"Ultimate" Sugar Cookies

Hi again! I'm actually blogging just a few days after my last post. What do ya know??! This is a miracle. This post will be short though; I'm not sharing a new recipe with you, but I am showing you a variation on another recipe you've seen at the Barbershop before....Mom's Famous Sugar Cookies. :)

I made another batch of sugar cookies recently for Mike's ultimate frisbee team. It was their end-of-season tourney, so I knew I had to do something special! The team's name is Fetch, so I thought I'd go for sugar cookies in the shapes of dog bones and dogs. I had to do a little hunting to find sugar cookies in those shapes, but I succeeded! I ended up finding them at a neat kitchen store on Newbury Street. They had tons of different, fun shapes. I had to restrain myself from buying every one of them!

Below are some fun pictures for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

And here's a picture of Fetch! Great season, all!

S'mores Cookies!

Hiya! I don't know what's gotten into me... Yet again, I haven't blogged in FOREVER. Well, I guess I've been a "wee" bit busy again, so I blame my lack of blogging on my lack of time to do so! I also blame the crazy Internet issues at our house...that has not made blogging easy at all!

I do, however, have a very fun and easy recipe for you here. Ever thought about making "s'mores" cookies? I hadn't...until one day when I was trying to think of a little change up I could do with my classic cake mix cookie recipe. I had actually recently used mini marshmallows to make candy pizza, so I think I had marshmallows on the brain...  And I had chocolate and graham crackers too. Voila! We have s'mores, friends!!

Here's the recipe for you:

-1 box (18.25 oz) chocolate cake mix

-2 eggs

-1/4 to 1/3 cup vegetable oil

-2/3 to 3/4-ish cup of crushed graham crackers (I didn't measure - sorry!)

-2/3-ish cup mini marshmallows

-1/2 to 3/4-ish cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease cookie sheets. Mix the first three ingredients (by hand with a spoon or spatula is fine) until well-incorporated. Then mix in the remaining "add-ins" of marshmallows, graham cracker crumbs, and chocolate chips.

Form approximately 1-inch balls with the dough and drop onto greased cookie sheets. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes or until cookies are set.

A few points of note with this recipe... The cookies don't necessarily form all that well into uniform balls, thanks to the marshmallows protruding everywhere! So don't worry about the shape of your cookies with this recipe. ;-) It is also a rather gooey cookie when baked! You may have some gooey-ness that seeps out of the cookies while baking and sticks to your cookie sheet. No worries there either. This recipe is a good lesson in being flexible and no worrying too much about the appearance of the finished product. In short, it's a fun recipe! The ooey gooey nature of these cookies is what I loved best.

I'd say this recipe is perfect for this winter when you're craving s'mores but can't really go outside to melt marshmallows around the campfire... Make your own version of s'mores cookies inside instead! That's not to say you can't make these cookies during any other season though, obviously... :)

Hope to see you all SOONER than later next time! I have so many yummy recipes just waiting to be shared with you!

Classic Banana Bread

WOW. Has it really been about three weeks since my last post? I think it has! I am really bummed about not having had much time to blog lately. I miss it! Hopefully I can write more in the near future. Maybe you've been missing me as I've been missing blogging for you? It'd be nice if that was the case. ;-)

Anyway, I'm coming back to you today with a delicious recipe for a classic banana bread. Everyone needs a great banana bread recipe, right? I'd say so! You may remember my previous post for marbled chocolate banana bread. That's one of my all-time favorite quick breads. When I had some very ripe bananas last week, I considered making the marbled chocolate version, but then I thought that I should find a new, traditional banana bread recipe that I really like. And bingo, I found it! It's a Cooking Light recipe that can be found here. After trying this bread, I decided that I loved this new recipe. I did make a couple changes though, as I usually do! I used half whole wheat flour and half all-purpose (as shown in the first picture below). I also just so happened to use peach flavored yogurt, inadvertently, even though the recipe calls for just regular yogurt. Peach was all I had! It worked though, and you couldn't detect that peach yogurt was used, don't worry! But maybe that was the secret ingredient though that made the bread yummy?  Hmmmm...

Here are a few pictures for you.

Dry ingredients.

The unusual peach yogurt!

Wet ingredients.

The batter, all ready to go into the oven. As you can see, it made one regular sized loaf and one small one.

Final product, being sliced for consumption!

I brought this bread home to share with my parents last weekend, and they really liked it too. I love that it's very tasty, moist, AND a cooking light recipe! You know what I just realized I meant to do with a slice of this bread but just never did? I thought it'd be yummy to toast a slice of banana bread and top it with some peanut butter... Doesn't that sound deeelicious? Maybe I'll do that next time. You can be sure that I'll report back to you when I do!

Hope to see you again much sooner than three weeks from now!