Monster Cookies

Did any of you have these as a kid?

They have a little bit of all your favorite flavors rolled into one cookie!

M&M's!! Oatmeal!! Chocolate Chips!!! Peanut Butter!!!



I have lovely memories of my mom making these when I was little and I found a recipe from none other than Paula Deen to kick it up a notch.

Here's the recipe.

There is no flour in these cookies. The oats act as flour and you add baking soda to give them some fluffiness. I made these to take to my nephew's "Cookie Monster" 1st birthday party this past weekend. Huge hit!!

Enjoy! I'd love to hear if you make these.

Home-made Breakfast Pizza

What's left of it anyway.

I remembered to snap a quick photo of this delicious breakfast pizza right before we gobbled up it's remains.

Remember the home-made pizza dough I shared with you about to make barbecue pizza? Remember that I wasn't all that super-duper thrilled with the pizza itself? Remember that I just said the dough was "good".

I discovered something.

If you let the dough sit in your fridge for 2 or 3 days (like the recipe actually encourages you to do) - it tastes simply amazing - not just good. David and I are kind of obsessed with this dough now and the Hubs actually requests for me to just keep dough on hand at all times to whip up any pizza-like dish that we so desire.

My bro-in-law and sis-in-law are in town, so last week, I made several batches of the dough and had everybody over for pizza night. Yum!! I had one round of dough left from the batch that I didn't use that night and David and I decided to use it for Big Breakfast the next morning. Big Breakfast - for those of you who don't know - is what we call our Saturday morning meal together. It is always something yummy, something cooked with love from our kitchen and it is always BIG. We love it!!

We made this yummy dish and it was a hit with 3 out of the 4. Little Girl wouldn't even try it. Surprise.

We simply took our dough - flattened it out on a (olive oil sprayed) cookie sheet (you could use a pizza stone if you have one) and then brushed it with some more olive oil and a sprinkling of salt over the whole thing. Then - we added a little monterey jack cheese, approximately 5 (not all the way cooked) scrambled eggs, crumbed cooked Maple flavored sausage and a little more cheese, then popped it into a 375 degree oven for around 15 minutes.


Here's my previous post with the dough recipe.

Or I"ll post it RIGHT HERE too.

Recipe for Basic Pizza Crust

Ingredients
1 teaspoon Instant Or Active Dry Yeast
1-1/2 cup Warm Water
4 cups All-purpose Flour (I substitute 2 Cups with Whole Wheat)
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
1/3 cup Olive Oil
Preparation Instructions
Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water. Let stand for a few minutes.
In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined, and the dough comes together in a sticky mass.
Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it aside for 1 to 2 hours, or store in the fridge until you need it.
Note: it’s best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance, and 3 or 4 days is even better.
When you are ready to make the pizza, grab HALF the pizza dough (recipe makes 2 crusts) and squeeze the dough toward the bottom to form a nice, tight, pulled ball. You can roll out the pizza with a rolling pin if you’d like, but sometimes it’s just as easy to throw it around and pull and stretch till it feels right. And when the crust is nice and thin, lay it on an oiled baking sheet or pizza pan. Drizzle a little olive oil on the dough and spread it with your fingers. Very lightly sprinkle some salt on the crust.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Top your crust with your toppings of choice. Then bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and toppings are bubbly.

Parents Review: One of our favorites now!
Kids Review: Baby Boy kept asking for bites, so that's a good sign.

Chocolate Chip Granola Bites

I found these little yummies online a few months back and was so excited to try them. They are such a fun treat to whip up and they are a healthier option as opposed to buying preservative-filled granola bars from your local store.....and cheaper I might add.


I feel SO good making things for my kids instead of just buying them. Trust me, we have cereal nights and "here have some more cheez-its" if you're hungry nights", but I truly love to cook and bake for my family with my own little hands.

My favorite line from Little Girl is when I told her that when I cook for my family, I always make things with love. She then said to me, several days later, that "she could taste the love" as she rubbed her tummy.

Cuteness.

I have been talking a little bit about Bento Boxes over at Me-Moddy, and one of the sites that I fell in love with shared this recipe. Go HERE to check it out.

Oh, and I had the sweetest little helper to assist me on my new food adventure. He was awesome.



Parents Review: Really yummy. I didn't try the granola bars, only the granola bites. I used silicone square baking cups and they were great, however, you could just use a muffin tin with paper liners too.

Kids Review: They are asking me to make more. I want to have these on hand to throw in their lunches when school starts next week. Yikes!! Did I just say that?

Happy Snacking!

Grilled Breakfast Pizza

David and I are always looking for fun new recipes to try for Big Breakfast that we do each Saturday with our kids. This one sounded fun and different, PLUS we got to whip out the grill - for breakfast. Yay!


Look at that beautiful over-easy egg sitting atop this pizza?

I found the recipe from one of my favorite blog recipe sites - How sweet it is. She got it from the Tasty Kitchen website. Here's the full recipe.

I didn't use the crust recipe they gave, although I bet it would be wonderful. David and I are kind of hooked on the one I made from this recipe. I, again, used half white and half whole wheat flour. Yummy.

Here's the pizza on our little charcoal grill.



I loved that they gave the option to do it in your oven too. Having a pizza stone is ideal. We may try this next time.

Parent's Review: We really liked it. We used maple flavored bacon and it actually didn't have as much of a hickory flavor as I like. Also, I wouldn't mind trying this with scrambled eggs instead of over-easy next-time. It was good, but it's a texture thing.

Kids Review: They didn't try any. So sorry for them. :-)

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

I handed this new found recipe over to my husband last Saturday morning and asked if he would try his hand at making them while I tried to pre-burn calories with a friend of mine on a 5 mile trail walk.

He said he would.

That sweet man.

And this is what he was makin' while I was walkin'


Don't they look fun?

They even had a home-made buttermilk syrup recipe that was part of the deal and we made that too.

We actually didn't love this stuff. Most people online have raved about it, so I am wondering if we did something wrong. I think we both would've preferred just regular maple syrup.

Plus - these were not overly sweet (which surprised us) and it needed a little more sweetness in the syrup department.

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes (adapted from The Idea Room Blog).

Parent Review: They were labor intensive. David looked tired when I got home. :-) We thought they would be sweeter, but we did really enjoy them and they were fun to try.

Kids Review: Little Girl loved them. Baby boy still wasn't feeling great, so he didn't eat much to tell.

Added: I just landed on THIS RECIPE for cinnamon roll pancakes and HELLO - it calls for adding a cream cheese glaze over the top. Wow!! Plus- the cinnamon swirl looked all crispy and carmelized, so this is a different take. You guys could try either one! Let me know what you think!!

Enjoy!!

CPK Barbecue Chicken Pizza

I found this recipe for California Pizza Kitchen's (knock off) barbecue chicken pizza from The Pioneer Woman's blog. I was excited to do a home-made crust and try my hand at something new. I don't think I make the greatest pizza dough in the world, but I didn't think this was too bad. I used half whole wheat flour and it gave it a nutty flavor.

Here's the recipe

Here it is with the grown-up side and the kids side. You can imagine that the kids weren't interested in the fresh green cilantro from the garden, but WE WERE!! Yum!


Parents Review: I thought it was pretty good, but I didn't love the BBQ sauce I purchased. David said he really liked it.
Kids Review: They picked it all a part as usual and then ate all the separated items. :-)

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

I hate to even call these little treats "brownies", because to me they resemble a cookie bar more than anything. I made these guys for my friend Julie last week and she thinks that they tasted just like a brownie, but sometimes I think she's crazy and can only say nice things and it's like an illness or something. :-)

But.......David and I both concur that these guys taste like a really soft, thick cookie. I would've added waaaay more chocolate chips and mini reeses-peanut butter cups than they called for, but other than that - they were great! If you like peanut butter and you like chocolate - you'll be set!!



After I pulled these guys out of the oven - I stuck several rows of the mini reese's in there to melt and get all happy.

Here's the recipe I found off of a blog called "Buns in my oven". Her pictures suck you in and make you HAVE to try her recipes. Or, um, maybe that's just me. :-)

Parents Review: It needed more chocolate inside, otherwise we really liked these.
Kids Review: More please.