Baking My Ass Off

....or to be more literal, on. No, actually with all the hundreds of cookies I have baked this month (and more to come) I have done pretty good enjoying them and not going overboard (except for Saturday) hehe.

I have basically lived in the kitchen the last week and have tons of pics of things I have baked and made but I will try and narrow this down for your sake. Thank me later :). I have also learned several things along the way of my baking adventures. Follow me as I recap....

Of course the little one and I made gingerbread houses. Its our yearly tradition. I had a vision of this beautiful gingerbread house we were going to make and photograph, sorta like the one....
my dreams were slowly crushed when I realized I was working with a 4 year old who wanted to draw x's and o's on the roof and Spongebob on the front of the house (I'll show you the better side)....
I also had a friend and her little ones over to help. Here is both the beauties side by side...
LESSON LEARNED

So Friday night I went on a little baking spree. And by little I mean four different types of cookies....Starting at the bottom we have Chocolate Chip with walnuts, then White Chocolate Macadamia Nut, Big Soft Ginger Cookies, and finally my newly famous Pumpkin Chocolate Chip.

As you can see I thought there was no better thing than having a glass or two or three of wine to ease my baking process....

( you can see our xmas presents in the back ground, the bar-stools)

Well, you see to much wine while baking isn't that great of an idea because it can lead to random ideas like tasting 3 of each cookie just make sure the recipients enjoy them as much as you...
LESSON LEARNED

I also baked a Carrot Cake a few days back and I learned that it is just as good without the frosting....
but unfortunately I learned the hard way that it doesn't keep well in the cupboard, BLAH!!!!

LESSON LEARNED

We also visited Santa the past week and I learned that Halloween is year round in my little ones eyes...
I am not quite sure the look she was going for here, somewhere between a cat and butterfly. I definitely got my ten bucks worth with that Halloween costume. She has worn it with everything for the past month straight. I am thanking my lucky stars right not that the tail broke the other day :).

CONFESSION OF THE DAY: All of our close family are getting this framed picture of the little one for Christmas...
Plus some of my fab cookies in a cute cookie tin :)

Christmas Cookies & Vegan Pancakes

I have been dying to bake cookies for sometime now. I did make a few batches of the most amazing pumpkin chocolate chip cookies ever but it had been a while. I woke up sick Friday but knew that wouldn't stop me :) so I packed up the little one and all our cookie ingredients and headed to my mommas house for some rest and some cookie baking!

After resting for a few hours while she kindly watched my little monster I finally mustered the energy to get up and get baking.

First the little one and I had to put on our matching aprons...
and then we got to work on our dough..I have never seen anyone so happy to decorate cookies in all my life!

(even grannies can have some cleavage)

Working on a masterpiece...
hardly (haha)..

Before we knew it the whole fam joined in, gotta make one if ya wanna eat one...
Some of the other, sub par to mine, masterpieces...
Then just like that the hard work disappeared....

I love kids at Christmas :).

OK enough about cookies and on to my breakfast this morning, Chocolate Vegan Pancakes. I have been dying to make Katie's Brownie Batter Pancakes but have an allergy to all protein powder as well as eggs (which aren't in hers) so I did my own mixing and matching of recipes and came up with this...
Chocolate Vegan Pancakes

• 1/3 cup ww pastry flour
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 2/3 tsp baking powder
• dash of salt
• 1 tbsp dark chocolate cocoa powder
• 1 tbsp applesauce
• stevia to taste

mix all dry ingredients and then add wet, cook in a hot skillet, add toppings..
and devour...
I love blogging with a full belly and a recipe fresh in my mind :) :)

How bout you, have you made Christmas cookies yet? What is your all time favorite Christmas cookie recipe? Do you have a secret family recipe?

CONFESSION OF THE DAY: This year instead of buying gifts for each other for Christmas my husband and I bought stuff for the house and I love it!! Can you say bar-stools and oriental rug!! :) :0

Long Time No Post

Man has life just taken a hold of me and kept me away from the computer. It seems like the only thing I get a chance to do lately is update my facebook :).

Although I have been super busy I have also been having a lot of fun with my friends and fam. In fact last night a friend and I went to meet the amazing and multi-talented Pioneer Woman and get our cookbooks autographed and to our surprise we also got a free t-shirt. Here's some of my pics...
In other adventures of mine we took a large family trip to South Bend, IN where my dad is from. We visited Notre Dame on Thanksgiving...

Little one and man by the Gold Dome

Great, fun trip!!

Now on to a recipe that I think everyone should make! It is so so good and I have been meaning to post about it for a while now and I so happy that I have finally gotten to it :). It is yet again another amazing recipe from the Xagave cookbook which by the way they have like all the recipes posted on their own blog which you AB-SOL-LUTELY have to check out!! The recipe is for their Teriyaki Agave Glaze (please go look at his recipe is literally takes like 5 min to make)

Ingredients:

1 cup soy sauce (can substitute with Bragg's)
1/2 cup water
2 Tbl. white rice vinegar (unsweetened)
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbl. of Xagave
3 tsp. minced garlic
3 tsp. minced ginger
1 Tbl. corn starch
(mix with 1 Tbl. of water)

Steps:

Combine ingredients (except corn starch) in a blender and
blend. Pour blended ingredients in pan and bring to a boil.
Once sauce begins to boil, immediately reduce to simmer.
Mix corn starch and water and add to sauce, stirring constantly
until thickens (less than one minute).

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 2 tbsp
Calories 34.6
Fat 0
Carbs 8g
Dietary Fiber 1g
Sugars 5g
Protein 1g

I cut the recipe down to about a third of this. I didn't have fresh ginger on hand the first time I made it so I just subbed ginger powder and I also cut the agave in half and used some stevia. It turned out wonderfully and I served it over some salmon..
Great stuff!

I have also made several stir fry's with the sauce. Here is one of them...
Well I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!! Be back soon :)

CONFESSION OF THE DAY: My eating habits are much better when I am on the computer less:). The less I am looking at food blogs the less I obsess over eating.

Contest Winner & Cookies

Thanks to everyone that participated in my Progresso giveaway!! Don't forget they have tons of great coupons and recipe ideas on the site.

The winner of my contest is Mikey from Randomly Mikey. Love her random eats, cute little boy and cool masks. Thanks again everyone for entering and I hope to have another giveaway soon :)

Now on to more important things like these yumma delicious cookies I just finished making from the fabulous cookbook Xagave sent me. I hope they don't mind me sharing the recipe.

PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP WHOLE GRAIN COOKIES
all the goodness going into the bowl....
I was excited to use my measuring cup from Progresso (thanks Progresso)!!
So I was lazy and my stomach was hurting from eating to many of these suckers. Taking a pic was so much easier than typing it all out :).

I did have to modify. I used 2 whole eggs and 2 eggs with Ener-G egg replacer, cut the Xagave by a 1/4 cup, nixed the nutmeg for pumpkin pie spice, and used a mixture of 2 cups spelt flour and 1 1/2 cup brown rice flour. I also used a small ice cream scoop to place o baking sheet so I got about 40 cookies. I say bake for about 16 to 17 min. if you like them extra soft and melty.

Here they are rising in the oven...

(I could tell they were going to be yummy)

This half the batter I used some raisins, oats and walnuts....
This half I used a whole bag (280s) of semi-sweet chocolate chips....
Both batches were amazing but I wouldn't even bother with the raisins!!! The chocolate chips are what make these babies!!!!!

Thanks again Xagave for allowing me to sample your product and for that amazing cook book!!

I will now leave you with my lunch from today that I never wanted to end....
Salad of...

• spinach
  
• tomatoes
• cucumber
• raw mushrooms
• roasted red pepper hummus
• Newman's Own sesame ginger dressing
• left over coconut oil roasted veggies (broc, cauli, onion, cabbage)

Half an acorn squash. One side with organic ketchup, the other with stevia, cinnamon and pb. My taste buds couldn't make up their mind :). Ever have that problem???

I think you can guess what I had for lunch dessert...... :0

CONFESSION OF THE DAY: Recently I have come to learn that it is better for my diet and my sanity not to keep things in the house that are harmful to my eating habits. I used to just try and avoid them and buy them for the little one and the man but none of us need them and I do much better without them around. ***Reason I gave almost all the cookies away today and plan on giving the rest away tonight :)