Chocolate

Paleo Without Pity: Gluten-Free High Protein Fudge Bites

I appear to be back.  With my recent downsizing I appear to have 5 free minutes on my hands so I thought I would dust off the old blog.   

I went to see a nutrionist a few weeks ago to help me lose weight and improve my performance at Cross-Fit, but if we are going to be totally honest, from my run times, to my pull up attempts, I would be a lot better at things if there was less of me to move around.  I am doing about 75-80% of her meal plan, and have been adopting the different components slowly to try and make them stick.  

I did the LuRong Challenge back in the fall, and I did lose weight but it was too much of a change from my regular eating patterns, too soon and too intense to be sustainable.

The two changes I seem to have gotten down is the veggie/protein/complex carb lunch, and the post workout recovery meal.  Post workout recovery food has always been a challenge because I am not a big fan of protein shakes.  Or to be more accurate, I do like protein shakes, but only when you doctor them to the point, where its a Frosty with Protein in it.

Once of my recovery options is to mix 4 oz of mashed sweet potato with 2 scoops of protein powder.  1st I made a fudgy-brownie thing with it, but then I thought I would pop it in muffin tins and bake it.  EUREKA!  This ends up being delicious, and since I use mini-muffin tins, its also easy to eat while I am cooling down or driving home from the 5:30am class.

This recipe gives me 24 mini-muffins, and I eat 4 as a post work out meal, so I get six days of post workout yummies from this.

Gluten-Free High Protein Fudge Bites:

12oz Mashed Sweet Potatoes

6 scoops UMP Chocolate Protein Powder

Water

Mix the sweet potatoes and protein powder together, adding enough water to make a thick brownie like batter

Spray mini muffin tins with coconut oil spray, drop batter into tins.

Cook on 425 for 10-12 minutes

Let cool and pop out.

I also think if you are really careful about mixing in the sweet potato you could feed these to a veggie hater and they would never know.

 

 

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Dessert Without Drama-Slow Cooker Chocolate Cake

Many of you that know me, might know that I love my slow cookers.  All three of them.  I typically use them to make sauce, chili, or beer and onion chicken, but I keep seeing slow cooker desserts online and decided I had to try one.

I picked Slow Cooker Chocolate Cake from Recipe Shoebox, who found it in a Betty Crocker Book.   This cake was very easy to make, and super delicious.  The hardest part was waiting for the 30 minutes after cooking to end so we could dig in.  Vanilla ice cream is essential to this dish.

The only thing is this is an ‘eat it the night you make it recipe’ as I am not a big fan of nuking cake.

I made this in my 2qt slow cooker.  You need to use the small one for  the recipe as printed, otherwise the cake will be dry and you won’t get the sauce.

Slow Cooker Chocolate Cake

10-15 minutes prep time
2-2 1/2 hours cook time

The Cake
1 c flour (I snuck in whole wheat flour & I bet Gluten Free would be fine)
1/2 c sugar
2 Tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c milk
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 package chocolate chips (6oz) I added more
1/2 c chopped nuts (optional)

The Saucy Part
1 c brown sugar
1/4 c cocoa powder
2 c hot water (If I was making this for adults, I would probably swap out a little water for kahlua)

SUPPLIES: Cooking Spray, 2 QT Slow Cooker, Mixing Bowl, 4 Cup Measuring Cup, Spatula, dry ingredient measuring cup, measuring spoons.

How To

1. Spray the inside of your slow cooker with non stick spray or rub butter all around inside the bowl.

2. Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

3. Stir in the milk, oil, vanilla until smooth. At this point you can add chocolate chips/and or nuts.

4. Spread the batter evenly in the crock pot.


5. Meanwhile, heat up the water in a microwave safe measuring cup (4 cups size or bigger). [Takes 3-4 minutes]

6. Add the brown sugar and the cocoa powder and stir until smooth. You may need to use a whisk or fork to get out the     lumps of sugar.

7. Pour the liquid mixture carefully and evenly over the top of the cake batter in the crockpot.

8. Cover with the lid and turn the slow cooker on high for 2-2 1/2 hours or until a toothpick comes out clean. Then turn off the slow cooker. The longer you wait to serve this, the thicker the sauce will get.

You MUST serve this with the sauce.  Its completely essential.