Friday Faves – Healthy and Sane makes Chewy Caramel Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Hope everyone had a great week. I have another great blogger for you guys to check out as part of my Friday Favs. This week, I introduce you Elina from Healthy and Sane. Elina is another local blogger who I have enjoyed seeing out and about at blogging events. Elina blogs about food, local restaurants, travels, and just her life in general. Elina really puts it all out there for her readers and shares her efforts to find a balance between food, weight loss, and dieting. The brutal honesty is refreshing. Definitely check her out.

Hi Beantown Baker readers! My name is Elina. I’m the writer behind the blogs Healthy and Sane and Russian Bites. I’ve been blogging at Healthy and Sane for nearly 3 years and this is my very first guest post! I’m nervous and excited to be here with you. Hope you’ll enjoy this post and maybe come visit me some time! 

When I discovered my love for healthy cooking, I felt like I found a secret to sustainable weight loss. Healthy food can be fun and delicious. I couldn’t believe that people still had stereotypes against it! I started blogging at Healthy and Sane because I wanted to share my experience of losing weight the right way. I was calorie counting at the time and whipping up something new for every meal (I used to blog about every bite that went into my mouth). Everyone I knew in real life were amazed at how I could sustain it but I was having so much fun!!

[Caramel bubbling]

Over the years I realized that losing weight was not just about healthy cooking or calories in and out. I realized that I was an emotional eater and when things got rough, I reached for food. I beat myself up often for “letting go.” I’d start new, more ambitious eating plans, new challenges, new mind games (this one was actually fun but it still didn’t last). Until eventually I couldn’t do this for one more day and I said good bye to dieting for good. I’m now chronicling my journey towards diet free living on Healthy and Sane, among restaurant reviews (Jen’s favorite feature!), random kitchen adventures, and fun events around the Boston area.

[Chewy caramel disks]

My readers say they love my blog because of how honest and relatable I am. So I’m going to share something very honest with you here. I quit dieting but I’m still struggling with emotional eating and bingeing when I’m faced with new challenges or uncomfortable feelings. And I still often give in to those tendencies (yes, I’m a work in progress). But the thing is – I love love love food. I do. And as backwards as this sounds, when I get the bingeing shakes, (as I try to resist it) I find that it helps to look at pretty food. It reminds me of the beauty in food. It reminds me that food is not something to abuse yourself with but to love and enjoy!

[chocolate cookies]

This is how I found the recipe for these chewy caramel chocolate sandwich cookies. I hope you find them as pretty and delicious as I did.