Peanut Butter Banana Breakfast Cookies (oh ya.)

(Note: nothing pictured above is used in this recipe, because they're vegan and gluten free. But I liked that picture. It's happy. So I used it!)

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Asking me to pick my favorite meal is like asking me to pick my favorite sibling. It's just not right. They're all so great and I love to enjoy them in their own way.

But, unlike with my siblings, if you really forced my hand, I would likely admit that there is a baby chance breakfast edges out lunch and dinner. Just a tiny bit!

Because on mornings that I don't have breakfast prepared in advance, I begin to panic a bit. The fact is, most days I wake up absolutely ravenous, to the point that I need a snack before I even get to breakfast time at my desk.  It's just the best way to start the day.

But you know what contends pretty closely with breakfast? Dessert. Which is why, when my friend Emily sent me this recipe for breakfast cookies, I had to make them immediately. 

Especially because I had two ripe bananas ready for battle. It was fate!

As you all know by now, I look at recipes as a great place to begin negotiation; a starting off point, really. The satisfaction I find in altering a recipe successfully, so I can avoid a trip to the grocery is actually a little scary. But we all have our vices, right?

So without further ado, my take on peanut butter banana oat breakfast cookies (which yes, I have realized that I like EVERY single word in that name), straight from my kitchen to yours this morning...

Peanut Butter Banana Oat Breakfast Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 whole ripe bananas, mashed until creamy
• 1/2 c. peanut butter 
• 2/3 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 c. Vega chocolate protein powder
• 1 t. Earth Balance vegan butter
• 1.5 c. quick oats
• 1/4 c. Enjoy Life chocolate chips (Side note: I recently found these and saw they were gluten, soy and dairy free. I am not all of those things, but I was so intrigued by them and had to know, ASAP, how they would taste. And they were surprisingly amazing.)

To make:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Mix wet ingredients, then add in dry (real talk: I just mixed them all at once. But grown ups would say you should do it this way) 
• Let dough rest for 10 minutes
• Drop on greased pan or parchment paper
• Bake cookies for 15 to 17 minutes, or until golden brown

Eat for breakfast all week!

Happy day! 

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cheerleader

I wrote this post back in April, but never felt like publishing it. But today, I figured, heck, why not? So without further ado, an oldie for you...

Almost exactly two years ago, I went through a break up that rocked my world. I'll spare you the sordid details of what happened out of respect for all parties involved, but I will say that it was the kind of ending that left serious devastation in its wake. It was a break up in the truest sense of the words: leaving me broken with very fragmented pieces left behind. Pieces that I wasn't sure how - or even if - they fit together anymore.

In a weird way, I feel like I almost blacked out for the first week after it happened. But at the same time, I will never forget even the tiniest details. Thinking about the way I felt in those moments almost brings me to tears again. The way I couldn't eat or sleep for weeks. Every conversation I had. The way I clung to anyone that would give me their listening ear - my lifelines.

It was a time of self-doubt that compares to nothing else I've ever experienced. A time when you ask yourself 1,000 questions: what did I do wrong? After all those years, what changed? How could the we we were be the we were are today?

And then, the more dangerous ones: Am I not pretty enough? Fun enough? Great enough? Or just enough altogether?

I was talking with a friend recently about a similar situation and she asked me how you get over those feelings - how do you ever begin to believe in yourself again? How do you believe that even though he didn't think you were enough, someone else will?

And it took me back to a conversation I had with my mom the first day after we broke up. She said, "Whitney, this has to be a time of constant, positive self-talk. You have to believe in yourself. You have to believe you're OK and tell yourself you are worthy, even when you don't believe it."

I followed her advice in the way only someone who is truly heartbroken will do. The way only someone who cannot figure out if, how or when they'll feel normal again will follow advice. Especially from their mom.

The conversation, though much heavier, takes me back to a very similar one in seventh grade. It was the day of student council elections and I told my mom I hadn't voted for myself, because I felt guilty doing it. And I'll never forget the way she looked at me and said, "Whitney, you have to be your biggest cheerleader. You cannot expect others to believe in you if you do not believe in yourself."

As we get older, I find that we often go one of two ways: we begin to believe in ourselves more and more. Or we begin to let the wear and tear of life take a toll and believe in ourselves less and less.

Of course, we all have our days of doubt. Our days when our messy hair and mistakes and blunders weigh on us. But on the whole - at the end of the day - we have to be the ones reminding ourselves: we are enough, just how we are.

In this world of self-improving, spring cleaning and bathing suit season readying, the power of positive self-talk is very real. And in case no one has told you yet today: you are enough. You deserve a whole cheerleading squad, but in the meantime, don't forget to be your own biggest cheerleader. You're fully entitled to vote for yourself any and every day of the week. And you should. If you don't believe me, ask your mom. Or mine. She'll tell you.

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katie&austen's wedding.

"[Katie and Austen] are just absolutely extraordinary people, the kind of people you want to be around all the time. They're funny and smart, and they love their friends and family well, with tenderness and thoughtfulness...

"The afternoon in [Newnan] was hot and clear and perfect...The twinkling lights in the low trees made it seem like we were in our very own universe, just for a little while. [Katie] was an absolute knockout bride, and her bridesmaids, elegant in [blue] with bright, lovely flowers, laughed and cried as they celebrated their dear friend's marriage to [Austen], cool and charming as ever in his linen suit...

"I had the deep sense that we were in the presence of something holy. Weddings are almost like birth experiences: something entirely new and sacred coming to life right in your midst...I believe in the way God knits two people together when they stand before him on their wedding day. Something sacred happens in that moment, something that will, with grace and intention and faith and hard work, build upon itself and grow in power and beauty and durability with each passing year...

"I know a lot of people who have given up on marriage. I understand their objections. And I wish those people could have been in [Georgia] on that day. I wish they could have felt the actually sensation of a new family being made. I wish they could have seen the bridesmaids' faces...

"There were, at some points in the ceremony, a few short moments of total silence, and in that silence what I felt was a community of friends and family who were all feeling the exact same thing at the exact same moment: this matters. What we're creating here matters. I believe in marriage, and possibly never more so than on that day...

"I'll always remember [this day], and the feeling of being in the right place at the right time to actually watch the world become a little more beautiful."

-Adapted from Shauna Niequist's Bittersweet

Calphalon Convection Oven Giveaway

No sir. You didn't read that wrong. I really do have a brand new Calphalon Convection Oven (retails for $199) to give away. It was donated anonymously (thank you!) for me to raffle off to raise money for Africa.

First, let me tell you why you want it. And then I'll tell you how to get it.

This week I was on the phone with my cousin, Allie, and I said, "I think quinoa is actually kind of hard to make. Don't you think?"  To which she said, "Not really. Not at all, actually..."

The fact is, I like to cook, but I've had my share of technical difficulties in the kitchen. Here's where the Convection Oven comes in: it's so easy to use! It's like an oven, but somehow even easier, because it preheats faster, has a removable plate to clean up your crumbs and is big enough to make anything - even a full cookie sheet or pizza. And you can bake bread in it. Zucchini bread, for example. It's also really nice stainless steel, so it will be beautiful in your kitchen.

So now that you want it, here's what you can do:

• From now until next Friday (June 28), for every $5 you donate to my Africa campaign, you'll be entered to win. So if you donate $5, you'll get an entry. $15? Three entries. $30? Six for you! Whoo!
  ***Note you have to do this to be entered***
• If you Tweet a link to the giveaway, you'll get another entry. Be sure to mention me, @wbiber, so I know you did it.
• If you post the link on Facebook, you'll get an additional entry. Again, be sure to tag me so I can track it :) 

That's all you have to do :) Thank you for entering! Happy convectioning! 

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