Chocolate chip cookies

The girls are going on an over night trip tomorrow and needed a treat to take and share with their roomates. Snacks I can do, no problem. Problem comes when they ask me for potato chips or chocolate bars, these are not snacks for school so I offered the peanut butter and jelly muffins but then realized that peanut butter anything might cause a complete shutdown of the highschool..and that would be very embarrassing. So what about good ole chocolate chip cookies? josee was in agreement with this but only if I made them real. Real? as if I fake bake all the time? no real means not healthy. Ok so I understand that the kid who brings the best snack gets points towards cooldom but store bought junkfood as a rule I don't do. I bet they will like my cookies much more than a store bought bag .......we'll see.

The cookies turned out super good, Alex and jo had one for dessert and couldn't tell that I had added 1/2 whole wheat flour and some splenda. It wasn't much but I feel better for at least trying.

Toll House Cookies

I used this original recipe and then changed it up a bit

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour   (1 1/4 cups whole wheat, 1 cup white)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup white sugar (splenda)

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs (1 egg white, 1 egg)

1 - 12 ounce package (or 2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate chips (dark chocolate)

Preheat oven to 375°.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside for a minute.

In a large bowl, combine butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla. Beat until the mixture is creamy. Beat in the eggs. Gradually add in the flour mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Drop the cookie mixture by the tablespoonful on an ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 9-11 minutes, until golden brown.

This recipe makes about 3 dozen 2 1/4" cookies.  (I made them really big)

• 
  
  
  

peanut butter and strawberry jam muffins

After stressing all week about where to even begin packing my kitchen, I began yesterday. My dilemma is what to bring to Edmonton and what to move to storage. Since our move is once again not permanent I can't bring everything which I am finding very hard this time. What I do know is that I refuse to buy new kitchen stuff this time around and I am also completely against renting cheap crap when we get there - been there, done that. Besides, I have an attachment to my gadgets and even to my serving platters so this time they will not be left behind. I'm a firm believer that the kitchen is the centre piece of the home so lugging my kitchenaide across Canada seems right to me.

Now back to cookin. As I mentioned before, I'm on a mission to use as much of my pantry and freezer items as possible before we leave. yesterday I cooked up a big pot of whole spelt and barley to eat as porridge for the next few days.

I love the chewy texture with cinnamon, stevia, chopped almonds blueberries and greek yogurt. I gave it to Steve last night instead of rice with his meatballs and beans but I don't think he was too impressed as barley isn't his favorite. Now I have the super huge natural peanut butter from Costco to work with because like all natural pb's the bottom has started getting cement like. I'm addicted to pb and especially natural pb, I'd be happy to get a really strong spoon and just chip away at the bottom while watching Oprah like some people do popcorn but instead I think I'll make some pb muffins for the kids lunch boxes. My muffins are always a hit and miss with the kids because they think I make then too healthy and the problem is, I refuse not to try and make them 'healthier' than normal muffins. My muffins are always a hit though with Steve so if they don't like them.....it's no problem. I have a ton of left over jam and jellies from the summer jarring as well so I will add a bit to 1/2 of the muffins and leave the rest 'fruit free' for picky Alex. I also found 2 frozen trout filets deep in my 'meat' freezer for Steve tonight...I don't like trout so more pulled pork for me!

Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 1/4 cup Rolled Oats
• 1/2 cup splenda (or sugar)
• 1/4 cup Wheat bran
• 4 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Salt
• 3 Eggs
• 1 cup nonfat cottage cheese blended until smooth
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 cup Peanut Butter
• 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1 tsp Vanilla
• 1 tsp or more of strawberry jam for each muffin

Preheat oven to 375F.  Spray muffin tin with pam

In a large bowl combine flour, oats, sugar, wheat bran, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In another bowl whisk together eggs, cottage cheese, milk, lemon juice, peanut butter, oil and vanilla until smooth.

Pour into flour mixture and stir just until blended.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, dig in a little hole in the centre of each muffin and add as much am as you like and bake for 20-25 minutes or until firm

Pulled pork

I've skipped a few days. So many things seems to be happening at the same time. Why that surprises me is well...surprising. Our house is sold and we are to be out as of Apr 29th. Today I had the movers come over to give us an estimate and I am hoping above all that we can afford to send our vehicles and not have to drive the 3 days to Edmonton. That sounds like complete hell. Moving is hell though and I need to get it going. In the meantime....I'm still cookin and movin. yesterday I ran 2.5 miles at 6.5-8 mph and then did back. This was my 4th day of workouts with no break. We went to see Shutter Island last night (ugh) and then Baton Rouge for dinner, I had lots of protein and 1 glass of shiraz but when we got home I literally passed out feeling almost drugged I was so tired. I think a clear sign of over training so today I decided to take it easy and do some cookin. I'm making a pulled pork butt in the crockpot which will be cooking all night long. I really should have measured ingredients but when I started to de-fat the butt pork I realized that there was way more fat to cut off and way less meat and so the liquid marinade needed to be reduced. It's cooking right now so here is what I added

2 cans of diet root beer

2 medium chopped onions

5 cloves chopped garlic

1 tbsp dried mustard

1 tbsp cumin

2 tsp liquid smoke

2 tsp worcheshire

5 pickled jalapenos or 2 fresh

1/2 cup of lime juice

1 tbsp sea salt

1/4 cup splenda

We'll see early this morning it being 10 p.m. right now and I just turned it after 2 hrs. I'm worried there is too much liquid but I'm thinking I can make it into a yummy sauce tomorrow.

Fast forward and it turned out great!!     We've eaten it 2 nights in a row on buns with coleslaw and even Josee loved it - yay.

Ok so now my goal in the next month is to use up everything in my pantry and freezer. This may sound simple but this is no joke, I take my food storage very seriously meaning I have arranged both my pantry and cold room to be stocked in case of an ice storm, alien invasion , or a State of emergency. I think my family will survive it.

I've learned this food hoarding habit from my mother. I remember growing up and each Sunday dinner wandering which soccer team was showing up there was so much food. My mother had a good excuse for this because she came from a family of 14 and very little food ..... dinner was first come first served when there actually was dinner so she understandably overcompensated when she had her family. I simply copy what I know and what I know is that the more the better. A group of 40 roaming gypsies could show up hungry at my house on any given night and I would be able to throw together a 5 course meal in less that an hour. Of this I am proud. A funny moment on a visit to my moms home this christmas was when I was making Steve breakfast of poached eggs and toast. I decided to see if there was a can of baked beans to add as well and went downstairs to look in her 2nd set of pantries and I couldn't find any. I made the mistake of asking her and she proceeded to scour the cupboards and finally gave up in disbelief of there being no beans. I could tell she had let herself down because any good grocery store - or pantry would have this simple staple. The funny thing is, I am almost positive that she would have made a trip to costco for the pack of 12 cans as soon as we left, just in case......

sourdough attempt

Well I've finally decided to finally give it a go and make some sour dough bread. Every so often I look up how to make the starter and then the bread and each time I decide it's too much work and too complicated but now that I have this blog it's a good chance for me to give it a try and show each step along the way. So for the starter or 'sponge' I am letting 1 cup of white all purpose flour and 1 cup of water sit in a large jar for 24 hrs after which time I will throw out 1/2 cup of the starter only to add another 1/2 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water. I will do this every 24 hrs until I see some bubbling action. I should consider the starter my 'pet' as one site explained and regularly feed it and love it. They say that a well treated starter can last for years in the fridge - hard to believe. I'm on day 2 now but the only thing that concerns me is the temp. I'm supposed to keep the sponge at 80 degrees in the dark but I don't think there's a spot in my chilly house warmer than 60 from September to June. I've got it wrapped up tonight in a towel next to the fireplace hoping it's nice and cozy. This should take about 4-7 days after which I can put it in the fridge and continue to feed it only once per week.

Jump to Mar 8th and I finally decided to throw in the towel.....and throw out my starter. I can't say for sure why it didn't work but I'm almost positive it was the temp. I was a bit confused at the beginning because on the 2nd day it was actually bubbly and yeasty smelling but I just assumed that it was too early for that because from everything I've read it says 4-7 days. Maybe I should have considered it done then. I am definitely going to try this again but for now I think I'll wait until May when we get to Edmonton. Hopefully we'll find a warm house to live in :)

no bubbles - no action - no starter

Turkey soup

The day after our turkey dinner in March, I've made the stock and decided to just make a very simple Mexican turkey soup. Here is the stock that has been sitting in my cold garage in order for the fat to float to the top.

Now the stock with fat removed.

Remember my stock will have the hint of sage and orange from the turkey but that's ok because I think that the smoky cumin in the soup will go nicely with it. This ended up being a very dark and rich colored stock. For the soup I sauteed 2 chopped onions, 4 cloves of garlic and 1 jalapeno pepper until soft. Then add 2 tsp cumin (depending on your taste) salt and pepper, 2 tsp oregano, 2 tsp chili powder and as much hot pepper sauce as you can tolerate. Add as much chopped leftover turkey as you like. Add 1 large can of diced tomatoes.

Now add 8 cups of your stock and simmer for about 1/2 hr. That's it, you can't get an easier soup than that. I might add some frozen corn to it and when it's dinner time I'll put out chopped avocado, greek yogurt, fresh cilantro and grated cheese for garnish. Some sliced baguette with garlic and cheese, a side of already prepared salad and Voila! dinner is done. Oh and don't forget a splash of lime juice on top of everything.

Egg white pumpkin pancake

This blogging thing is starting to consume a lot of time, I've spent most of today either blogging, taking pics or thinking of my next blog. I can see this getting addictive and I'm going to have to becareful not to ramble about nothing too much although dh keeps telling me that's what I'm supposed to do. Since he's working from home for the next few weeks and I'm scheduling appts for moving estimates and house repairs before the new owners move in my gym schedule is a bit wacky. I'm not going until the boy finishes work this afternoon so I also have to change up my eating times which I'm really not good at, I'm definitely a routine type of girl. Today I'll try and run 3 miles on the treadmill and then do chest. I tried something different for lunch today (mostly because I need some recipes for this blog) but also because I need to start getting more protein. I made an eggwhite pancake.

First I whipped 8 egg whites with 1/2 tsp cream of tartar until thick and frothy. Add 1 tsp pumpkin spice, 1/4 cup canned pumpkin and 1/4 cup wheat bran. Then I put this mixture in a greased nonstick frying pan until browned on the bottom.

Next I baked the pancake at 350 until browned and slightly firm.

I added some 1/4 cup nonfat greek yogurt (recipe to follow soon), 1/4 cup blueberries and 4 whole walnuts chopped. The cup has a bit of sugar free syrup in it. I worked the calorie count out to be 355 calories, 10.5g fat, 29g carbs and 41g protein. Next time I would use 6 egg whites as it was a bit much. It was really good though and very filling.

Roll up the rim

Today is the first day of March break. Lord help me. It's 10:41 a.m. and my two girls, Alex and Josee have not come downstairs yet mainly because I told them not to until they've cleaned their room. Not rooms, just 1 room because I've agreed to let them sleep together during the break. The cleaning of 1 bedroom has now taken over 1 hour and my bet is, they are not even half done. Lord help me. I'm doing my best to help keep them busy this week since as a family we were unable to to take a vacation (which btw every single one of their friends is doing apparently). Today is also the first day of dh's last 2 weeks of work in Charlotte NC. Our house is sold and we're supposed to be out of here by Apr 29th so he is hoping his next contract will come through for Edmonton. Edmonton.....we'll see. All I know is that it's 4 degrees today and I can finally see an end to yet another winter. The snow is melting and the sun was coming up this morning at 6 a.m. which is very cool because for me the very worst part of winter is waking up in the dark...ugh. Another good sign spring is on it's way? tulips my all time favorite flower, this time of year I will have some color of tulip on my kitchen table at all times.

But the very best sign that spring is just around the corner??? It's roll up the rim time of course at Tim Hortons. Now my husband Steve and I will begin to donate about $3.40 a day to Canadians favorite coffee shop in hope of at least winning a free muffin for the next days visit. We probably spend about $100 during the month and maybe win 4 coffees and 3 donuts. I'm feelin the new car this year though.