Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Drop Cookies

Those are what I made to accompany us as I sewed and Drew watched the Saints game the other day. They were delicious and I haven’t been able to stay out of the kitchen and stop eating them since.

I think the last time I made these cookies was with my friend, Tonya, at her house when we were in middle school. It had been that long. I don’t know why though. I guess when I get cookie cravings I automatically make chocolate chip cookies. I tend to neglect other cookie types. Maybe I should work on that. Anyway, here is the recipe so that you can skippy to your kitchens and whip you up a batch:

1/2 C Butter
2 C Sugar
1/2 C Milk
4 Tbsp Cocoa
1/2 C Peanut Butter
3- 3 1/2 C Quick cooking Oats
2 tsp. Vanilla

Add the first 4 ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 1 minute. Stir in the next 3 ingredients and drop onto wax/foil paper. Let cool until set. Enjoy. ๐Ÿ™‚

It is especially nice to make these in the summer, since you can still haveย delicious cookies without having to turn the oven on and heat up the whole house! Plus there is barely any cooking time at all involved! Happy Cooking. ๐Ÿ™‚

P.S. I’ve also heard of making them without the cocoa and peanut butter and adding coconut and dried cherries/cranberries/raisins instead. I’ve never tried that, but I’m intrigued. Anyone else had them like that before?

6 Comments

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

Fruit Tart Recipe

Tonight, Drew and I are going to be in the office late. We have many projects to work on and finish up before I head home for a visit in a few days. This is the scene:

Homemade ice cream paired with tart crust cookies are keeping me company as well. Yesterday I made a tart to take with me to a summer outsideย barbecueย with some friends. I used the leftover crust dough and baked it into tart crust cookies. They are the perfect mix between shortbread and sugar cookies. It definitely reminds me of the homemade ice cream and crusty cookie combination that Drew and I had for dessert on our 3rd anniversary dinner, here. ๐Ÿ™‚

friut tart close up

Since I’ve promised to get better about adding recipes into my blog, I’ve also put together my Fruit Tart recipe here for you. ๐Ÿ™‚ It isn’t necessarily a hard thing to make, but I would say it is an intermediate recipe. You will need a tart pan, a rolling pin, unsalted butter, a mixer (or pastry cutter) and various other things, so definitely look it over before you jump right in with it. ๐Ÿ™‚

Fruit Tart

Tart Dough:
Ingredients:
-1 egg yolk
-2 Tbs. very cold water
-1 tsp. vanilla extract
-1 1/4 c. flour
-1/3 c. sugar
-1/4 tsp. salt
-8 Tbs. (1 stick) unsalted cold butter, cut into 1/4 inch cubes

Directions:
1. In small bowl, stir together egg yolk, water & vanilla. Set aside.
2. In stand mixer fitted with flat beater, stir together flour, sugar, & salt.
3. Add butter cubes to mixer & beat on med-low speed until texture resembles courseย cornmeal. (butter pieces no larger than small peas)
4. Add egg mixture & beat just until dough pulls together.
5. Transfer dough to clean work surface, pat into a ball & flatten. Use immediately orย refrigerate until well chilled (30 minutes).
6. Roll out dough on floured surface until 2 in. greater in diameter than tart pan & 1/8 in.ย thick, lightly flouring rolling pin or dough as needed.
7. Transfer to tart pan & trim excess dough. Press dough into the sides & extend it slightlyย above the rim to offset any shrinkage during baking.
8. Refrigerate until firm while oven preheats to 375 degrees.
9. Line pastry shell with aluminum foil & fill with pie weights (or dry, uncooked beans).
10. Bake for 20 minutes. Lift edge of foil–if dough looks wet, continue to bake, checking everyย 5 minutes, until dough is pale gold. (total baking time 25-30 min)
11. Remove weights & foil. Continue to bake (up to 10 min more) until shell is golden. Be veryย careful! If dough is too thin, it will burn easily!
12. Transfer to wire rack & let cool completely.

*If you have any excess dough, it makes excellent Tart Crust Cookies. Cut dough into cookieย shapes and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 until golden, or about 7-13 minutes.

Filling & Topping:
Ingredients:
-8 oz. cream cheese (1 package)–room temperature
-1/4 c. powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Beat cream cheese & powdered sugar until smooth.
2. Spread evenly into bottom of cooled tart shell.
3. Top with strawberries, blueberries, or whatever fresh fruit you desire. Keep refrigerated.

Enjoy!

Got to get back to work!

Leave a Comment

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

Homemade Ice Cream

How was your 4th of July weekend? For me, it was a great weekend! I did a little shopping, a little cooking, a little relaxing, and also got some work done I needed to do. Plus it was super nice to get to spend time with Drew. He goes to school full time, works full time, and runs his own business–he’s a busy man. But luckily, he had a long weekend off work for the Independence holiday.

To celebrate, we bought ourselves a little 4th of July present–an ice cream maker attachment for our KitchenAid mixer!

Then we put it to good use making lots of ice cream. Homemade ice cream is one of my absolute favorite things and the perfect way to celebrate a summer holiday! (Plus it was one of the hottest days in New Orleans so far this summer)

I really like the way it works. It is super easy. The ice cream mixer bowl goes right in the freezer and freezes up, then you take it out and put it on the mixer just like the normal mixer bowl and in about 20 minutes, you have a fresh batch of ice cream!

We also got 4 of these cute little glass bowls and several cute glass juice glasses at a thrift store for 75% off for their 4th of July sale. We paid just a couple dollars for 4 bowls and 6 glasses! ๐Ÿ™‚

We’ve only made vanilla ice cream so far (it’s my favorite as far as homemade ice cream goes). We’ve made it a couple different ways so far though to try to see what recipe we like best, although so far we’ve only tried no-egg recipes. (we still have plans to try several more and Drew is more than ready to make some chocolate next)

Here is the ratio/recipe that we’ve been using and it works perfect for the two of us. It makes a smaller batch, but still enough for a couple bowls of ice cream.

1 cup cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Super simple and easy to remember. We tried it the first time with heavy whipping cream and it was good, but a little too rich for me. The second time we made it, I used half & half instead of heavy whipping cream and I loved the way it turned out. A little more subtle and delicate and not so thick and rich. Drew preferred it richer, but I guess it all just depends on your individual tastes.

The richness of the flavor and the creaminess of the texture all depends on the type of cream you use. The higher the percentage of fat in the cream, the richer it will be and vice versa. When making your own ice cream, keep in mind these fat percentages:

Heavy Cream 36%
Whipping Cream 30%
Light Cream 18%
Half & Half 10%
Whole Milk 3.25%

I can’t wait to try out some more ice cream flavors and some with added toppings!

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! Drew and I had a great time yesterday watching the fireworks over the Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans. ๐Ÿ™‚

(P.S. I totally think this would have been fun to try, but we didn’t have any sparklers. ๐Ÿ™ Let me know if any of y’all try it out!)

 

3 Comments

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

When Life Gives You Lemons, Make LEMONADE!

This weekend has been quite citrus-y! When we were at the mall on Friday, we stopped by the Lush counter at Macy’s to check out all the handmade soaps. They all smell so good! We are both particularly partial to lemony/citrus-y scents. Drew ended up getting a little of two different ones and our bathroom since then smells like a big bunch of lemons! ๐Ÿ™‚

When we were at the grocery store yesterday, we bought a big bag of lemons (for only like $2) because Drew is now set on making his own organic soap and wanted to give it a lemon scent, of course.

Lemons in the kitchen reminds me of home. My mom often had a big jar of lemons on our kitchen island. She would use them to zest into scones, or more often than not, not use them for anything and they would go bad before we had a chance to make anything with them. I think they are really pretty in a nice glass jar on the kitchen table. ๐Ÿ™‚

Anyway, not only did I want scones after looking at them, I really, really wanted lemonade! So, I made lemonade. I used a recipe out of the Southern Plate recipe book we got last weekend. More about that, here.

Here is the recipe:

1. Combine 1 cup water and 1 3/4 cups sugar in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar.
2. Remove from heat and let cool.
3. Pour into a 2-quart pitcher along with 1 1/2 cups lemon juice.
4. Stir and add enough water to make 2 quarts. (or according to taste)
5. Stir and serve over ice. Refrigerate any leftovers.

Even though the recipe doesn’t call for freshly squeezed lemon juice, that is all we had and is what we used. We made a smaller batch because it takes a lot of lemons to get 1 1/2 cups lemon juice. (one lemon will give you roughly 3 tablespoons of juice)

The fun thing about this activity is if you have kids, (or a fiance that acts like one) you can let them play with the leftover lemon halves. I’m sure they will be entertained. They can build things like lemon towers:

Even better than the lemonade itself, is if you put it in the freezer until it starts to freeze, and then you get nice and cool frozen lemonade. Yummy! Especially with this 80+ degree weather here in New Orleans! Goodness it has been HOT! What happened to Spring?! ๐Ÿ™‚

Leave a Comment

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

Overnight Oatmeal

We’ve had Drew’s parents over for Mardi Gras, so I decided to try out a new recipe that I’d had saved for a while. It was for overnight oatmeal. You use steel cut oats and put them in a crock pot to cook overnight and you wake up in the morning with fresh hot breakfast! Pretty great, huh? I thought so. Easy too. We just have a baby crock pot and there are only four of us so I just took 4 cups of water and 1 cup of steel cut oats and a pinch of salt and leave it on low in the crock pot overnight. That’s it. (the recipe called for 8 cups of water and 2 cups of oats, but I wouldn’t do that unless you are planning on feeding an army) Don’t use regular oats or you will end up with mush. Times 10. They turned out great. I cut fruit to go on top and a few walnuts and a little brown sugar!ย  I definitely recommend this for an easy company breakfast. ๐Ÿ™‚

1 Comment

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

Beef Vegetable Burgers

The weather has been so nice! We cleaned today and had the door open for a while (it is nice, but Drew’s door doesn’t have a screen, so we don’t keep it open too long to avoid mosquitoes creeping in). In honor of the spring/summery weather, we decided to have a backyard barbecue style dinner, with a little bit of a twist. ๐Ÿ™‚ (I love twists!)

Drew cutting garlic ๐Ÿ™‚

Who likes bland burgers? Make your burgers healthier and tastier by adding in a little salt, pepper, fresh onion, garlic, carrots, and celery! ๐Ÿ™‚

Put your hamburger right in and mix it all up.

Form into patties.

We grilled ours on our George Foreman grill. It allows the fat to run out & makes it a little healthier. ๐Ÿ™‚

I usually eat my burgers without a bun, to take off the added carbs, but Drew, of course, wanted buns, so I reluctantly agreed. We took a nice little walk to Robert’s Fresh Market that is just a few blocks away. I picked out fresh baked Ciabatta buns. Much, much tastier than gross-stuffed-full-of-chemicals-and-preservatives-typical buns. (or “meat bread” as Kelsey used to say when she was little)

Paired with some steamed broccoli and au gratin cheesy potatoes, we had a nice little taste of summer for dinner. ๐Ÿ™‚

Leave a Comment

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

Yummy Chicken Alfredo

Goodness, it seems like the majority of the posts I’ve made recently have mostly been about cooking! I’ve always liked to cook, but this year it seems that I’ve really developed a passion for it. I spend my days planning out ideas for dinner!

For me, I don’t know what isn’t to love about cooking. It relieves my stress from school by giving me an hour or so that I don’t have to think about homework or school at all and it produces something tasty! It is an art form without all the pressure. Plus, it is pretty easy and quick to cook for just two people. I really don’t like going out to eat actually. I don’t like not knowing what is in my food or who prepared it. I like that when I cook at home, I pick out all the ingredients myself and can make it as healthy as possible. I also really like the challenge of cooking. I like to try to figure out what I can make with the things that we already have, without having to go to the grocery store to get anything else. It forces me to make things that I wouldn’t have thought about before. It also allows me to be more economical, and stretch our food supply as far as it will take us. Walking into a kitchen is like walking into a restaurant without a menu, you can make anything you want!

So anyway, last night we should have eaten some more of the beef stew leftovers that we have, but I wanted something different. Something cheesy sounded good. My first thought was to make some kind of a cheesy chicken casserole with biscuits on top. That sounded really good! (also really not so healthy) I didn’t have a recipe, but I like it best that way. We had a package of chicken tenderloins in the fridge, so I cut some of those into cubes and put them in a skillet with a little olive oil. As they browned, I added in a little salt, chicken seasoning, and some onions. (Whenever I get onions from the store, I cut them up into small pieces and put them in a Ziploc bag in the freezer to use as we need them)

Now, what to do about the sauce? If I was making the casserole, I would have gone along the lines of cream of chicken soup, but that didn’t really sound good. So I went to the fridge for inspiration. We had milk and a little bit of heavy whipping cream left from when Drew make Chicken Tetrazzini for dinner last Wednesday. (It was really good!) Seeing also that we had Parmesan cheese as well, I decided to go for a more Alfredo cheesy sauce.

Leaving the chicken in the pan, I added a little flour and let that brown for a minute or two. Then I added in a little heavy whipping cream, stirred and it started to thicken. I added in a little milk and stirred until it was the consistency that I wanted. I salted and peppered it and cut open a lemon we had and squeezed in a little lemon juice. Mmm, tasty so far!

So what else does it need? How about some Penne pasta and the rest of the bag of frozen peas? I added in the peas, then cooked the pasta, and added it to the sauce as well. I gave it one last stir, and voila, dinner is ready. ๐Ÿ™‚

It turned out really, really good. Maybe not the healthiest dinner, but a tasty one! Pretty quick and easy too!

Leave a Comment

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

Bedside Lamps and Stuffed Chicken

Today, I ended up starting on two of the things on my 20 before 20 list.

3. try cooking new things with new ingredients (I think we might pick at least 1 new recipe a week)

and

16. work on decorating Drew’s apartment so it feels more “homey”

We set out to shop for new sheets for Drew’s bed. He has some gray ones that I bought him last year, but I thought that he needed an extra set. Especially because he always forgets to take the sheets to the laundromat when he washes his clothes.ย  So we went shopping and found some creamy colored ones that I liked. They are a bit satiny and really soft. They also match his bedspread better than the gray ones did. Plus they weren’t super expensive, but were still Ralph Lauren. While shopping, I saw these two matching bedside table lamps that I really, really liked. I tried to ignore them and walk on past. But they were just so lovely. We didn’t really need bedside table lamps for another year and a half, until we are married and it becomes our bedroom instead of his. However, we are trying to slowly collect things for our house together now, because after paying for a wedding, we aren’t going to have any money to spend on household items. So anyway, I debated and debated about the lamps, but I really wanted them. They weren’t actually as expensive as I thought that they would be and I figured it was better for us to get them now, because you can never find what you are looking for right when you need it. So now we are the happy owners of two matching lamps that look like this:

I’m trying to figure out the perfect mix of my style and his for our future house. He is a big fan of modern. But classic too. My tastes are somewhat similar, although a little less modern. More elegant/classic/country/with a little modern. I don’t really know how to describe it. In my dorm room, I have a lot of bright colors and quite a bit of pink. I’m trying to figure out what styles, colors, and patterns to choose to accommodate a boy. Although Drew isn’t all that picky. I could probably put anything I wanted in our house. But I like these lamps for several reasons. I like their curvy bases. I like the stainless steel. I like that they seem durable. I’m also a big fan of textured lampshades.ย  To me, I think it is a good balance of classy with a modern feel. Plus, as neutral as they may seem, they gave me inspiration for our bedroom color palette and style. ๐Ÿ™‚

Anyway, next we will have to get bedside tables. ๐Ÿ™‚

Once we got home and got our lamps set up, I sent Drew to the laundromat to wash the new sheets and I set about cooking dinner. I’ve been wanting to start cooking new things, because we get to where we make the same things that we like over and over. I was looking through one of my cookbooks the other day and saw a recipe for cheese-stuffed chicken breasts that sounded good. I didn’t really follow the recipe because it was for 6 chicken breasts and I definitely wasn’t making that many for just us two. So I sort-of improvised it all, like I usually do, but it turned out great!

I took two chicken breasts and sliced them in half far enough to have room to stuff them. I sliced several small mushrooms and sauteed them in a skillet with a little olive oil. In a small bowl, I mixed together part of a bag of grated cheeses (mozzarella, provolone, parmesan, romano, fontina, asiago) and a little muenster cheese we had with some garlic, salt, and herbs. I stuffed the mushrooms and the cheese mixture into the chicken. I put them in a rectangular baking dish with a little olive oil and some fresh green beans to bake in the oven at 375 degrees for 45-55 minutes. I also made a little couscous to accompany it. I would have to say though that the green beans cooked a little too long in there with the chicken, so next time I might add those into the oven after the chicken had cooked for a little bit. Other than that, it turned out pretty great! ๐Ÿ™‚

I’m happy to have started on my 20 before 20 list. Drew’s apartment is looking a little more “homey” and although I didn’t use new ingredients, I did make something new for dinner this week. ๐Ÿ™‚

3 Comments

Tweet This   Share on Facebook

Shortbread Cookies :)

I was talking to my mom the other day about these little lime cookies with cornmeal on the outside that I had at a birthday tea party when I was twelve. This lady made them that was friends with my mom. I remembered them and had wanted to make them for a while, but I didn’t have the recipe. My mom found it for me so I spent the day baking! I love baking, especially at Christmastime! ๐Ÿ™‚ Here is the recipe:

Icebox Shortbread

2 sticks unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
plus your choice of mix-ins and/or coatings (optional)

Flavor variations:
– mix in grated zest of two oranges & 1/2 cup dried cranberries
– mix in grated zest of two lemons & coat with 1/4 cup poppy seeds
– mix in grated zest of two limes & coat with 1/4 cup cornmeal
– mix in 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots & coat with 1/2 cup finely chopped pistachios
– mix in 1/2 cup peanut butter or mini chocolate chips
– mix in 1/4 cup finely chopped candied ginger & coat with 1/4 cup sesame seeds

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt until smooth. With mixer on low speed, add flour, mixing just until a dough forms. Stir in desired mix-ins (above).

2. Divide dough in half. Place each half on a piece of lightly floured parchment or waxed paper. Gently roll the dough into a 1 1/2 inch in diameter log. Divide the desired coating evenly among each log and coat, rolling each log and pressing the coating into the dough. Wrap the logs tightly in the paper, twisting the ends to seal. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 or 1 and 1/2 hours. (to store longer, place wrapped logs in resealable plastic freezer bags and freeze up to 6 months)

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap logs. With a serrated knife, cut dough into 3/8 inch thick slices. (if dough is crumbly, leave at room temperature 5-10 minutes) Place slices on baking sheets about 1 inch apart.

4. Bake, rotating baking sheet about halfway through, until lightly golden around the edges or about 15-20 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for a minute or two and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

5. Enjoy! Store in an airtight container at room temperature. ๐Ÿ™‚

I ended up making the lime/cornmeal ones and I also made a batch with orange zest and about 1/2 cup of finely chopped walnuts mixed in. You can make them with whatever you would like, or you can also leave them plain. ๐Ÿ™‚


2 Comments

Tweet This   Share on Facebook