MF'n Triathlon Coaching

During my day off from school, I decided to get into the kitchen and experiment with a pumpkin cookie recipe. I have found pureed pumpkin to serve as a very versatile ingredient. Not only is it a vegetable with great nutritional qualities, but it also works as a great substitute in recipes to decrease the calorie content by taking the place of butter. The original recipe called for chocolate chips, but I used some cherries I'd picked up on Greenbluff from last summer, then pitted, dried, and frozen. It turned out to be a great combination! The other substitutions I incorporated I listed below: Instead of 2c packed brown sugar, I used 1c unpacked and 1/4c honey. Instead of butter, I used plain greek yogurt. One large egg white and 3 tablespoons ground flax seed worked in the place of 1 egg. Pumpkin Cherry Cookies Mix in a large bowl: 3c whole wheat pastry flour 1c unbleached white flour 2c Quaker oats 2tsp baking soda 2tsp cinnamon (heaping) 1tsp salt Set aside.

For those of you who know me and the way I eat, I enjoy taking recipes I find for foods I crave and adapting them to make them healthier. My parents aren't always convinced my substitutions and alterations are for the best, but when my mom exclaimed to me that she snuck a few handfuls of my peach granola I made today and complemented me on how well it tasted, I knew I had finally done something right! When I love a certain food, I eat a lot of it...all of it. So I realized about 5 years ago when I started experimenting and making my own food, the healthier I made it, the more I could eat. At first, I played the game of seeing how many calories I could cut and still make the food appealing enough to eat. After taking many nutrition and sports medicine classes in college and doing additional research and reading about proper nutrition on my own, I soon realized it isn't always about the calories but about the quality of the ingredients and what they can do for my body. It alw