Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

When grocery shopping I do not by any treats or desserts on purpose. Because I have no will power what so ever and if it's there I'll eat it. (First step to recovery is admitting you have a problem)

So if I am in the mood for dessert I have to make something. Which usually does not end up happening because lets face it when you get a sweet craving at 8pm your most likely not going to bake that batch of cookies.

But tonight was a different story, John is away again this week for work and I was caught up on all my dvr shows soooo
I baked these:

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoons sea salt plus extra teaspoon salt for final sprinkle

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

3/4 cups packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1  teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets 

Mix together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Lightly beat 1 egg with a fork in a small bowl and add 1 3/4 tablespoons of it plus remaining whole egg to butter mixture, beating with mixer until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chocolate chips.

Scoop 1/4 cup batter for each cookie, arranging mounds 3 inches apart, on 2 baking sheets. Flatten mounds into 3-inch rounds using moistened palm of your hand.  Form remaining cookies on additional sheets of parchment. Sprinkle each cookie with a dash of additional salt.

Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden, 13 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and continue making cookies in same manner using cooled baking sheets.

Makes 9 large cookies. (adapted from source)

They were soo good, they were definitely sweet with a little salty mixed in. And had they wonderful ooey gooey texture on the inside. 

Little balls of deliciousness

It's about that time of month again (sorry to any boys that read this). :(  It's the only time I crave sweets, now don't get me wrong I will eat them any time but one time a month I actually crave sweets. I always know it's inevitable that I am going to gorge myself on sweets this week so I have been trying to find healthier versions of things I love. And I came across this delightful little ball of surprise and knew I had to try them.

Here is what you do:
Mix the following ingredients in a bowl (this recipe makes about 20 small balls)

• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate, chopped 
• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup unsweetened coconut
• 1 tsp. vanilla 

Then place the mix in the fridge for about 30 mins, remove and roll into small balls.

Then place back in the fridge until they harden.

For the dark chocolate I couldn't find a decently priced block that I could chop so I bought the cutest little  dark square chocolate pieces ever! I'm telling you'll just have to ohhh when you see how cute and tiny they are.

I know the picture doesn't do them justice (they are taken with my phone) so you'll have to trust me on this. If you can't find these cute little guys you could always just use regular chocolate chips or dark chocolate ones.
Oh and now I eat these by the handful!

They can even be vegan friendly too if use swap out the honey with agave nectar.

Bananas

I had a bunch of bananas that were sitting on my counter staring me in the face and every time I passed them they kept yelling cookies cookies!

Do certain words or phrases ever trigger a song, movie or commercial in your head in which you start signing to? I do this all the time and of course start singing to myself, unless I'm at home in which on random occasions John catches me singing at randomly.
For example when I was writing my blog post the other day and I was talking about John's friend visiting us from NYC all I can think of when I hear NYC is that cheese commercial with the CA cheese cows. I swear there was one commercial that the cows were doing there cheesy cow thing and one of them says: New York Cityyyy?
I googled for 2 hours watching all the CA cow commercials and couldn't find it. Please someone tell me they know what I'm talking about!

With the word banana I break out with this in my head:

Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas
B A N A N A S
This shit is bananas
B A N A N A S
Again, the shit is bananas
B A N A N A S
This shit is bananas
B A N A N A S

You all remember this song, a throw back to high school. 

Back to bananas, I broke down and decided to make the banana chocolate chip cookies I made a few weeks ago.

You need to make these they are really good!

Then I made something that changed my world FOREVER!
Banana soft serve

Your never going to believe how easy it is to make

1. freeze 1-2 bananas (or more if you want)
2. take frozen bananas out of freezer and place them in a food processor, chopper, blender which ever you have on hand
3. blend for about 5 mins 

Then you are left with this amazingness

It has the same texture of soft serve ice cream but is much healthier its just bananas, that's it nothing else! That is until you add some of this:

A little drizzle of caramel sauce. Soooo good.
This shit is bananas B A N A N A S

Next time I think I am going to try and add some frozen blueberries.

Make this now!!

Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you love bananas and chocolate chips this recipe is for you! I had a banana that was about to go bad and I also was craving something sweet so what better idea then to make cookies! I heart cookies.
Here is what you'll need:

• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup mashed ripe banana
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

1. In a small bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, banana and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in chocolate chips.   
2. Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto baking sheets coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 9-11 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Since this recipe makes a ton (3 dozen) I divided everything in half. Here's the nutrition info if you interested. 

Nutritional Facts 1 cookie equals 66 calories, 3 g fat (2 g saturated fat), 10 mg cholesterol, 51 mg sodium, 9 g carbohydrate, trace fiber, 1 g protein. Diabetic Exchanges: 1/2 starch, 1/2 fat.

I discovered a new camera tool going around the blog/twitter world called instagram. The pictures I have seen come out pretty neat looking so I wanted to give it a try. Sadly enough it is only an app for iphone's so I downloaded on John's phone. Here's the results of my picture taking

There are a ton of different settings you can use. I highly recommend giving it a try it's a fun new app to play around with.