I survived double bootcamp!  I made the conscious decision to fuel myself properly throughout the day, and took Gatorade with me to class.  It was a tough 2 hours, with a lot of squats, but I was smiling and standing at the end, so I think that’s what really counts!  I found out this morning that I am being featured as the Booty Camp Fitness Health and Fitness blogger of the week! Visit Booty Camp’s Facebook Page to check them and me out!

Also, Long Legs Healthy Life is now on Facebook!  Become a fan here!

Halloween has just left us, and we are barrelling headfirst into the holiday season.  When I think of the holidays, I think of:

• twinkly lights
• decorations
• snow
• FOOD!

Like most other holidays, Christmas has become all about the food.  Candy in your stocking, a huge dinner with all the trimmings, and decadent desserts.  My favourite candy of all time is the York Peppermint Pattie

(source)

You may have noticed in the upper right corner of the package it says “A low fat food.”  While that may be true, lets take a look at the nutritional info according to hershey.com:

(source)

Now I don’t know about you, but 25g of sugar is a LOT, especially when the serving size is 39g.  Which means, by weight, that the York Peppermint Pattie is 64% sugar.  Holy Crap!! After I read that I set out to recreate my favourite chocolaty-minty treat with a healthy twist.

(Almost) Vegan Peppermint Patties

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups of coconut oil
• 1/4 tsp of pure peppermint extract
• 1 tbsp icing sugar
• chocolate

Directions:

1. liquefy the coconut oil in a heat-proof bowl.  This took about 30 seconds in the microwave
2. add in the peppermint extract in drops, until you are satisfied with the taste
3. if you find you want a little sweetness in the mix, you can add in honey, agave, or icing sugar like I did.  Again, to your taste
4. pour the mixture into muffin tins (about 3 spoons worth) and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes
5. line a cookie tray with parchment paper and set aside
6. Over a double broiler or in the microwave, melt your choice of chocolate.  I used semi-sweet chocolate chips, but you can veganize it easily.
7. remove the hardened coconut oil mix from the fridge, and pop each patty out of the cups. 
8. working quickly, use a fork to lower the patty into the chocolate and out again, allowing the excess chocolate to drip off
9. place the patties on the prepared cookie sheet, and put back into the refrigerator to harden
10. once hard, wrap and keep refrigerated until you want to eat them!

These are melty, but delicious!!  Fair warning: they’re rich, and coconut oil is a saturated fat.  Just putting it out there for you. 

Notes on this recipe:

Make them smaller! next time I will use a mini-muffin tin, or let the mix get firm and roll them into balls by hand.

Use better chocolate! the chocolate needs to be tempered to produce a nicer finish, and chocolate chips heated in the microwave don’t really hold up that well. 

I had a hard time getting the warm chocolate to stay on the quickly-melting coconut oil “pucks.” Any advice on this??

I deem this a good first try, but more experiments need to happen to get them just right!