Due to popular demand I am finally adding these beauties to the blog for you guys.  I know, I know, I should have done it ages ago but time just seems to fly by around here and here we are a few weeks later then anticipated.

To be honest the past couple weeks have been one serious whirlwind of highs and lows for me.  I can not quite pin point the exact cause to be honest but I do know that life is happening around me and I am just trying to savor as many moments as I can.  

For those of you who follow me on Instagram and read my post on Sunday you will now be privy to a small bit of my wellness journey.  That post in-fact is only a tidbit of what I have been going through in the past couple of years and does not even begin to scratch the surface.

My path actually started 20 years ago in college when I was diagnosed by my primary care physician with Lyme Disease.  After 3 bouts of antibiotics a couple years of complacency and many doctors later I was told that I had had a false positive reading.  The only problem was we ruled out Lyme but we were no closer to relieving or diagnoses my chronic symptoms.  Not wanting to go down the western medicine path again I took matters into my own hands.

I cut all refined sugar from my diet and began macro counting.  Turning into one of those vegetarians that lived off protein shakes and yogurt and egg whites to try and hit some ridiculous protein count.  I am not going to try and tell you it won't work, in a certain manner of speaking it did.  For a time I felt the best I had felt in a long time and I looked better then I ever did in college but there was definitely some negative connotations.  Eating out was a no go, I become obsessed with fitness spending two hours in the gym lifting daily, using all of my free time for meal prep and pretty much cutting out any social life.  I was on a high but it wasn't sustainable and I certainly wasn't experiencing life.  

Fortunately, about a year in I found myself with an injury and turned back to yoga.  At the time I just needed an outlet, I looked at yoga as a way to maintain my hard earned body with every intention of going back to heavy lifting and macro counting once I was healed but we all know how plans tend to change.  As I began to grow through my situation yoga become more then just a a way to heal my injury, it became a way of life.  A form of mental and physical therapy that I learned to love.

A few months in to a regular yoga practice I had found my mentor and now good friend Steven Cheng* and through him my 200 hour yoga teacher training.   This was a pivot point for me.  I found a new team of doctors, went fully gluten free, fully plant based and began again to search for the answer to my chronic muscle pain, hypertension and fatigue... (stay tuned for part 2 but in the mean time enjoy these blondies!)

What You Need

DRY:                                                                            WET:

1 GF Flour Blend*                                                      1/4C Almond butter or Sunflower butter

1tsp Cinnamon                                                         1/4C Pumplin Puree 

1/2tsp Nutmeg                                                         1/2C Coconut Sugar

1/2tsp Ginger                                                           1/4C Maple Syrup

1/4tsp All Spice                                                        1 Flax Seed Egg*

Pinch of sea salt                                                       1 1/2tsp Vanilla Extract

1 bar Eating Evolved Midnight Chocolate*

The Method

Preheat oven to 350F and line an 8X8 baking pan with parchment paper.  set aside and pull out a large mixing bowl.  Add Almond butter, pumpkin, sugar and maple syrup to the bowl and mix until well combined.  Then add in your egg and vanilla and give it another good mix.

In a medium bowl add your flour and spices mixing thoroughly.  Once mixed begin to add your flour mix in 1/4C amounts to your wet ingredients mixing the entire time.  Batter should be thick and will pull up from the sides of the bowl once all the flour is added.  Fold in your chocolate chips and any other add ins you may want here before transferring your batter to your lined pan.

Bake for 20-25 minutes and make sure to let the blondies cool completely before cutting.  These beauties will hold up for about 5 days in the fridge or store them in the freezer for up to 3 months for an easy grab and go snack!

Tips:  

*1- Want to work with my mentor Steven Cheng, check out his website: https://www.simhayoga.com/

2- I make my own Gluten Free flour blend but Cup 4 Cup and Bob's Redmill both make good options.  I you are not Gluten free then go ahead and sub out for baking flour. 

3- To make a flax seed egg it is 1Tbsp ground flax seed to 3Tbsp warm water.  Mix and let sit for 10 minutes or until mixture begins to gel.

4- Don't have Eating Evolved then go to their site and order yourself some: https://eatingevolved.com/collections or you can sub for about 1 Cup of your fav Vegan chocolate .