Cranberry Orange Scones

I've been wanting to mix cranberry and orange together for so long but my husband was allergic to orange up until last year. It was a strange allergy and it all of a sudden disappeared! I looked all over for a scone recipe, I usually just do your basic scones but I wanted to add some whole wheat flour and the orange and cranberry. I decided to just wing it and I think they turned out pretty awesome!

Ingredients:

1 C all purpose flour

3/4 C whole wheat flour

3 T sugar

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 orange zested

1/3 C butter

1 egg, beaten

6-8 T milk
1/2 C dried cranberries

Directions:

Heat oven to 400°

Mix flours, sugar, baking powder, salt, and zest together. Cut in cold butter with pastry blender until it resembles fine crumbs. Fold in egg, I use a rubber spatula for this, and then add in milk 2 tablespoons at a time. I added some flax seed to my scones so they needed 2 extra tablespoons in the end, I used the full 8. You might not have to do so. Just get it to the point of being wet but not soaked. Mix in cranberries until combined.

Turn your dough onto a greased cookie sheet and form into 1/2 inch circle. I feel it's easiest to just do this all on the cookie sheet but you are more than welcome to flour your counter for this part. Cut into 8 equal pieces, mine were definitely not equal, haha. More rustic if you ask me. ;) 

Bake for 15-20 minutes. You don't want to over cook so just keep an eye on them. I check them with a knife every so often until it comes out clean and the bottom is golden. 

Last step? Well enjoy of course! :D

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I make these all the time now, well all the time being since November. You will LOVE these cookies!! Everytime I make them, they get me extra kudos from friends, or a nice foot rub from the hubby...yeah..they're that magical.

The recipe is from the side of a flour bag..I know- CRAZY! and SIMPLE

And they are perfect for packaging and giving away

De"lite"ful Blueberry Muffins

The past month or so I have been trying to eat as healthy as possible. It definitely is not easy, especially when you are wanting to bake constantly. The husband doesn't like me to make him eat all my sweets and I don't have any kids to pawn them off to so what to do? I figured the only thing to do was make some recipes lighter and healthier.

I had some blueberries that needed to be used so I took this muffin recipe and revised it slightly. It was already pretty healthy but I definitely didn't want to use fats and it called for fatty milk. Anyway, here it is, some yummy and filling blueberry muffins!

Recipe revised from: http://www.wholeliving.com/130491/blueberry-health-muffins

3/4 C whole wheat flour
3/4 C all purpose flour
1/2 C toasted wheat germ
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 C brown sugar
3/4 C skim milk
1/4 C applesauce
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 C blueberries
1/4 C oats

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with Smart Balance cooking spray. In a bowl whisk together dry ingredients. Make a well in center of bowl and add wet ingredients. Gently mixed until combined. Fold in blueberries.
2. Divide batter among muffin cups, I use a 1/4 measuring cup. Sprinkle oats over muffins. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 20 to 22 minutes. Transfer muffins to cooling rack.

In addition I took the new recipe to caloriecount.about.com and these babies are only 142 calories per serving! Check it out http://caloriecount.about.com/healthy-revised-blueberry-muffins-recipe-r1297462!

Enjoy

Healthy-ish Oatmeal Banana Cookies

Every time my bananas get this way, I scramble to find a way to use them! I hate when I buy them and I don't finally think about eating them until they get to this stage.



This recipe is adapted from This Recipe

So, I really do this when I need to go off a recipe- I find it on my laptop, I email it to myself and pull it up on my iPhone...then use this nifty holder...it really is awesome, right?! Barnes & Noble if you must know!

These are the Ingredients that I used to make them Healthy-Ish..

 

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/2-1 cup Reduced-fat Peanut Butter

4 tablespoons maple syrup

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt (note: if you are using salted peanut butter, you may not need any salt, do a taste test with the batter)

½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

In a large bowl, mix bananas, vanilla, peanut butter and maple syrup into a creamy consistency (best to do with a hand mixer).

In another bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder and salt

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until they are well combined, the batter should be slightly sticky. Fold in the chocolate chips. The batter will be somewhat runny, this is ok.

Place heaping tablespoon-sized balls of the batter onto a parchment lined (silpat if you have one) cookie sheet and cook for 13-15 minutes.

Makes around 2 dozen cookies. You can see how you can easily make these Gluten Free cookies as well, for instance, I used the brown rice flour, but you can find gluten free vanilla extract, baking powder and you can use other flour combinations. I am not entirely sure if semi sweet chocolate chips are, but I would think Dark chocolate chips would be?

They stay this shape when you bake them, so I loaded my baking sheet.

The final product...YUM! and I am just going to say it..cause my Husband said it ...These are Yummy Banana Chocolate Balls! We are going to save them for the week as a quick breakfast in the morning.

 

Brer Rabbit Molasses Cookies

Throughout the years we have associated Sunday with family time. Today, as I was sitting in my room playing Sims and watching Seinfeld while my husband recorded in the other room, I realized I needed a little bit of "family" in my Sunday. Since there wasn't any family nearby I decided to dig into my Grandma Sorensen's recipe boxes. I love these boxes, I was able to take them after my grandma passed and I cherish them. As I was rummaging through recipes I came upon these molasses cookies named after Brer Rabbit. I don't know if you have heard any Brer Rabbit stories, but instantly after reading the name I thought back to all of the times my Grandma Bladen read them to me as a kid. They are very silly and always have some kind of moral at the end. So within about 5 minutes of wanting family on this Sunday I had both my grandmas on my mind.

Onto the cookies! I have never made molasses cookies before, they are kind of like gingersnaps but richer. I was nervous how they would turn out but was very pleased in the end! If you want something sweet and to warm you during this cold winter, try these out!

Brer Rabbit Molasses Cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 C Shortening
2 C Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 C Molasses
4 C Flour
4 tsp Soda
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Ground Ginger

In large bowl mix shortening, sugar, eggs, and molasses thoroughly.  In separate bowl sift flour and combine remaining dry ingredients. In 3 increments add dry ingredients into creamed mixture. Chill for 30 minutes. Roll dough into 1 inch balls, then roll in sugar. Bake at 375° for 8-10 minutes (mine took 12 minutes) on greased cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack. Enjoy!