I am not particularly the kind of person that gets really excited for the 'superbowl'...but it is an excuse to make some good food and share a fun night with friends. So I guess I don't really care about the quarterbacks and who's going to win, but care more about what kind of food there's going to be and what kind of other fun will happen along with the glowing light of the game. 

Chili seems to be a great idea for the game night and why not pair that with some delicious cornbread and maybe some cookie bars for dessert. That is a lazy-man's (woman's) kind of meal with lots of goodness and no one knows you took the easy road out. 

Some of my favorite chili recipes...

Hearty Veggie Chili, 

or how about some of this delicious looking 

Grass-Fed Beef Stew from Whole Life Nutrition.

Some of my favorite cornbread recipes...

The great thing about these cookie bars is that yes, you could in fact take your sweet time and make cookies with this nice recipe. You know, the rolling and pressing and baking and repeat. Yeah that is fun  some days. Or to make this treat in a jiffy, you could just make this recipe and press it nicely in a pan once and then you're done. Clean up your kitchen and your hands because it's a one time job, baby.

Cookie bars are a treat for me this weekend because I have been keeping it more simple in the month of January without baking too many extra sweet treats and have been keeping stevia as my main source of sweetness. Mostly this was in response to a very full month of treats in December and there was a need to just swing the pendulum to balance things out. But after a month of chia mousse, milkshakes, and biscuits- a cookie bar is exactly what sounds delightful. Of course, I can't help but keep things healthy and add all of my favorite ingredients. 

2/3 cup of sweet sorghum flour (or brown rice flour is a good sub here)

2/3 cup of organic millet flour

2/3 cup of tapioca flour

2 TB of chia seed meal

2/3 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut 

3/4 cup of sucanat or coconut palm sugar

1 ts. of baking soda, baking powder and sea salt (a good cookie baking mixture)

2/3 cup of natural sunflower seed butter (or other nut butter)

1/2 cup of room temperature organic extra virgin coconut oil (or vegan butter of choice)

1/4 cup of pure maple syrup (or agave nectar)

1/2 cup of non-dairy milk (So Delicious coconut is the best!)

20-25 drops of liquid pure vanilla stevia (I used NuNatural's)

1 cup of dairy-free chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life's chunks and chips)

-If you want to sub the listed flours for a GF flour baking mix, I have made it this way before as well, it turns out just about the same and there should be no issues because a mix is meant to be well blended to use in most recipes. I would just check to see if your flour  blend contains baking powder and salt and if it does then either omit or add have the amounts of my recipe of the baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

-If you want to add eggs to this recipe instead, then you can omit the chia seeds and half of the milk and add 2 eggs instead. So you will add 1/4 cup milk and 2 eggs instead of 2 TB chia and 1/2 cup of milk. 

-I cut the sugar in half and used stevia to replace it. But if you choose, you could omit the stevia and just use 1 1/2 cup of coconut sugar or sucanat (or a brown sugar) instead of adding stevia. 

-I used a natural sunflower seed butter so that is contains it's natural oils. But I am sure any seed or nut butter would work here. Whatever your preference is or what you have available.