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New cookie recipe: I consider these “Superfoods”

8 Mar

I have a new chocolate cookbook that I received from Caroline for Christmas this year. IMG_0115

It’s fantastic.

I already went through it and tabbed a bunch of recipes, and we’ve already made two of them so far, both were delicious. One of them I am going to share with you today. Elizabeth and I made it together last weekend as a surprise for the rest of the family when they were out.

Overall, many of the recipes in this cookbook are already “healthified,” made with some healthier options. Today’s recipe is one of those healthier option recipes.

In fact, it’s so healthy, I might consider these cookies a “Superfood!”

You laugh (I can hear you) but just look at the ingredients in this recipe, read my post about super foods from last week and read the following blurb that I just read *today* in the March 13 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, that supports my superfood cookie claim:

“When you think ‘superfood,’ you probably picture kale or blueberries. But potent plant goodness comes in liquid form, too. Coffee is the nation’s number one source of antioxidants, accounting for 40% of our overall intake, according to research from the University of Scranton.”

Elizabeth was so excited to be the kid in the kitchen this time around!

Elizabeth was so excited to be the kid in the kitchen this time around!

First, let me just say that reading this thrilled me. I think I probably get more like 50% of my antioxident intake from coffee!

And second, although I’m being humorous, this recipe actually has coffee in it, which is why I drew your attention to that fact.

The cookies were a hard, crunchy cookie, which is the kind I prefer. Everyone here loved them, all thumbs up, and I didn’t think twice about offering them dessert, knowing that I was really providing them with daily doses of antioxidants!!

Below is the recipe. Now keep your eye open for all the healthier choices and you’ll see why these cookies were a superfood in my house!

My new superfood cookies

My new superfood cookies

CHOCOLATE & COFFEE WHOLE WHEAT COOKIES
INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup unsalted butter or margarine (we used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.)

1 cup brown sugar

1 egg (we used egg substitute)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

pinch of salt

scant 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon bran (We took bran flakes and crushed them up in a ziploc bag and took 1 tablespoon from there.)

1 1/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

2 cups rolled oats

1 tablespoon strong coffee (I used decaf!)

2/3 cup hazelnuts toasted and coarsely chopped (I skipped this ingredient.)

Using the larger of my two Pampered Chef scoops makes our cookies more uniform.

Using the larger of my two Pampered Chef scoops makes our cookies more uniform.

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Grease two large cookie sheets (I don’t grease, mine are fine.)

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Add the egg and beat well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour, baking soda, and salt. Then add in the whole wheat flour and bran.

Mix in the egg mixture, then stir in the chocolate chips, oats, coffee, and hazelnuts.

Mix well.

Put 24 rounded tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared cookie sheets.

Bake 16-18 minutes or until golden brown. (Ours took less, around 15 minutes.)

Remove from oven, then transfer to a cooling rack and let cool before serving.

Enjoy!!

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A Chocolaty Chinese New Year Dessert

8 Feb
Gramma's Haystacks

My mom’s dessert was chocolaty and delicious!

I cannot take credit for today’s dessert.

My mom brought these for dessert to our house last weekend after bringing another tray of them to a Chinese New Year party the week before, and she has shared the recipe with me.

In fact, it was her idea to use the Chinese New Year theme on my blog this week, and I took it and ran with it. Alex’s salad yesterday was a perfect addition to my main dish and Mom’s dessert.

My Grandma Rose makes something very similar to these with the chocolate and the noodles and sometimes she puts chocolate and walnuts. These are a little bit different, using the chocolate, but adding butterscotch and cashews along with the noodles.

Really depending on your own personal preferences, you can use just about anything you want in them: peanuts, marshmallows, dried cranberries, raisins.

And really, isn’t anything covered in chocolate just perfect?

I’ll warn you though: it’s hard to eat just one of these. There’s something about the combination of the salty and the sweet that makes you want to eat several of them. It’s a slippery slope, taking that first bite!

Thanks to Mom for bringing dessert and sharing the recipe with me, and thanks to Grandma Rose for sharing these with me over the years!

CHOCOLATY CHINESE NOODLES
INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips (or choose your own ingredient)
One 10 oz. bag of Chinese noodles
1 1/2 cups cashews (or walnuts or peanuts)

DIRECTIONS

Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips in glass bowl in microwave or in sauce pan on top of the stove.

Add Chinese noodles and nuts, as well as any other optional ingredients, mixing well.

Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper.

Cool until completely hardened.

Enjoy!

 

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Can’t get to a cannoli? Try this dessert instead!

1 Feb
This picture of Jill's cannoli made my mouth water!

This picture of Jill’s cannoli made my mouth water!

One afternoon on Facebook, my friend Jill, of Jill’s Cakes and Bakes in Canton, Georgia, shared a mouth-watering photo of her bakery’s cannoli. I have shared the photo with you here, so that you too, can drool with longing, just as I did that day.

I wanted a cannoli right then and there. If you live anywhere near Jill’s bakery in Canton, I highly recommend you high tail it right over there. Right now.

Of course I couldn’t have a cannoli right then and there, and I do not live near Jill, but I had a backup plan.

I’d have my new favorite guilt-free dessert, one that I found in the South Beach Diet Cookbook in my quest for lowfat foods. As I was perusing the book in December, I noticed that in the Phase I plan of their diet they do a lot with ricotta cheese for dessert. They add in all different flavors like orange, vanilla and…..

Mocha.

Yup, I went right to the Mocha Ricotta dessert page as soon as I saw that because I have always loved ricotta cheese. I don’t know if that’s a typical thing to love, but I love it, and I always have.

The recipe was a simple one, and it makes one serving, just enough to satisfy my urge for a little something.

On that particular day, it satisfied my urge for three cannolis. In fact, the dessert itself is very similar to the inside of a cannoli.

Works for me.

Since I’m not actually ON a diet, I threw some fat free chocolate syrup on top, not a ton, just a little, and some fat free whipped cream on top also. It was like an ice cream sundae in the middle of the day, but much better than an ice cream sundae.

Now clearly, it’s not a cannoli, but if you can’t have one, maybe this is the next best thing!

Next time you’re having a craving for something sweet, give this dessert a try!

I've had this dessert at least six times since finding it in the South Beach Diet book.

I’ve had this dessert at least six times since finding it in the South Beach Diet book.

South Beach Diet’s

MOCHA RICOTTA CREME

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup part-skim ricotta cheese (I use fat free)

1/2 tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1 pkg. sugar substitute (since I’m not dieting I just throw in about 1/4 tsp. of sugar)

Dash of expresso powder (I don’t have that so I use instant decaf granules, about 1/8 tsp.)

5 mini chocolate chips (again, I can use regular sized, a couple more than five but not a ton.)

DIRECTIONS

Mix together the ricotta, cocoa powder, vanilla, and sugar substitute in a dessert bowl. Serve chilled with a dusting of expresso powder and sprinkled with mini chocolate chips.

Per serving (as original recipe is written): 261 calories, 15 g. protein, 17 g. carbohydrates, 14 g. fat, 9 g. saturated fat,  166 mg. sodium, 42 mg. cholesterol, 0 g fiber

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Quinoa Muffins

25 Jan
These muffins are hearty, healthy and taste great!

These muffins are hearty, healthy and taste great!

I’ve mentioned previously that I really love getting ideas from Pinterest. I first had quinoa at the White House when I had lunch there for the first Kids’ State Dinner. After that I was hooked on quinoa and I searched for lots of different ways of cooking it.

Today’s recipe was originally a Pinterest recipe for Martha Stewart Quinoa Muffins.

We had to healthify it a little bit. I’ve put the link to the original recipe above, and I’ll make notes to tell you how we changed the recipe to suit our needs.

Everyone in our house likes these muffins. I’ve made them twice now, once following the original recipe back in the fall, and once a few weeks ago with our modifications. If you haven’t cooked with quinoa, I encourage you to try it. I like having another ingredient option for my cooking and baking. The last time I used it, I cooked up a big batch and used some for the muffins, some for a side dish with dinner another night, and some I ate like oatmeal in the mornings for my breakfast. It’s quite the versatile ingredient.

QUINOA MUFFINS
INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil, such as safflower, plus more for pan (We used 1/4 cup plain, nonfat yogurt.)
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan (We used 1 cup wheat flour, 1 cup white flour.)
  • 3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 cup raisins (We used craisins for half the batch and chocolate chips for the other half the batch.)
  • 3/4 cup whole milk (We used skim milk.)
  • 1 large egg (We used egg substitute.)
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Splitting the batch in half allowed for using both craisins and chocolate chips as filling options.

Splitting the batch in half allowed for using both craisins and chocolate chips as filling options.

DIRECTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa and 1 cup water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover, and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, 11 to 13 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, brush a standard 12-cup muffin pan with oil; (we used fat free nonstick spray) dust with flour, tapping out excess. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, raisins, and 2 cups cooked quinoa; reserve any leftover quinoa for another use.
  3. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add milk mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined; divide batter among prepared muffin cups.
  4. Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool muffins in pan, 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

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Liz’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

18 Jan

One of the things I love about recipes is the fact that they often remind me of people, places, of times in my life. Today’s recipe reminds me of all of those things.

When we eat our cookies, I'll be thinking of Liz!

When we eat our cookies, I’ll be thinking of Liz!

A while back we lived out of state for a few years and conveniently enough, we were in the neighboring state to where my brother and his roommates were living at the time. We were less than an hour away from them, which was fun.  Liz was one of the roommates, a friend of his from college, and a wonderful person. In fact, all of his roommates and friends were wonderful, but today’s recipe is from Liz, so today we focus on her.

Technology being what it is, we’ve been able to stay in touch with Liz and share the events of our lives with each other, which is so great. She is still living nearby, just a few hours from here, and now she has two children of her own.  She’s a fan of The Whole Bag of Chips, and recently she sent me today’s recipe. She knows how much I love cookies and she also knows that I love cookie batter. She specifically sent me this recipe because there were no eggs in the batter, so it makes it safe to taste.

I love that this recipe replaces some of the sugar with honey. It also lent itself well to being a low-fat recipe between the lack of eggs (great for people with egg allergies) and the fact that I could replace the butter with my new go-to, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. It may just be my new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe for all of those reasons. This time around, I even replaced half of the white flour with wheat flour, just to healthify it even more. Every little bit helps!

Each Friday we spend a chunk of our afternoon with my Grandma Rose, the girls’ great-grandmother. I’ve begun bringing along a low-fat or non-fat snack for our dessert, to make things easier for her and for us. At 91 years old, she puts out quite a spread, and I’m glad I can help out a little bit. Today we’ll be bringing along a batch of Liz’s chocolate chip cookies for everyone to enjoy.

These make a great long-weekend baking project too, so give them a try this Martin Luther King Weekend!

LIZ’S CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
INGREDIENTS

1 1/4 cups flour (I did 3/4  cup white flour and 1/2 cup wheat flour)

1 tsp. baking soda

1/8 tsp. salt

1/2 cup butter (I used I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter)

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup honey

1 cup chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla
IMG_9153DIRECTIONS

Combine all ingredients and mix well.

I used my small Pampered Chef scoop to put them onto my ungreased trays.

Bake at 300 degrees for 18-20 minutes (18 was perfect for my oven.)

ENJOY!

Grandma Rose

We enjoy being able to spend some time with Great Grandma Rose! This photo was taken a year or so ago, at her house on her 90th birthday.

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Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day: Chocolate Chip Butterballs

21 Dec

These cookies could be made with nuts instead of chocolate chips if you prefer!

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 5, 2011

Today’s recipe is another one of my favorite cookie recipes, one we’ve made for years and years. Way back when I was a Girl Scout, I used to participate in the Girl Scout Bake Off each year and one of the years I earned second place with these cookies! That’s how long my family has been making them.

We call them Chocolate Chip Butterballs, but they have many other names: Snowballs, Mexican Wedding Balls, Hazelnut Balls and probably other names I don’t even know about.

Traditionally they are made with nuts. I don’t like nuts, my family never baked with nuts growing up and I don’t either We all really love Chocolate Chips though, so my mom has always subbed in the chocolate chips for nuts. You can choose either mini chips or the regular sized chips. Personally, I prefer the big ones, but if you don’t, switch them for the minis instead. If you’re into tasting batter, this one is safe to eat, there are no eggs in this recipe. I’m always pretty sure I’d come out with about six more cookies in each batch if I ate less batter!

This recipe can be made fast and easy if you have extra set(s) of hands to help you roll the batter into balls! This is one I often let my kids help with. I don’t usually have them roll the hot ones in the sugar though, even though I use a spoon for that. Their “part” is the cold batter getting rolled into the balls for baking.

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see what the coordinating kids’ activities are for this recipe!

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chip Butterball Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 cups flour
1 cup butter or margarine
4 TBL granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

one 12 oz. package chocolate chips

Bowl of confectioner’s sugar

DIRECTIONS

Combine flour, butter, granulated sugar, salt, vanilla in bowl of electric mixer. Mix well.

Add in chocolate chips, mix them into the batter.

Refrigerate dough 30 minutes (or longer.)

Form into 1″ balls, place on cookie sheet. These don’t spread, so you can put a lot on a sheet, no need to spread them out a ton.

Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes.

Cool only slightly, maybe a minute or so, and then roll each one in a bowl of confectioner’s sugar.

Roll a second time in confectioner’s sugar before serving.

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Your Tray or Mine? Cookie Tray Recipe of the Day: Chocolate Thumbprints

14 Dec

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 1, 2011

I first posted this recipe on my FB page on December 5, 2008!! It’s a cookie recipe my mom and I make every year, and if I had to pick a top favorite, this would be in my top two. I LOVE these cookies. They’re easy to make and easy to just POP into your mouth!! And, they’re chocolate on chocolate. I mean really…how much better can you get than that?

This is a rolled cookie, so your kids can help you if you’d like them to. They can also use their thumbs to make the indentation in the cookies for the filling.

Speaking of your kids….. Remember, check back tomorrow to see what I post for your kids to do, a book and a craft that coordinates with today’s recipe. Any guesses?

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
Makes six dozen
Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Thumbprints before baking

Almost ready to go in the oven!

Alex making thumbprint batter

Alex did almost all the measuring and mixing for the thumbprints herself, with very little help from me.

INGREDIENTS FOR COOKIES

1 cup margarine or butter, soft
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 oz (2 sq.) unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
1 egg
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS FOR COOKIES

In large bowl, cream margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.
Blend in vanilla, chocolate and egg.
Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup, level off. Gradually add flour to creamed mixture, mix well.
Chill dough 30 minutes for easier handling.

Shape dough into 1″ balls, place 2″ apart on ungreased cookie sheets or parchment lined sheets. With thumb, make imprint in center of each cookie.

Bake at 375 degrees 8-10 minutes. Let cool one minute before removing from cookie sheets. Fill with chocolate cream filling.

Thumbprints ready to fill

Thumbprints are ready to be filled!

INGREDIENTS FOR CHOCOLATE CREAM FILLING

6 oz. (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips
2 Tablespoons corn syrup
1 Tablespoon water
1 Tablespoon margarine or butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In small saucepan melt chocoalte chips with corn syup, water and margarine over low heat, stirring constantly. Stir in vanilla.
Spoon 1 tsp into each cookie.

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Your Tray or Mine: Recipe of the Day: Chocolate Buttersweets

10 Dec
Chocolate Buttersweets

These are my other top favorite cookie from our trays!

ORIGINALLY POSTED DECEMBER 19, 2011

When I first began the Your Tray or Mine series of recipes earlier this month, I began with the Chocolate Thumbprints, which I said were one of my top two favorite cookie recipes from the trays my mom and I do. Today’s cookie, the Chocolate Buttersweets, are my other top favorite cookie on the tray.

This recipe is not complicated, although it does have three distinct steps: the cookie, the filling and the frosting. Because the cookie should be frosted when it’s warm (but not hot) I recommend prepping the filling first, so that it’s ready. Then make your cookies, and after they are filled, make your frosting and frost the filled cookies.

INGREDIENTS

Cookie base for chocolate buttersweets

If you have a wooden spoon with a round handle, you can use it to poke the holes in the tops of the cookies before baking.

Cookies:
1 cup margarine or butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour

**Filling:
6 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
4 TBL flour
2 tsp vanilla

Frosting:
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
4 TBL butter or margarine
4 TBL water
1 cup confectioners sugar

DIRECTIONS:
**Prepare the filling first. The cookies, when done, need to be filled while warm. Have the filling ready to go.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

FOR COOKIES:
1) In large bowl cream together butter, confectioners sugar, salt and vanilla.
2) Gradually add flour to creamed mixture, mix well.
3) Roll dough into 1″ balls, placing them 2″ apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
4) Press hole in center of each cookie with finger or the handle end of wooden spoon (if handle is round, not flat.)
5) Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes until edges are lightly brown.
6) Fill while warm
7) Frost

Filled Chocolate Buttersweets

Step two: fill the cookies while warm.

FOR FILLING:
Soften cream cheese. Blend in sugar, flour, vanilla. Cream well. Fill cookies.

FOR FROSTING:
In small saucepan melt chocolate chips, butter, and water over low heat. Stir constantly. Stir in confectioners sugar and mix well. Will be lumpy at first until the sugar melts. Spoon a little frosting onto each cookie.

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Pumpkin Palooza Recipe of the Day: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 Nov

Originally posted on: November 16, 2011

OK seriously, what could be more perfect than the combination of pumpkin AND chocolate chips!? Last year I made these for a school party and the kids loved them.

At the time, I wrote on Facebook that a friend of mine posted this recipe and she got it from Allrecipes.com. I can’t remember who the friend was though! What I do remember is they were delicious!

I did double it when I made it last year. I didn’t even use my standup mixer, I used a wooden spoon. You could use one though if you have one.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies III
from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

  • 1 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon milk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts ( I did not use walnuts)

Directions

  1. Combine pumpkin, sugar, vegetable oil, and egg. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, ground cinnamon, and salt. Dissolve the baking soda with the milk and stir in. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and mix well.
  2. Add vanilla, chocolate chips and nuts.
  3. Drop by spoonful on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for approximately 10 minutes or until lightly brown and firm.

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A word about re-runs

19 Oct

Yup, I’m already thinking now about my holiday baking!

Fall is here, and winter is coming. Last year I began posting daily around this time of year, in order to fit in all of my holiday-worthy and seasonal recipes.

I also featured winter crafts and children’s book recommendations to go along with each of the recipes in December.

This year I will be re-running some of those recipe posts as I see fit, in order to let my newer followers in on those yummy treats. Although I do try out new recipes once a week or so, when it comes to my holiday baking, I am steeped in tradition and I do not veer off that path very often. Therefore, I won’t have 20 new Christmas Cookie Tray recipes for you again this year, since I shared most all of my tray treats with you last year. So if you are a regular, long-time reader, you may see a few things that ring a bell as looking awfully familiar. I hope those re-runs will remind you that you always wanted to try that recipe last year and never got to, or that you loved it so much you can’t wait to make it again.

In the meantime, if you’d like to look back at my holiday treats from last year right now, you can type in Pumpkin Palooza (Thanksgiving) or Your Tray or Mine? (Christmas), or even click on November and December 2011 to take a look!

As always, if you have a recipe you’d like me to try, feel free to email it to me and I’ll add it to my list, which is super-long, of things I want to try one day! Thank you in advance for sharing your recipes with me and for being such a great, supportive blog audience!

Jen

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