Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

My Wednesday was devoted to staying in my pajamas, studying, and baking cookies. Since I had the day to literally do nothing but lounge around, I tried to mix relaxing with being productive. You can probably guess which won the battle. I mean, I only changed out of my pajamas to go grocery shopping early in the afternoon, and even THAT was a challenge. Sometimes pajamas are just the best things ever.

Anyway, onto the cookies!

I used this recipe to make these delicious cookies.

Instead of leaving them in the oven for the full ten minutes, however, I baked them for 8 minutes and let them sit on the cookie sheet for another minute or so. This left them a bit softer in the middle.

I also scooped the dough onto my cookie sheet with a 1 tbsp. measuring spoon 

& flattened them with a fork.

This gave me approximately 40 cookies!

I hope you all had a great day! xo

The Weekend via Instagram

Despite a fairly uneventful weekend that mainly consisted of coffee, cookies & running (who knew that cookies and candy aren't the best fuel for running?), it was still an enjoyable one. It is the second week of school now, and I am already learning a lot of stuff I never knew before, especially in my textiles class. Additionally, Saturday marked the day I purchased my first "big kid" winter jacket - perfect timing too since the snow has began falling here in Vancouver. There really is nothing better on a snowy evening than baking cookies, too! I hope you all had a great weekend. Here are some snaps I took!

1. Homemade chocolate chip peanut butter oatmeal cookies... Three left!

2. Apparently leaving curls pinned to your head makes for crazy hair when you finally take it out (four hours later). Needless to say, I wore my hair up that night.

3. Messages in the snow! Funny how that happens.

xo

Snaps of the Week

This past Sunday was Brandon's birthday, so we headed out to Brown's Social House in Richmond for some dinner & drinks! Being the girl that I am, I had to go for the mimosa on special rather than the Caesar - SO yummy, so filling!

A project of mine on Tuesday at work involved a lot of ribbons. Lots, and LOTS of ribbons (and continued on until Wednesday).

New running shirt from Skinny Runner. I love it already & have used it on the majority of my runs!

Soft, delicious oatmeal banana cookies. I used this recipe, but used 1/2 cup raisins & 1/2 cup sunflower seeds. These babies are so yummy, especially fresh out of the oven. Bonus: make the whole house smell fantastic!

A couple treats before my last exam this past Monday evening. Sometimes it's nice to just sit by the window in a coffee shop and see what's happening - most of the time you see some pretty darn funny things, too! I enjoyed a shortbread cookie (with white chocolate icing, um hello, heaven!) with an almond milk caramel macchiato. Oh, and in the bag are some shoe ornaments for the little tree in the apartment!

Hope you've all had a good week!

Cinnamon Raisin Banana Bread

 

This is a super moist & delicious banana bread. Not only is it packed with flavour, it's packed with protein, too! I saw this recipe in one of my mom's many cook books. After making some changes here and there, out came the banana bread (after an hour of baking and over filling the bread pan... Note: do not do that!)

Original recipe:

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

3 medium bananas, ripe & mashed

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

The changes I made:

0% fat Greek yogurt instead of butter/margarine

1 cup dark brown sugar (instead of granulated sugar)

4 ripe bananas (we had four, so why not use them)

2 cups whole wheat flour

approx. 1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup raisins

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (extra crunch!)

3/4 scoop of protein powder (I used a vanilla flavour)

Cream butter & sugar together. Add eggs in one at a time, until smooth. Blend in mashed bananas.

Gradually add flour and other dry ingredients, mixing until moisten. Transfer to a greased baking pan or loaf pan. Note: Do not pull a Holly and shove all the batter into one pan. It will flow over the sides and drip onto the bottom of the oven. Mom will not be happy. You will have to scrape the baked-on banana bread off the oven floor. However, the banana bread itself will taste delicious & half of it will be gone two minutes after it's out of the oven.

Mmm. Lunch is packed & the banana bread is for sure making an appearance. Happy baking!

Fun Food: Mixed Berry Muffins

These muffins are a lot similar to Tim Horton's Fruit Explosion Muffins - minus the obscure amount of calories, that is! I found a recipe in a muffins & more cook book, but made my own tweaks to it and added things here and there. They are moist, delicious & sweet from the mixed berries. Check out the recipe below!

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk (I used almond milk for my muffins)

1/4 cups 0% fat Greek yogurt

Approx. 1 cup fresh or frozen berries

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Make a well in the center.

Pour milk, egg, and Greek yogurt into the well. Carefully add in fruit. Stir to moisten ingredients.

Grease muffin cups & fill about 3/4 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 200*C.

Makes 12
~~~

Let me know if you guys try this recipe! :)

Other eats:

Spicy Italian sausage with zucchini, yellow peppers & carrots. I later added a spicy chili tomato sauce. My mom & sister are away on a school trip, so I have made it my responsibility to cook for Brandon & my dad. I needed a man friendly meal & I think they'll really enjoy this!

My favourite brand of spinach. I'm sure it's all the same, but the medium sized containers are awesome for holding huge salad beasts (and therefor creating a large vegetable induced food baby). I shredded some & added it to romaine lettuce for Caesar salad (below, in the works).

Everything is ready to be put together now. It's dinner time folks!

Cookie Friday

What's a better way to celebrate Friday than with some delicious cookies? 

Approx. 1 cup flour (whole wheat or all-purpose)

Note: I used a tiny bit less flour since I was putting in lots of oats.

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup oats

2 eggs

4 tbsp. softened butter/margarine

1 tsp. baking powder

Approx. 1/3 cup raisins

1 small scoop of hemp seeds

1 med. apple, grated (you could add chunks if you wanted)

A couple shakes of cinnamon

Combine all ingredients well. Bake on a greased cookie sheet, 12-15 minutes. I flattened mine with a fork, but that's up to you!

 Thursday night treats - Brandon had the turtle pecan waffle bowl (loads of caramel & pecans and whipped cream!), and I opted for the turtle pecan cluster blizzard. Not bad, not bad. Definitely doesn't measure up to my Georgia mud fudge though with all them brownie pieces ;)

Hope you all had a wonderful Friday, cookies or not!

Bake-a-Palooza

I tried for the life of me to delete that sideways picture of peppermint green tea, but it just wasn't working. So just ignore it, or tilt your head in awe. You pick ;) I spent the majority of my day making meat/cheese, veggie & fruit trays for my mom. She's going to a teachers appreciation night tonight, but since she had to work today, I got the fun task of shopping for the supplies and putting it all together. However, I finished off that job by baking a ridiculous amount of cupcakes. I'm thinking four dozen? Thankfully my mom took some with her, so there's half of the temptation out of the house. The ones with chocolate frosting are butter pecan, and the others are carrot cake topped with homemade whipped cream and pumpkin seeds. I was on a roll in the kitchen!

Oh, and the smoothie above is mixed berry + banana, with chia seeds, greek yogurt & soy milk. It powered me through the morning, as well as a little chunk of the homemade granola bars I made (pictured above). They were super easy, and done in less than 5 minutes! Now that's what I call easy.

Have a good night everyone! Any big plans for your Thursday?