Happy Halloween!

Dreaming of a tropical Halloween!!

Annual batch of Monster Cookies!

Brown Sugar & Pumpkin Pie Spiced Pumpkin Seeds.

Have a great day everyone!

Cookie Butter Cookies

I’m currently on a self-imposed ‘cookie-free diet’.  So it’s a little weird that I’m choosing this time to be posting a new cookie recipe for you guys.

But you know what? A girl’s gotta do some things just because she’s nice like that.  I leave you guys hanging for days and days with nothing delicious to drool over so sometimes I just have to make it up to you.

Truth be known, I made these cookies over a month ago and they disappeared so fast my scale never knew what hit it.  I guess I finally found my favourite way to use Trader Joe’s infamous Cookie Butter. 

These were the perfect spicy little alternative to a regular peanut butter cookie.  My intention was actually to use almond butter but when I opened my cupboard and found the Cookie Butter staring at me, I knew what to do.

It’s slightly odd to use a butter made of cookies to make cookies, but hey man…whatever works! :)

Cookie Butter Cookies

adapted from How Sweet it Is Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

yields a baker’s dozen

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup Cookie Butter/Speculoos
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream butter, Cookie Butter and both sugars together until fluffy.
3. Add egg and vanilla, mixing until combined.
4. Add flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until combined.
5. Add chocolate chips.  Mix to combine.
6. Drop tablespoon-sized dough balls on a baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cookie bottoms begin to brown.  Let cool on rack.

The perfect combination of crispy outside and chewy inside. 

Get a glass of milk or a cup of hot tea and get to work!  Enjoy.

Old-Fashioned Summer Fruit Crisp

After baking that ah-mazing Cherry Pie last weekend I was chomping at the bit to find something else from my Robin Hood Flour cook book to bake this week. 

My favourite way to decide what to make is to see what is local, lovely and in season in the produce section.  This week marked the arrival of BC peaches in stores around here so it was easy to choose a bag of those beauties to bring home. 

Not wanting to keep things too simple I also grabbed a huge container of fresh BC blueberries because I love combining peaches with berries.

Since our weather here this weekend was the hottest and most Summery of the year, we knew we’d grill out a meal or two so I opted for a dessert that would compliment our simple dinner.  Fruit Crisp!

It’s a bit of a contradiction to turn the hot oven on on the hottest days of the year, but somehow I have always associated a beautiful fresh fruit crisp with Summer eating.  Am I alone on this one?

Yet again, the Robin Hood people did not lead me astray.  Thanks to a perfect combination of oats, flour, brown sugar and butter it might be one of the best crisp toppings I’ve ever made.  The juicy fresh peaches didn’t hurt either.

Old Fashioned Peach-Blueberry Crisp

adapted from Robin Hood Flour Cook Book

yields 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 3-4 cups fresh peaches, peeled and sliced (including any juices)
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 3/4 cup old fashioned rolled oats
• 1/3 cup flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup butter, chilled
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray an 8” baking dish with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, lightly toss peaches, blueberries, lemon juice and sugar. 
3. In a separate bowl, stir together oats, brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter or two knives (or by hand) until mixture resembles coarse meal.
4. Arrange peach mixture in baking dish.  Sprinkle topping mixture evenly over fruit.
5. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until fruit is tender and topping is golden.  Let stand at least 10 minutes before serving.

Depending on your actual fruit measurements, MyFitnessPal measures this in at around 200 calories per serving. Not too shabby!

As it turned out we ended up letting the finished crisp chill in the fridge overnight and ate it for breakfast instead of dessert.  It’s like a super fruity, beautiful baked oatmeal so we just replaced the usual ice cream topping with some lovely vanilla yogurt and it worked for me!

Use this Crisp Topping over any combination of your favourite Summer fruit.  I plan to put some more of our frozen cherries to use, and when apricots show their cute little faces in stores you can bet they’ll find themselves under a blanket of crispy oats. 

What other favourite Summer fruit combinations should we try?

Classic Cherry Pie

Look Ma!  I baked a pie!  Me.  Little ol’ me.  Yup.  All by myself.

And not just any pie.  But a Classic Old Fashioned Cherry Pie with simple shortening crust and cherries fresh picked from the tree in Michael’s yard.

When he showed me the buckets and bags of cherries he pulled from the tree we immediately got thinking about pies, and crumbles, and muffins, and scones.  We thought about jams and jellies but since baking is my thing I knew the first thing I wanted to try was a pie.

Considering all of the baking I do, would you believe I have never made a pie from scratch?! For some reason I’ve always been intimidated by making a crust, but after this success I’m not scared anymore!  Honestly, what was I afraid of?

Last time I was home visiting my Mom I brought back this Robin Hood Flour Cook Book.  This book is older than I am and I remember it being a part of my Mom’s kitchen when I was young.  Oddly enough I don’t know if we ever baked anything out of it!

It has basic recipes for pretty much any classic baked good.  I’ll be turning to it on a very regular basis!

For this Cherry Pie I used the recipes for Standard Plain Pastry and Fresh Fruit Pie Filling.  Both are very basic, unintimidating, and simple to follow.

Classic Cherry Pie

adapted from Robin Hood Flour Cook Book

Ingredients:

Double Crust Pastry

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp salt

3/4 cup shortening

5-6 tbsp cold water

Cherry Filling

4 cups fresh cherries, pitted

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 1/2 tbsp butter

‘Glamour Top’

Milk for brushing, Sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Spoon flour into dry measuring cup.  Level off and add to mixing bowl.  Add salt.  Stir well to blend.
3. Using a pastry blender (or two knives) cut in half the shortening until mixture resembles coarse meal.  Add remaining shortening and continue cutting in until particles are the size of small peas.  (I actually used my hands for the last bit of blending).
4. Add water a little at a time, mixing lightly with a fork.  Shape dough into a firm ball with your hands.  Divide dough in half.  Round up and flatten each portion slightly.
5. Roll one portion of dough on lightly floured surface to a circle 1/8” thick.  Place carefully in a 9” pie plate. Roll out second portion of dough in preparation for topping filled pie.
6. Prepare your filling: Combine sugar and flour. Add cherries and mix lightly.
7. Fill pie.  Sprinkle with lemon juice.  Dot with butter pieces.
8. Cut small center hole in second rolled pastry portion.  Place top over filling.  Fold edges together with bottom pastry edges.  Seal and flute edges.  Cut equal slits in pie top for steam to escape.  (I did four).
9. Lightly brush pastry with milk.  Sprinkle with sugar.
10. Bake for 40-45 minutes until top crust is golden brown.  Cool.

Tips from Robin Hood:

• Serve warm or cold but not hot.
• If fruit is very juicy, sprinkle a little extra flour over bottom pastry before adding filling.
• Never grease a pie pan. Good pastry greases itself!

Based on this experience I see a lot more pie in our future.  Don’t anyone alert my waistline.

Dog Day Weekend

Our weekend was relaxing yet crazy busy at the same time.  Saturday I spent a good portion of the day putting the final coat of white paint on all of the door and window trim in the basement suite, while Michael spent his day preparing his deck for painting. 

We took a much deserved pit stop at Qoola and then curled up on the couch to watch our ‘stories’ after dinner.  The Newsroom and Breaking Bad.

1. Coffeeeeeee.

2. Scrambled eggs with swiss chard, grilled ham, whole grain toast.

3. Watermelon with basil.

4. Cheese and salami.

5. Qoola Frozen Yogurt:  half chocolate topped with M&Ms and Crispy Crunch, half coconut with berries, mango and coconut, sour dinosaur garnish.

6. Grilled pork loin chop, boiled new potatoes with chives, salad.

7. Vanilla ice cream with peaches.

On Sunday morning we took our time walking the dogs and sipping our coffee before launching into our day.  Michael tackled painting his deck while I opted to do some baking, some gardening, some errands, and some reading.

1. Whole grain toast with PB and banana.

2. Coffeeeeee.

3. Breakfast cookie.

4. Chinese leftovers found in M’s fridge. :)

5. Chilled chicken breast, ah-mazing corn on the cob, man salad.

6. Homemade cherry pie! with vanilla ice cream.

I’m so proud!  This pie crust turned out exactly how I love it. 

This batch of panzanella ‘man salad’ was made with toasted ciabatta, fresh tomatoes, basil, Italian parsley, finely grated Irish cheddar, EVOO, balsamic, and salt & pepper.  I could eat this all.day.long.

Sunday night we watched Batman Begins in anticipation of heading to see The Dark Knight Rises next weekend in between our next batch of renovations and chores. 

Sadly I can no longer stay over on Sunday nights with my new work schedule, but I looked at it as a nice start to my new week…coming home, prepping my lunch and outfit for Monday!

Hope you all had a fun, sunny, and delicious weekend!

Crunchy Chocolate Peanut Bars

So last week I found that one of things that kept me from snacking my face off all afternoon was having a selection of snack bars on hand.  During the gap between lunch and dinner I would help myself to a Kind bar, or Larabar, or some such healthy treat.

The problem with those bars is they eat up my grocery budget in a hurry so I opted to raid my cupboards and put a couple of homemade snacks into rotation instead.  After putting together a batch of my Choco-Cranberry Granola Bars I decided to try my hand at a chocolate and peanut butter combination as well.  Because, I mean really, how can you beat choco-PB?!

Chocolate-Bottomed Roasted Peanut Bars

Yields 12 squares

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 tsp canola or coconut oil
• 1/3 cup peanuts
• 1 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/3 cup brown rice syrup
• 1 tbsp natural peanut butter
• pinch coarse sea salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spread peanuts out on a shallow baking sheet and bake for 5-7 minutes until lightly browned.  Transfer peanuts to cutting board and chop coarsely.  Set aside.
2. In a medium sauce pan, heat brown rice syrup and peanut butter. Bring to a light boil, stirring until peanut butter melts. Keep warm.
3. In either the microwave, or over a double boiler, melt the chocolate chips and oil together.  Stirring frequently until smooth.
4. Add oatmeal, roasted peanuts and pinch of salt to syrup mixture.  Stir until all ingredients combined.
5. On a parchment lined baking sheet evenly spread melted chocolate in a rectangle against one end of the pan (approx 3-4 inches wide).  Top chocolate layer with oatmeal mixture and use an extra piece of parchment to firmly press bars together using your hands to form a flat edge on the open side.
6. Place bars in freezer for approximately 20 minutes to set.  Transfer chilled bar to cutting board and cut into 12 squares. 
7. Keep refrigerated.

MyFitnessPal brings these little treats in at 120 calories each. Assuming you can eat just one they make a perfect mid-afternoon pick me up.  Or late night TV snack.  Or tasty little pairing for morning coffee.  Enjoy!