Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hi everyone! Ashley and I have been super busy this summer. Ashley has moved and gotten a dog! I have gone back to school! There's a lot going on these days, but in case you haven't noticed based on all my previous posts involving chocolate, I'm never too busy to make cookies.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rolled oats, regular or quick
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  

Instructions

First: Heat oven to 350 degrees. Put rolled oats in blender or food processor and process until finely ground. Combine ground oats, flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a mixing bowl.

Then: In another bowl, cream butter and sugars together with an electric mixer. Add vanilla, lemon juice and eggs and beat until fluffy.

Next: Stir the flour mixture into egg mixture until blended. Fold in the chocolate chips.  Use a spoon to help scoop round balls and place 2 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets.

Finally: Bake about 11-14 minutes. 

Link to the original recipe.

These were so delicious I forgot to take a picture before serving them. I think it's the oats and cinnamon together. Maybe the lemon juice? I have made these twice and the first time I put the oats through the food processor to make a fine powder out of it.  The second time I left them whole.  This changes the texture of the cookie for sure and mildly changed the taste of it. It somehow was less oat-y tasting when the oats were powdered. 

The only weird thing I experienced was that they didn't flatten as much as I expected. They turned out kind of thick and puffy.  So look out for that when rolling your cookies. You may want to flatten them with a fork or your thumb just a little before baking. Any advice about how to avoid this? I like my cookies less cake like generally. Have you ever tried chocolate chip cookies with cinnamon? With lemon juice? Give these a try and tell us what you think!

One Pot Pasta

Sorry it has been so long since our last post!  I found this recipe on Pinterest [imagine that]! And decided to try it out.  I did a few tweaks, but it was super easy and delicious!

• 12 ounces linguine
• 12 ounces cherry or grape tomatoes, halved or quartered if large
• 1 onion, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced ---- I use the jar of minced garlic and used 4 tbsp
• 1/2 teaspoon red-pepper flakes --- I only used a shake or two
• 2 sprigs basil, plus torn leaves for garnish ----I used the awesome basil paste stuff pictured below and used 3 tbsp
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 1/2 cups water
• Freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

[Those are seriously the best cheats ever.]

Basically, you put all ingredients into a large pot, boil for 9 minutes or until al dente, and serve!  SO EASY!!

Italian Baked Chicken

Wow it has been a while!  I accidentally deleted all of my recipe/food photos, so they will be Instagram photos for a while. [oopsy]

Today I have a recipe for baked Italian chicken, but the REAL star of this dish is the pasta sauce you create at the same time.  This was THE best sauce I've ever eaten [and my uber picky husband loved it too!].

3-4 chicken breasts
1 can diced tomatoes
2 tbsp minced garlic from jar [or 2 cloves minced fresh]
1 can artichoke hearts
1 tbsp olive oil
dash salt & pepper
2 tbsp flour
2 cups shredded mozzarella
basil [a sprinkling is a measurement right?]

Drain the artichokes and combine all of the ingredients except cheese in a 9x13 baking dish.  I baked this dish at 400 degrees for about an hour because I was cooking something else at the same time, but I baked it with a meat thermometer inserted to make sure I took it out at the right time.  My chicken was also really thick.  I kind of hate baking chicken because I never know how long is too long, but I digress.  The true star is the sauce anyway.  When the chicken is done, take out and top each piece with a generous handful of cheese and sprinkle with basil.  I served the chicken and sauce over linguine [which is my new favorite].  You WILL enjoy this dish.

Stovetop Chili in a Hurry

Hello all!  Kristin has had to hold the fort while I've been busy the past week or two.  Tonight though, I thought I'd take a break from photography and lesson plans to share a super simple and fast chili recipe.

*This is my go-to recipe.  I try to always have the ingredients for this chili in my cabinet.

Ingredients:

-1 lb ground meat [I used lean ground beef]

-1 6 oz can of tomato paste [I don't always add this...]

-1 can of diced tomatoes [or 1 diced tomato]

-1 15 oz can of:  black beans, light red kidney beans, dark red kidney beans [or whatever beans you like]

-1 small diced onion

-1 diced green pepper

-1 packet of chili seasoning

Brown the meat in a large pot with the onions.  Drain and add all of the other ingredients [do not drain the cans, use the liquid to help your chili].  I also add about 6 oz of water using the tomato paste can.  Stir and bring to a boil.  Once it's boiling, cover and let simmer for about 20-30 minutes.  During this time, I make bread.  I'm also going to share an amazing bread seasoning recipe.

Buy a french loaf [dough], I usually use Pillsbury.  Place on a stone or non-stick cooking sheet and cut every 2 inches.  In a small bowl, mix together 1 egg white, 1 minced garlic clove [or 1 tsp of minced garlic in a jar], and about a tbsp of a seasoning you like [unless you want it to be garlic bread].  I use Pampered Chef Crushed Peppercorn and Garlic.  Brush onto the bread and especially get those pieces of garlic into the cuts!  Bake, and then everything should be ready to eat!  [AFTER IT COOLS!  Man oh man will that chili be hot!]

Enjoy!

Gluten Free Granola Bars

Hello, everyone! As I continue to experiment with and learn about gluten-free options, I have realized that being gluten-free is not easy. Since this blog is about two friends learning about life and finding ways to make growing up (no matter your age!) easier, I've debated sharing my gluten-free struggles/recipes. These types of things are a bit more complicated than crock pot dinners and DIY necklace stands. However, if like me, you are struggling with dietary issues, then maybe a post just for you can help make YOUR journey through life simpler.

With that in mind, I bring you--GLUTEN FREE GRANOLA BARS.  A friend shared this recipe with me and it has made breakfast a simple morning pit stop, rather than a huge ordeal.  I have a kitchen-aid mixer (thanks, Grandma!) and whipped these bars up really quick, thanks to that handy thing!


Ingredients:
1/2 c. butter
1/4 c. honey
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2  1/2 c. oats
1/2c.  rice krispies
1/4 c. coconut
1/2 c. choc. chips (or other add ins)

Steps one and two: Cream butter, honey, brown sugar, and salt. Then mix in oats, rice krispies, coconut, and chocolate chips.

I went to Whole Foods where my great friend, Brandon, helped me find everything I needed to make these bars. The only ingredients I already had were butter and salt. My ingredients totaled $30.00. "What? That's so expensive!", you may be saying. However, most organic granola bars are about $6.00/6 pack. These ingredients yielded 12 bars in this batch, and I have enough of everything leftover to make about 5 more batches (I'll have to supplement oats @ $1.00/lb.) That's 60 bars for $35.00, as opposed to 60 for $60.00. Don't forget--you could use coupons or buy in bulk. Also, these are gluten free, organic, and fair trade! Good for your wallet, your body, and the world!

Steps three-seven: Mix well. Press into a 9x13 pan. Bake at 325 for 18 minutes. Let cool about 10 minutes and cut into bars. Let cool completely in pan.

Tip: I did not use a 9x13 pan and that increased my cooking time. Look for your oats to be well browned and easy to cut. If they are really falling apart when you try to cut them into bars, they have not cooked long enough. 

These are the raw, pressed oats. Make sure they are very brown before removing them from the oven!

Remove and enjoy!

Easy as [mini] Pie | Mini Ham Pie Recipe

I [Ashley] am supposed to post during the first half of the week, but it has been one of those crazy weeks as a teacher and photographer, so I'm just happy that I'm posting at all this week!  I have a wedding to shoot tomorrow, so I might not be heard from for a week or 2 ;).  Tonight I'm sharing a super easy recipe that only has 4 ingredients.  I found a recipe like this on Pinterest here, and it was SO easy.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp Butter
1 uncooked pie crust
5 pieces of deli ham
1 cup shredded cheese [I used cheddar]

First, chop the ham into tiny pieces and mix with cheese in a bowl.  Then, use a biscuit cutter to cut the crust into circles.  Put a spoonful of ham and cheese onto each mini pie.

Fold over the crust and pinch the edges closed.  Melt the butter, and spread it over the top of each pie.  Follow the pie crust's baking directions.  Mine cooked at 450 for 15 minutes.

Enjoy with some green beans and mashed potatoes, or be weird like me and eat them with spinach and grapes ;).

Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm taking a break from rearranging our furniture (why I can't I just chill on Saturdays like a normal person?) to tell you about some awesome cookies. The recipe only has a few ingredients...and the best part is: they are gluten-FREE! I haven't been feeling well lately (and by lately I mean in a long time). I decided to cut back on gluten and see what happens. So far I am feeling much better!

For me, one of the hardest things about cutting out gluten is missing out on so many desserts! These cookies were so delicious. I just have to keep them on hand all the time now. You can find the original recipe here.

Ingredients:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup sugar (I only used about 1/2 cup.)
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (I chopped up a fair trade chocolate bar.)

Baking Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix everything except chocolate together until well blended.
Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop dough balls onto cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. I don't like how fat PB cookies stay if you don't smash them down, so during this part of the recipe I used a fork to cross hatch my cookies.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes.

Cool, eat, enjoy.

Baked Turkey Tacos

Difficulty Level: Easy Peasy

Ingredients:

1-2 lbs ground turkey [or lean beef...but then I guess they wouldn't be "turkey tacos"]

1 cup shredded cheese

1 taco seasoning packet [I use low sodium]

1 can Rotel diced tomatoes and chilies

1 can refried beans [I use vegetarian]

12-18 hard taco shells [1 box]

Cook meat.  Add beans, seasoning, Rotel, 1/3 cup of cheese.  Arrange shells in a baking dish [which is harder than I thought!]  Spoon in mixture and top with cheese.  Bake in a 400˚ oven for 10 minutes [or until cheese is melted] and ENJOY! Top with whatever you like to have on your tacos [tomatoes, sauce, lettuce, etc.]

They were super easy to eat, without the normal breakage and spilling of hard shell tacos PLUS super delicious!

Dinner time!

Hey everyone! I apologize for my delay in posting. Our goal is 2 posts per week and I completely dropped the ball. Maybe the deliciousness of the recipe below will help you forgive me. Please?

Today's easy recipe requires very few ingredients and is very simple. I will say, though, that unlike other simple recipes we post, this is not one where you can pop it in the oven and forget about it until it's done. So maybe this is more of a medium difficulty recipe versus an easy recipe.  I found it on Martha Stewart's webpage. You can click the link to see her original recipe.

Ingredients:

4 Potatoes
1 lb. Asparagus
1 lb. Chicken (I used about 5 chicken tenderlions. You could also use chicken breast, chicken legs, or multiple parts of a whole chicken!)
Butter
1 Lemon
Thyme (fresh sprigs are preferable but I just used my dried kitchen spices.)
Step 1: Preheat oven to 475. Peel and quarter (cut into 4ths) potatoes, cut ends off of asparagus, slice lemon into wedges, thaw chicken.

Step 2: Layer potatoes and a small slice of butter in pan. Season with salt and pepper. Bake for 20-25 minutes (until potatoes are golden brown).

Step 3: Remove pan from oven. Add chicken over potatoes.  Season with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes (until chicken is golden brown).

Step 4: Remove pan from oven. Add asparagus, lemon wedges, and a small slice of butter over the chicken. Season with thyme. Cook for 5 to 15 minutes, or until asparagus is tender. Serve with butter and lemon juices from pan sprinkled on top.

This was delicious and very easy--my only dislike about this recipe is that it's more difficult to make while multi-tasking, since you have stop every 20 minutes to add the next layer of food.

Enjoy!

Fast, easy breakfast | Smoothie and Sandwich

Happy Monday everyone!

In my last post, I shared a smoothie recipe.  I'm going to share another one today AND share a simple tip that I learned from my mom a long time ago for a quick, easy breakfast sandwich.

The Smoothie:

 Choose your cup, and fill with frozen fruit.  Pour in juice to fill in the spaces between.  Pour this into the blender and add a hand full of ice.  I also added about 1/4 cup of water.  Add honey to taste, blend, and enjoy!  This is a very fresh & fruity smoothie! [I like pineapple juice a lot better but didn't have any.]

 This next part is something probably everyone knows, but I'm not sure I'D know unless my mom had told me.  You can cook an egg in the microwave in 1 minute.  Exciting right?  Just spray a microwave safe bowl with Pam, whisk an egg, pop in the microwave for 60 seconds & BOOM you're done!

 Enjoy in a simple breakfast sandwich!  I've been adding microwave Morningstar "sausage" to mine, and it's super fast and filling.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Banana Smoothie | Healthy, Filling Breakfast

I am a smoothie drinker.  I have a smoothie EVERY morning for breakfast.  I find them much more filling than cereal, and talk about convenient!  I will be experimenting with more smoothies over the next few weeks because I ran out of Body by Vi [which tastes awesome!] and it's just not in my budget to get more right now.  I'm looking into other protein powders like Nature's Bounty, that have lots of calcium, but for now I'm fine with just having smoothies without added nutrients. [That was probably too much information for people who are just looking for recipes, but I digress...]

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

This recipe is definitely for banana lovers.  If you don't like bananas though you can try replacing the 1/2 banana with 1 cup of strawberries. [fresh or frozen]

Place ice and milk in the blender, and then all of the other ingredients and blend.

Note: [I like to use soy and almond milk because of the calcium AND that vanilla flavor adds a little bit of sweetness.  The smoothies also turn out so rich and creamy, but feel free to try whatever milk you usually drink.]

 Next time I might try using frozen bananas or frozen strawberries just to get that "slushy" feeling, but this was definitely ice-cold and smooth!  If you have any easy smoothie recipes feel free to share in the comments!  I'm looking for some quick, easy, and filling breakfast ideas! 

Thanks & enjoy!

P.S.
I should probably mention I'm not a big yogurt smoothie person.  I love eating yogurt, I'm just not a huge fan of drinking it, so my recipes will probably not include yogurt.  [Although things may change as I continue to experiment]

No Fail Chicken Parm

Difficulty level: Super Easy

I was running low on ingredients and energy last week and wanted something easy to cook.  I happened to have all of these ingredients around so I decided to make some chicken Parmesan.

 Ingredients:

-3 Chicken Breasts [butterflied]

- 1 cup bread crumbs

- 2/3 cup shredded parmesan

- 1 tsp dried basil

- 1/4 tsp pepper

- 1 tsp minced garlic

- 2 tbsp olive oil

Set oven to 350.

In a bowl mix the garlic and olive oil.  In another bowl mix the bread crumbs, parmesan, basil, and pepper.  Butter a 9x13 baking dish.  Dip each chicken breast into the oil mixture and then into the bread crumb mixture, coating them completely and placing them in the baking dish after.  Spread the remaining bread crumb mixture over the chicken and cook 30-45 minutes. [or until chicken is cooked through]

I served with steamed veggies [from the bag] and spaghetti.  Enjoy!

Imitation Low Country Boil Recipe

Hello, folks! Today we're bringing you another quick and easy recipe!

Here's what you need to get started:
Shrimp: peeled, deveined, cooked
Sausage: the long tube kind, not the kind that looks like ground beef
Potatoes (as many as you feel like eating. On this occasion I used 4--2 medium and 2 very small.)
Cajun Seasoning
1/2 stick Butter
pinch of Salt and Pepper
1/4 Onion
optional: Corn, Peppers

To prepare:

Chop the onion into desired size pieces. I don't like biting into a huge chunk of onion so I cut mine fairly small.

Slice sausage into disks. I usually aim for disks about half an inch thick.

Peel and chop potatoes. I have several notes about this. 

1. You do not have to peel the potatoes if you like potato skins. I don't prefer it, but if you do--go ahead and leave it on!

2. If you use a less starchy potato, like a red potato, you will not get a mushy product. It will still taste great, it just won't look like the final pictures below!

3. The larger the potato slices, the longer it will take to cook. The size of the potatoes below had to boil about 10 minutes longer than usual because I left them so big.

To cook:

Dump all your cut up ingredients and the shrimp into a pot of water. 

Bring water to a boil.

Wait about 15 minutes.

To check to see if your food is done, pull out a potato wedge. Cut a portion off. If it is extremely soft, it is ready. You can also taste it. It should have the texture of...a potato. What's so great about this recipe is that the only portion that is not cooked is the potato and onion. You really only have to boil the ingredients as long as it takes to soften those two things up. The rest is already cooked--you're just heating it up!

Waiting for the food to boil. 

Once the potatoes are cooked all the way through, drain the pot into a colander.  Put all the food back in the pot. We still have to add butter and seasoning!

Add the half stick of butter and seasoning. I have no exact measurement for the seasoning--it's just to taste. I like to lightly cover the whole thing with a thin layer of seasoning. Then add a pinch of salt and pepper.

Finally, mix it all together, serve, and enjoy!

It's warm and delicious for these cold winter days. My husband hates soup so this is a great alternative for when I'm feeling like cozy foods!

Chicken and Artichoke Lasagna

Difficulty Level: Intermediate
This recipe is really easy, but the ingredients are kind of out of the ordinary for us.  That's why I consider this more of an intermediate recipe than an easy one.  I originally found this recipe on Pinterest here.  I changed some of the elements to be a little more our taste, and it was a real hit!  My husband said it was the best thing I've ever made!  Enjoy.

Ingredients
2 cooked chicken breasts [shredded or chopped]
1 can (14 oz.) artichoke hearts, drained, chopped
1 pkg. (8 oz.) Shredded Mozzarella Cheese [put half aside for later]
1/2 cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
2 pkg. (8 oz. each) Cream Cheese, softened
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup tightly packed fresh basil, chopped, divided
12 lasagna noodles, cooked

Tip:  This was my first time cooking lasagna noodles.  They are huge!  I let them cook standing up, and then I used tongs to turn them over after they got a little soft.  Also, I only cooked them about 6-8 minutes so that they weren't so soft they'd rip.


Directions
HEAT oven to 350°F.

COMBINE chicken, artichokes, 1 cup mozzarella, and Parmesan. Beat cream cheese, milk and garlic powder with mixer until well blended [I used a whisk and some elbow grease, slowly adding the cream cheese]; stir in 2 Tbsp. basil. Mix half with the chicken mixture.

SPREAD half the remaining cream cheese mixture onto bottom of 13x9-inch baking dish; cover with 3 noodles and 1/3 of the chicken mixture. Repeat layers of noodles and chicken mixture twice. Top with remaining noodles, cream cheese mixture and mozzarella; cover.

BAKE 25 min. or until heated through. Sprinkle with remaining basil. Let stand 5 min. before cutting to serve.

We had leftovers for days! Happy cooking.