Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

After two and half years of blogging I decided that I needed to get over my fear of having myself photographed. I have never liked photos. I inherited my dad's rather large nose (thanks dad!) that in photographs looks horribly large. I have become great over the years in making sure I am looking down or having my hair cover most of my face. However, as my boys have gotten older I have realized a number of things. I lost both my mother and grandmother to cancer. Once someone is gone all that you are left with are the memories you have stored and photographs. I don't want my kids to remember me without a photograph to remember my face. I want them to be able to show their grand children what I looked like and take pride in where they came from. So I've come out from behind the camera. I promise this was not an easy decision, I still cringe at my photos, but I am slowly getting better. Now that you know my face, on to the recipe. This week my two boys have been in day camp at the library so I have been baking a number of snacks for when they come home in the afternoon. Yesterday I tried a new recipe for Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of total time, 10 minutes of which is active and makes 2 1/2 dozen cookies. I only made a few changes to the original recipe. First, I doubled the amount of white chocolate chips. My two boys are big chocolate chip fans and since they were eating these as treats I increased the amount. The dough was hard to work with when first combined so I set the bowl in the fridge for a 1/2 hour. After it had cooled I formed the dough into balls and flattened them slightly before adding to the baking sheet.

These cookies are a little more adult oriented. My husband liked that they weren't overly sweet, but my two boys weren't fans of the brown sugar. The cookies do have less sugar than most cookie recipes, which was a bonus to me, but a downside for my kids. My husband would rather not of had the dried cranberries, he would have preferred dried cherries instead. This is a recipe that could easily be modified to include other dried fruits or chocolate chip flavors.

For the recipe go to Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies.

Recipe for Sour Cherry Rice Pudding

Sour Cherry Rice Pudding

I love to read. Growing up my mother never watched TV, instead she spent all of her free time curled up on the side of the couch with a book. It was thanks to her that I read War and Peace in middle school. She always expected me to read for joy, not grade level and challenged me to read everything I could get my hands on. In college I already had a major when on a whim I decided to tack on a second major, English Literature. This love of reading has followed me to the current day when I have been known to stay up all night finishing a great book. Most of you also know that I love to cook. Cookbooks and food magazines are always all over my house. There is something great about finding a new recipe to try and scouring through pages to find the perfect fit for dinner. Slow cooker recipes are some of my favorites and last week I tried a new recipe for Sour Cherry Rice Pudding from the June 2013 issue of Family Circle magazine.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 6 hours and 35 minutes of total time, 10 minutes of which is active and makes 4 servings. I did make changes to the original recipe. First since I have a larger crock-pot I doubled the recipe. I used fat free evaporated milk and 100 percent cherry juice for the ingredients. For whatever reason my crock-pot never works with rice pudding on low. Instead I decreased the time and cooked the recipe on high for a little under 3 hours. After the pudding has sat to cool it will need to be fluffed back up and you can add more evaporated milk if necessary.

Using fat free evaporated milk worked well in this recipe and I like that there is 11 grams of protein per serving. My kids ate their servings with homemade whipped cream, which was a nice combination. If you want a richer pudding this would be delicious with shaved dark chocolate on top.

For the recipe go to Sour Cherry Rice Pudding.

Recipe for Lighter Chocolate Cherry Muffins

Gluten Free Lighter Cherry and Dark Chocolate Muffins

The hardest thing for me after I stopped eating gluten was the lack of snacks. Most store bought gluten free snacks taste similar to cardboard and still cost an arm and a leg. After trying every type of snack that I could eat at the store I finally gave up and started cooking all my snacks from scratch. Cooking gluten free from scratch proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. The type of flour and the amount of leavening ingredients can have a great impact on the outcome of the food. This week I tried a new recipe for gluten free Lighter Chocolate Cherry Muffins from Everyday Food magazine.

This recipe has 9 ingredients. It takes 40 minutes of total time, 15 minutes of which is active and makes 12 servings. I did make a number of modifications to the original recipe. First the original recipe was not gluten free. I ended up making two versions of this recipe, one with gluten for the rest of my family and another batch gluten free for myself. For the gluten free version I used gluten free Bisquick. My baking time was longer than the recipe stated, by approximately 5 minutes. The gluten free version actually rose better and came out lighter than the gluten version. I think the regular version needed 1/2 cup more baking mix than the original recipe used.

These muffins taste a little bit sweet, but not anything like a cupcake. If you are looking for a sweet muffin, this recipe wouldn't fit your needs. The muffins turned out light with a hint of sweetness from the cherries and chocolate chips. I liked that the muffins weren't overly sweet so they were perfect for breakfast with a cup of coffee.

For the recipe go to Lighter Chocolate Cherry Muffins.

Peanut Butter, Dried Cranberry and Chocolate Chip Cookies

When dark chocolate first started becoming popular I hated it. There was something about the taste that I thought was bitter and I just could never eat more than one bite. I did love milk chocolate and I had a sweet spot for 5th Avenue candy bars. To this day there is something about that candy bar that makes me happy. After getting married and having kids I decided that I should give dark chocolate another try. I fell in love. Now I prefer dark chocolate to milk chocolate and the darker the chocolate the better. I have even been known to eat parts of the bittersweet baking bars that I buy to make cakes and cookies. I think a large part of it has to do with getting older. The older I get the more I notice that my tastes for certain foods has changed as well. Foods that I used to cringe at in my 20's I now love in my 30's and the foods that I thought I would never stop loving I barely touch. What hasn't changed is my sweet tooth. I still love to bake and do so at least once a week. This weekend I tried a new recipe for Peanutty Fruit and Chocolate Chip Cookies from the February 2013 issue of Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

This recipe has 12 ingredients. It takes a total of 1 hour 41 minutes, 35 minutes of which is active and makes 45 cookies. I did make a number of changes to the original recipe. First instead of all-purpose flour I used brown rice flour. Second I substituted honey for the granulated sugar and sorghum syrup for the light brown sugar. Finally, I had just bought powdered peanut butter at the store so I used it instead of the 1/2 cup of regular peanut butter. The first time I made these cookies they came out of the oven and would not set. This can happen with gluten free baking, it is a lot of trail and error. So I crumbled the cookies, added an egg and rolled them into cookies again. I put them back into the oven for approximately 10 minutes per batch.

Even after all the changes these cookies turned out very well. The combination of the chopped chocolate and the dried cranberries was delicious and the cookies only lasted a matter of hours. These cookies could also be modified to use other dried fruit such as cherries or a darker chocolate such as bittersweet. I think an even darker chocolate and dried cherries would make this recipe even better.

For the recipe go to Peanutty Fruit and Chocolate Chip Cookies. (registration required)

Beef and Apricot Stew

You are probably tired of me talking about stews. In the fall and winter months I make soups and stews at least once a week and I must say they are one of my favorite foods. If you read my blog regularly you know that both by how much I talk about my love of soups/stews and how many recipes I post. I promise that come spring I will be back to lighter fair, but until then stews will be a staple. It helps that both of my sons are huge stew eaters. So much so that my son's birthday was this past weekend and that was what he requested for his birthday dinner. Love that kid. Beef stew is probably my favorite type of stew. It is comforting and re-heats well for lunches. Last weekend I tried a new recipe for Beef and Apricot Stew from Everyday Food (the last issue-boo!), which looked simple and perfect for fall.

This recipe has 11 ingredients. It takes a total of 1 hour 55 minutes, 25 minutes of which is active and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store with the exception of the lamb which was supposed to be the main ingredient. I have a horrible time finding lamb in my area. I am hoping that since we now have a new International market that I might have more luck. Since lamb was non-existent I substituted beef. Two things that I would change about this recipe. The ginger sticks weren't popular in my house. Instead of making sticks I would suggest grating the ginger on a micro plane. This would allow the flavor, but not make large sticks of ginger which my kids pretty much hated. Additionally, I would cut down on the amount of apricots to 1/2 cup. Using 3/4 of a cup of apricots was just too many. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

With an hour and a 1/2 in the oven this recipe takes a little bit of pre-planning. However, any good stew is worth the wait. If you implement the changes that I made above  I think this stew could be a great fall and winter staple recipe. Plus it's gluten free which works great for my dietary needs.

For the recipe go to Beef and Apricot Stew.