sweet

Sweet Potato Sunday!

Growing up I was always that kid that absolutely REFUSED to eat my vegetables. I remember sitting at the kitchen table for hours while my mom forced me to have at least one bite of spinach. My parents tried everything! They covered the veggies with sauce or cheese, they tried to spruce them up to make them more interesting to me, but I was a very stubborn child. I was set in my ways and refused to learn to like vegetables. It’s ironic that now as an adult (or a larger child, as I often consider myself) I absolutely LOVE veggies! I try and have a vegetable component in almost every meal, and one of my favorites is the sweet potato!

Sweet potatoes are actually one of my absolute favorite foods of all time. They are second in line behind my ever beloved oatmeal. They include many essential vitamins, including B6, C, D, and A! You basically cover all the important alphabetical vitamins in one serving of this fun vegetable! That’s another thing – they’re a vegetable that tastes like a dessert! What a serious win win.

I buy tons of sweet potatoes every time I go to the store because they can store for a long time. Whenever I don’t feel like cooking a big meal I simply wash a sweet potato, poke a few holes in if with a fork and microwave it for 8 minutes – rotating once at the 4 minute mark. Then I can just cut it open straight from the microwave and load it up with whatever delicious fillings I want! (Chickpeas, cheese, yogurt, honey, cinnamon sugar, nutella, or simply salt/pepper and butter!) However, when I have more time I like to get a little fancier with my sweet potatoes and make myself some sweet oven baked fries! The recipe is easy and the outcome is SO DELICIOUS OH MY GOSH! You’ll just have to try it yourself to believe me! (And this is also a great way to get some vital nutrients into picky kids!)

SWEET SWEET POTATO FRIES

The Ingredients:

1 large sweet potato (or 2 small ones)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp honey
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon

The Method:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Place sweet potato in microwave for 1-2 minutes so that it’s softer and easier to cut
3. Cut sweet potato into long fry-like strips and place into a bowl (I keep the skins on because I love them, but you can peel your potato if desired)
4. Add the rest of the ingredients of top of the cut potatoes and mix with your hands until each slice is fully covered and the ingredients have all mixed together
5. Spread out the strips onto a sprayed baking sheet
6. Place in oven for 30 minutes
7. Let cool for 5 minutes and then enjoy!

More fun with Oreos – Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Bars

Do you have a favorite type of Oreo? Personally I like the ones that come out around Halloween time with the orange frosting. They don’t taste any different from the regular ones I don’t think, but for some reason the orange makes it easier to consume an entire package of them… I also like the double stuffed ones because there is nothing wrong with putting more of that mysterious frosting stuff in my mouth. I’m not really into the golden ones, or the uh oh oreos. I know there’s a myriad of other flavors such as mint, peanut butter, birthday cake, and cookie dough!? but I’ve never actually tried those ones. Let me know if any of them are worthwhile in the comments!

For these cookie bars I used double stuffed oreos. Like I’ve said countless times, you can never go wrong with double stuffed! From this endeavor I learned a few things about my new kitchen Including the fact that I have a pretty weak oven. These had to cook for nearly 40 minutes when the recipe I based them on only had them in for 25!

Also, because I don’t have an electric mixer I creamed the butter and sugar myself (cue your impressed faces at my powerful muscles) Either way they came out AMAZING and my sorority sisters devoured them at our chapter meeting!

CHOCOLATE CHIP OREO COOKIE BARS

The Ingredients:

BARS-
2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup salted butter
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cup flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 crushed oreos
1 cup chocolate chips

TOPPING-
2 crushed oreos
1/4 cup chocolate chips

The Recipe:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
2. Soften the butter in the microwave then add to the brown sugar in a large bowl. Cream them together
3. Mix in eggs and vanilla
4. In a separate bowl mix together 1 cup of flour with the baking powder and salt
5. Pour the dry into the wet and mix together
6. Add in the rest of the flour
7. Fold in the oreos and chocolate chips
8. After baking for 15 minutes add the toppings and continue baking for another 10 to 20 minutes (depending on how useful your oven is)
9. ENJOY!

All for myself – Single Serve Microwave Oatmeal Cookie

Hello again everybody! Let me tell you something, I have been busy busy busy since I returned to school. I forgot how easily my life can become so hectic! Between the hours of classes, homework, extracurriculars, work, and attempts at socializing I have found that baking has really been placed on the back burner.

pictured: me prioritizing my social life #SINS

A secondary challenge is that I am surrounded by a bunch of sorority girls who have too much self control and won’t eat my baked goods quickly enough! I ended up eating about 1/2 of the Oreo bars I made and struggled to find other people willing to eat them. People are way too body conscious here and it’s kind of bumming me out. I’m far less motivated to bake when I know that nobody will eat my creations! However, after I got home from work and dinner last night I decided enough was enough! If nobody wanted to eat batches and batches of amazing cookies than I would simply focus on myself. Thus, my single serving oatmeal cookie was produced!

This cookie takes about five minutes total to assemble and bake. You can’t really tell from the pictures but after cooling for about three minutes, the cookie just popped right out of the bowl and I could hold it like a real cookie!! It was so cute and awesome. Actually, just baking it was really cute. I’m used to using cups and cups of flour and sugar for my large scale baking endeavors but this simply required small teaspoons of ingredients! It was adorable and really fun. The end result was surprisingly good. The cookie was a little but chewy, but it still reminded me very much of an Oatmeal cookie. Given that it was cooked in the microwave I was fairly impressed with the outcome. I ended up making two of them for myself (darn my oatmeal cookie addiction!) but they were the perfect night snack and a good way to practice portion control (if you’re into that kind of thing). Another thing I thought of after the fact is that these would be SO much better if some chocolate chips were thrown in them! Next time! (AKA every night ever)

ONE SERVING MICROWAVE OATMEAL COOKIE

The Ingredients:

1/4 cup oats
1 egg white
2 tsp brown sugar
2 tsp all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp baking powder
Cinnamon (as desired)
Chocolate Chips (technically optional but let’s be realistic… they’re never optional)

The Method:

1. Combine all of the ingredients in one (microwave safe) bowl and mix together well until a consistent dough forms
2. Scrape the dough from the sides of the bowl and form into a flat cookie shape on the bottom
3. Microwave on high for 45 seconds
4. Allow to cool for a few minutes
5. Pop the cookie out of the bowl and enjoy!

First week back in the Big Easy – Oreo Marshmallow Bars

Hello friends! Sorry that it has been almost a whole week since I have posted on here but I had to take a several day hiatus from any baking activity in order to move in to my apartment down here in New Orleans. Things have been a little hectic and I lacked the means to bake anything for the first few days down here.

I have since settled in though and I finally found the time to focus on mind on having some fun in the kitchen! I really enjoyed this first baking adventure in my new apartment for several reasons:
1. I didn’t’ have to use the oven, which is nice when the temperature outside never drops below 90 degrees
2. I had to be a little creative when deciding what to make because the ingredients I have available to me were limited to the small convenience store we have on campus

I was walking around the aforementioned convenience store trying to think of what I could make when my eyes landed on the marshmallows, “RICE KRISPY TREATS!” was my first thought and I grabbed the bag of mallows and some butter. Then I went to go get some Rice Krispy cereal and realized that they didn’t have any. I woefully stared at my other cereal options deciding which ones would be a good replacement for RK when my eyes landed on the Oreos next to the cereal on the shelf. I’m a big fan of Oreos. They’re crunchy, sweet, chocolatey, and vegan (who knew?). I picked up a box for myself and as I was standing there with the marshmallows and Oreos in my hand I knew at once that I was going to try a little experiment and combine the two for the ultimate treat. Thus, this magical indulgence was born!

I call them Oreo marshmallow bars because that’s what they are! I can’t think of a name more perfect for them. They’re incredibly easy to make and they take almost no time at all. You get to crush Oreos in a bag too, so they’re a great stress reliever for if you really feel like punching something. I mean, if you’re gonna punch something it might as well be a big bag of Oreos that you get to shove your mouth with later!

A few things to note from my experiment: After they set (and after I ate 3 straight from the pan… woops) I found that they were extremely difficult to remove smoothly from the pan, so maybe I would spray the pan before I put the mixture in. Also, depending on your crunch preference level you could mash the Oreos up a little bit more than I did. Or not, I liked em my way to be perfectly honest.

OREO MARSHMALLOW BARS

The Ingredients:
1 package of Double Stuffed Oreos (it’s like 30 Oreos I think)
1 bag of mini marshmallows (somewhere around 6 cups to be more accurate)
1/2 stick of butter

The Method:
1. Place all of the Oreos in a bag and smash with a rolling pin or other heavy object until they are smushed to tiny bits
2. In a large pot heat the butter and marshmallows and stir until the two have melted together and have reached a smooth consistency
3. Remove the marshmallows from heat and add the crushed oreos
4. Mix and mix and mix!
5. Pour into an 8×8 baking dish and let sit in the fridge for ~15 minutes
6. Cut into 12 sections and enjoy!

One final hurrah – Chocolate Sugar Cookies

I’m pretty much an expert on saying goodbye. At least three times a year I bid adieu to my home, my family, my boyfriend, and of course, my cat. Now it is once again time for me to pack up and head down to school in New Orleans. Once again, I must say goodbye. Missing my loved ones is not something I have an easy time with, and now I have added one more beloved item to my long list of things I will miss irrevocably. My mother’s beautiful Kitchenaid electric mixer! They all but had to drag me kicking and screaming away from that magical machine. Baking will never be simple again without it in my kitchen.

However, before I left it all behind in New Hampshire I made sure to get in one last chance to use it. I decided that whatever my last baked good in my mom’s kitchen was going to be needed to be my best yet. This way, no matter what disasters await me in my ill-equipped and dangerously tiny kitchen at school, I would have one final delicious memory.

For this special treat I decided to put a fun spin on an old classic. Plain sugar cookies are some of the most wonderful tasting morsels that we can experience on this earth, add chocolate to them? Well, forget about it! People were swooning for these cookies (myself included) and it will not be the final time that I make them. I made mine pretty big, because I was not settling for any bite sized cookies. You could probably get more cookies out of this recipe by rolling smaller balls of dough and shortening the baking time by a minute or so. I recommend making them jumbo though, you’re gonna want to eat a lot at once anyways! Besides the fact that these cookies simply tasted amazing, they also had that chewy and soft texture that just makes cookies perfect. Seriously, I can’t brag about myself enough with these cookies. You’ll just have to try them for yourself and see what I’m talking about!

CHOCOLATE SUGAR COOKIES:

The Ingredients:
2 cups + 2 tbsp flour
¾ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
¾ tsp salt
2 ½ sticks unsalted butter
2 cups sugar, plus 1/2 cup
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla

The Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together
3. Using a standing mixer (#BAE), cream the butter and 2 cups sugar together
4. Add the eggs and vanilla to butter and sugar
5. Add the flour mixture in slowly until it is all combined
6. Roll dough into balls and roll balls in sugar
7. Bake for ~12 minutes
8. Enjoy!

My morning miracle – White Chocolate Coconut Scones

I think that the Gods and Goddesses of baking are watching over me. Why do I think this? Well, this morning I made coconut white chocolate scones and almost everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong. However, in the end, they still turned out INCREDIBLY scrumptious! It’s kind of a miracle.

I woke up extra early to make this morning time treat for my friends. That was my first problem, I had barely wiped the sleep from my eyes when I began pulling ingredients. The second problem arose when I was jolted awake by the realization that I didn’t have enough flour! While that might deter the ordinary baker from continuing, I remained determined to see these scones through! I was only about 1/4 cup short of flour so I began scouring my pantry for something I could potentially use as a filler. I found cake flour. I won’t lie, I have no idea what the difference between regular flour and cake flour is, but I decided they were similar enough that the cake flour could be used to make up for the little bit I needed. I continued mixing all of the ingredients and hoped that the risk would pay off.

are they not the same thing? — are these not the same thing?

The next hitch in the plan came when the recipe called for the use of a pastry knife to mix in the butter. A what? I thought about looking up what that was and figuring out the proper way to use one. I thought about doing that, I really did, but then I just used my hands to mix it in instead. I really hoped that whatever a pastry knife was worked in a similar way to fingers! After that, the only problem was that I didn’t cut the scones into even triangles so some of them were HUGE! While some were teeny tiny! I don’t truly consider that a problem though because in the end, people just had size options!

After the entire baking adventure was complete and the scones were done, I felt good about the outcome. The last step was to “drizzle” white chocolate over the top of them. We all know how good I am at doing that… NOT. So I didn’t even try, I just melted the chocolate and smeared it on top with a knife! Nobody complained. Everybody loved them. One of my co-workers told me that they were, “the best scones I’ve ever had!” Wow! I tried a bite and I won’t lie, they are amazing.

I’m telling ya, I’m being watched by the mysterious Gods and Goddesses of baking!

WHITE CHOCOLATE COCONUT SCONES

The Ingredients:
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, cold and cut into cubes
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup +2-3 tablespoons coconut
1/3 cup white chocolate

The Method:
1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl
3. Mix in cold butter with your hands (or the mysterious pastry knife) until butter is mixed in and the dough is crumbly
4. In a separate bowl, mix egg cream and vanilla
5. Add the wet into the dry ingredients and mix just until combined
6. Stir in 1/2 cup coconut
7. Form dough into a flat round disk, about 8-9 inches in diameter
8. Place on a baking sheet and cut into 12 triangles
9. Brush each triangle with a a little bit more cream (just enough so the coconut will stick) and then sprinkle with the coconut
10. Bake for 20 minutes
11. Melt white chocolate in the microwave
12. “Drizzle” melted chocolate over scones
13. ENJOY!

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