My husband loves Oreos, much to my dismay. :) These American favorites make the decision between cookie, cream or a bite with both difficult.  Oreos used to tempt me mainly in the wee hours of the night (a sign of nutritional deficiency- but I digress).  Oh, how I despise and love!  My distaste for them only grew more after I finally looked at the ingredient label. Ick!  Sorry, but pretty 
horrible. :)    

Additionally, although I am free of night time snacking nowadays, this item is still on the grocery list for my husband.  Switching to real food is not an immediate thing, and not all parties in the family can be expected to change with you at the same exact moment.  So, I am trying more and more to learn to make alternatives to the current desired processed items for members of my family as healthy as possible.  To do that I need to make most everything from scratch.  This can be time consuming, especially when things like this are usually readily available in their grocery bought packaging.  

So, yesterday I tackled the Oreo.  Oh, sweet success!  I obtained the recipe here.  Chocolate Covered Katie, can be brilliant, but sometimes the optional ingredients she lists, in my opinion are less than desirable.  So in this recipe, I made mine most definitely with coconut oil, and NOT vegetable oil.  I have dumped all of my old oils and now focus on those beautiful, healthy unaltered saturated fat oils.  I also, used organic coconut sugar, organic cacao powder, organic spelt flour, organic powdered sugar, Kerry Gold butter (in place of coconut butter- didn't have any coconut butter) and rich full-fat grass fed milk.  My point is homemade is marvelous, but it can go to that next level when each ingredient is carefully selected for quality and nutrition.  (Also, take note- I am finding more and more that "organic" is not a magical word.  Look closely at the ingredient list and specific brand.  If you aren't sure, research the product.  I will discuss this more in depth, because currently we have those nasty GMO's floating around that can pop up in everything including "organic" products.) 

In conclusion, this recipe is here to stay.  The family LOVED them!  If I say so myself, these homemade goodies are better than the "real" Oreo.  Lovely little cookies with which I can feel much better indulging my family's sweet tooth.       

I was rather boring in the kitchen and didn't even realize it...  By this I mean, I learned a handful of recipes (perhaps slightly more than a handful :)), but the point is I didn't branch out from my culinary comfort zone very much for the entire time of my single and married life.  I am not even talking about the quality or nutrition of these dishes, just merely the creativity and care of cooking was pretty dull and lacking.  I believe I am starting to change that fact a bit.

Recently, it seems I am constantly trying new recipes, and really there is no doubt about it, I am!  With this whole new desire to transform how and what my family ingests, comes the obvious shift to different ingredients and recipes.  Furthermore, simply put I spend a whole LOT more time in the kitchen.  I am cooking alternatives to things I once just picked up in a box, bag or can at the grocery store.  (I plan to write a little more about this soon, because I both love it and also grow tired of this extra work too.)  

In addition, I have to admit my camera's memory stick is a little heavy on pictures of food rather than the typical images of my children's faces. :)  Hopefully, I can balance this out, because no matter how much I am loving food these days I take even greater pride in my little ones.  Anyway, I would like to provide just a sneak peek into some of the recipes I tried out during the month of April, and share some of the pictures of the food I have tried to recreate in my kitchen. Most of these recipes you can also find pinned on my Pinterest page.  The photo will have the link to the blog I garnered the recipe.  If you would like to know further details about my experience with a certain recipe, feel free to ask!  I know sometimes finding out a little more information from someone who has tried a recipe out already can be immensely helpful, because recipes can't possibly mention every little helpful tip that trial and error can reveal. :)  I hope to take more time in the future for individual recipes, but for now I am just too excited to share all these appetizing dishes!  Also, I have linked almost all of my photos to their corresponding recipes from other blogs.  There are a few I can't locate at the moment, but I will!     

Happy Cooking!