Protein Powder Recipes

I have a love/hate relationship with Protein Powder. I love how it works. It fills me up. It is thick and delicious LOOKING..... I HATE THE TASTE!!!! I have tried to love the UNJURY that Tom adores and the surgeon's dietitian recommends.... I HATE the smell of it when I open the container. The taste is thick and unpleasant. The strawberry is disgusting. The chicken soup is thin and if your water is too hot, it curdles, so you are lucky to get room temperature yellow stinky chicken water. The vanilla....well, let's put it politely....VOMIT IN A JUG.....ahem....but I digress....

I went out and found a protein drink by EAS that is thinner and chocolaty and doesn't make me sick to my stomach to drink. I also found a Kroger's store brand of Soy/Whey chocolate protein powder that doesn't reek.

Most weekends, I am on my own until noon-ish. Some days I am online. Some days I do the grocery shopping or laundry. Today I hunted down recipes that use protein powder. I found several that seem promising on paper, but as they say, the proof is in the puddin'. So I gathered my ingredients and put together a Chocolate Peanut Butter Ball and Chocolate Oatmeal Protein Cookies. The batters smelled good....a HUGE step for me. Nothing queasy about this....so let's taste....YUMMO! I modified the recipes a tad, to add natural sweetness without extra sugars or fats. But for a first foray into Protein Powder baking, I think these 2 items are excellent!

Chocolate Oatmeal Protein Cookies

2 1/2 cups Oats
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs (or 3 egg whites)
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
3 scoops of Chocolate Protein Powder
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup Agave Honey (or Diabetisweet Brown Sugar)
1/2 cup dried cranberries (or raisins or apricots)

Toss everything together and blend well. Spoonfuls of batter on parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. Don't overcook. This is a dense cookie after baking, but before baking it is a tad runny looking. Do NOT let this fool you into adding more oats or powder to stiffen the batter.


Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

3/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup Agave Honey
1 scoop Chocolate Protein powder
1/2 cup oats
1/2 cup chopped peanuts

Mix peanut butter, honey, Protein powder and oats until well blended. Roll into walnut-sized balls and roll into chopped nuts. Chill until firm. Store in a Ziploc bag in fridge.

These are both very tasty and the protein count is 5 grams per Cookie and 2 grams per Ball. One cookie was plenty at a time for me. And I made the Balls a bit smaller than the recipe called for so it was almost like a chocolate candy bite (Closer to 3 bites per). Very satisfying and probably the best use of protein powder so far!

T