Double Choc Chip Cream Cheese Cookies

Seriously? Cream Cheese in a cookie? When I saw this recipe, I knew it would be good!  I was so confident of it's potential goodness that I doubled the recipe!  I'm glad I did!  We now have 60 of these little beauties in our freezer ... ok, maybe not quite 60 as we ate a number of them straight out of the oven ... but many many delicious cookies are packed in little ziplock bags ready for our lunches!
 

One of my pet peeves with baking cookies is that they always flatten.  These, they didn't budge, not even a little bit!  AND I LOVE THAT! 

Here's how I made mine ... 

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

115g cream cheese, softened

1&1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup organic (if you like) raw sugar

2 eggs

4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 &1/2 cups bakers flour (any flour will do) 

4 teaspoons cornstarch

2 teaspoons baking soda

a couple pinches of salt

250g white choc chips

250g milk choc chips

Preheat oven to 180C/350F.  

In your mixer, beat butter and cream cheese together.  Add sugars and beat some more.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Mix well.  Make sure everything is well combined.

Add remaining ingredients, minus the choc chips.  Mix until just combined.  Don't mix too hard or your cookies will be tough.  Now stir in the choc chips. 

Grab your baking sheets and line with baking paper.  I used a small ice cream scoop and was able to fit 15 cooking on each long rectangular tray.  Next time I think I'll fit more as they don't spread AT ALL! 

Bake for 8-10 minutes.  You want them to start to brown but just a little bit.  Remove to a wire rack.  Make sure you eat a few straight out of the oven ... but not all of them, remember, this makes 60!!

Save some to get you through the week, and freeze the rest, ready for school/work lunches!!

Homemade Energy Bars

I love a good bar.  Since I made the big switch to exercising more and eating less I've looked for a good mid morning snack option. I tried several different bars, some I liked, some I didn’t. So we decided to make our own. 

Here is a recipe that you can as a base and experiment from there. The possibilities are endless.

Preheat oven to 325 F or 160 C 

Wet Ingredients:

1-1/2 bananas, or pumpkin, mashed 

3/4 cup light syrup, or honey, or agave nectar, or any combination you like.  

1/4 cup juice– I use orange/banana/pineapple juice; orange juice is fine

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 egg whites

Dry Ingredients:

3-1/2 cups rolled oats

1/4 cup protein powder– we used vanilla flavor

1-1/2 cups nonfat dry milk

1 tbsp cinnamon

1/2 cup assorted nuts– we have used almonds, pecans, soy nuts, pumpkin seeds, and flax seeds. 

1/2 cup dried fruit– we have used a number of combinations of cranberries, dates, and golden raisins, use what you like! 

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips– these are not necessarily a healthful option, but we like them, a lot. 

In separate bowls mix the wet and dry ingredients. Pour the wet bowl into the dry bowl and mix thoroughly. Really mix it. You don’t want any protein powder bits not mixed up. 

After it is mixed well, drop portions onto a pre-greased cookie sheet. Depending on the size you make the amount of calories will vary. I use a 1/4 cup and this makes around 20-22. I shape them into a bar shape with a couple of butter knives and bake them for 15-18 minutes, or until the edges turn a nice brown color. 

Take the bars out of the oven and place on a cooling rack. They will be soft, but as they cool they will firm up. We put a batch in tupperware before they cooled all the way and this was a mistake. Wait till they are cool! 

Delicious! tastes even better around 10:30 a.m. when your belly is empty! 

Depending on what you put in them and how you portion them, they have a calorie count of around 200, with almost 9 grams of protein. (using the 1/4 cup)

Enjoy. 

Ryan 

Peanut Butter / Choc Chip Popcorn

I got this recipe from my friend Kris.
She's an extraordinary cook !
I hope that one day I can convince her
to start posting recipes here !

I did this exactly as she told me, except that I had some choc chips in the pantry that begged me to throw them into the mix ... I just couldn't resist their pleas !



This is so simple.
Not to mention yummy.

All you need is:
30g butter
45g peanut butter ~ I use one that is 100% peanuts, no sugar
1 tablespoon PURE maple syrup
choc chips ~ optional, if you can resist them
popped popcorn

I pop my popcorn in a pan. A big pan. I cover the bottom of the pan with olive oil, add the popcorn, put the lid on, turn on the heat. I use a med/high heat. I have experimented a bit and found the high heat burned my pan. Med/high doesn't. If you have a popcorn popper, use that. Just get some popped popcorn. Kris says this covers 3 cups of popcorn. I did it the other day and it was probably more like 6 or even 9 cups and it was still deliciously plenty !!

Put the butter, peanut butter and maple syrup in a bowl and microwave ... not even a minute. You just want the butter to melt. Mix thoroughly. Pour on top of popped popcorn and give it a good mix with a spoon. YUM YUM YUM. Don't forget to add the choc chips ....

The kids love this. I love it too ... and I'm not a big fan of peanut butter. Jono says it tastes like caramel.