Heart Pounding Romance

What's Mia Making

Sunday Morning Banana Pancakes

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banana pancakes
What’s better than a good book, hot coffee and banana pancakes on a Sunday morning? Here’s an amazing recipe…

Ingredients

3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 T. sugar
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 banana (small, over-ripe, peeled, the browner, the better)
1 1/8 cups low-fat milk
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 T. unsalted butter (melted)

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl — flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, mush (the technical term) the banana and add the eggs and beat together. Add the milk, extract and melted butter to the banana mixture. Then, fold in the dry ingredients.

Spoon into hot oil, flip and top with sliced bananas and maple syrup. Yum!

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Chocolate Coconut Granola

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granola
This is the most amazing granola — more of a snack than a cereal. You’re going to want to dump a healthy handful into a bowl, grab your favorite book, and call it a day.

Ingredients

1/4 cup coconut oil, plus a bit extra to grease the cookie sheet
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. coconut extract
2 1/2 cups oats
1/2 cup raw almonds, chopped (easiest way I know to smash them is to put them in a plastic baggie, grab a rolling pin, and go to town on them)
1/2 cup coconut chips, if desired
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Use a brush and grease a cookie sheet with a tad of coconut oil.

Grab a small pot and throw in the sugar, honey, cocoa powder, and coconut oil. Heat and stir until smooth. Add the two extracts.

Toss the almonds and coconut chips in with the oats.

Stir the chocolate mixture into the oats. Put onto the cookie sheet and press with your hands until flat and about half an inch deep. Bake for 50 minutes. Then, turn the oven off, but leave the cookie sheet where it is for 30 more minutes.

Bring it out of the oven and toss into a bowl, breaking it into pieces as you go. Don’t bother to taste it yet…you’re not finished. Add the chocolate chips. Let them get kinda gooey and delicious all over it. Now grab your bowl!

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Orange-Scented Almond Muffins

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muffins
After the holidays, I was torn. I still was battling a sweet tooth thanks to the Christmas stocking chocolates, but I wanted to start eating healthy again. Giada has a great muffin recipe that is only 200 calories (as opposed to the Starbucks’ 400+ calorie muffins!).

There is hardly any fat and they’re dramatically low in gluten, although there is a tad in there. Give them a try.

2/3 c. sugar
3 large eggs
grated zest of one orange
1/3 c. orange juice (I used tangerine and it was delish)
1/4 c. olive oil (that’s right…no butter in these)
3 T. plain greek yogurt (I tried vanilla for a slightly sweeter taste)
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 tsp. almond extract
1 c. flour
2/3 c. almond flour (rice flour works also)
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease muffin tins. Mix wet ingredients in mixer. Slowly add in dry ingredients. That’s it! Now bake for 20 minutes and cool in the muffin tins for 20. Easy peasy.

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What’s Mia Making?

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cookies
What do you do when your characters are having hissy fits and decide to run away from home? Procrastination comes to mind. But, in my effort to ban that negative word from my vocabulary and life I’ve decided to create a new column: “What’s Mia Making?”

Some of you smarty pants might be saying, “Ah Mia, you’ve got writers block again.” That’s one way of thinking of it. But for me, a girl who prefers to see the glass as half full, it’s my way of doing something useful for my family while imagining what my characters would say if they were in the kitchen with me. Raven from “Released” would probably threaten to add two or three extra tablespoons of salt because she’s always one for throwing that into wounds!

Today’s endeavor is an amazing refrigerator cookie. What makes them so good? They have more delicious ingredients per capita than your average cookie. M&Ms, nutella, peanut butter, and even instant coffee granules are included. The original recipe comes from the Pioneer Woman’s website and once baked they are flat and crisp. If you prefer a fuller figure, bustier cookie like I do, just add 1 teaspoon of baking powder as well as the existing baking soda to the recipe. Enjoy!

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