Who likes Mounds chocolate-covered coconut candy bars? All that chocolate and coconut is so delicious! If you agree, then you will love this easy dessert…
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For the sugar cookies:
In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until well-combined and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla and almond extract, if using, and beat until combined. On low speed, slowly add in the flour, baking powder and salt, and beat until incorporated.
Divide the dough into 2 equal portions. Place one dough portion between 2 sheets of parchment and roll out to 1/4-inch thick. Repeat with the remaining portion of dough. Place the 2 sheets of dough on a baking sheet and chill for at least 1 hour or up to 1 day.
While the dough chills, preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Remove the dough from the fridge and cut into shapes with a cookie cutter, re-rolling any scraps and cutting more shapes. Transfer the shapes to the prepared baking sheets. If the dough is too warm, freeze for 15 minutes or until firm.
Bake for 10 minutes, or until the cookies are set and begin to brown. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Baked sugar cookies can be frozen in an airtight container for up to one month before icing.
For the border icing:
In a small bowl, add the powdered sugar, pure vanilla extract and water or milk and whisk to combine. Add the food coloring, if using, a few drops at a time, until colored to your liking. The mixture should be very thick but still pourable. Add more powdered sugar as needed.
Transfer the border icing to a squeeze bottle using a funnel. You can also scoop into a pastry bag fitted with a small plain tip. Before icing any cookies, practice on a piece of parchment paper to get the feel of the icing.
Holding the bottle or bag tip directly over one cookie, begin tracing an outline of the cookie, squeezing gently and using both hands, if needed, to maintain consistent pressure. Allow the icing to dry slightly before continuing with the flood icing.
For the flood icing:
In a small bowl, add the powdered sugar, pure vanilla extract and water or milk and whisk to combine. Add the food coloring, if using, a few drops at a time, until colored to your liking. The mixture should still be pretty thick, but will drizzle more freely than the border icing. If needed, add additional water or milk to loosen until the consistency is pourable. Pour the flood icing into a squeeze bottle or into a pastry bag fitted with a small plain tip.
Prepare as many batches and colors of flood icing as you need to decorate your cookies.
Begin filling the interior of the border drawn on each cookie with the flood icing, being careful not to add too much that it overflows the border icing. Use either the nose of the bottle or a small toothpick to push the icing evenly over the cookie and up against the corners.
Place the iced cookie on a cooling rack to dry for 24 hours. The cookies are dry when the surface is completely smooth, dry and resists smudging when touched. Store the finished cookies between sheets of parchment paper in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 10 days.
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Attention, party hosts: the finger food is here! Ground chicken meatballs are just different enough to make a nice change of pace from beef, and the buffalo sauce gives you the same classic flavor that you’d get from buffalo wings, only without all the mess!
Kids will love them, but they’re great for grown-ups too, especially for any kind of tailgate party or Game Day celebration.
Meatballs can be a bit of a conundrum for Paleo beginners because the usual options for binders – bread crumbs or cornmeal – aren’t on the table. But here, an egg and some almond meal do the job just as well, minus the grains.
Buffalo meatballs clearly call for some Buffalo sauce: if you can’t find a Paleo-friendly version in a store, you can use the first recipe on this page (just ignore the drumsticks since you’ll be using the sauce on meatballs instead).
Some ranch dressing also works perfectly as a dip for the meatballs once they’re done; here’s a recipe for the homemade ranch. Chop up a few celery sticks to add to the tray, and you’ll have a quick and easy platter of snacks or appetizers any time you want them.
SERVES: 4 PREP: 15 min COOK: 2 h
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Buffalo chicken without the mess of wings: perfect for younger kids, party trays, or just a quick snack to pull out of the fridge.
Keyword buffalo chicken, meatballs, slow cooker
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F.
In a bowl, combine the ground chicken, almond meal, egg, garlic, and green onions, and season with salt and pepper to taste.
1 lb. ground chicken, 1/3 cup almond meal, 1 egg, 2 cloves garlic, 2 green onions, Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Mix everything until well combined.
Roll the mixture into a 1 1/2-inch meatball.
Place the meatballs onto a baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes in the preheated oven.
Turn off the oven and place the meatballs into a slow cooker. Add the buffalo sauce, and stir to combine.
Cover and cook on low for 2 hours.
(optional) Serve with ranch sauce for dipping.
Calories: 237kcal | Carbohydrates: g | Protein: g | Fat: g | Saturated Fat: g | Polyunsaturated Fat: g | Monounsaturated Fat: g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 138mg | Sodium: mg | Potassium: 624mg | Fiber: g | Sugar: g | Vitamin A: 119IU | Vitamin C: mg | Calcium: mg | Iron: mg
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Can consuming plant protein consistently help keep muscles healthy later in life? A new study conducted by researchers in China found some positive results.
While plant-based foods have recently exploded in popularity in Western countries, people living in Eastern regions such as China have consumed plant-based proteins as part of their cultural diets for centuries. The new study examined how this high intake of plant proteins is affecting China’s older population, particularly when it comes to muscle mass.
The cross-sectional study was based on 4,826 participants aged 60 and older drawn from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) of 2018. Researchers analyzed self-reported dietary data—collected during three consecutive days over 24-hour periods—and found that the majority (two-thirds) of total protein consumed among participants came from plant-based sources.
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In their analysis, researchers found that participants who consumed the total highest amount of protein and the highest amount of plant protein had an association with higher muscle mass. When it came to animal protein consumption, researchers did not find a significant association with muscle mass.
While plant protein has a positive association with muscle mass, researchers noted that the population they studied—which came from 15 provinces across China—consumed just below 20 grams of protein per meal. This is less than the recommended 25 to 40 grams of protein previous studies have established is ideal for muscle synthesis in older adults.
In the new study, researchers found that higher daily protein intakes, more than 78 grams for males and 68 grams for females, could be ideal for preventing muscle loss but noted that more research is needed here.
When it comes to aging, a major concern is sarcopenia, a condition characterized by muscle loss that leads to decreased function and quality of life. Could consuming higher amounts of plant protein be the key to maintaining muscle mass for healthy aging? The answer is complex.
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“The traditional Chinese type of diet is [characterized] by large amounts of cereals and vegetables. Thus, plant protein intake contributed more to the total dietary protein intake than animal protein intake,” the authors explained their findings. “It is possible that the ingestion of greater amounts of vegetable-source proteins may be [able to] achieve the same anabolic response evoked by smaller quantities of animal-source proteins.”
The authors explained that while animal protein provides all essential amino acids, it brings with it high amounts of saturated fat, cholesterol, and calories—which can be avoided with a well-planned diet focused on plant proteins.
“Thus, in order to enhance the nutritional quality, the Chinese Nutrition Society suggests people to consume cereals and legumes together,” the authors advised, adding that “ascorbic acid found in vegetables and fruits can enhance plant protein absorption.”
Researchers noted that their limitations here lie in the nature of cross-sectional studies which cannot determine causal relationships; the dietary recall design that only measured data from three consecutive days, collected from summer to autumn, which does not take into account seasonal variations of protein consumption; and the inherent bias behind self-reporting dietary data.
They also noted that their ability to detect a significant association between muscle mass and animal protein might have been limited by the fact that participants consumed a much smaller proportion of animal protein as compared to plant protein.
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While plants continue to be a predominant source of protein for Chinese adults living in rural areas, the researchers explained that people who inhabit cities are shifting their protein intakes toward animal sources—a trend they intend to study in the context of sarcopenia.
Recent research on Western demographics bolsters the findings in this new study. When it comes to issues with muscle loss in older women specifically, a study published in the Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia, and Muscle in June examined link between protein sources (plant, animal, and dairy) and incidence of frailty, which is characterized by fatigue, slowed walking speed, weak muscle strength, and unintentional weight loss.
Researchers here analyzed data from more than 85,000 women aged 60 and older who participated in the Nurses’ Health Study, one of the largest studies investigating risk factors for major chronic diseases in women.
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Their findings? Higher intake of plant protein is linked to reduced risk of frailty while higher intake of animal protein is linked to higher risk of frailty. The researchers also found that replacing animal protein with plant protein might help to avoid the development of frailty.
Research conducted on other demographics has also linked plant-based diets to various health benefits for older adults, including a reduction in medications prescribed; reduced risk of certain types of cancers; and an improvement in menopause symptoms such as hot flashes.
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She added that the perception of time is also influenced by memory and how much you’ve experienced. For an 8-year-old, a week is a big portion of their life. For an 80-year-old, a week is a much smaller portion of their life, which contributes to the feeling that it went by quickly.
A day in the life of a retired 80-year-old may feel like it’s going by more slowly than that of an 8-year-old who is busy at school. However, when both people look back on a month or a year, that period of time will seem like it went by faster to the older person.
This is for a number of reasons. For the 80-year-old, their life probably doesn’t look too different than it did when they were 78 or 79, “so, in that case, they’re looking back on fewer events,” Lustig said. “When you’re looking back, the less rich your representation is, the more it’s going to seem like the time went by quickly.”
The many experiences young children have in a day (such as learning new things at school, going to ballet class or visiting a new friend’s house) contribute to the notion that time is more plentiful and more activities can fit into that time. Therefore, when looking back, time may feel slower.
This can apply to adults, too. When we look back on a time period that was filled with lots of new experiences, “we see [a] large expense of events and memories, and that makes it seem like time stretches out … and it feels very long,” Lustig said. If you’re not introducing new patterns into your life, time can feel like it’s going by much quicker overall.
How we process what we see can also influence how we view time, Bejan said. Our brains are trained to receive many images when we are infants. Because we’re absorbing so many new images as kids, it may feel like months and years are longer.
This could mean picking up a childhood hobby (like dancing or violin), taking an overnight trip to a city you’ve never visited or signing up for a cooking class. Learning new things is another good way to make your time feel longer when you look back on your life, he said.
Lustig noted that being fully engaged and “in the moment” can make those moments seem to last longer. In fact, laboratory studies show that mindfulness exercises can stretch our perception of time, she said. So don’t try to focus on multiple tasks at once. Instead, just focus on the experience at hand.
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