Friday, June 06, 2008

Okay, So I Am A Baking Fool!

Today I made four different kinds of chocolate chip cookies!  Why?  I don't know, because I like it, it's easy and well, yummy.  To start with I made some chocolate chip cookies with malt in them.  I've been wanting to try them for a while.  The recipe I used is here.  It is from Gale Gand found on Food Network (www.foodtv.com).  The cookies are called Malted Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They are okay, but I don't like a flat cookie as much as one with some bulk and these were pretty flat.  The boys are eating them up though!  I only made a half batch of the recipe.

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Next I whipped up a batch of some other cookies I'd found a while back which are cookies from Canyon Ranch Spa in Tucson, AZ.  I also found these on the Food  Network.  They are simply called Chocolate Chip Cookie.  I thought they sounded interesting because there was  1/3 less fat cream cheese and whole wheat flour in the recipe.  You can find the recipe here at the Food Network.  The only change I made to the recipe was instead of 1 cup of all purpose flour I used whole wheat pastry flour and the 1/2 cup whole wheat flour called for in the recipe.  They cookie is good and with the whole wheat flour has a nice nutty texture.  I wish I'd have baked them a bit longer for more crunch.  You cannot taste the cream cheese, so it probably just saves on fat by using less butter.

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Kevin surprised me today and had a friend of ours come baby sit and he took me to lunch.  I had jokingly complained to him recently that he never takes me to lunch, but is often taking others and talking about it, like our friend, Bob.  It was a nice surprise and we went downtown and tried out a Mexican restaurant, Cielito Lindo, that we had never been to.  Pretty good food!  I recently read an article in a Lawrence magazine about all the places to eat downtown and decided we hadn't tried enough of them.  We usually find the few places we like and just always go there.  I have made a list of places I'd like to try now.  (Thanks for lunch, Hon!)

Later in the afternoon I decided I need to make some low fat cookies, especially because I've been taste testing too many of the kind I shouldn't be eating!  So I did some searching and found two recipes that I quickly made.  First I made some Banana Oatmeal Cookies.  I found this recipe on one of the trusty baking sites that I visit daily called Baking Bites.  Lots of yummy treats by a fellow baker/foodie, Nicole.  This recipe can be found on her site here.  These cookies are low fat, aid in using up a ripe banana and taste great!  I really liked these.  Of the four recipes I made today, I liked this one the best.  The only change I made to her recipe is instead of all purpose flour I used whole wheat pastry flour.  Worked great!  I also used 1/4 cup Egg Beaters With a Touch of Yolk instead of one egg.  I like that there is also chocolate chips in these, although you could leave them out and/or add walnuts or pecans instead.  These were a little bit crunchy, but after storing them in an airtight container have softened up a bit.  I like the crunch, so I'm glad I only baked about eight of these and froze the rest in ready-to-bake dough balls.

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And just for kicks, I also made a quick batch of some other cookies from Nicole at Baking Bites.  I actually just did a search online for "low fat chocolate chip cookies" and this recipe is one of the first that comes up.  I was happy to see that it was from someone's blog that I've already been checking daily and saving lots of recipes from.   These cookies are found here by clicking on the title Low Fat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They are almost exactly the same as the banana ones, but use applesauce as some fat replacement and have a bit more oatmeal.  The only changes I made to the recipe is again I used whole wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.  I also used 1/4 cup Egg Beaters With a Touch of Yolk instead of one egg.   You cannot taste the applesauce in this cookie, but it is also a great chocolate chip cookie when you've got a craving and are trying to save some fat and calories in your diet.  I also just baked one sheet of these and froze the rest.   After all of today's baking, and eating out for lunch I'm not sure I really "saved" on fat or calories, but I'm really glad I tried these recipes.  (By the way, I still was pretty good at lunch.  I had some chips and salsa, but didn't eat nearly as much as I would have in the past and just had a grilled chicken breast salad.  All it had besides the chicken was lettuce, green and yellow peppers and tomatoes.  I put a little fat free ranch dressing on it.  See--I'm still trying to be good!   ; )

Here's the photo of the Low Fat Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies:

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To end on a "dang my kids are cute" note, here's my little Sammie today as he is being stopped from going down the stairs.  I still just cannot tell you how much I love his curly hair!  He's getting to be quite the character, climber (not just on stairs) and a funny little guy.  He says "hat" and "hot" really cute in a soft kind of whisper now.  He gets SO mad when the boys go in and outside all day long and he doesn't get to.  I do take him outside at least once a day, usually when it has cooled down a bit in the evening and he LOVES being outside.  If he even hears the word "outside", he goes straight for the door.  Love this little man!

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And just so you don't think I only have one guy, the other day, Taylor got upset about something and was pouting at the table.  Within a few minutes Kevin and I realized that he was asleep.  He went from sitting up to laying down on the bench after awhile.  The worst thing about this was that it was about 5:30 at night and we couldn't get him to wake up until after 7:00.  He eventually woke up enough to go lay down on the couch.  Guess who didn't want to go to bed that night!   

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I will have to take more pictures of Parker.  I just posted about Scott's birthday so he's covered and tried to find a good current one of Parker, but could not.  He might be our most active, busy kid these days.  He ALWAYS wants to be at friend's and neighbor's houses playing or outside or downstairs or pretty much just not here--you know, we're really boring.  "This is boring." can often be heard coming from Parker.  Okay, it's late and I have to get up early (when do I not?)  Have a good one and go bake you a cookie or something!

8 comments:

Michelle said...

so i have a question - how do you get your cookies to be puffy? i have been trying to do that for a while now, but mine always end up flat. is there a secret?

glad you got out to lunch...i so miss mass st.

Lisa Ernst said...

Four different kinds of chocolate chip cookies! A woman after my own heart! Just can't get enough CCCs.

Cookie Madness said...

The Canyon Ranch Cookies look and sound interesting. I usually like their recipes.

Also, have you ever tried the Tahini Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies from Eating Well magazine? They are SO good. Here's the link to the recipe. I would really love to hear your opinion. Plus, you'll have an excuse to buy tahini and THEN you can make hummus.

http://www.cookiemadness.net/?p=784

Clumbsy Cookie said...

Wow, you've been busy!

Max and Deborah said...

man treeni... why don't you bake a cookie everyonce and a while. You are a baking fool. You need to get people to buy your awesome cookies. I need to try a few of these recipes. Thank you.
It was great to talking to you.

Judy said...

There you go again -- in your opening paragraph you say, the recipe is "here", with "here" underlined and that's the link to the website. Did you go to the link button on blogger or did you use a different method? I can't figure out how to do that on blogger, can you help me?

Emily said...

Aw, he's so cute!

And all of the cooies look delish! Nothing beats a good cookie, in my opinion.

Tiffany Winters said...

You do have some pretty adorable kids. And those cookies look so yummy!