Tag: New Year

apple pie cookies | Popcorn & Chocolate

Apple Pie Cookies

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IMG_9303Just over a week ago I was on vacation… sitting by a warm fire, relaxing in front of the tv with a warm cup of tea. And now is the first week back at work and it’s just as rough as I thought it would be. I did have one thing to look forward to: the new season of The Bachelor. With my friends at work, we pick Bachelor fantasy teams and earn points for different things that the contestants do each episode. It makes it that much more fun to watch, so I was pretty excited to see the premier last Monday with my, as it turned out, less than rock-star team. I won’t give away any spoilers in case you haven’t watched yet, but am I the only one who is surprised by some of the girls Ben sent home?? Anyways, that really got me through Monday.

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And now I’m sitting in my apartment on the coldest day of the winter so far (windchill put us at -2 this morning) dreaming of these deliciously warm apple pie cookies. For Christmas, I made these eggnog snickerdoodles, these healthy thin mints, and these chocolate chunk gingerbread cookies. But that wasn’t enough, so I came up with these apple pie cookies as a lighter sweet treat.

apple pie cookies | Popcorn & ChocolateThey are cinnamony and appley and soft. I made them at home and my mom was dipping them in toffee sauce, which was delicious! So feel free to add toffee to these if you want. Also, I rolled these cookies in cinnamon and white sugar before baking since I didn’t have raw sugar on hand, but if you want to make them refined sugar free, use raw turbinado sugar instead. These cookies are perfect to satisfy your sweet tooth but still keep you on track with your healthy new years goals.

apple cookies | Popcorn & ChocolateYield: 10-12 cookies; Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup coconut sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 1/3 cup chopped apples (about half inch cubes)

Cinnamon Sugar Dip:

  • 2 tablespoons white sugar (or turbinado sugar)
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients until well combined (flour through coconut sugar). Stir in the vanilla extract, applesauce, coconut oil, and honey until combined. Finally, fold in the chopped apples. The dough will be sticky. In a small bowl combine the sugar and cinnamon to dip the cookies into. Use a spoon to gather tablespoon sized balls, flatten, and carefully roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture, then place on the parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

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Behind The Scenes Photo Dump From 2015

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Umm it’s 2016. Like, what? Did 2015 even happen? Where was I? Does anyone else feel like 2015 flew by? Before we dive right on into 2016 I want to take a moment to reflect on 2015. Although it happened in a blink of an eye, we had a lot of fun over here at Popcorn & Chocolate. Some of these moments we shared with you and some we didn’t, so I thought I would do a little round up post of some behind the scene shots from 2015. Please excuse the low quality pictures – this is just for fun!

January 

The year started in typical P&C fashion with a couple selfies. May or may not have involved some alcohol 😉

IMG_9379As our news year’s resolution we decided to cut out processed sugar, which basically just meant we made a lot of cookies with coconut sugar instead of regular sugar. We also ate a lot of that ice cream..

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We had a lot of snow days during 2015, which meant a lot of shoveling and a lot of cookie baking.

IMG_9692January ended with my birthday and a lovely crown Rose made me!

February

IMG_9882We watched the Super Bowl and played Bingo during the commercials. Keep your eyes open this year for a fun Super Bowl post!

This is what typically happens after a food photoshoot (okay and sometimes during..). Those peanut butter and jelly pancakes were just too good.

March

This is what most of our photo shoots look like – someone standing on a table or a chair and always in pajamas. We made this bailey’s cake for St. Patricks day and were enjoying it all month long.

April

IMG_5900For Easter we made these bunting flags, which I so beautifully modeled, what am I doing with my fingers??

Then it was Rose’s birthday where I got to decorate my bar cart full of presents and goodies. We also went hiking and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cause those pancakes weren’t enough.

IMG_0780We ended the month with my favorite day of the year – free cone day at Ben and Jerry’s.

MayIMG_1181Lots of walks and hiking in May.

IMG_1280We did possibly my favorite photo shoot to date with this delicious cilantro lime popcorn.

IMG_1333Lilacs were in full bloom and we went to the local arboretum to see them!

IMG_1665We went to wine night at the zoo where we saw kangaroos!

June

IMG_1698We moved. It was stressful. This meal made up for all of it.

IMG_1848We went strawberry picking and had to stick our heads in this corn.

July

IMG_6898This is what happens when you try to take pictures of popsicles.

IMG_1968The famous crotch shot from our watermelon mojitos… nice socks.

Lots and lots of trips to Cape Cod, which were filled with lots of fish tacos and lots of puzzles and lots of not pictured s’mores.

August

IMG_2765True life I’m a crafter and a chocolate addict.. this is a typical scene found in our apartment. As are these…

We were busy painting away in August.

September

Processed with VSCOcam with c1 presetWe visited this goon.

IMG_3271We also finally got a tripod! No more standing on tables.. still pajamas though, always pajamas. And socks.

October

We went to plant night and added to our ever growing succulent collection.

IMG_8145On our trip back home  we scared the bejesus out of my dog in our Halloween costumes.

We had a Halloween party the night before Halloween (and didn’t take down the decorations for a couple of weeks); on actual Halloween we ate popcorn and lots of chocolate.

November

IMG_4114The not so appetizing attempts at what I ate Wednesday.

Someone always gets the fun job of holding up the background. Awkward fingers out again for this apple cider popcorn picture.

IMG_4305It’s hard to find space to make lunch whilst working on 3 different projects…

December

Some presents underneath our tiny fake Christmas tree and one batch of many many many Christmas cookies we baked.

IMG_4588“Why won’t anyone help me up?” Back home for the Christmas holidays.

IMG_4655.jpgDecember wouldn’t be complete without some gingerbread houses. These are my mom’s, mine, and Rose’s masterpieces.

There you have it folks! Some highlights and outtakes from our 2015. Hope you enjoyed it! Let us know in the comments below some of your favorite times from 2015! Happy New Year!

 

Update on cutting out processed sugar

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Hello!

For New Years we decided to cut out any processed sugar from our diets. It has been about two weeks so we wanted to give everyone an update on how we are doing and some go to snacks and treats we have been enjoying. To begin with, we are healthy eaters in general and try and make good decisions in terms of what food we buy and what sweets we allow ourselves to eat. But, after doing some research and a few trips to the grocery store, we were both shocked by what we would normally deem healthy, actually have a lot of sugar.

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The item we were most shocked by was Greek yogurt. We occasionally have this for breakfast or as a mid-afternoon snack. But we hadn’t actually realized how much sugar is hiding in most Greek yogurts, mainly the flavored ones. They can have more sugar than a bowl of ice cream. We used to eat these for breakfast, which is to say we were basically going over our sugar limit first thing in the morning. Here is a website that we looked at that gave us better insight into what is in Greek yogurt and which brands/types are better for you. Instead of buying flavored Greek yogurt we now stick to plain and add fruit or a dash of honey to sweeten it naturally.

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Another food that we swapped with a healthier alternative is cereal. We switched to granola or muesli. Cereal again has a lot of sugar, but is worse at hiding it, as it was usually the second ingredient listed on the cereals we like (even the ones that claim to be healthier). We have been trying to buy granola that doesn’t have too many ingredients and is sweetened with agave, maple syrup, or honey. These are the ones we are currently enjoying.

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Lunch and dinner haven’t been much of a problem for us as we typically cook our own meals and use whole and natural ingredients. The one thing we switched was what bread we were buying to make sandwiches since some brands do contain processed sugar. We try and look for bread that is made with 100% whole wheat and that doesn’t contain any processed sugar (high fructose corn syrup, sugar). We’ve been eating the Ezekiel sprouted grain bread and have been enjoying the more natural taste it has. Here is another website that was helpful when choosing which bread to buy.

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The hardest part of this challenge was our love for an after dinner sweet treat. We haven’t exactly cut it out completely, but we have had fun in the kitchen experimenting with adding unrefined sugar (agave, maple syrup, honey, coconut sugar) to different cookie recipes. At the beginning of the new year, we gathered up any cookies, chocolate, and crackers that had a lot of sugar or used processed sugar and put them away in the closet. We haven’t dipped into the bag yet, and by making our own treats we have been able to satisfy out sweet tooth without breaking our resolution. It’s surprising that after doing this for a while, we’ve really stopped craving some of the processed snacks we used to enjoy.

IMG_4728You can check out my Pinterest board Sweets and Treats for some recipe ideas (not all of them use unrefined sugar so just be wary! We’ve been trying to sub in unrefined sugar) Our favorite has been these peanut butter and coconut cookies from My Happy Place.

Check back as the month goes on for more updates and possibly some recipes using unrefined sugar. We encourage you all to try out some recipes subbing out processed sugar for unprocessed, and to look carefully at the ingredient lists on your favorite foods– you never know what you might find. These past few weeks have really made us more critical in what we buy and snack on. We will continue to update you as we learn more!

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