Healthy Chocolate Cheesecake with Brownie and Adoption, is it for you?

Little souls find their way to you, whether they are from your womb or someone else.

Sheryl Crow

Oh my! This is embarrassing. You just caught me crying! I cry to almost anything. I even cried on the Gangnam Style song. Today though, I am crying for a reason - I am reading about articles on adoption.

Ever since, I am always touch with  kid or babies that are abandoned by their parents and there are so many of them now. So I had  considered the fact that I want to adopt. When my children were talking about having a new baby in the house, I said we will have one through adoption. I even told my husband about this yet he did not believe me. When I found this site today,  Be Inspired to Adopt, and when I read about the adoption stories, I was really touched thatI have this burning passion to do it and take a jump. But  when I look deeper, I currently do not have the emotional strength to do so. I am too busy with my children and I am emotionally drained disciplining and loving them that having room for a baby and giving the love that they deserve is just too hard for me right now. Am I too selfish here? or self absorbed? I don't know, that is what I am feeling. Truly, adoption is just a very big responsibility and one cannot do it half-heartedly. Please check this site I attached - this. Currently, my family is sponsoring children so please check this.

Who are qualified to adopt?

For me, I think one is qualified to adopt if he has the capacity to support the child emotionally, mentally and physically. In my case, for now, I am not in the right place emotionally.

It is also very important that one has the means to give the children their basic needs: like stable job and mental and emotional stability.

There are strenuous process involve in adopting. Paper work, financial requirements and lot of patience is one of them. Maybe you have all the qualifications and the capacity to save a child, please do check on the site I listed above.

My children are so lucky that they have parents who love them and wanted the best for them yet their are kids who are unfortunate and they do not have a good start. Usually a product of poverty and teen age pregnancy, these kids who may not be adopted or fostered are set to  future of  failure unless somebody help them. I thought giving a child a new lease of chance is a big gift we can give to society and one of the big form of service to God. The truth is, there are so many kids who need a family and  foster family. These children need a place to call home. Given this opportunity, there is a big chance for them to soar for greatness.

Reading those stories left me in awe of those  people who adopted and fostered. Some of them do this to serve and simply answer the call to be be compassionate and acting positively on those emotions. Some of us, like me, are not so brave enough. I feel incapable. So for now, I am just making you aware about this site and who knows adoption may be for you.

On a lighter note, I am  sharing another healthy dessert. We are making this healthy chocolate cheesecake. I love usual cheesecake, the one that have the real cream cheese, but I love this version  more because we can eat this anytime we want and not feel guilty about it. This is made of various nuts.  I got this recipe from chocolatecoveredkatie. I change the coconut oil to coconut butter because I still have left over  from making Healthy Oreos. Just like any cheesecake, there is no need for baking. Although you have to freeze this three times, I think it is worth it at the end.

Healthy Chocolate Cheesecake with Brownie Layer 

Brownie layer:

1 cup pecan
1 cup walnut
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup pitted date
1 tbsp sugar

Line small rectangular container or any pan with parchment paper. Set aside.

Mix ingredients in a chopper or food processor.
Then place half of the mixture in the lined pyrex ( any container will do ) and put  it in the freezer for 2 hour to harden the brownies.

For cheesecake layer:

1 cup cashews
1/4 cup milk/ I used Chocolate flavored soy milk
2 tbsp melted coconut butter
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbsp powdered sugar ( if it you think that it is not sweet nor creamy enough, add in more sugar)

Line small rectangular container or any pan with parchment paper. Set aside.

Mix ingredients in all the brownie ingredients in the chopper or food processor.
Then place half of the mixture in the lined pyrex ( any small rectangular container will do ) , press hard to flatten and strengthen the mixture.
Put  it in the freezer for 2 hours to harden the brownies.

In the meantime, make the cheesecake layer.
Mix all of the ingredients in a processor/chopper/Vitamix
Get the hardened layer from the freezer and place the cheesecake layer on top of the brownie layer.
Freeze for another 2 hours.
After this, place the remaining brownie layer on top and frozen cheesecake layer and freeze again.
After 2 hours, slice the cake into square and serve.

NOTE:

If you have smaller rectangular container, use that because I think I used a bigger container so the brownie layer was too thin making it soft when not in the freezer.

If you have left over, always keep it in the freezer for the cake becomes soft if you don't.

Almost Oreo Cookies

One reason we should pray: it is because God can do  more in a second  than what we can do for ourselves in a lifetime

I am doing happy dance right now

Good news ya' alll!! 

I weighed myself and I lost another four pounds!!!! Yipeeeeeeeee! with a happy dance. Gosh, I worked so hard for this and I am just glad that finally, the hard work is showing good results. I am surprised that despite my effort for the last  6 months, I did not really notice significant weight loss until I was in my third month of exercising and eating well. I now fit in my old jeans. I am so excited!

Hard work really does pay off! 

To celebrate this progress, I am going to eat cookies! You heard me right. I am going to eat cookies. Not a whole lot, but still cookies. I deserve to eat them. 

I am not a very big fan of cookies because I heard they contain tons of calories. So I eat  cookies once in a while. I try not to bring in any cookies in my house as much as I could. This year for example, I only bought one pack of cookies just once. For that one time opportunity, I bought Oreo cookies because I loved that cookie so much! 

It has been two weeks now and those Oreo cookies were long gone, and I do not want to buy one anymore. So, I am making my own version of Oreo cookies. I am making a cookie that does not make me feel guilty of cooking and eating it. This is a vegan kind. Instead of the usual butter, I used coconut butter. Coconut butter contains healthier fat compared to that butter we usually used for cookies. I used Spelt Flour and agave nectar to sweeten it. Though you may get the discourage of the coconut butter's and Spelt Flour's price, I tell you,  this recipe yielded lots of cookies and you can use this particular ingredients for incoming recipes I am going to use. So do not lose heart.

I got this recipe from Chocolate covered cake and I decided to try this. It turned out great . Although it does not have the Oreo logo at the front but this surely is pretty close to Oreo taste. I am not sure if I can confidently say it taste like Oreo, but I can assure you it is a good cookie. When I made this, the mixture was crumbly. I got worried how  I will flatten it onto the surface. It was crumbly that  it felt like it was not gonna form a circle  form, but I stuck to it and I used a parchment paper so that the dough will not stick to the rolling pin. Also, the filling was difficult to spread with the use of spoon so I used my finger/hand to spread the filling. I just thought it will not break the cookie dough when you do this.

1. 3/4 cup spelt flour
2. 1/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa natural Unsweetened
3. 1/4 cup sugar
4. 1/4 tsp baking soda
5. 1 tsp pure vanilla extract ( I used imitation )
6. 1/4 cup canola oil
7. 3 tbsp silk soy milk chocolate flavor
8. 2 tbsp agave syrup

Filling:

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut butter (melted)

Grease/ Brush a cookie sheet. Set aside.

Mix 1 to 4 ingredients in a large bowl and whisk using to combine. Form a well in the middle and set aside.
Put ingredients 5 to 8 in a small bowl and mix completely. Add into the flour mixture and combine and mix thoroughly using your hands. The mixture will feel crumbly and smushy. Form the dough into a ball and place it into a ziploc and refregirate for 30 minutes.

Remove dough from bag and roll into a thin dough. I had trouble rolling the dough into flat because it was crumbly and it stuck on the rolling pin, so I put parchment paper on the dough and work my way on flattening it. Then I used biscuit cutter to form circles. You can use circle shape lid for this also.

For the Filling:

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. Make sure that coconut butter is melted. The store in the fridge for 30 minutes to harden the mixture. After this, put a small amount of the filling in the round dough. I used my hand to do this because it broke when I used spoon. Top the other half and place into the greased cookie sheet.

To Bake the Cookies:
Pre heat oven to 300 F
Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven.  Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes.

Serve and Enjoy!