Busy Busy Busy

Yesterday I was making some of my healthier cookies that I absolutely adore. I tried a few new recipes out and lets just say they need a little tweaking but they did taste yummy, so far. I have been on a peanut butter kick recently and I still haven't gotten the perfect pb cookie made yet, but this new treat I made was easy and good. They are like a rice crispy treat but better, if you ever liked the peanut butter rice krispy treats you will like these. I also tried a blondie recipe from the "BabyCakes" cookbook (I have tried a few other recipes from the cookbook and they have turned out to be very good. It can be expensive to bake gluten-free/ vegan, but well worth it, I think. If you have never heard of BabyCakes, it is a gluten-free/ vegan bakery in the city. I made their cupcakes once [I put the picture on the blog under my profile pic] and they were good if you like coconut because they use a lot of coconut products like its oil and flour, but I do like coconut so I found them to be yummy.) But I tweaked the recipe a bit because I was trying to reinvent the traditional Italian 7 Layer Cookies, but I failed on that aspect, but the blondies did come out ok. I'm just going to put pictures of them up and then post the recipe once I make it better. The peanut butter treats I will post because they are good. They were also a play on a recipe my neighbor gave me for one of my favorite bars she would make called Crunchy Fudge Sandwiches. Her recipe had butterscotch morsels and pb with the cereal and a chocolate fudge filling, so yummy. So I did my take on those. I also made gingerbread dough, but I haven't baked it yet. So those cookies are still to come (if they are yummy). Saturday I plan on doing my families Christmas Cookies, so that is also yet to come.

Yup, so it is the time of year to be busy busy busy (thanks frosty the snowman) and I still have not finished all of my Christmas shopping yet and it is freaking me out. Hopefully tomorrow I will purchase those few last gifts. Between shopping and my cookies, I will be very busy! I love it! This is the best time of the year =]

Before we get to the treats, we must eat dinner...

What's For Dinner?
Wednesday, December 15th
I was very lazy and busy with baking and then I had a doctor's appointment, so I just made myself a salad with spinach, tomatoes, green-orange-yellow pepper, carrots, and cucumbers with the ginger dressing. No picture because it was just a salad, a very large salad I might add.

Thursday, December 16th

Roasted Vegetable Parsley Salad- roasted carrots, parsnips, potatoes, butternut squash, and cashews, which I also roasted. I love roasted cashews. Roasting them brings out a meatier taste in them. I buy raw nuts and roast them myself, no added oils or salt, just on a pan at 400 degrees, and watch very closely because they burn very very easily, I have burnt many batches (momma can attest to that!)

Treats time!! woohoo...

Peanut Butter Crispy Treats

6oz peanut butter chips
1/2 cup all natural peanut butter (I used an easy spread version, because the separated versions usually do not turn out that great in recipes I have tried, but we will see with future testing)
1 10oz box brown rice crispy cereal

(you can also see in the background the jar of pb I used)
6oz grain-sweetened chocolate chips (I used a combo of chocolate chips and carob chips)

Melt the pb chips over a double-boiler. Add the pb to the melted chips and stir together until the pb also melts.

In a large bowl add the pb mix to the cereal.

Stir well to combine

Press into a 13x9in cake pan lined with plastic wrap and then freeze to let it harden.

While the cereal is hardening, melt the chocolate in a double-boiler.

Then, top the cereal with chocolate and spread it out.
Place in the fridge and let the chocolate harden. Once ready to eat, cut in to 1 inch squares and eat!

I told you it was easy!

And here are the blondies that I made, I added almond extract to the recipe and a little raspberry jam in the center. The back two pans have black cherry jam on them.

So that will be it for now!