Where have I been? And cookies!

Well it looks like I've totally skipped over the month of March! What can I say...I was busy.

A lot of things contributed to my little hiatus… 

I turned the big 3-0 (ehhhh) But I did have a great time celebrating it in Vegas! A few great friends and an overindulgent weekend in Vegas, what could be better? 

Only marrying the man of my dreams! We had a small little wedding in Vegas that was beautiful and just perfect…and no…Elvis was not in attendance...he didn’t RSVP. (Pictures coming soon) 

So to be honest it's taken me quite a bit of effort to get back into the swing of things after all the goings on last month. Plus the husband (I love saying that) and I have been keeping ourselves pretty busy. Been going to a lot of sporting events, baseball, hockey, and golf. (oh my) Been taking up running… which I have always thought, why would anyone want to run that far…for fun?!? Running is not fun! Well the hubby got me out there one morning to keep him company while he trained for an upcoming race and before I knew it we had ran 7 1/2 miles. I thought holy crap! I can run that far? Now I’ve got to see how much farther I can go. So…that’s how it started. We’ll see if I can keep it up. If so I’d love to run in the 1/2 marathon this year. 

Anyway, I thought it was about time to get back into it and just jump in with something easy. My coworkers have been wanting cookies, so I decided to play with a recipe that they loved and see what happened. I just used the items that I had on hand in my pantry and they turned out great. This cookie recipe is a great base for what ever mix ins you'd like to add. If you don't want Oreo's add something else.

Oreo and Cookies and Cream Chunk Cookies 

Ingredients 

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 

1 cup granulated sugar 

1 cup packed light brown sugar 

2 large eggs 

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract 

3 cups all purpose flour 

20 finely ground Oreo Cookies 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

10 - 15 crushed Oreo Cookies (coarsely chopped for an added crunch) 

1 (8 oz) bag Hershey’s cookies and creams drops, chopped 

1 cup chopped pecans 

Directions 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and line a large baking sheet with a silpat liner or parchment paper. 

2. In a stand or electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and creamy. Add eggs then vanilla until well combined.

3. In a large bowl add the flour, ground Oreo Cookies, baking soda and salt. Mix to combine then slowly add to wet ingredients until just combined. Add coarsely chopped Oreo cookies, pecans, and cookies and cream chunk until just combined. 

4. With a medium cookies scoop, scoop dough onto prepared baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake for 12-15 minutes until edges start to turn golden brown. Remove and let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Makes 3 dozen cookies 

Slightly adapted from Picky Palate’s - Biscoff Crunch White Chocolate Chip Cookies. Jenny is a-mazing.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yumminess, stuffed inside of yumminess, how can you go wrong?  This chocolate chip cookie recipe is probably one of the best I've come across.  You stick an Oreo inside that and you've got a winner.  I took a few of these to work the next day (the rest I hoarded at home for myself), and they were a huge hit.  I plan on baking a lot more cookies after Thanksgiving, so this is just something to wet the appetite.  The next two weeks I'm going to dedicate to pies!  To be honest I have never tried making my own pie crust and I've decided it's time to change that.  If you guys have any tips for me, they would be much appreciated.

Another thing I would like your input on is something I've been struggling with.  That is the struggle between baking and eating these beautiful yummy things, and staying healthy and watching the waistline.  I can't seem to find a good balance.  When I'm counting calories and trying to shed a few pounds it's really hard to spare 200 to 500 calories on a little dessert.  Everything I've found to bake that is low calorie is usually whole wheat, with splenda, and no butter.  This makes the baked goods healthier but not so yummy.  What's a girl to do?  Any ideas?  I absolutely love baking, so a few extra pounds is not going to stop me, but finding a nice balance would be great.

Now on to that yummy recipe. Reprinted from another great blog that I love to read, Picky Palate.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies 

• 2 sticks softened butter 
• 3/4 Cup packed light brown sugar 
• 1 Cup granulated sugar 
• 2 large eggs 
• 1 Tablespoon pure vanilla 
• 3 1/2 Cups all purpose flour 
• 1 teaspoon salt 
• 1 teaspoon baking soda 
• 10 oz bag chocolate chips 
• 1 bag Oreo Cookies, I used the double stuff 

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars until well combined. Add in eggs and vanilla until well combined.

2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt and baking soda. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with chocolate chips until just combined. Using a cookie scoop take one scoop of cookie dough and place on top of an Oreo Cookie. Take another scoop of dough and place on bottom of Oreo Cookie. Seal edges together by pressing and cupping in hand until Oreo Cookie is enclosed with dough. Place onto a parchment or silpat lined baking sheet and bake cookies 9-13 minutes or until cookies are baked to your liking. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. Serve with a tall glass of milk, enjoy!

Makes about 2 dozen VERY LARGE Cookies

Oreo Cheesecakes

Who doesn’t love cookies and cream? A few weirdos out there I’m sure, right along side the kooks that don’t like chocolate. (I mean that in the nicest way possible :D) I can understand the peeps that don’t really care for cheesecake because it’s so easy to obtain a bad one, sour, clumpy, that’s no good. You just have to make sure that when you are making cheesecake you’re using room temperature items and creaming the cream cheese real well before you proceed. I really like this recipe because it's relatively easy and you don’t have to use a water bath. (Which can get tricky to take out of the oven) Plus you don’t even have to make a crust, how easy is that!? This is also another one of those recipes that you could play around with and try out different flavors. A good fall variation would be golden Oreo’s with a little pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice added to the batter, it would be yummy! 

Oreo Cheesecakes 

Makes 15 

Ingredients: 

21 Oreo, cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies, 15 left whole and 6 chopped 

1 pounds cream cheese (two 8oz packages), room temperature 

1/2 cup sugar 

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 

2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten 

1/2 cup sour cream 

Pinch of salt 

Directions: 

Preheat oven to 275° F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Place 1 whole Oreo cookie in the bottom of each lined muffin cup. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat cream cheese on medium-high speed until smooth, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed. Gradually add the sugar, and beat until combined. Beat in the vanilla. 

Drizzle in eggs, a little at a time, beating to combine and scraping down sides of bowl as needed. Add in sour cream and salt, beat to combine. Using a large spatula, fold in the chopped Oreo cookies. 

Divide batter evenly among the cookie-filled muffin cups, fill each cup almost to the top. Bake, rotating muffin tins halfway through, until the filling is set, about 22 to 28 minutes. 

Transfer the muffins tins to a wire rack to cool completely. Refrigerate (in the muffin tins) at least 4 hours (or overnight). Remove from tins just before serving. 

I found this beautiful recipe on La Mia Vita Dolce which she got from one of Martha Stewart’s cookbooks. I halved the recipe.

Cookies and Cream Cupcakes

What’s better than cookies and cream ice cream? Well cookies and cream cupcakes of course!

This weekend I was craving cupcakes. I had my heart set on trying out the cupcake project’s recipe for chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes, oh yum those look good, but low and behold the other half thinks cookies and cream sounds better. So after scouring the internet for a good recipe I ended up using Paula Deen’s cupcake recipe (you can tell by all the butter) found on Dine and Dish, and the frosting recipe is from Baa Baa, Cupcake.