Cake Mix Cookies

Folks, you are gonna hate me for these! Five minutes of work never tasted so good! And if you're too tired to make them, they're easy enough for your kiddos to make for you. Let their creativity go wild! I used a box of yellow cake and semi-sweet chocolate chips. These cookies came out nice and puffy, just how I love them! They were slightly crisp on the outside and as soft as a pillow on the inside.

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

1 box cake mix (any flavor)

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1/2 cup chocolate chips

If you choose to add in fruit or nuts, I would start with a 1/2 cup. These may seem oily as you are mixing them up but don't worry, they will come out perfect.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

You don't even need to pull out your Kitchen Aid! In a medium bowl, using a wooden spoon, mix cake mix with oil and eggs. Mix in your chocolate chips. Scoop by the tablespoon onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes. I found that with my particular pan I had to rotate the cookie sheet from the middle rack to the top rack after 5 minutes of baking. This ensured that they didn't burn on the bottom. I will be trying and posting more combinations I'm sure!

Sneak Attack

I get an evil type of joy from sneaking healthy food into my children's growning bodies. I've posted about sneaking spinach into smoothies before, but I couldn't help sharing again. Today I even snuck in some tofu! There is no recipe here. I'll just tell you what I put in this monster. It was based soley on what I had on hand. One banana, some frozen peaches, frozen blueberries, roughly a quarter of the package of tofu (the softest kind), a handful of spinach, and a tablespoon of ground flax. I used apple juice to thin it, until it was the consistency I liked. You could use milk too.

 I forgot to snap a photo of it blended, it was just so darn good we drank it all up before I thought of it. I will apologize for the above photo however. I am just way too lazy to break out the nice camera these days. It's so much easier to snap it on my phone and email it to myself. And I won't apologize for apologizing for my photo! I once read a blog post where the poster advised bloggers not to apologize to their readers. Perhaps she thought it brought unnecessary attention to the bloggers guilt. Well guess what? I'm posting this crappy picture, which does this post no justice whatsoever, and I'm gonna apologize for it! So there!

P.S. I'm sorry for my spelling and grammer errors too. I can bake a decent cake, but I never claimed to be a good speller, dam it!

New Blog! and problems with Flickr

Hi! What a day! I started out looking for blogs about fashion so I could get an idea of how to pair these new ankle boots. I didn't have much luck finding exactly what I was looking for. So, I got a crazy hairbrained idea today and went with it. This morning I formed a plan with my long lost BFF to start a fashion blog. She liked the idea and was going to stew over a name. I told her a name that was available and I never heard back from her. Sooo, sorry Bex, but I rock n rolled it! If you hate it we can always change it! I worked on it all day, and in the process my Flickr account reached it's maximum bandwidth and for some reason it won't take my yahoo account info which for some reason they require for payment!!! That's why my signature isn't available at the moment. I want to change the signature anyway.
Luckily I have a tutorial here. 

My new blog is here! Please check out http://www.fashionmomsrock.blogspot.com/

All that work made me HUNGRY!

When I wasn't working I was having my one of my favorite snacks! I love these Trader Joe's salsa's! I always have a couple of each of these jars and a new bag of Tostitos in my pantry. That way, I'm always prepared for an unexpected visitor. I love it because I don't have to worry about them spoiling. It's great for those days when I haven't been to the grocery store in a while. I seriously urge you to try these. They are bold mild and even my kids eat them. They lend a certain sweetness. I even checked the jars to see if there was added sugar. There wasn't. I think the sweetness comes from the roasting.

Yes, I finished off this bag today, but don't worry, I already ran out for another along with some Corona's to stave off any weekend hunger pangs!

Have a great weekend!

Cheers,

Lil

Banana Pumpkin Muffins

Banana Pumpkin Muffins

Banana + Pumpkin + Chocolate Chips = Yum!

Nash made these all by himself on Sunday.

 I claimed they were too dry and I didn't love them,

but he made two dozen and they're all gone...

It's only Tuesday!!!

Here's the recipe:

Wet Ingredients:

1 c. pumpkin

1 c. banana, mashed (2 bananas)

3/4 c. sugar (yes we are adding this with the wet)

1/2 c. milk

1/2 c. oil

2 eggs

--------------------

Dry Ingredients:

3.5 c. flour

4 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice ( I use homemade spice mix)

1 tsp. salt

1 c. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl mix all the wet ingredients until combined. In a separate large bowl whisk all the dry ingredients together. Form a well in the dry ingredient bowl. Pour the wet into the dry well and using a spatula, gently fold ingredients together until just combined. Do not over mix. Using a scooper fill either paper lined or non-stick sprayed muffin tin 2/3 of the way full. Bake 18 minutes.

Okay here are some notes, or questions rather...you know how banana or pumpkin muffins are normally pretty moist? These turned out dense and drier than I expected. Is it all the baking powder? Regardless, I will definitely be making these again and again. Actually, I'll have Nash make them!

This post is linked to:

Good Things Simple-Snacks

Nutella

Today lavender Clouds is featuring it's first "Good Things Simple" Snack Idea. With all the things we have going on it's always great to have delicious and simple snack ideas.

Our house loves Nutella. Since she despises peanut butter, Chloe ate a nutella and wheat bread sandwich everyday at school for an entire year! She was the envy of all the little children who also wanted chocolate sandwiches for lunch! Today I wanted a sweet and savory snack and in 2 minutes I was in chocolate hazelnut bliss!

Spread Nutella on toasty, warm sourdough.

I couldn't even wait to take a bite before I snapped a picture!

GOOD THINGS SIMPLE!

Here's a variation: Make a Nutella panini! Spread the outer sides of your plain sourdough with butter, the inside with Nutella, put them together, butter side out, and grill on your panini. Cut it in half, sprikle with some powdered sugar, and you now have a Good Things Simple dessert!

Do you have a good and simple snack idea? If so, I'd love to hear it.