White-Chocolate Coconut Almond Blondies - A Recipe!

Good morning everyone!

Did you see how incredibly awesome the Blogger Bake sale turned out? As a collective, food bloggers managed to raise over $1700!!!! The humble home-baked treat has never looked so good! :o)

I for one can't wait to get baking on my batch of cookies. I'm waiting to hear from Meghann on the winner on that one.

Now let's get back to quickie weekend highlights so I can get to the main feature today - another recipe!

Let's just say that the weekend eats weren't too exciting. A couple of times I ended up making bigger batches and repeating my meals. Plus the weather outside was just way too delicious to spend it cooking inside. It was the first time all year that full-fledged spring came to visit and I was determined to enjoy it!

How about we combine Saturday and Sunday eats into one highlight reel - shall we?

My breakfasts this weekend marked a return to Green Monsters! I know it had only been away from them for one day but it really helped me to realize just how amazingly filling and refreshing they are:


This weekend mixed things up a bit and omitted the bananas (or more like I ran out of the bananas because we here monkeys ate them all :oP), added a tablespoon of almond butter, and a handful of rapini.

It still turned out wonderfully green (here it is posing with Rodney - he and I had an after breakfast date this weekend). Having said that it also had a bit of a bite. A serious pepper taste courtesy of the rapini. I don't think I would add that ingredient again but at least I found out my Green Monsters can still go on without the bananas. :o)


This weekend I also cooked up a large batch of butter chicken (mmmmm butter chicken) using some of the butter chicken masala my mom sent from Toronto. Oh this made me a happy camper! :o)

As a bonus, when I make it at home I can control the ingredients and omit clarified butter. Butter chicken without butter? Not that rare actually - as long as you add a little bit of milk it's all good.

On Sunday I headed out for my weekly grocery haul . . .


This weeks total? $36.80. A bit more than I would like to spend for those goods but none of my regular purchases were on sale (boo!). This week's haul included: two huge bunches of kale, one package of sliced mushrooms, one package of oven roasted turkey breast, a package of eight Stonyfield yogurt, two unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze, one large bag of frozen strawberries, and one large bag of frozen mango.

lol - I think it's pretty obvious I was mostly replenishing my Green Monster supplies. I did make one more substantial purchase yesterday and that was a good sized portion of lamb. It's what I will be cooking for Easter dinner! :o)

But enough about shopping and eats - let's get on with the recipe!!

Variations on a Theme by TorontoGirloutWest - a white-chocolate coconut almond blondie

I adapted this recipe from one of Veggie Girl's who in turn adapted it from Vegetarian Times Magazine. Hence why I called it variations on a theme! :o)

1 individual serving of yogurt
1/4 cup of unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup of raw cane sugar (preferably organic and fair trade)
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of molasses (make sure you use the kind that doesn't taste like sulfur)
1 1/4 cups of whole-wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup of white chocolate chips
1 cup of blanched slivered almonds
1/2 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut
Almond Breeze

1 - Preheat oven to 350F and prepare an 8x8 pan (I suggest lining it with parchment paper)
2 - In large bowl mix together the yogurt, apple sauce, sugar, vanilla, and molasses. Allow the ingredients to combine.
3 - Add to the same bowl the flour, baking soda, white chocolate chips, almonds, and coconut.
4 - Combine all of the ingredients together - the mixture will be very thick at this point.
5 - Add just enough Almond Breeze to allow the batter to be mixable
6 - Pour mixture into prepared pan
7 - Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean when inserted in the middle

And OH MY were the results ever amazing!!!!! I highly recommend this recipe bloggies. I'll be making it time and time again.

Although I do recommend freezing the individual blondies so as to avoid temptation. 'Cause oh boy were they tempting! :oP

Time for me to head to work but check back later tonight for To be the Whole Package's FIRST EVER GIVEAWAY!!!!!!! Yaaaaaaayyy!!!!!!!!!! :o)