Flourless Fudge Cookies

Remember I said back in February that I would rip up that mint? Well about a month ago I did the first initial stages of just that. I pulled up what I could from the dead weed patch on the back porch. It had just rained and it was nice out so I pulled out the hoe and just went at it. I got pretty far too but it was going to take a little more work. Well a few weeks ago I decided to try and get the rest of it done and I think I did pretty good. Most of the dead branches were gone and the dirt was pretty mixed. So I told my husband that I wanted to plant something there instead of just letting it all grow back. He asked me what I wanted to plant and I told him I wouldn't mind doing veggies. So we went to Lowe's and Walmart last night to get what we needed. Then today I finished mixing up the soil and planting the seeds and now I have my own little veggie garden in the back yard. I'm excited and I really hope they grown. I will try my best to keep up with it because what i wouldn't give to have fresh veggies at home. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe, basil and carrots. It will be interesting to see how things go. The next outdoor project is to set up the nice porch swing my mom got for me as well as add a small patio extension to put the swing on. I love this time of year! 

Since I am trying to be a little more healthy I thought I would post a some what good for you recipe. Flourless Fudge Cookies. There is no flour in these cookies and they are super fudgy and yummy. If you have a chocolate craving reach for one of these. Yes this is another Pinterest recipe and yet again it is another win. Credit goes to: King Arthur Flour

Flourless Fudge Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup cocoa powder

3 large egg whites

2 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla extract

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two baking sheets or line with parchment.

2) Stir together all of the ingredients till smooth. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, and stir again till smooth.

3) Drop the soft, batter-like dough onto the prepared baking sheets in 1 1/2" circles; a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here.

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4) Bake the cookies for 8 minutes; they should spread, become somewhat shiny, and develop faintly crackly tops.

5) Remove the cookies from the oven, and allow them to cool right on the pan.

My daughter tried one tiny bite of them and that was all she wanted. She is one fickle girl lol.

These came out to be about 2 PPV's and the yield was about 24 cookies.

They didn't flatten out as much as I thought they would but I like the way they rounded out. 

These are meant to be eaten right away or within a few days so make them for a special occasion. Our sat around for a few weeks and the last few ones ended up being a little too crumbly and not as chewy.

They were great cookies however and I will be making them again.

As always if you make them please let me know! 

Enjoy!

Amy Sue *^_^*

Cake Mix Cookie Bars

This past weekend was my cousin Julie's Bridal Shower. The theme was Girly Christmas... Yes Christmas. According to my other cousin Emily, her sister, she loves Christmas a lot! So all the decorations were Christmas and they encouraged us to wrap her presents in Christmas wrapping paper. Even the guest book was writing your name on an ornament so she could decorate her tree with it this coming Christmas. Apparently all the bridesmaid along with my Aunt decided on this theme in about October so they were able to get a ton of stuff on sale for the party since it wouldn't be until April. I was so impressed with how wonderful everything looked and how it was presented. Oh and did I mention it was a surprise? Yep Julie had no idea what the theme was. It was great to see her reaction. Here are a few pictures: 

 The Gift Table

 The Guestbook Area

 The Centerpeices

And here is one with me, my sister and my cousins

That leads me to today's recipe. I made these for the shower but because the place they had the shower wouldn't allow food brought in unless by a licensed vendor I just put them in a Christmas cookie container and gave them to my cousin. I decided to make them because Julie follows my Pinterest and I believe she repinned these once I pinned it. These are cake mix cookie bars. Using cake mix for a recipe, espeically a cookie or bar, makes the recipe that much easier. You only need a few ingredients aside from the cake mix itself and most of the time those ingredients are staples that everyone has.

Credit for today's recipe goes to: Parent Pretty

Cake Mix Cookie Bars

Ingredients:

1 Box yellow cake mix

1 Small box instant vanilla pudding

1/4 Cup water

3/4 Cup vegetable oil

2 Eggs

1 Cup chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine cake mix, pudding, water, vegetable oil, eggs and chips in large bowl.

3. Pour the batter into a greased 9 x 13 pan.

4. Bake your bars for 25-30 minutes. They are done when the sides start to brown

Depending on how you cut them depends on the yield. I decided to cut these into 36 bars. 

Since I did cut them into the 36 bars they ended up being 3 PPV's each.

I used milk chocolate chips but I would try any kind of chips or even M&M's, like the original poster did. 

These are almost cake like (go figure haha) but do melt in your mouth like a brownie. My husband said they reminded him of a blondie. 

I hope my cousin enjoyed these as well as I hope you did too!

Amy Sue *^_^*

Soft and Chewy Chocolate Indulgences

I think I'm going to make another blog concerning one of my other passions. I had a talk with my sister about this situation last night and I really like the idea. I'm not going to go into too much detail here just yet, because I want to get all my thoughts together before I start it. If you are curious at all about it you should be but just to give you a tiny hint it involves Disney but I'm not saying what part. For those of you who know me you'll get it right away but most of you will probably be like "Well Disney is a huge thing which part are you talking about?" You will all find out soon enough however. 

Today's recipe is one of my all time favorites and SURPRISE it's not from Pinterest!! It's actually from a book I got a long time ago from Amazon. I actually attempted to do a cookie blog a few years ago and of course it never took off. Now that blogging has become a regular thing (and I'm a stay at home mom now) I have more time to keep up on said blog. Posting a new recipe about once a week has become a regular part of my schedule haha! Ok back to the recipe. These are one of my favorite chocolate chip cookies. They are soft and chewy and just full of chocolate goodness. I switched up the recipe a bit this time around (which you will see when you come to it below) but it just makes it taste that more awesome. I make these cookies all the time and they get better every time I make them! 

Soft and Chewy Chocolate Indulgences

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Set aside

2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and brown and granulated sugars until light and creamy, about 3 minutes. 

3. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. beat in vanilla. on low speed, gradually add flour mixture, beating until blended. 

4. With a wooden spoon, stir in chocolate chips.

5. Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 8 to 12 minutes or just until set. Cool for 5 minutes on sheet, then transfer to a rack and cool completely.

Yes that is my daughter licking the batter off the paddle. She wanted to help so I let her help clean up. I mean wasn't the best part of helping your parents always licking the spoon afterwards? 

Now I'm sure you noticed that I did not use chocolate chips. No I used peanut butter chips. Mostly because I didn't have chocolate chips but also because I wanted to do something different. So now it's a chocolate peanut butter cookie. You can use any kind of chips you want! 

These yield anywhere between 4-5 dozen. I was able to get about 50 cookies total.

They are only 3 PPV's per cookie and so worth it too! 

I really hope everyone enjoys them! Since this is one of my originals I have no one to credit for it except myself (and of course the book I got the recipe from). I hope this recipe makes it way around the web. And as always let me know if you try it!

Amy Sue *^_^*

Softest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok before I talk about today's recipe I just have to say that as of this week I am now 10 pounds away from my overall goal weight! I can't believe it myself but I had been stuggling the last few weeks. I had my daughters birthday party and Easter so when it came to eating I wasn't being that good. I mean it's ok to indulge every once and a while right? Well I had not stopped exercising because I'm doing Turbo Fire and I didn't want to quit doing that. So on some advice from a friend on one of my weight loss groups I decided last week not to weigh in and just get right back on track. I made myself recommit 100% to weight watchers and no cheating! If I ate it I wrote it down. I also kept doing my exercising (I'm actually on week 4 and need to do my measurements on Monday). Well whatever I did worked because from my last weigh in two weeks ago I lost 2.5 pounds! I was shocked when I stepped on the scale. I still can't believe it but I'm extremely thrilled with myself. I was a little worried because I was sick this week but maybe that worked in my favor lol. No not really but you get what I'm saying. Getting to my goal weight by my birthday is looking pretty doable right about now! And now onto today's recipe.

I had seen today's recipe floating around Pinterest for quite a bit. It promised that with this one ingredient your cookies would be soft and chewy. I was intrigued because my chocolate chip cookies usually came out kind of crunchy, so I clicked on the pin and looked at the recipe. Turns out the one ingredient is cornstarch and they weren't wrong. My cookies did come out pretty soft and chewy. It was a nice change from the cookies that come out crunchy and crumbly. Even the dough was a nice soft dough and not super sticky. It was hard to resist eating it before it went on the pan hehe. I'm not sure if they are the softest ever but they were for me :-)

Credit for today's recipe goes to: Apple A Day

Softest Ever Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 c. unsalted butter, softened

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. granulated sugar

1 egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 c. all purpose flour

2 tsp. cornstarch

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. bittersweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy and light in color. Add egg and vanilla and blend in.

3.  Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Stir in chocolate chunks.

4.  Using a standard-sized cookie scoop or tablespoon, drop dough onto a prepared baking sheet.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, until barely golden brown around the edges. 

5.  Let cool, on the sheet, on a wire rack for five minutes.  Remove from baking sheet and let cool completely.

I don't remember exactly how many I made but the original poster said they make about 3 dozen. 

These are 3 PPV per cookie.

They are evil little things and I had to hide them so I wouldn't eat them. I actually had to give them away to my friend Tasha so I wouldn't eat them all haha!

I'm thinking the next time I make these I might add some cocoa powder in and make them a double chocolate chip cookie.

I have nothing really bad to say about these. They didn't spread out as much as I thought so if you want them to be more like a flat cookie maybe push them down a little bit so they don't stay as round as mine did.

Remember if you make it let me know! 

Enjoy!

Amy Sue *^_^*

Clean Banana Bread

I finally bought some honey to make some recipes that were, I guess, good for you, or that use more all natural ingredients. It had been a long time coming because I wanted to bake and it's been a while. Well I choose to do 3 recipes and out of those 3 only 1 came out the way it should have. The one that was a complete disaster was the peanut butter cookies with honey. Now it was kind of an experiment. I just wanted to try it because it seems like it should be good for you. It was only 4 ingredients: 1 Cup Peanut butter, 1 cup honey, 1 tsp baking soda and an egg. 

When I mixed it up however it looked like this:

Very runny and not a dough at all. So then I tried to bake it and when I poured teaspoons of the batter on the cookie sheet they spread out quite a bit. Once the cookies came out they looked like this: 

 I baked them for 10 minutes and they seemed over done. I had to make sure they cooled completely on the pan before moving them. When you bite into one of them they kind of melt in your mouth but there is nothing to them. I tried to adjust the time but that didn't work as they come out too soft. I'm upset because I wasted so much honey on these but like I said it was an experiment. I got the recipe from a pin on Pinterest but the link didn't work any more so I just went by the comment the pinner put on it. Let that be a lesson to me! LOL! But feel free to try this recipe and let me know if it comes out better for you ;-)

Well before I made these awful things I did make some more successful recipes and the one I would like to share with you today is the Clean Banana bread. I saw the recipe for this and was just excited to make it. We love banana bread here in our house but I wanted to kind of make it better for us and not use so much sugar. Well this recipe uses honey and applesauce so it was perfect! 

Credit for today's recipe goes to 8 Weeks to a Better You Recipes

Clean Banana Bread

Ingredients

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar free applesauce

3/4 cup honey

2 eggs, beaten

3 mashed overripe bananas

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. 

2. In a separate bowl, mix together applesauce and honey. 

3. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. 

4. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. 

5. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.

6. Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

You can get about 13 slices out of this bread using this size pan. Each slice is 4 PPVs each. Not too bad huh? 

I used unsweetened applesauce not sugar free. I think that helped to cut down on the sweetness as well made it a more all natural bread.

I really have nothing bad to say about this bread. It turned out wonderful and I'm sure by this weekend it will be gone hehe. 

I hope everyone enjoys it! And let me know if you make it! 

Amy Sue *^_^*

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I decided to go through my Pinterest and find a recipe or two that I had all the ingredients for. I wanted to make a flourless cookie or some kind of healthy for you snack. I stumbled upon this recipe because I have a ton of peanut butter in the house. And when I say a ton I really mean a lot lol. I have two jars of Jif and a Wegmans one and two of those are not open! It's not that I have a peanut butter problem we just enjoy it haha. I noticed that I had all the ingredients for these cookies except for the chocolate but then I noticed that it says you could substitute chocolate chips instead! SOLD! These are basically just a flourless peanut butter cookie with chocolate in them. I enjoyed them but they weren't my favorite cookie. They came out kind of chewy and bigger than I expected. But that didn't stop me from craving them once I had one of them. 

Credit for today's recipe goes to: averie cooks

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup creamy peanut butter 

1 cup light brown sugar, packed

1 large egg

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

6 ounces semi-sweet, dark, or bittersweet chocolate, chopped (1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips may be substituted)

Directions:

1. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine peanut butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-combined and the sugar is fully incorporated and is mixture is no longer gritty or granular, about 3 minutes. Stop to scrape down the bowl as necessary. Add the baking soda and beat to incorporate. Add the chocolate and beat to just incorporate

2. Transfer dough to airtight container and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, and up to 5 days, before baking.

3. Preheat oven to 350F. Using a 2-inch cookie scoop form dough mounds and place on prepared baking sheet, spaced 2 inches apart (8 to 10 per tray).  Slightly flatten the mounds before baking. Bake for 8 to10 minutes, until edges are set and tops are barely set, even if slightly under baked in the center.  

4. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months

With using a 2 inch cookie scoop this yielded about 14 very large cookies. I think the next time I try this recipe I will use my smaller cookie scoop

I don't feel like the refrigerating is necessary. It didn't really do anything to do the dough to make it more firm or anything like that. I think you could put these right in the oven after mixed and they would come out ok. 

These spread out quite a bit and I was surprised by that because the recipe says to make sure you flatten the cookies before baking. Like I said before I would make them smaller next time and I'm sure they won't come out as big.

I think 8 minutes is the best time for these cookies. Any longer and they come out too tough.

These aren't good for you cookies. The large cookies I made are 7 PPVs but if I make them smaller next time I'm sure they will be less points.

I was surprised I didn't love these like I have loved everything else from Pinterest. But it wasn't a disaster. They came out ok and even my husband liked them. I think I might attempt them again in the future with my few notes to see if that makes them any better.

I hope everyone enjoys!!

Amy Sue *^_^*

Chocolate Chip Blondies

Well I started this new exercise program today called Turbo Fire. Not sure if anyone has heard of it, I didn't until I met Katie. However it's a program promoted by Team Beach Body and made by the same people who do Insanity and P90X. I'm sure you've heard of those two lol. The kit comes with all the DVD's you need for a 12 week exercise program. They even give you a class schedule. I was super excited to start this program because I'm getting really close my overall weight loss goal. I knew I needed something that was higher in intensity and from what I can tell from this first work out this one will be. It's a lot of moves I already know because I've been doing kickboxing with Jillian Micheal's for the last month but the music just gets ya going and moves you so much more! I messed up a few of the moves but I'll get them, I always do in the end, but I still had lots of fun. And for an almost 40 minute workout I was sweating pretty good. I took my before and after pictures the other day and today my husband did my measurements. I can't wait to check back in 4 weeks to see what I might have accomplished.

Since it's been a good for you week I decided to try a recipe from Weight Watchers this time around. I'm naming these Chocolate Chip Blondies. You can find the original recipe here: Weight Watchers. How about that not a recipe from Pinterest lol! They are a nice light snack for anyone who would like something sweet for the night. They are pretty big so one serving is more than enough. This was also my first recipe using my new mixer. 

Chocolate Chip Blondies

Ingredients 

1 1/4 cup(s) all purpose flour  

1 1/4 cup(s) unpacked brown sugar, firmly packed  

1 tsp baking powder  

1/3 cup(s) unsweetened applesauce  

2 Tbsp mineral water  

2 tsp vanilla extract  

4 large egg white(s)  

1/3 cup(s) milk chocolate chips  

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9-inch baking pan with cooking spray.

2.Combine flour, brown sugar and baking powder in a large bowl; mix well. 

3. Add applesauce, water, vanilla extract and egg whites; blend well. 

4.Spoon batter into pan and smooth top; sprinkle with chocolate chips.

5. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into 16 pieces.

These are 3 PPV's each! Like I said they are big and 1 is more than enough to cure a sweet tooth.

I didn't have mineral water so I just used regular water. I didn't see the harm in it and from what I can tell it didn't change the recipe at all. 

These are not super sweet but good for a morning snack or an evening after dinner treat.

I think these would go great with any kind of tea :-)

Well there you have it! My first non Pinterest recipe. Don't worry I have more Pinterest ones coming up but I'd like to shout out to anyone who reads my blog. If you have a recipe you'd like me to try please let me know! I would love to feature any and all kinds of baking recipes on my blog. And of course I would give you total credit :-)

Amy Sue *^_^*