When making the teacher gifts for my son’s preschool teachers I had in mind a cookie recipe that called for white chocolate chips.  I stop by a nearby grocery store with my very sleepy 3 year old (worst time ever to go to the grocery store), not to mention I’m a hot mess from just surviving boot camp or some such class at the Y.  Point being….not a single white chocolate chip to be found in the stupid store.  (They did have some fabulous produce however.  Red plump tomatoes, fresh corn on the cob, fully ripe strawberries…yes, I walked out with all these items.  But no white chocolate chips.)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt  *only if using unsalted butter
3/4 cup Smart Balance 50/50 butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips chopped cookies and cream candy bars (or bunnies!)
1/3 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips


1. Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper or use silicone baking mats.
2. Sift Whisk together the flour, baking soda and *salt; set aside. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended.
3. Beat in the vanilla, & egg, and egg yolk until light & creamy. Mix in the dry ingredients until just blended.
4. Stir in the cookies n’ cream pieces & chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time (for giant cookies) or a tablespoon at a time (for smaller cookies) onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.
5. Bake larger cookies for 15 to 17 minutes, or 10 to 12 minutes for smaller ones (check your cookies before they’re done; depending on your scoop size, your baking time will vary) in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
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I made enough to give to the teachers, plus a few for a “taste test” 😉  Since it was getting late, I took the remaining uncooked cookies, placed them on a baking sheet and froze them.  The next morning I took the frozen dough and put them in a freezer bag.  Now, whenever we want cookies, I can pull out a few and bake up fresh, homemade cookies.  Just increase the baking time listed above.  I don’t know why I’ve never tried doing this before!

These cookies were good, but very sweet with the chunks of cookies’n cream bars.  You could probably cut back on the sugar and be fine.  My oldest thought they were mighty fine, you know, since they have absolutely no redeeming healthy qualities!

I’m linking up today with , , , , ,  , , , , , ,

First I should mention that I’m not really a fan of banana bread.  I don’t like bananas.  However, this is !  You know with a blog titled “The Girl Who Ate Everything”, she knows what she’s talking about.  I wanted to make a little appreciation gift for my son’s preschool teachers since his last day of school was last week.  They didn’t get the cookies for Teacher Appreciation Week, so I felt like a baked good was in order!  I had some very ripe bananas in the freezer, so I started thinking about banana bread.

The title is perfect – …because this is sooo good!  Moist and delicious.

 Ingredients –

The pineapple and applesauce make this a moist bread, with a nice hint of flavor.  It’s not too “banana-y” if that makes sense!  I decided to skip the chocolate chips (shocker, I know!) and went with the pecans.  I thought they worked very well in this bread.

I also added some cookies to the teachers’ gift…and I will post those soon.  Right now I’m having major computer issues which are driving me bonkers.  I always use Internet Explorer, and it won’t let me sign in to Blogger since some tech guys “cleaned up” my computer. Something to do with cookies, and I’ve done all the troubleshooting it says to do.  So, today I’m using Firefox, which I’m not familiar with, and nothing is working like it’s supposed too.  I wish I was a total computer geek.  And while I’m complaining, the computer is still running sllllooooowwww.  That, combined with PMS, is making me want to chunk the laptop through a window.  But that would be extreme.  (Not to mention, my husband would be pissed!)  Anyway, I’m assuming I’ll get it all worked out eventually.  Wish me luck.

I’m linking this recipe up with ,  ,  , , , and ,

So what do you do with a bunch of homemade graham crackers?

I’m not sure when or why I decided I had to make homemade graham crackers, but once it was in my head, I couldn’t get rid of the idea.  Some supermarket brands have extra additives and preservatives, and some have the “may contain/processed on the same equipment as… peanuts, eggs, etc” on the package.  (Obviously I don’t have a Trader Joe’s or other awesome grocery store near-by)  So I decided to make them, and reviewed several recipes on the internet.

I decided to go with this one from   I liked that it was almost all whole wheat flour and contained molasses (which is one of my favorite things!)

Ingredients-

Check in tomorrow, and I’ll post some pics of what my girls and I did with them! Yes, it involves chocolate 😀

, @ 33 Shades of Green, @ For The Love Of Blogs, , , , ,

I know, some of you are thinking “didn’t she just post those?”.  Well I did, during what I like to refer to as the “Blogger blackout”.  The post disappeared, never to return I suppose, so I thought I would post it again.  The biscuits are yummy, and a little something different.  If you are like me and love both cornbread and biscuits, it’s the perfect solution!

The first time I saw them was at ….the photos alone will make you want to fix these immediately.  My pics are not nearly as enticing, but they were tasty none the less!

 *My changes are in italics

The biggest complaint I hear when talking to friends about cooking from scratch is the time factor.  “I don’t have time”, “it takes too long”, “I’m tired in the evenings”…well sista, I totally relate.  Even though I am a “stay-at-home” mom now (which I use that term loosely, b/c I never seem to be able to stay at home) I was also a working mom for several years.  I totally get it.  There is never enough time to get everything done you’d like to do in a day.  And for me personally, there is never enough energy!  After about 2:00 in the afternoon, I’m pooped.  I’m hoping that now that I’m exercising again on a more regular basis, that my energy will pick back up.  An oxymoron I know, but I really felt so much better when I was working out several days a week.

But as usual, I digress.  I’m sure I had a point when I started out…oh yeah, cooking from scratch.  First, it does require some planning.  If I don’t have anything planned out, or at least some general idea of what I want to fix, then it’s hard to do much ‘homemade’.  However, with a little planning, and a little internet searching, and some trial and error along the way, you will find that you can prepare healthier, tastier, dishes from fresh ingredients without relying on a box or mix or frozen entree.  Or take out.  For example, I have bought spaghetti sauce in a jar for years.  I always assumed trying to make a homemade spaghetti sauce was way to much trouble when you could open a jar and be done with it.  However, my husband has never been a big fan of jarred sauce.  I’ve experimented with different sauces, trying to find the “right” one.  He likes a nice thick sauce, (without a lot of chunks of tomato/peppers).  People are picky like that.  Some like a thin sauce, some like thick, some like sweet, some spicy, blah, blah, blah.  Therefore, you may not like this sauce, but we thought it was good.   I call it ‘semi-homemade’…oh, well, maybe not – seems like that catchy little phrase is taken (and probably copyrighted).  So, we can say it’s…. ‘sort of homemade’.  Obviously, you can sub the store-bought canned tomatoes for fresh, or if you have tomatoes put up from last summer. (if so, I’m jealous)

*We like a meat sauce, so I started out with a pound of lean ground beef, cooked and drained. 

• 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
• 2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
• 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
• 3 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 of small onion, diced
• 1 grated carrot
• 1 tablespoon white sugar *I used one packet of stevia
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes *omitted and added to my plate

Directions

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This made a nice thick sauce that had much more flavor than the Heart Healthy Light No Sugar Added sauce I have been using!  It really needed the addition of green pepper….somehow I forgot those, and I had some in the freezer!  I grated my carrot really fine, and made sure I mashed up the chunks of tomato for my hubs and middle child (my oldest will not eat sauce).  Carrot adds a sweetness to the sauce, so keep that in mind if you add sugar. (Carrot also adds some fiber and beta carotene!)

Bottom line, this is an easy sauce to prepare, even on a week night.  Play with it, make it your own, and you will feel good about feeding it to your family. 

Of course, I should not mention that I had Wendy’s for dinner.  But hey, it’s Friday.  I don’t cook much on Fridays 🙂  (I actually did cook the kids’ dinner – fresh fruit and corn and baked chicken nuggets- but they ate earlier in the evening.  Hubs and I ate fast food and ate late.  What a terrible combination!)  I definitely better hit the spin class in the morning.  We’ll see – it starts at 8:15! 

hmmm, what’s that expression…‘do as I say, not as I do?!’

I’m a day late, but I’m linking this up with ‘s Share a Spoon!  Thursday’s theme was ground beef!

As you probably know, we love bread around here.  However, I almost always buy whole wheat bread, and I bake with a lot of whole wheat flour.  So, can anyone explain what possessed me to buy 20 lbs of all-purpose flour from Sam’s Club?  Yeah, I’m not sure either. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love white bread and all-purpose flour, but whole wheat is healthier.  Sometimes, though, you may really want some good old fashioned soft, fluffy white bread.  Especially homemade.  Toasted homemade white bread with a schmear of butta….mmmm mmm good.

and you may have 20 lbs of flour sitting around.  I checked allrecipes.com for a good recipe to try and decided on  – quick & easy in the bread machine with basic ingredients.
Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups lukewarm milk
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 teaspoons active dry yeast

I’m linking up today with , @ 33 Shades of Green, @ For The Love Of Blogs, ,