Tag Archives: cookies

Mama, May I?

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My goodness – it’s been quite a while. …I know, I know – I start every.single.post. in pretty much the same manner, as of late.

While I might not be blogging as often – the blogosphere is not far from my mind…and food is – most definitely – not far from my mouth.

I had been resisting the urge to get into the *holiday* spirit…I always feel bad for Thanksgiving…it’s that middle child – and between Halloween and Christmas, the kings of the “gimme, gimme” holidays, it often gets overlooked.

Not by me. I absolutely LOVE Thanksgiving! Dare I say it is my favorite one?

  • One. Any holiday based on consuming copious amounts of comfort food is A-okay in my book.
  • Two. I love spending time with my family – catching up, watching football and just been bums.
  • …and Three. It’s just great to be with family – solely for the reason that you want to be together…no gift giving/receiving…it’s based on being selfless..not selfish.

My tree and decorations won’t be up until December – but I don’t think that Thanksgiving would mind if I love on some holiday flavors…like eggnog…and gingerbread.

Speaking of gingerbread…. I’ve had my eye on Mama Pea’s Pumpkin Molasses Cookie Dough Balls …. Basically, all of her little cookie concoctions have been on my “to make ASAP” list…and the gingerbread-y flavors of the pumpkin molasses cookies finally got me baking.

Pumpkin Molasses Cookie Dough Balls

adapted from Mama Pea

Makes 24  30 dough balls — I used a Tablespoon to scoop & got 30 cookies out of this batch

  • 1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
  • 1 c. unbleached organic flour  – I used regular all-purpose
  • 1 T. ginger
  • 2 t. baking soda
  • 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 1 t. cinnamon
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/3 c. vegan margarine (i.e. Earth Balance) — I used margarine…but it wasn’t vegan
  • 2/3 c. canned pumpkin
  • 2/3 c. organic sugar + additional 1/4 c. for rolling – I used what I had left of natural sugar and then the rest – just plain ole granulated sugar
  • 1/4 c. molasses

Instructions

  • In a medium bowl, combine flour, ginger, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
  • Using an electric or stand mixer, cream together margarine, pumpkin, 2/3 c. sugar and molasses.
  • Gradually add flour mixture to wet ingredients, mixing until a dough comes together.
  • Chill dough for 30 minutes or more. When dough is chilled, preheat oven to 350 degrees and pour remaining sugar into a shallow bowl.
  • Scoop dough into balls and roll until smooth.
  • Roll each ball sugar until completely covered.
  • Transfer dough to a cookie sheet and continue until sheet is filled.
  • Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cookies should be set, but still a bit doughy. (I needed the full 10)
  • Allow cookies to cool on the pan for several minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Loved these. 

My favorite part of these lil’ beauties is definitely the texture…doughy but still light and fluffy.

I might play with the amount of molasses in these the next time I make them…they’re great as is – but I’m a huge fan of that molasses/gingerbread flavor and wouldn’t mind punching it up maybe a notch or two.

However – if you’re craving gingerbread…

go.

make these.

now. 

Missing in Action

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Hello, hello, loves!! Long time, no blog!

Although, of course, I left for vacation with the greatest of intentions to blog – my computer rarely saw the light of day. It deserves a vacation, too, right? :)

Where have I been this last week or so? I’ve been in Los Angeles visiting my best friend.  If you’ve followed the blog, I did this last year as well.

Of course, I had an amazing time. Great food, great friends and great times.

A quick recap??

 

Cookie baking and decorating

Lots of free petites...salted caramel square, please?

Pinkberry in my belly. Blood orange yogurt, pineapple, raspberries, kiwi and coconut.

Celeb spotting (Dave Coulier)

OG goodness.

 

Churro amazingness.

I met a great boy. haha

More details to come!!

How has everyone been?! What’ve I missed in the bloggie world?! Fill me in!

xoxo

Thanksgiving Breakdown

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Hello, hello!

How is it Sunday already? Ah, it seems like it was just Tuesday night, and I was relishing the fact that I’d have 5 whole days off…where did those 5 days go?? haha

However, two of those days were filled with visits from family (and their little pup!!), laughter, fabulous food, football, Bond marathons, Back to the Future and ELF!

I give you – in [cell phone] pics – the breakdown of my Turkey Day!

 

It doesn't get much better.

Chocolate.Beer. haha It was actually pretty good.

My uncle and the biiiird (and football).

Awesome creamed spinach.

 

Massshed.

Stuffin' (a fave of mine)

My aunt's squash - so good.

 

Daa bird.

Pearl onions in cheese sauce. Ahhh-mazing.

 

My plate. A lil' bit of everything!

The wee one stole my seat!

Tradition. Sugar-cookie turkeys with lemon frosting.

 

My mom's Kentucky Chocolate Chess Pie. Ahhh - so good!!

(There was also unpictured coffee cake, pumpkin crisp, and pumpkin pie!!)

 

VT cheese (smoked cheddar, cranberry brie, butternut, and the best bleu everrrr)

 

Kissssy babby

 

  • What’re your families’ traditions? Anything that just does not disappear from a celebration?

Mine? Turkey cookies, chess pie, Bond marathon, and football!

I hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and weekend!

xoxo

Reconnnnected!

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…for how long I don’t know…but for now…PICTURES!! haha

I drove down to Boston this wiiiindy, wiiindy morning to pick up a bill that I needed to pay and to pick up my cord…should have thought to bring the charger though (duh)….cuz now my battery warning is flashing and I have no charger. Ahh, let’s see how long it lasts me.

For now at least…PICTURES! haha

These will be sort of a recap of my pre-Christmas/Christmas Eve/Christmas day festivities. haha

Let’s see…where to start?? Hmm, oh yes…well, as I mentioned before my best and I went to the Harry Potter exhibit…this was the only picture I got because they don’t let you take pictures inside the exhibit…BOO. haha

Before Christmas, my momma and I went into baking mode. We made (unpictured) cookies, banana bread and chocolate chess pie. I love my mom’s banana bread…and the fact that she replaces most of the fat in this cake with apple sauce (we don’t completely replace the fat with apple sauce because it, unfortunately, changes the texture of the bread too much).

Annd the chocolate chess pie is just completely unhealthy …it’s an indulgence and you literally cannot eat more than one small piece in a sitting. It is so rich (yet delicious!!). Whipped cream (reduced fat..tastes the same…so it’s a fantabulous swap) is absolutely essential…and aren’t the little snowman paper plates cute??

On Christmas Eve we have a tradition of having over our long-time family friends (a.k.a I’ve known them since in the wombbb). My mom made an amazing meal of roasted pork loin, sweet and regular potatoes, green beans, creamed onions, stuffing, cranberry sauce (yeah, the canned stuff..I just love it no matter how can-shaped it is), spinach, and our friends brought salad with them. Yummm.

This was our spread…not too shabby:

That’s my bro being goofy and our friend Dan, on the left.

A second look at the table…yes, that’s my plate, and I promise there was greenery placed on it literally moments after this photo was taken!! I went with a regular baked potato, too…because — well, I can’t remember the last time I had one..I always have sweet potatoes now. It was quite carbtastic. :)

Here’s our lovely (fake) tree on Christmas Eve…we can’t put out presents early because the cat likes wrapping paper and ribbon…waaaaay too much.

Christmas morning, we woke up to this beauty. :) Ahh, my mom’s sour cream coffee cake…we only have it once…maybe twice a year… and Oh.My.God. SO GOOD! I can’t even begin to explain the amazingness of this cake.

I may have had one…or three…slices of this over the course of the morning. haha We also celebrated with a little prosecco that my bro purchased. Nothing says “holiday”  like cake and booze (classy booze) in the morning.

Of course…the traditional — pose in front of the “tree” picture occurred as well.

My brother, Greg, and I. Awkward pose. haha

We also had dinner at my dad’s..but no pics were taken.

Monday was spent iiiinside. Why…Snow.Snow.Snow. It was pretty though!

And this is the freaking EPIC dark chocolate hot cocoa that nursed me back from the brink…okay, so it helped my cold. haha Melodramatic a little. Yum.Yum.Yum.Yum. :)

Okay, so in other news…we all know that I frequent a little coffee place called…Starbucks. Well, when I finally went through the mail I picked up from my apartment…check out this little diddy they sent me.

Oh yeah…it’s legit. hahahahah I’m official. It’s even engraved with my name. Baha. I like this system … I wasn’t going to “renew” my “gold card” that had been a gift last year ($25 renewal ..no thanks) if they had kept the program going…but the new program is free, and after 15 “stars” or “points” — or basically…purchases…you get a free drink. Free is good. ALWAYS. haha

In other news…I got back to my regular eats today. Yogurt messes, cheese sticks, and brown rice GALORE! haha I figure you’re familiar with those items, so I will wait until another post to include pics…because well, this is quite the pic laden post isn’t it?? This is what happens when you’re forgetful. haha

Well, if you survived this uber long post, YAY!! haha

I hope you’re all doing well!!! It’s so freaking windy here it’s ridiculous…so I hope if you’re in the NH/MA area that you’re not blowing away!!!

Peace, Love & Munchies.

Turkey Day!

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Hello, hello! It’s been a while — eep! I don’t even remember what day I posted last on? Was it on Wednesday? Well…I hope. :) I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving this past Thursday had a wonderful day filled with family, friends and good eats!!

I had a wonderful holiday. We had company here (hence my lack of updating). It was hectic but in the best possible way. My aunt, my uncle, and my cousin and their dog, Dolce, came down on Wednesday night. It was a grand experiment of exposing our dog to their dog for the first time. Though it was tense at first they eventually coexisted peacefully. They weren’t BFFs or anything…but there was no bloodshed, and that’s all one can ask for on the holidays, right? haha

An example of them coexisting peacefully:

(My pup, you’ve seen pics of before, is the lab and their dog is a little rat terrier)

On Thursday, my other cousin arrived with her boyfriend, and we enjoyed lots of good eats, lots of football, Home Alone and the James Bond marathon on Syfy. haha We enjoyed turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, creamed onions, squash, cranberry sauce, zucchini “casserole” and cornbread for dinner. Unfortunately, I did not get pictures of everything. In the excitement I misplaced my camera for a while, and by the time I found it the bird had been carved and the food have been ravaged. haha I was able to get some pictures of our little appetizers before hand (spinach squares! Mom’s recipe, yum!!) and dessert! haha

These are my mom’s spinach squares. They are delicious (warm and at room temp!) and they always go fast!

Here’s my aunt’s squash! I believe this is the only picture of our main meal. haha

I  also had some of my favorite cranberry gingerale.

We ate our main meal early in the day so we got in a good bit of rest before digging into dessert. :) Obviously, my favorite part of Thanksgiving…hahaha

My mom’s chocolate chess pie. It is sooo rich, but so good!

My aunt made a “pumpkin crisp.”

And of course, we had sugar cookies with lemon frosting. They weren’t cut into turkeys this year *much easier* haha…but they, of course, were just as delicious!

The weather has been pretty crummy, so much of this weekend was spent inside. However, it was wonderful getting to spend so much time with my family. Right now, it is ridiculous windy! My dog is currently mourning the departure of my uncle who is is absolutely enamored with. She’s sulking in the chair that he sat in the most. haha She’ll be back to herself in no time though.

I’ll leave you with another adorable pictures of the doggy cousins (that’s my brother between them haha).

I hope everyone, who celebrated, had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that everyone else had a fabulous week!! I can’t believe it’s Saturday already… this week has gone by too quickly!!

Back to healthy eats!! haha

Peace, Love & Munchies.