Tag Archives: Chocolate chip

Week in Review (5/13-5/18)

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What a week!! I gave the blog a new little look in case you haven’t noticed, and I made some yummy food! :)

Sunday I went a little out of the order that I usually do things around here, I posted a special post for Mother’s Day! I love my mom SO much, so I thought she deserved her very own post. I also shared with you guys a yummy recipe for chocolate pound cake, that is super chocolatey and rich :)

Monday

Tuesday I shared with you guys how to make homemade peanut butter! I made dry roasted honey peanut butter, but the recipe is so adaptable that you can make pretty much any kind of peanut butter you can think of. So many possibilities for mix-ins, like oreos or chocolate chips for a sweet twist! I also  had my first playoff game for soccer. As luck would have it, lightning started coming out 5 minutes into the second half and the score was 0-0, so we had to stop the game and wait for a while to see if the lightning would stop. Of course the lightning never stopped, so we decided to make up the rest of the game (35 minutes) the next day and….

Wednesday to continue from Tuesday, we finished the rest of the 35 minutes in our game (after driving 45 minutes just to get TO the game), and we won 3-0! I scored, too!! :) It would have been nice if we could have just done that on Tuesday so we wouldn’t have had to come back to finish the rest of the game, but a win is a win so I was pretty happy that we would continue our playoff journey to Friday’s game against the number 1 team in the state.

Thursday I talked about how to tell when a goldfish is pregnant, you never know when that information will come in handy!!  I also shared with you guys a recipe for taco seasoning. Perfect for adding some flavor to chicken, beef, or oven fries! Another exciting thing that happened Thursday was that my sister came home from Spain!! So nice to finally have her back :)

Friday I had my next playoff game. It was for the regional finals, we ended up losing after a tough game. I’m really proud of our team for the way we put our hearts into that game and left everything on the field. We lost to the number one team in the state and they are ranked 3rd nationally. We lost 3-1 with them scoring their 3rd goal in the last two minutes. It wasn’t ideal that we lost, but if we were to lose to someone, that team and game were an alright way to finish the season. It sure is going to be weird going from playing with and seeing these girls on my team everyday to hardly seeing them at all. I loved our team this year, and am so proud that we accomplished way more than anybody ever expected us to!

Random Fact of the Day: The Hawaiian Islands were originally named the ‘Sandwich Islands’

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White Chocolate Wonderful Ice Cream

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Ever heard of Peanut Butter & Co.?

They’re a pretty popular company that is from New York. They have a TON of amazing flavors of peanut butter that will totally rock your socks off. I had heard about them quite a bit through different food blogs, but it never occurred to me that my local grocery store would actually sell them. Turns out as I was strolling through the nut butter aisle the other day I stumbled across Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter. I was super psyched and KNEW I had to try it!! I picked up Dark Chocolate Dreams and White Chocolate Wonderful. Of course when I got home I had to take a spoon and try a little giant spoonful of each. Let’s just say it took all the power in my body to restrain myself from double-dipping.

Now I happen to really, REALLY like the combination of peanut butter and white chocolate in cookies, so I figured this combination would be absolutely killer in ice cream. You all have GOT to try this recipe. If you don’t have an ice cream machine, get the heck on that! You will not be sorry. This ice cream alone would make it all worth it. It’s fully loaded with tons of goodies to make every bite as delicious as ever. Do. It.

White Chocolate Wonderful Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 cups milk (any type is good, I always use skim)

1 cup  plus 3 Tablespoons White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter

3/4 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup white chocolate chocolate chips

1/2 cup mini peanut butter cups (I used the minis from Trader Joe’s)

  1. In bowl, mix White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter and sugar until thoroughly combined using a whisk. Mix in milk slowly until incorporated. Stir in vanilla and 2 cups of heavy cream. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.
  2. Once there is just about 5 minutes left for the ice cream to be in the ice cream maker, mix in mini peanut butter cups and white chocolate chips. When ice cream is done in ice cream maker, pour ice cream in airtight container and finish freezing process in freezer. Enjoy!
Random Fact of the Day: Boeing planes fly 17 million miles daily- approximately the distance of 35 round trips to the moon.
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High Protein Energy Balls

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Ah, the final week of Lent. It’s been hard holding myself back from making yummy cookie doughs and delicious cake batters. The stretchy pants haven’t been out for a while. It’s been…different.

I can not say it’s been absolutely the most horrible time of my life, because, well, I finally went out of my comfort zone. This Lent has brought me to create new meals that don’t involve multiple sticks of butter and cups of sugar.  There have been like…vegetables. And things people eat for real nutrition and meals and stuff. It’s been crazy. Been real. But I’m definitely ready for cupcakes and cookies again.

Anyways, I have had a can of garbanzo beans sitting in the pantry for about a billion years and I finally decided to use that baby up. Making high protein energy balls seemed like the most logical thing to make. Peanut butter. Honey. A few chocolate chips. How can you go wrong?

You can’t! So here you go, some nice little  energy balls to get you through the final days of Lent.

High Protein Energy Balls

(Slightly adapted from Spinach and Sprinkles)

1/2 cup pecans, very finely chopped

15 oz. can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained thoroughly

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup chocolate chips

  1. Line a tray or cookie sheet with parchment paper or wax paper or aluminum foil that will fit into your freezer. Set aside
  2. In a food processor, dump chopped pecans (or if you have not yet chopped them, chop them now), then add in rinsed garbanzo beans. Process until beans are fully broken down.
  3. Add in peanut butter, honey, and vanilla. Process until you have a smooth mixture.
  4. Remove the blade from the processor and stir in the chocolate chips by hand. Roll the mixture into about 25-30 balls and place on prepared tray or cookie sheet. Freeze for at least 20 minutes before eating. Store in fridge when done, in an airtight container. Enjoy! :)

Random Fact of the Day: A restaurant in Houston charges $12,000 to its customers for a 10-course meal that was served on the Titanic with the exact setting too.

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Peanut Butta Time!

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WARNING!: okay, so I made this post up a long time ago, like probably 5 months back, so I’m just warning you the pictures may not be the best quality…not that I really have the whole photography thing totally down yet, anyways but just warning ya. Also, I’m not quite sure why I’ve held onto this post for so long without posting it, but I figured that since I’m out of town this week and have like no time to make any new recipe that this would be the perfect time to share this guy. I do remember these being quite scrumptious. Of course, I wouldn’t expect anything less from Jessica, anyways.

Yes, I know I’ve made a few peanut butter cookie recipes before. But I swear, I seriously love them all. I can’t get enough of peanut butter..clearly.I actually have been known to eat a spoonful or two of peanut butter out of the jar? Is that gross?? Don’t answer that.

Anyways, Jessica’s brilliance has shined through in yet another scrumptious recipe. This one is actually somewhat of a variation off her M&M cookies, that I made before. All I have to say is pure brilliance! Oh… and definitely go on the under-baked side. They’ll seem kinda heavy, but they will turn out to be incredible, dense delicious cookies with nice soft peanut buttery middles. :)

Puffy Peanut Butter Cookies

(adapted from How Sweet It Is)

1 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

pinch of salt, I used sea salt to liven it up a bit

1/2 teaspoons baking soda

8 tablespoons of salted butter, melted and cooled

6 tablespoons of creamy peanut butter, melted and cooled

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

milk, as needed

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, optional (I actually left this out because my dough was too crumbly, which could be partially due to the fact that I hadn’t used a mixer)

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
  2. Add butter and peanut butter to a microwave safe bowl, and heat in 30 second increments until melted. Let cool completely.
  3. In a large bowl (I recommend using a mixer, since later on your dough may become difficult to combine by hand…course I could just be a wimp), mix the cooled butter/peanut butter and sugars until they are combined. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and stir until mixed.
  4. Gradually add flours, salt, and baking soda and mix until a dough forms – it will look crumbly at first, but it will come together. I  used my hands to bring it all together. If necessary, add 1-2 teaspoons of milk, I actually added in probably a full teaspoon. If you decide to use as much whole wheat flour as I did, you’re dough will be crumblier than a dough using all all-purpose flour. Fold in chocolate chips, if using.

Shape the dough into balls of desired size. Place on a baking sheet two inches apart and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are slightly brown. The centers should be soft and puffy. Do not over bake. They’re actually fantastic slightly under-baked, nice and dense!! :D Complete cooling on a wire rack.Random Fact of the Day: The odds are 9 out of 10 (89%) that you describe your diet as “healthy” (if you’re an American) - Time Magazine, 1/17/11

P.S. sorry that picture is absolutely atrocious! It’s got this weird orangeish-yellowish tint that I just could not get rid of.

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Week in Review (2/27-3/2)

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Monday I shared with you guys February’s SRC post. Holla for the Secret Recipe Club! Love that thing!! Anyways, I made Old World Pumpkin Bars, and they ware pretty gosh darn fabulous, so I recommend you check them out and this lovely lady’s blog from whom I got the recipe from. Loved getting to know her a little more and try one of her recipes.

High school soccer tryouts also started, those are always fun…in the 40 degree weather. outside.

Tuesday was actually a somewhat exciting day for me, I got accepted into The National Honor Society! It was kind of cool, throughout the day people go around to classes who have kids invited to the National Honor Society and hand out these pretty little flowers to those who are accepted. I can see how it would be totally annoying for people who didn’t get accepted because some people really just parade those flowers around. But anyways being accepted in the National Honor Society is really quite a load off my chest, it makes me feel a little less stressed with the whole college thing since it looks pretty good to schools. :)

Wednesday I decided to share another pumpkin recipe. What can I say? Monday kinda got me in the pumpkin mood. Plus I had a little left over pumpkin puree I wanted to use up. I made some white chocolate chip pumpkin granola bars. ohmygawd. ah-mazing. Best granola bars I have ever eaten. Better than those Quaker ones. (Not to toot my own horn or anything, but… TOOT TOOT!) Trust me. Just make them.

Also, Wednesday was Leap Day! Woohoo!! Happy February 29th. Do you know anybody who was born on the 29th?! That has got to be a crazy birthday to have.

Thursday was pretty much like a Friday for me since we didn’t have school Friday! Woohoo! But then again, I also had soccer tryouts. We have been 2-a-days all week so I was pretty worn out and there was not way I was going to try and look presentable and go out when I got home at like 9:15.

Friday I shared with you guys a cheesy baked potato soup. A perfect meal for Friday during Lent. When we ate this, it wasn’t on a Friday so we had it with ham sandwiches but this soup is hearty enough to have a nice big bowl on it’s own, or with some bread, or even a nice grilled cheese sandwich!

Random Fact of the Day: Snails can sleep for 3 years without eating

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