Cookies!

So I've been craving everything and anything sweet lately. I know, I tried to cut back on sugar a little while ago, but I've seriously been feeling deprived - and hadn't baked in forever, so I figured it was time to whip up a batch of cookies.

I used my new favorite recipe, that I got off of Chef at Home, and ventured off the path of your average chocolate chip cookie.

I divided the dough in half and for one half used eggnog flavored chocolate pieces, and for the other half used a mixture of white chocolate bits, dried cranberries, and a good handful of hemp seeds!

The white chocolate/cranberry/hemp seed cookies turned out so beautiful! I love pretty colour combinations in my food...

The cookies turned out perfect again. This is honestly the best no-fail cookie recipe I've ever used! The cookies always turn out with the perfect crunch/chewy ratio, and stay chewy, too!

Mmmm...

xoxo

Mariel

More Oats???

Hello! So, I had oats, again. But in a whole new way, again. I can never do repeats of bowls of oats, ever, no matter how delicious they turn out! This morning's bowl was one of the tastiest creations yet (almost up there with the Christmas oats, from December). I'm not quite sure what to call this bowl, but I will tell you what I loaded into it!

The inspiration for this bowl was the box of Family Digestives I found lurking in the pantry!

I have had the BIGGEST sweet tooth lately, so of course the thin layer of chocolate on the cookies was not enough to satisfy my craving. To sweeten up my oats even more, I loaded on the cashew butter, chocolate hazelnut spread and one of my favorite things ever, dulce de leche.

And of course, almond milk!

The cookies in the oats were so delicious, they sopped up the almond milk and were all soft and melty and amazing!

The excess of chocolate and rich caramel did not hurt either! Yum. Anyways, enjoy your monday everyone!

xoxo

Mariel

Comfort in Chocolate Chip Cookies

Have you ever had one of those crazy days where you feel like you've got absolutely nothing under control?? Well, I had one of those today! Let's just say it included cramming to finish an essay for 2 PM today, only to find out it's due NEXT thursday, missing a few buses and getting a little case of "sports induced asthma" (from running across campus from the bus terminal to "hand in my essay")...

So when I got home, wheezy and still feeling like my head wasn't on my shoulders, I plopped down on the couch to endulge in my favorite comfort activity: watching the food network. And guess what?! One of my favorite comfort shows ever was just starting when I flipped on the T.V., Michael Smith's Chef at Home! Things were starting to look up! And even better, his theme for this afternoon is: COMFORT FOOD!

First on the menu came "the perfect chocolate chip cookie". I had to try out the recipe (and was majorly craving chocolate, too). Don't you find that you're always on the hunt for the perfect chocolate chip cookie? I do, and let me tell you, this recipe comes pretty close to perfection in my books (the best I've ever produced, at least)!

Michael Smith's Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 tablespoon corn syrup

1 egg

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 salt

1 cup (or more) chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Mix all the wet ingredients together thoroughly until smooth (the sugar, butter, corn syrup, egg, and vanilla).

Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, and then mix them into the wet.

Finally, fold in the chocolate chips!

Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased or parchment papered cookie sheet.

Bake for 12 minutes EXACTLY (Michael really stressed this one...he said it's the last key to the perfect cookie)!

Enjoy!

xoxo

Mariel

Parksville and Smoked Salmon and Cake Mix Cookies

Hello everybody! Finally a new post! I didn't get a chance to post anything the past two days because I was busy packing for, and then getting to Parksville! Well I'm here now...and so incredibly happy to be. First of all...it's about +10 (alot more comfortable than -50...) and there is no snow (hello flats, goodbye [f]uggs)! Anyways that's about enough non-food talk for today, I have quite a few food-a-licious pictures from today that you must peruse!

This is actually the harbour in Naniamo, not Parksville, but that's okay. You will see Parksville pictures soon enough.

We got onto the island pretty late last night so we had to do a little grocery shopping today, but as everyone knows, grocery shopping on an empty stomach is not a good idea...so we headed into Naniamo for a little bite to eat before we went! We ended up going to Modern Cafe, where we'd never been before. It is the cutest little cafe/restaraunt! I was so excited to have found it! It's right downtown Naniamo.

To drink I had a nice cup of coffee...with a ton of cream and sugar...

They bring your water in old wine bottles, it's such a cute idea! Everything about this place was adorable! Great old brick walls, perfect lighting, pretty art, and a wonderful eclectic mix of seating (booths, cozy little coffee sipping corners, nice tall tables).

I just felt like something relatively light for lunch, so I had the smoked salmon wrap.

It was nice and light, but not at all plain! In the wrap there was: smoked salmon (obviously), spinich, red onion, deep fried wontons (such a good idea...the crunch was so yummy) and a delicious homemade garlic aioli. It came with amazing fries and a tasty little caesar! 

I had to take a picture of my Mom's halibut burger...look at the size of this thing!

I ended up having dessert too... (any excuse to linger at this wonderful little spot). I had a wonderful creation that was: tempura battered bananas served with caramel and vanilla bean ice cream. It was heavenly. 

Apparently Mod Cafe is known for their home made cheesecakes, and they have a different flavor every week. This week was cappucinno cheesecake, and that's what Ian had! I never got to have a taste (thanks, Ian) but it looked nice so I took a picture...

We browsed around the cute little shops downtown after lunch, and in one store I stumbled across this little gem: a foodie Christmas tree! Isn't it great?? All the ornaments were FOOD! I wanted to buy them all so badly...

And yes, as you can see, I have overcome my fear of taking numerous pictures in public places of odd things now! This is very good news for the blog.

So cute! After we finished browsing, we finally got around to doing the grocery shopping. When we were at our favorite grocery store...Super Store...I made sure to pick up some boxes of cake mix so I could still do a little baking with limited supplies! I picked out some things to toss into my baked goods in the bulk section too, so I could have a little variety!

I whipped up a batch of my cake mix cookies tonight, these ones I made with white cake mix, shredded coconut and chocolate chips!

These things are slowly becoming my number one favorite thing to bake...they are so fast, and tasty! And they are probably one of the cheapest cookies you can get you're hands on. $1.18 for a box of cake mix, and then just the 1/2 cup of butter or margarine, and the 2 eggs!

Anyways that is about it for my culinary adventures today! Now that we have a stocked fridge, and I'm not going anywhere for a little while, I am sure that I will be cookin' up a storm once again!

xoxo

Mariel

Lazy Sunday

Hey everybody! Today was a pretty lazy day, after sleeping in a little too much, after my late night (spent posting the ton of recipes I put up yesterday) last night. Once I finally got up I felt obligated to bake SOMETHING, as Christmas is creeping up closer so quickly! I wasn't feeling up to baking anything complicated or time consuming at all, so I whipped up a batch of cake mix cookies...which should actually be named 2 minute cookies. I feel like such a cheater making these...but they are actually so delicious and pretty that I can't help myself from bakin' up a batch every once and a while!

Cake Mix Cookies

1 (18.25 ounce) package cake mix, any flavor

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix the cake mix, butter and eggs together. Add anything you like to the cookie dough.

Drop by spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 8-10 minutes!

Done!

This recipe is so great because it literally takes about 2 minutes to whip together, and you get yummy warm cookies fresh from the oven in a snap! These cookies also stay nice and chewy even after they cool! It's also kind of fun experimenting with using different flavored cake mixes and add-in's. Today I used devil's food cake mix and added in cranberries and dark chocolate chips! They're really yummy...

After baking these I won't lie, I didn't do alot! Which is pretty bad considering I've got my last final tomorrow! It's in the afternoon though so I'm planning on waking up extra early for once and trudging through the -40 weather to the university for a little cramming (my specialty). Wish me luck...

Before I headed off to work tonight I made a really simple and flavorful dinner. I was craving something with a little heat to it in this cold weather, and also something carb FILLED! I just threw together a little pasta for supper with what I found in the cupboard.

All we had was macaroni...so I used that. I found some cans of tuna in the cupboard, saw that we had a couple tomatoes, but no tomato sauce, and went from there! This was actually pretty tasty, so I think I'll write out the "recipe" for it!

Pasta with Spicy Tomato Sauce and Tuna

(these amounts feed four)

1 box of whatever type of pasta you've got

a good glug of olive oil

1 medium red onion

2-4 cloves of garlic

1/2 can of tomato paste

1 cup of water

3-4 tomatoes, roughly chopped

sriracha chili sauce to taste

freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 cans of tuna

1 or 2 tablespoons of white vinegar

fresh cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

Start your water boiling for the pasta.

In the meantime, chop up your onion and garlic, and in a saucepan over medium heat add these two to a good amount of olive oil.

Once they start to cook, add the half of a can of tomato paste to the pot and then the cup of water.

Then add in the tuna, sriracha and let simmer.

Add the lemon juice and vinegar.

When your pasta is cooked, drain the water.

Just before serving add the chopped cilantro and salt and pepper into the tomato sauce.

Enjoy!

It was a good, filling and very quick dinner for a cold night! Anyways, I must head off to bed now so I can get up early tomorrow. I am so excited to be finished exams!

xoxo

Mariel

Steak and Eggs and Cookies

Boy have I got a TON of delectable photos for you today! I have to admit...I may have gone a little overboard with the pictures, but there was just so much deliciousness packed into today that I just couldn't bare to leave any of these beauties out of the post. I actually did a little bit of studying today too (AND had a shower)! I think the hearty breakfast I ate really helped in the energy department.

       

For breakky I had good ol' bacon and eggs. The bacon was spectacular...it was so thick!

I guess having a cup of coffee with breakfast for once could have also aided my energy today. Either that or the cup of sugar I loaded into it...I should really cut down my sugar intake...

I washed down breakfast with a big glass of milk and started on the sugar cookies I made today!

This is the best sugar cookie recipe ever, these puppies have so much flavor (in contrast to other sugar cookies...which can be a little bland to say the least...) and stay slightly chewy (which I love) unlike most sugar cookies! They are also really good for decorating because there is no baking soda or baking powder in them so they hold their cut-out shapes really well! Here's the recipe:

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

1 cup white sugar

1 cup softened butter

1 (3 ounce) package of softened cream cheese

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg yolk

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar, butter, cream cheese, salt, almond and vanilla extracts, and egg yolk. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour until well blended.

You can put the dough in the fridge to firm up a bit if you find it's too soft to roll out, but I find this dough is usually pretty easy to work with right away as long as you flour your rolling surface enough!

On your floured surface, roll out the dough 1/3 at a time, and cut into shapes with whatever you've got (cookie cutters, knife...even just shape them with your hands)!

Place the cut out shapes onto an ungreased cookie sheet. At this point you can pop the cookies right into the oven, and decorate or frost them later when they're cool, or you can try a weird decorating trick I tried today on them (I'll put that recipe further down on the page).

Whenever you do get around to throwing these cookies into the oven, bake for 6-10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a very light golden brown.

                             

Okay! So this is the weird decorating trick I tried out today. Instead of decorating the sugar cookies with icing once they've baked and cooled like I usually do, I tried decorating them BEFORE they baked! I made a little colour glaze that I painted on the cookies out of egg yolk, a little sugar, and food colouring! It was pretty cool, and fun! You could get really creative doing this...but I stuck to pretty basic designs today.

        

I painted the glaze onto the cookie dough with a clean paint brush, it worked so well!

Here are the cookies all glazed up ready to go into the oven.

And ta-da! Cookies nice and decorated right out of the oven! I was really surprised at how well these turned out! The colour stayed nice and bright through the baking process, and got a great shine to it too!

And most importantly, they tasted great too! Nice and sweet with that gorgeous hint of almond in there.

                                      

After baking cookies it was finally dinner time. We had the most amazing (and simple) dinner tonight!

We tried out Tatomme's kale recipe, and it was so delicious (and addictive)! We will definitely be making those again...

Always have to have a salad with dinner...tonight we had a yummy greek-ish salad, just loaded with tons of fresh veggies and garlic!

Best part of tonight's meal...obviously the steak. These steaks were unbelievable! Mine pretty much melted in my mouth...soo good. We also had some quick and easy couscous. I love couscous...it literally took five minutes to whip together!

Anyways, there is my essay on food for today! Lots of pictures...I know...but weren't they mouth watering??  Can't wait to bake up some more Christmas treats tomorrow!

xoxo

Mariel