More Soul Cycle and Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins!

Good afternoon bloggies! How's everyone day going? I have some serious blog posting to do because I know I am so overdue with my Brendan Brazier seminar review. As soon as I finish this post, I PROMISE I am writing it! 

Yesterday I had a crazy busy day. I hadn't baked in forever, so I decided to make muffins, granola bars, and raw chocolate balls. We are going for our beach vacation this weekend and next week so I made extra so I can bring it with us. I try to bring as much as my "weird" food (as deemed by me, no one else) as I can and bring some for the rest of Danny's family. My nieces loved the granola bars when I brought them last time, so I made sure to make extra for them. What's not to love about chocolate, oats, more chocolate and peanut butter??

After I finished baking I hopped on the subway and met Danny at 53rd and Lex to shoot down. He was going to basketball downtown so we took the 6 together. Danny walked me to SoulCycle and then he went to basketball. I spotted the gigantic Whole Foods right next to SoulCycle that I had to pay a visit to after the class. 

I signed up for the 7:30 Madonna ride with Bethany at the Tribeca studio. The Tribeca studio is SO nice. It's much bigger than the studio on the East side. There are separate women and men's changing/bath/shower rooms (the East side studio doesn't have showers and only has two unisex bathrooms). There also was much more room to move around by the lockers and more places to sit down and switch shoes. There are 2 studios on the first floor, one for SoulCycle, one for Soul Bands (trying next week hopefully) and I believe one upstairs for Soul Yoga. The SoulCycle room is also bigger at this studio.I felt much more comfortable this week on the bike and felt like I got the hang of clipping in and out of the bikes. I was tempted for 1/2 a second to get the 2 pound weights instead of 1 pound, but I was glad I didn't after my arms were burning from the arms part. 

(source)

Bethany is a fabulous instructor. She is super motivating and very cute. She played a great mix of Madonna music, live, recorded, old and new. The ride was very challenging and very sweaty. I love that she wrote on the wall "absolutely no regrets". Bethany also called out motivating phrases, like "dig deep". For some reason that really motivates me. Overall, lots of fun and my arms are a bit sore today. After leaving SoulCycle, I went to Danny's basketball game, where he tied the game at the buzzer with a 3, twice making them go into 2 over times. They ultimately lost by one point, but it was fun to watch him play.

Now onto the recipe portion of this post. I wanted to make Power Muffins with a couple of changes, but it ended up being more than a couple, since I couldn't find my flax seeds. My pantry is like an abyss right now, even though Danny tries really hard to keep it organized. (Notice I didn't even pretend to say I try...because I don't. I think we've both accepted he has a lot little of his father in him..and I love it.)


I bought hemp awhile ago after reading Thrive by Brendan Brazier, but I hadn't used it yet. Honestly, I had no clue how it tasted, but I took a chance including it in my muffins. (Worked out beautifully!)

Hemp is a complete protein (contains all 10 amino acids) with a very high pH, which minimizes the body's acidity and helps keep the body in a alkaline state. Hemp helps boost the body's immune system and quicken recovery. It also has anti-inflammatory properties. (from Thrive, The Vegan Nutrition Guide, page 136)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Power Muffins

*This recipe is to make about 18-20 muffins. Feel free to make less.

Inspired by Angela @ Oh She Glows

Ingredients:

• 2 ripened bananas
• 4 tsp. Olive Oil
• 2 egg (I used organic, alternatively you could use flax eggs to make this vegan)
• 1/2  cup non-packed turbinado or brown sugar
• 1/4 cup freshly hemp
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 3/4  cup spelt flour (or whole wheat or white flour)
• 1/2 cup oats ground
• 1/2 cup oats (whole) (or you can keep the entire cup whole)
• 3 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce 
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grind oats, set aside. (I used my coffee grinder.)
2. Add hemp seeds, chia seeds, oats, banana, egg, sugar, spelt flour, and pumpkin to a large bowl. Mix well. 

3. Add baking soda and baking powder. Combine.4. Now add the peanut butter. Fold in to batter. Then add the chocolate chips
5. Grease 2 muffins pan. (I used 12, but you can make larger or smaller muffins)
6. Spoon batter into pan. 

7. Bake in over for 20 minutes. 

Delish...feel free to add butter, jelly, jam, more peanut butter, or eat is plain!

*Krema/Crazy Richards was so kind to send me this peanut butter. It is SUPER smooth and passed the husband test. (He is the king of peanut butter.) I usually like my peanut butter with salt, but it's so creamy you don't really need it. It only has one ingredient, peanuts!

What's you favorite type of peanut butter? I loveee smooth and creamy peanut butter. Funny thing is I stopped eating it for awhile because I was afraid of the fat. I'm SO glad I got over that.


Okay I better go write that Brendan Brazier/Thrive post!