Christmas Baking

Hello everyone! I hope that everyone is having a wonderful hump day. The weekend is near and Christmas isn’t very far away either.

Jeff and I had fun baking cookies last night while listening to holiday music. We both love chocolate (who doesn’t?) and peanut butter so we made peanut butter blossoms. I ran to the grocery store for the ingredients, list in hand and no impulse buys. Yay me! Can you believe there was no regular Hershey kisses at the store? Everyone must have had the same idea. Of course there were a million other fancy kinds of kisses that really didn’t sound good to me. So I chose a variety of candy to use instead of regular kisses: mini Reese’s cups, Rolos, and special dark kisses.

We stuck with the traditional Hershey’s recipe. I liked this recipe in particular because it was to yield 4 dozen cookies, which sounded perfect to share with friends and family.

Jeff helped unwrap all the candies and also served as quality control. I had a few too :)



In the cookie dough I substituted with soymilk and natural peanut butter.



Then rolled dough balls in sugar and baked.



Once baked press in your favorite treats. Reese’s cups, Rolos, and dark kisses!


(Santa, I need a cooling rack)

I had to sample just one cookie while they were warm and gooey. The Reese’s cup was my pick and it was delicious.

Somehow we only ended up with 2 ½ dozen cookies. My cookie scoop must be big because we didn’t come close to the 4 dozen.

With the leftover candies we made pretzel treats. I have no clue if these treats have a name but I’ve had them on several different occasions. I was reminded of them by Janetha over at meals & moves and so glad I was since they’re super easy and tasty.

You can make so many different varieties of these pretzel treats. We went with these:

• dark kisses with almonds
• dark kisses with almonds and dried cranberries
• dark kisses with M&Ms
• Rolos with almonds
• Rolos with M&Ms
• Reese’s cup with M&Ms

I sorted through the M&Ms for all the red and green ones. The candy was so picked through at the store they were out of the holiday themed bags.



These treats are very addicting but I limited myself to 4 of them. I had to eat the ones that I messed up!



After cleaning up the mess from baking I snuggled up on the couch with my Mother Earth Pillow (heated in the microwave) on my hip. Elli and a blanket also kept me toasty while watching the National Christmas tree lighting and the Sing Off.

Then it was nighty-night :)

Saturday shopping

Playing catch up here today… I have pictures to share from my time away for work. Very few since I didn’t take my camera with me to meetings and dinner.

On my way to Lancaster on Thursday morning I took a Larabar, an apple, and coffee since I didn’t know if breakfast would be served. Ended up eating the bar and saving my apple for Friday.



Here is the new bar I tried Thursday night after dinner. My co-workers and I were in the mood for something sweet and I opted to have this bar from the hotel’s snack shop. The ingredients sounded much healthier than the chocolate-covered pretzel ice cream that everyone else got. (sorry ladies) I had some hot tea and an apple with my granola bar. *bored eating*







Now for today…. We went shopping! I love the weekends when we have no plans and just end up poking around. Originally we were going to go cut down our Christmas tree but with the rainy/snow mix we decided to wait. Instead we went to a tile store and finally picked out back splash tile for our kitchen. We’ve been looking forever and couldn’t agree on any styles. Here are the samples we brought home, it’s a travertine style (fancy word- I’d describe as a stone look).




After the tile store we stopped by Baltimore Coffee & Tea Company for a pound of roast. I’ve been trying to drink coffee black which surprisingly taste pretty good, but I wanted a quality coffee to enjoy. Jeff and I both love Jamaican blue mountain coffee but it was $43/pd… no way. So the associate suggested this coffee which tastes similar to blue mountain. He described it as a mild, rich, full body flavor with low acidity. Sounded great to us and it was only $13/pd. I brewed some as soon as we got home and it taste perfect- great recommendation by their staff.



Here's a close up since I forgot the name.



Our next stop was the Sears Outlet. As always we needed nothing but found a good deal that we couldn’t pass up. Now we have wanted a stainless steel microwave but have put it off since we didn’t need it. As soon as we both saw this one, we didn’t even think twice and ended up buying it. Here is the Kenmore Elite stainless microwave we purchased for $99!!! It’s huge, has lots of cool functions, and was originally sold for $190. It does take up a lot of counter space but what can I say… it’s nice.





The last stop we made was the Pennsylvania Dutch Market. This market is filled with homemade crafts, furniture, and food. Of course the bakery was the first section when you walk in- very tempting but we passed up the homemade donuts and woopie pies. Instead we checked out the gorgeous furniture, sampled the fresh squeezed orange juice and almond butter, and ate lunch. There are several food stations set up around the market so Jeff and I went our separate ways in search for lunch. He met me with his pit beef sandwich and chicken wings and I found some 3-bean salad and vegetable pasta salad. Everything there is fresh, homemade, affordable, and oh so tasty.

Before we left I purchased some homemade almond butter. Almond butter is so expensive in the grocery store so I haven’t tried it until now. The lady working at the stand ground it fresh for me since I requested a smaller container than was displayed. I couldn’t have found any almond butter fresher; the container was warm when she handed it to me. I asked what went into the butter and all it was were almonds… sweet, just what I was looking for. I can’t wait to try this tomorrow with breakfast.



So good...


By the time we left the market it was snowing pretty hard. The roads were getting slick so we decided it was best to head home.

Now I need to find motivation to clean and get out the holiday decorations. With this weather I’d much rather curl up and watch a movie.


Quick update on my hip: yesterday morning I worked out on the elliptical since it was lower impact than the treadmill and it was still a little painful. It’s feeling a lot better today but I decided to take a day off and rest my body. I’d rather not hurt it worse. Tomorrow I plan on fitting in some kind of workout so we’ll see how it feels. Fingers crossed.

That’s all for now… have a great weekend!

NJ shore cupcakes

I was asked to make cupcakes for my girlfriend's bachelorette party recently. There was no way I was going to show up with some Pillsbury box mix so I found this recipe for chocolate cupcakes. The recipe turned out to be so yummy and easy to make that I'll never ever buy a box mix again. These were fun to make and to add a flirty touch I piped on dyed frosting and added sprinkles.

Rachel's Last Fling Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup water
2 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 ounces melted unsweetened baking chocolate

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners.

Combine all ingredients into large mixing bowl. Mix at low speed for 30 seconds, and scrape bowl. Mix at high speed for 3 minutes.

Fill lines 1/2 to 2/3 full of batter. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool 10 minutes in pans then remove from pan, and place on wire racks to cool completely.

Frost when cupcakes are completely cool.

*recipe courtesy of cupcakerecipes.com

Apple Goodness

The weather tonight is amazing- I'm sitting on our deck watching Elli (our black lab) play. She loves her rope toy but seems to prefer the radishes we're trying to grow. I keep reminding her that the veggies are for us but the girl will eat just about anything.

Since Jeff is out of town playing basketball I decided to bake some goodies tonight. Here is my dish...

I found this cooking website that is great for healthy family meals. Most of the food seems geared towards kids but since we don't need to worry about that quite yet I decided to try this apple cake (good for all ages).

Tamra Davis' Apple Cake

1 cup sugar

1/2 stick or 2 oz. butter, melted

1/2 cup applesauce

1 egg

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/2 cups chopped apples

3/4 to 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease your baking dish. Mix the sugar, butter, applesauce, and egg together with hand mixer. Whisk the dry ingredients together. Blend the wet and dry ingredients and then add apples and walnuts. Pour into baking dish and bake for 30 to 50 minutes (depending on your pan and oven temp) or until knife or toothpick comes out clean when inserted.

Note: batter will be thick

Enjoy!