Recipe: Protein Carrot Cakesters and Sweet Potato Rounds

Protein Carrot Cakesters

These are possibly my new favorite thing ever. I obsessed over them all day today until it was finally time to eat one.

This is a Jen original recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the following together in a big bowl:

• 1 cup oat flour
  
  
  
  
• 1 and 1/2 Tablespoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 45 grams of chopped pecans
• 1 and 1/2 cups shredded carrot
• 8 oz carrot baby food
• 4 egg whites
• 80 grams raisins
• 1/8 cup Stevia
• 2 scoops vanilla protein powder

Add cold water or unsweetened vanilla almond milk until the batter is a thick cake batter consistency.

Spray 9 x 9 baking pan with cooking spray, or grease with coconut oil.

Spread batter evenly into it.

Bake for approximately 12 - 14 minutes.

Watch it closely! Take it out when the edges are golden brown. The center will still be slightly undone, but that is okay. If you over bake these, they will be dry, so stay close and watch them.

Let cool. Slice into 9 bars. Eat. Mmmm-mmmm!

I'd love to concoct some great frosting that is healthy, but that may take a small miracle. I'm toying with cream cheese, greek yogurt and sweetener, but no dice yet. I'll keep you all posted if I can nail it.

Macro breakdown for one bar

• Protein: 11 grams
• Carb: 17 grams
• Fat: 4.5 grams
• Calories: 153

If you want to decrease the carbs and increase the fat, you can cut the oat flour in half, and use 1/2 cup almond flour.

Sweet Potato Rounds

I thought I'd give this recipe a whirl. I got it from Sarah Fragoso's "Everyday Paleo" website.

Sweet potatoes are my carb of choice, and I've been trying to perfect sweet potato fries forever and while mine have been edible, they haven't been great. Sarah has the secret ingredient - egg whites! Eureka!

These are delicious!

You need:

• Sweet potatoes. Hi.
• Egg whites
• Olive oil
• Seasoning. I used sea salt, pepper, garlic powder and thyme.

"Slice sweet potatoes into round discs. Separate eggs and add as much seasoning as you like. Dip each sweet potato round into the egg whites and lay flat on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. (I didn't use parchment paper. I just sprayed non-stick cooking spray on a cookie sheet.) Drizzle the rounds with olive oil and sprinkle on more seasoning – this is key – and then sprinkle on a little sea salt. Bake at 350 degrees. The egg whites make these a little crispy, and I actually finished them under the broiler for about a minute which made them even crispier, but still soft and yummy in the middle."

I baked these for about 15 minutes, flipped them over and baked them for another 10 minutes. Then, put them under the broiler for one minute to crisp them up. Watch closely! I almost burned our kitchen down. Oops.

A nice change from my usual Plain Jane nuked sweet potato.