughy and it worked out much better :)
C.) They are to be enjoyed with a Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte.
- Preheat oven to 350 and grease a baking sheet.
- Combine cake mix and roughly 12 oz of pumpkin in a large mixing bowl.
- Add in chocolate chips, nuts, extra cinnamon, craisons or whatever your heart desires.
- Scoop cookie dough as roundly on to pan as possible, because they will keep this same shape.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes
This makes approximately 36 mini cookies, 66 calories and 2g fat each.
The pumpkin cookies with white chocolate chips and chopped hazelnuts were a hit and the plate was empty before the party ended. They are seriously so easy to make, you could literally go to the store, buy the ingredients, make the dough, pop them in the over and be eating them within an hour.
I have a feeling these wouldn’t be bad with a chocolate cake mix…. if anyone tries it, let me know!
Pin this recipe here. 
