Merry Christmas

Hope everyone is having a Merry Merry Christmas!

How I spent my Christmas:

• Going to the candlelight Christmas Eve service at church.

The whole church lit up! Not my best photography skills...

• Curling up by the fire and staying in my pj's all morning, while watching Home Alone on repeat. It never gets old.

Macaulay Culkin was one of my many childhood crushes.

• Eating delicious brunch food, while listening to the new Michael Bublé Christmas CD. Love his White Christmas duet with Shania Twain!

Breakfast casserole, cheese grits, broccoli salad, ambrosia, deviled eggs. And obviously lots of coffee from my dad's new Keurig!

Icing that tastes like fudge=best chocolate cake ever.

• Keeping our Christmas tradition of seeing an afternoon movie. This year's choice was War Horse.

It was a good one! I can't recommend it enough.

• Balancing out my sugar consumption with nice healthy salads. We ordered food from Taziki's, and I made a yummy Greek salad with lemon chicken, basmati rice, and pita bread + hummus.

Winner winner chicken dinner.

"The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a family all wrapped up in each other."

Where Has December Gone?

Good Morning!

I can't believe December is already halfway over- where has this month gone? Things have been really crazy, so I'm sorry for the inconsistency in posts lately.

Things I'm loving lately: World Market Pecan Pie Coffee, group exercise classes (yoga, pilates, spin), Glee radio station on Pandora, Christmas movies on ABC family, and cookies.

 I received two more packages from the cookie swap yesterday!

Sugar Cookies from Erin. Loved these!!

And Nut Horn Cookies from Britne. There were more, but ummm- they're already gone!

For the most part I've been having really healthy meals...

Creamy Oatmeal. Keeps me full for hours!

1/2 C oats prepped with water and 2 spoonfuls of Greek yogurt stirred in. Toppings- 1 T ground flax, cinnamon, sliced banana, blueberries, and 1 T Jif Natural PB.

Overnight oats=lifesaver. Makes my mornings so much easier!

1/3 C oats, 1/3 C skim milk, 1/3 C Greek yogurt, 1 T ground flax, 1 T almond butter, sliced banana, blueberries, cinnamon.

Kombucha, you are worth every penny.

So are you, Whole Foods Salad Bar with all kinds of deliciousness.

Multigrain FlatOut Wrap with scrambled eggs, avocado, goat cheese, cherry tomatoes, and pesto.

Kale salad with roasted sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and WF No Oil Balsamic.

Turkey Burger with BBQ sauce and roasted sweet potatoes and Brussels.

Sunshine Burger with ketchup, kale chips, and half a baked sweet potato with cinnamon and vanilla Greek yogurt. 

Whole wheat gnocchi with sautéed squash, zucchini, mushrooms, spinach, tomato sauce, and parmesan on top.

But then sometimes....

I eat fast food in my car.

And stuff myself with Chinese takeout.

Let's be real, sometimes life happens.

Hope you all have a great day!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies

When I first signed up for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, I had no clue what kind of cookies I was going to make.

I thought long and hard. Should I try to bake something healthy and use cooking replacements, like agave nectar and applesauce? No. At first, I looked on Eating Well and Cooking Light- two of my favorite websites for finding healthy recipes. But then I decided I wanted my cookies to be delicious, meaning lots of butter and sugar needed to be involved. Obviously.

I didn't want to make anything too complicated or unusual. I just wanted to make something simple and classic- an all time-favorite, if you will. And then it hit me, Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies. What could be more timeless than a chocolate chip cookie? My friend Laura's mom used to make these cookies all the time in high school. They were everyone's favorite!

These cookies are Martha Stewart's recipe, so I can't take all the credit. I did slightly adapt the recipe by using walnuts instead of pecans (incorporating omega-3's makes it healthy, right?), but you could really use any kind of nut you desire. You could also substitute the chocolate chunks for raisins or even add white chocolate chips and dried cranberries. The combination possibilities are endless.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 2 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (this makes a HUGE difference)
• 1 C packed light brown sugar
• 1 C granulated sugar
• 1 T pure vanilla extract
• 3 T milk
• 2 large eggs
• 3 C old-fashioned rolled oats
• 12 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped into 1/2-inch chunks
• 1 1/3 C chopped walnuts (or whichever nut you prefer)

Directions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Set dry ingredients aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter with both sugars; beat until light and fluffy. Add vanilla, milk, and eggs; mix well. Add reserved dry ingredients, and beat until just combined. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in oats, chocolate, and walnuts. Place dough in the refrigerator until firm, at least 2 hours or overnight. *Note: Overnight is preferred!
3. Heat oven to 350º F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside. Using an ice cream scoop, shape into 2-inch diameter balls. Place 6 balls on each baking sheet, spaced 4 inches apart and press down.
4. Transfer to oven. Bake until golden but still soft in center. 15-16 minutes. Remove from oven, and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Store in an airtight container up to 2 days.

I happily licked this bowl clean. No shame.

The cookie dough is really the best part.

Lots of cookies!

I ended up making the cookies I sent a little smaller than this by forming each cookie with a tablespoon. However, I recommend making the larger cookies like the recipe suggests, because the cookies turn out really thick and dense- great texture.

I also highly recommend making these cookies into ice cream sandwiches with vanilla ice cream- amazing!

Had a fun time sending out the cookies and also received some delicious cookies in return!

My Weekend

Friday Night:

On Friday night, Will and I went to dinner at Pinches Tacos. We split an order of guacamole and for my main meal, I ordered the Taco Plate- three tacos plus rice and beans. I chose all vegetarian tacos which came on corn tortillas were filled with onions, peppers, mushrooms, slaw, and salsa. Love fresh Mexican food!

 

Later, I met up with Killette and Laura at Billy's for after dinner drinks.

Saturday Morning:

On Saturday morning, Will and I went to the Pepper Place farmer's market. I bought some Honeycrisp apples and a huge bag of kale for only $3!

We spent the rest of the morning antiquing- I didn't buy anything but Will found lots of great stuff for his house!

Lunch:

We ate lunch at V. Richard's, a specialty grocery store with a little café inside. 

They had a lovely patio with outside seating!

I ordered 1/2 of a Chicken Salad Sandwich on Multigrain with 1/2 cup of Tomato Basil Soup. It also came with a side of pasta salad, which ended up being really good.

Will ordered the same thing, except he chose the Smoked Turkey Sandwich on Walnut Raisin.

Afternoon Pick Me Up:

Later in the afternoon, we stopped at this really cute coffee shop in Homewood called Hart & Soul, so I could get a hot green tea before antiquing some more. I chose some kind of tropical green tea blend- I loved it. This looks like a great place to study next semester!

One of the purchases- a magnetic chalkboard for the kitchen!

Dinner:

We ended our day by going to dinner at ORE. I featured this restaurant earlier this summer and am just now making it back!

We started out with the Crawfish Rolls- spicy crawfish tails with black beans, sweet corn, spinach, and creole aioli. They looked like egg rolls which was totally not what I was expecting, but they were really delicious!

I ordered the Grilled Salmon, which came with red pepper couscous, acorn squash, and an apple jalepeno vinaigrette. Will ordered the Catch of the Day, which was Grouper served over grits with broccolini and some kind of crab topping. We decided to split our meals to get to try each fish. Although both were really good, we agreed that the salmon was our favorite. Our meals also came with a side salad, which was a nice surprise.

Acorn squash stuffed with couscous-mmmmm!

Dessert:

The dessert menu was limited and nothing sounded appealing, so we went for frozen yogurt instead. 

Attention Birmingham fro yo lovers: The 32º in Crestline Village serves Only 8 frozen yogurt!!!! For those who don't know, Only 8 has only 8 calories per ounce and contains only 8 all-natural ingredients. #winning. 

I mixed peanut butter, german chocolate cake, and just a little pumpkin pie together and topped it with toasted coconut, granola, and oreos for a delicious combination.

Holiday Festivities:

The rest of the evening's activities included decorating Will's Christmas tree. We definitely got into the decorating zone. Check out those intense faces....

Hope you had a great weekend and start to the holiday season!

Christmas Is Upon Us

Happy December! So happy it's officially Christmas season!

Look how festive my apartment is....

Confession: We've had up our tree ever since we moved in. Just trying to make the Christmas cheer last longer!

Our table is so pretty!

Sorry it's been awhile. I've had a busy week with work trainings, advising/grad school stuff, and everything else going on. I've officially registered for all of my classes- I'm taking Epidemiology, Health Communications, and a research/statistics class starting in January. So excited everything is starting to come together!

Here's some food from the week...

Breakfasts:

Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal.

1/2 C oats, water, skim milk, 1/2 chopped apple, dried cranberries, cinnamon, 1 T Jif Natural PB, 1 T Pumpkin Butter.

Overnight Oats in a SunButter Jar.

1/3 C oats, 1/3 C skim milk, 1/3 C Greek yogurt, 1 T ground flax, sliced banana, cinnamon, and SunButter residue.

Vanilla Greek yogurt, Cinnamon Oatmeal Squares, sliced banana, 1 T SunButter, 1 T Fig Butter.

Lunches:

Sweet Potato (cooked in microwave) and spinach salad with carrots, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, dried cranberries, almonds, and WF No Oil Balsamic Dressing.

Whole Wheat Sandwich Thin spread with pesto and topped with sautéed spinach, cherry tomatoes, and scrambled eggs with more pesto. Savory and so satisfying.

Whole Wheat Sandwich thin spread with Jif Natural PB and Pumpkin Butter with carrots and apple sliced on the side.

Chicken Salad and Fruit Plate from Urban Cookhouse. The little mini orange rolls are soooo good!

Dinners:

Whole Wheat Rotini with tomato sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and melted part-skim mozzarella.

Last night, Will and I cooked dinner. We're trying to make it a weekly tradition. We also planned to watch Modern Family and Revenge but both shows were re-runs! We watched You've Got Mail on TV instead- one of my all-time favorites! I just love Meg Ryan movies.

On the Menu: WF Local Pork Chop Loin stuffed with spinach and feta, whole wheat couscous, and steamed asparagus. I'm working on creating more "guy friendly" meals.

For dessert, two mini apple pies and two pumpkin crumblettes (kind of like streusel) from WF as well. There was another mini apple pie but Will ate it before I could take a picture. Both really good, and I love the small portion size!

In other dessert news, I received my first batch of cookies from the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap! They are these delicious shortbread cookies with brown butter, maple, cranberries, and white chocolate and they are absolutely amazing. Thanks, Georgie!

I ate one of the cookies with coffee ice cream as I watched the Victoria's Secret Fashion show. Oops. They were just that good.

I've finally decided which recipe I'm going to make for the swap- it's on the agenda for Saturday.

Looking forward to a relaxing weekend!