Like everyone else, the beginning of January is when I kick my healthy eating into high gear. Lately we’ve been eating a lot of salads with our supper (this kale one I posted on Instagram has been on high rotation in our kitchen) and we’ve been making a point to slowly get rid of the leftover candy and chocolate from the holidays. Baby steps is where it’s at, although I’m hoping that I can keep this up through February before the next wave of chocolate hits the shelves. (Although according to Twitter, most stores are ahead of the game!)

The hardest thing I find about eating healthy so quickly after the holidays is trying to get over my persistent chocolate craving. For a good two weeks, I had holiday parties, cookie exchanges, chocolate boxes in the break room at work, and candy in my stocking on Christmas morning. There is still chocolate in our freezer and it’s taking all my willpower not to eat it right this second. I can eat all the kale salad my heart desires, but nothing comes between me and my mint chocolate.

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I realize that I’m a little late on the whole “happy new year” bandwagon. Just a little bit. I had every intention to post this recipe earlier this week, but then life happened. We returned from my parents house, the weather in Toronto took a turn for the worst, Trevor got sick and had to stay home from work and I tried to go to bed at a decent hour to avoid catching his cold. This was all in the span of a little more than a week. All I can say is that I’m so happy it’s the weekend!

I hope that the first little bit of 2014 as been treating everyone well. And for those people who have made New Year resolutions, I hope you’re still on track. In the past, I used to scoff at the idea of waiting until the beginning of the year to make resolutions. Now I believe that anyone who is willing to look at their current situation, acknowledge that they want to make a change and make that first step deserves an applause, no matter what time of year it is.

I’ve made a few resolutions this year and one of them is to be more organized with my blogging. Since it took me six days to write this post, I realize that it’s going to be a long, slow process. But, I figured that writing about my resolution here would be a helpful reminder to get my butt in gear and make some long-term changes.

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Despite my large collection of cookie recipes on She Bakes Here, there is one type that I don’t make very often, and that is whoopie pies. The last time I tried to make them was back in 2011 during my first months of blogging. This was also when I was really into making healthy versions of everything, even if it didn’t always taste very good. One of my more common substitutions was full whole wheat flour in the place of regular all-purpose flour and in the end, without fail, the dough would always be dense, resulting in heavier cupcakes, cakes and cookies. I know I had good intentions with my first whoopie pie cookies (made for a bake sale no less….ugggh), but I knew that if I was to try making them again, I would have to ditch the healthy substitutions.

I’m not familiar with any bakeries in Toronto that sell whoopie pies, so making these cookies was definitely a treat. I’ve seen cookbooks dedicated solely to the different varieties that are out there, but seeing as how it’s the holiday season, I felt the need to further exhaust my favourite mint and chocolate flavour combination. Besides, who can turn down what essentially is a beautiful fluffy mountain of mint icing sandwiched between two soft, chocolate cake-like cookies. I’m not even a huge fan of chocolate cake and I’ve already proclaimed my undying love to these cookies.

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If I were stuck on a deserted island and was able to take one food item with me, I would take avocados.

I bet you thought I was going to say chocolate right? Well, that would be my second choice, especially if I lucked out and the island was already populated with avocados (one can dream).

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Do you ever have days where you just want to stay home and eat chocolate?

I feel like I’ve been having those kind of days a lot lately, especially on the weekends. Sometimes I crave a good stay home day where I get to lounge around in my pjs and catch up my reading. Or my tv shows. Or even my blog reading. I swear, I’m so behind on my favourite baking blogs. What’s the cool thing to make these days? I need to know because I feel like summer is approaching and I’m running out of days where I can use my oven.

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When I started thinking up cookie recipes in my head, I usually have a pretty good idea of how I want them to turn out.

Whether or not they turn out this way is a whole other story.

These cookies were originally envisioned as a drop cookie with espresso powder and dark chocolate chips. When I realized I didn’t have chocolate chips, I scrapped that idea and decided to use the same recipe, only roll the dough in cookie crumbs before baking.

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Would you believe that this isn’t my first blog post for these no bake banana chocolate cookies? The first one I started when these cookies were resting in the freezer. I typed out the recipe, went to do other things….and then – poof! Somehow it didn’t save. A week later, when I finally had time to go and edit what I had started, there was nothing.

I blame the internet. These cookies were so good that it just went and ate it. 🙂

Since a week had gone by, I could barely remember the recipe and had to make it again. I’m sure in another world this would have been a terrible thing, but I was looking forward to eating more of these cookies, especially in this heat wave that Toronto seems to be having.

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For the past few weeks, I’ve been teasing Trevor with this recipe. As a dedicated espresso drinker, he loves it when I incorporate it into my baking and every time I pulled out my mixing bowl, he’d asked if I was going to make the muffins I kept talking about.

“Not this time,” I’d answer with a grin on my face. Yes, I’m a horrible person, but at the time there were other recipes that had my full attention.

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Run. Don’t walk. Run and make these cookies.

They changed my life. They are delicious and full of oat-y, chocolate-y, caffeine-y goodness.

They were responsible for the fact that I cleaned the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom and had supper in the slow cooker by 11:30am on a Saturday morning. On most Saturdays I’m usually planted on the couch, glassy-eyed, slurping coffee and watching Netflix. Moving from said couch to start my day usually happens around 4pm when I realize what time it is.

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