This is my first, fully iPhone photographed and written post. I figure it’s better than the no posting I’ve been doing since I never seem to be able to make it to the computer.

No surprise it’s a cookie! A super easy one I just made for Aidan and his friends. All you need for mixing is a bowl and a spoon. Seriously, the prep time was less than two minutes. The cookies themselves are awesome – about 1 1/2-inches across, mostly out of peanut butter and a short list of other ingredients. I had semisweet chocolate chips on hand, but these are awesome with white chocolate chips too.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cookies

1 cup Peanut Butter & Co.’s White Chocolate Wonderful Peanut Butter
4 tablespoons light brown sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
4 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Add all the ingredients (except the chocolate chips) into a medium sized bowl and stir together well with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Mix together to combine, then add the chocolate chips and stir in. Scoop scant tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto the lined baking sheet about 2-inches apart. Bake the cookies for 9-10 minutes until just set and lightly browned. Remove them from the oven and cool for 1 minute on the sheet before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 24 cookies.

I can’t say I’m entirely sure what has happened to my last month… it is honestly all a bit hazy and the rest of the month promises to be just as much of a blur!

I had a great time deciding what to make for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap created/hosted by Julie and Lindsay. I knew it would have to evoke my favorite flavors as well as my favorite holiday flavors, so for me that meant there needed to be chocolate and gingerbread involved somehow.

I also knew that whatever I made was going to have some of those lovely macadamia nuts I had in the pantry. These cookie bars were nothing short of stellar! The flavors were all there, plus they were sturdy enough for travel and stay nice for several days. They may not be the fanciest or prettiest bar in the bunch, but they sure are a crowd pleaser!

Though it isn’t required as part of the cookie swap, I really wanted to be able to link and say thank you to the three lovely ladies who sent me my cookies. All three of you came through and with packages that were wonderfully gorgeous! You have no idea how much that helped me find some holiday spirit when I’ve been feeling in a total funk lately.

My thanks go out to:

Karen at Small Kitchen Big Taste for the Gingerbread Snowflakes
Leah at So, How’s It Taste? for the Orange Pecan Gems
Karen at SoupAddict.com for the Secret Stash Cookies

As for these bars, they went out on their way to three more lovely ladies who let me know via Twitter that they arrived safe, sound and delicious. Happy Holidays to you all and especially to my swappers!

These bars were sent out with much love to my following fellow bloggers:

Kathryne at Cookie and Kate (@cookieandkate)
Danae at The Busty Baker (@thebustybaker)
Megan Pence at Wanna Be A Country Cleaver (@countrycleaver)

I actually printed the little picture above onto a 3×5 card and placed that in the box with the blondies that I sent. That was pretty much the extent of my not-so-fancy packaging! I’ve admitted it before, but I’m just not really very crafty minded. I hope the taste of the blondies made up for the lack of pretty!

If you are interested in receiving information for next year’s cookie swap, please go here.

For this month’s installment of the Secret Recipe Club I decided to go a bit more savory with a delicious and easy meal option inspired by this recipe I found on my food blog assignment for the month at Paulchen’s Foodblog?! written by Astrid who is located in Vienna. I just loved what she had to say about the way she cooks in her about page – that is so me! I have a difficult time writing down meal recipes because I’m a very off-the-cuff cook (I’m better about measuring and recording what I’ve done in baking, but cooking… yeah, not so much!).

Anyway, another familiar name for this type of dish – a mixture of ground, browned meat (beef in this case), vegetables and a mashed potato crust, is a Shepherd’s Pie. I liked the Irish Cottage Pie name better, since it made more sense to me. I sometimes like to make up little stories in my head of how and why something is named a certain way, and in this case, with a name like cottage pie I got to weave a little daydream that it was because *in my other ideal life where there is no stress* I could be in a sweet little cottage where life is peaceful and perfect and I turn out regular lovely, comforting and heartwarming meals that my darling and perfect children eat (with perfect manners and no fuss of course) where we all eat together as a family. The meal will be devoured in a reasonable amount of time and there will be satisfied bellies all around.

Maybe someplace like this one that actually is in Ireland… dreamy… I’m going to run away some day and sit on that bench, right there – probably in a floaty dress and a pretty hat…

Photo taken by Patrick Campbell, Ireland, found on TrekEarth via Pinterest

Sigh.

It’s a nice thought any way. Don’t get me wrong, I still want to go, but then chaos and crazy together, what I really want is to have my rascals there with me and show them the waterfall and always keep them close by… even when they are driving me completely batty!

What a typical evening looks like around here is, of course, about as far from that little fantasy as possible… but we can still eat the same meal and give it a try. Even if one kid still can’t eat solids, one won’t eat anything and one never eats enough to even feed a small bird, and generally no one is willing or ready to try and eat at the same time. We still like to try.

I’m delusional like that.

What the evening (yes, indeed, evening – thus the rather terribly lit pictures -sorry!) really looked like was more of a three-ring circus, fit throwing, I’m not going to eat and you can’t make me, family drama. And that was all before the meal was even on the table! Is it any wonder we end up doing breakfast for dinner so often?!

So, was this recipe delicious and a rousing success? Actually, YES. The pictures are definitely not the greatest, but the dinner was satisfying (at least for those of us who aren’t stubborn 4 year olds who like to just say they hate everything without tasting it!). The really great thing is that overall, it was extremely unfussy to put together, so even though the kids were pulling their usual shenanigans over dinner time, it wasn’t too stressful for once.

Kayla, if she could eat solids, I like to think would have loved this. I did eat it and was extremely happy with how it turned out.

Cole, who usually loves the meat/potatoes/veggie combinations was in a **mood** and wouldn’t even try it without saying he didn’t like it. Of course this is the kid who really only wants to vary what he eats between two or three things at a time for weeks on end, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised since this was something new. Next time I make it, he’ll probably do the same, then the next time he may finally at least try it!

The one rousing success of the night though was the fact that Aidan, who never wants to eat anything at all, actually loved it and ate a full portion- not just a few bites! That is nothing short of miraculous around here!

I will definitely be making this again. It is probably worth noting here that I did adapt the recipe fairly liberally in making a bit of a sauce to go on the ground beef to help get the kids to try it. It was really just enough to punch up the flavor and make it even more kid friendly. I also added a liberal amount of shredded cheese to the potato crust, as suggested by Astrid. If you are looking for a version that doesn’t load on extra calories that are meant to help skinny children (mine) actually take in some calories, then I suggest you look to Astrid’s version for your inspiration. Mine is loaded since that is what we have to do around here  to feed the birds… I mean kids. My thanks to Astrid for the inspiration!

Be sure to check out the roundup of links below for more great recipes!

This week we had the choice of pumpkin or apples for Tuesdays with Dorie. While I actually had every intention of making both tarts, last week just didn’t go as planned (when do they ever… and why do I persist in thinking they might??)

I went ahead and made the Sour Cream Pumpkin Tart (or Pie) chosen by Judy’s Gross Eats and used Dorie’s Sweet Tart Dough with Nuts recipe that we’ve made many a time before. I used some lovely Almond Flour I got from the lovely folks over at Oh Nuts! Their products are always so nice and fresh and such a great value (I usually pay around $5 more per pound for Almond Flour especially in the store than the prices on Oh Nuts! — If you use a lot of nuts or candies in your holiday baking, you may want to visit their site and see what they have available).

In our family, funny enough, Aidan is really the only one who wants pumpkin every year. I’m a chocolate girl (no surprise) and Cole is a chocolate lover too. Dusty wants berries – huckleberries that is – and that’s about it. I decided to go ahead and make the tart version of this for Aidan and I’m glad he did because he loved it.

Surprisingly, I did too! I absolutely love Dorie’s tart crust with nut recipe, so that was a given, but the pumpkin filling is surprisingly light, fluffy, smooth and creamy, and without a super strong pumpkin taste or texture. You can definitely taste it, but it isn’t really, really strong and the amount of spices are just perfect!

I decided to make the tart in my rectangular tart pan, and must have made the crust fairly thick (I was making a triple batch of dough and layered a bit too much in). I ended up with almost a full 2-cups of extra tart filling that wouldn’t fit in the tart shell, so I decided to just pour the excess into some ramekins and bake them in a water bath in the oven with the pie, which was perfect.

We decided these little ramekins would be perfect as little Pumpkin Creme Brulees, so we torched a bit of sugar on top and had a nice little pumpkin custard snack on the side. Easy peasy!

To see what the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers came up with this week please visit the blog, or to see what else I did with pumpkin (if you aren’t all pumpkined out yet!) for last week’s TWD, you can go here (Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows and Russian Butter Cookies pictured below)!

As a special bonus, I also made another recipe using some lovely Macadamia Nuts I received from Oh Nuts! Their products are gorgeous and these are some of the best muffins we’ve ever made! I used a recipe I found on Epicurious for the muffins and simply added a cup of white chocolate chips. Who wouldn’t love to have one of those for breakfast!

Banana White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Muffins

DISCLAIMER: While the folks at Oh Nuts! were kind enough to send me the Almond Flour to use in my holiday baking, the choice of product to review was mine as are all my opinions and thoughts on such, as always.

In a frenzy of creativity yesterday, I finally got around to making something for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie post. I’ve been awfully hit and miss with my posts for the group, pretty much ever since my last pregnancy began. Before that? Never missed a week. I can’t believe that the group is coming to an end next month, and though many will continue on with a new book, I know that realistically, I won’t be one of them. This makes me sad because I’ve learned SO much and have thoroughly enjoyed my time with TWD and the friends that I’ve made. I just know that with all that is going on in our lives if I chose to try and participate in another group that it would continue to be a case of over-committing and under performing… which I hate.

I am hoping to participate as much as I can as TWD closes this chapter and look forward to watching the gloriousness that will abound in the new group. Maybe at some point my life will calm enough that I would be able to join in, but this is the epitome of optimism at this point!

As always, visit the TWD Blog to see what the other bakers have made this week!

As I went through the book and looked at all the things I’ve missed over the past several months, I have a long list of recipes that I still really want to try. For today though, I wanted something fun and seasonal and a bit off the beaten path.

Way back at the beginning of the group we made Dorie’s marshmallow recipe, and at the time I chose to make black and white marshmallows – they were fantastic! Since this time around it’s November and Thanksgiving is only two days away I wanted to try Dorie’s Pumpkin Spice Marshmallow version. They are AWESOME! It was a simple enough addition and simply called for gently folding in some pumpkin puree (1/2 cup) with some spices mixed in (I used 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ginger, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and a pinch of allspice) after the marshmallows were all mixed. My only note was that it does (obviously) make the marshmallows more moist, and though I waited at least 3 hours for them to dry, they weren’t really ready to cut. I’d suggest letting them have the full overnight rest. Also, my marshmallows look a bit clumpy because I dusted them with a coating of powdered sugar, which instead of staying dry, soaked into the marshmallows and ended up giving them a sugar crust. Delicious, yes. Pretty, not as much. If you don’t want that to happen, follow Dorie’s directions and use potato starch or cornstarch instead.

As you can see the little pumpkin marshmallows are in the picture above. I used some small pumpkin and leaf shaped cookie cutters to cut my marshmallows into shapes. I also used a 2 1/2 inch round cutter to cut bigger marshmallows that I could perch on the edge of my mug and toast as an addition to some White Hot Chocolate. If you don’t like white chocolate, you won’t like this drink because it is literally just drinking milk with melted white chocolate in it. However, if you DO like white chocolate, then you are going to LOVE how easy and delicious this is to make! It is a fun alternative to the usual hot chocolate and when the pumpkin marshmallow melts in, it tastes divine!

Now, if I have a cup of hot chocolate, of any kind, I really need to have some cookies to go with it. Way back again at the beginning of the TWD odyssey they made the Russian Grandmother’s Apple Pie Cake, which I missed, because it was before I joined. I still remember though that I have been eyeing the dough recipe for it for years. In Dorie’s notes at the end of the recipe in the Playing Around areas where she always gives fantastic alternatives and ideas she mentions that you can make cookies out of the dough. You can even just make the dough into a log and have your own slice and bake cookies. I just sliced them about 1/4-inch thick and baked them at 375 for 13 minutes till just light gold.

Well, I finally got around to doing this, and now there is no going back! Those Russian Butter Cookies are some of the best, most tender, soft and flavorful cookies I have ever put in my mouth! They are simple to make and turned out gorgeously! I topped some with plain sugar and some with cinnamon and sugar. You can even use the dough to make little turnovers, which is what I will do with them next! I could have split the dough into two smaller logs, but I decided I was just fine with having bigger cookies and just made one giant log.

My Thanksgiving wishes…

I hope that the holiday this week is all that you hope for it to be.

I hope that we can all take the time to relax and think about the small things and let go of the things that aren’t really important, even though they may seem to be.

I hope that I can remember to do that myself!

I hope we can all sit back and relax with a cookie and some hot chocolate with marshmallows (and let someone else do the dishes!)!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Love,

Holly

I have been spending a lot of my *me time* hanging out on Pinterest (me and thousands of others). It is a great distraction tool for me when I’m sitting in the waiting rooms at the kids doctor appointments and helps keep me a bit calmer than I would be if I just sit there and focus on what is happening. It’s not even that all the doctor appointments are so terribly dramatic, it’s more that there are just so many of them, for various reasons, for each kid… and they never seem to end.

Anyway, it’s no wonder that I spend a lot of my time pinning food. (And an inordinate amount of craft projects too for that matter that I want to do!) I recently saw a pin that suggested using store bough refrigerator cinnamon rolls and baking them in the waffle iron.

While I thought the idea was brilliant, I wasn’t really interested in committing a portion of my grocery budget into buying something that I could very quickly and pretty easily make at home from ingredients I always have on hand. I knew they would taste a whole lot better, and barely take a few minutes more than popping open a can. That’s just me though. If you want to just pop open a can of rolls, who am I to tell you not to?

However, if you are like me, have the ingredients and an extra 10 minutes or so, then this is the way to go. The time it takes is barely a blip since your waffle iron will have to heat up anyway and I have to tell you that the taste is far superior to anything you can buy premade. The kids, hubs and I all went nuts over these and I’ve actually made them twice in the past 12 hours now. I originally made them last night as our movie night treat, but my iPhone pictures really didn’t do them justice so I went ahead and made a sweet breakfast treat this morning. They were just as wonderful and easy the second time.

The brown sugar filling (I used a very dark brown sugar from Wholesome Sweeteners that I love) oozes just slightly and caramelizes to create slightly crusty crunchy spots on the rolls – probably my favorite part. These may have just about ruined me for regular waffles or cinnamon rolls. The dough itself bakes up to be tender, fluffy and amazing. I snacked on the waffles with nothing else on them at all (they don’t need it!) but if you want to top them off with a little maple glaze (or just use vanilla) then you’ll be even more of a hero.

You could easily customize these rolls too and fill them with any number of other options like apple butter, nuts, Nutella perhaps? (That’s my next version for sure!) Whatever you do, just be prepared to watch them disappear as quickly as you can pull them off the iron.

As for the quickness of the recipe, without distractions (last night) these only took me about 20 minutes to make and start eating. This morning, while dealing with kids, bottles, diaper changes, distractions and stops and starts for various reasons, we were still eating in about 35 minutes. Not too shabby in my book!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED:

UPDATE:

****drumroll**** The Powers That Be at Random.org have chosen lucky #2 as the winner of the spa day!

Nats, you lucky girl, you’ll be heading for a spa day soon! I will contact you directly to get you your prize.

My thanks to everyone for playing along!

—————————————-

Anyone that knows me *in real life* and has seen me in recent months (years really) knows that there is a phrase that often comes out of my mouth that sometimes I wish I didn’t say so much. The problem is, it is completely appropriate to my family’s situation and, whatever the original use of the phrase was, it applies so well that I can’t help but use it.

What you can catch me saying so often is that “it takes a village to raise my kids.” And it’s true.

I was contacted recently and offered the chance to do a giveaway sponsored by Intermountain Moms (Intermountain Healthcare) to help let you know about their Facebook page where you can ask their nurse (a real, actual, live person) questions and get responses back. This sounded like a pretty cool idea to me, especially since I am in contact with various healthcare personnel on an all too regular basis and anything like this is right up my alley. There isn’t a day that goes by in our house when there isn’t something medical that arises for one of the kids (and the days when it is all three of them are the days I really dread!).

I don’t often do the type of a reviews where I get to tell you about places we go and love, because I don’t usually feel like it is really something that I can talk about. If you ask me to review the latest, hottest spot to go with my husband, I couldn’t even begin to answer you – that is so outside our reality right now that I want to laugh and cry a little at the same time.

However, if you want to ask me what I think of some of the local Intermountain Healthcare facilities… well, I’m your girl! I spend P-LEN-TY of time in their facilities.

In any given week I’ve been known to spend anywhere from 2 to 5 days out of the week (sometimes even all 7!) transferring my kiddos to various clinics, doctor offices and hospitals, not to mention the extra phone calls to nurses and juggling my kids various health issues. I won’t get into all their health issue details here, mostly because I’ve written about them before and that isn’t what I want to tell you about here. What I do want to do is give you a quick rundown of why, all things considered, I am actually a pretty big fan.

It has to do with people, and in my village that I mentioned, an lot of my villagers are directly linked with Intermountain Healthcare. First off, I work with fantastic – and I do mean FANTASTIC – doctors and nurses. In fact, if you ever need a recommendation for a pediatric clinic in Salt Lake I can recommend two. If you need to know where there are a couple of great labs in case you or yours kids need to have any lab or blood work done, I can tell you that too. And they are both Intermountain Healthcare facilities.

I’ve had all of my children in their hospitals (and, funny enough, none of them in the same one!). I’ve spent my recoveries in their hospitals, talking the ears off their nurses and generally pouring out my heart to them as I’ve been through two special care nurseries and one full-blown NICU (for a full month no less). And, if you want to know what my favorite things to eat in the cafeterias are, what yummy treats they have when I need a chocolate fix, and which various vending machines to keep you going are my favorites, and where the nice restrooms are in case you need a quick break, I can tell you that too.

If you happen to need to take your kids to a respiratory clinic and want to make sure you are going to work with technicians who care about you and will listen and try to make you feel at ease, I can tell you where to go for that too. You guessed it, they work for Intermountain Healthcare too.

I can also recommend a sleep clinic, a couple of wonderful cardiologists, a nutrition clinic where they can try to help you sort out how on Earth to keep what little sanity you have left while trying to get your stubborn, skinny children to eat and thrive – well, I know who those people are too.

There are even eye doctors and children’s specialists for fitting eyewear (especially for kids with Down syndrome!) that I can give you first hand recommendations on, and I can also tell you that these folks, well, they’ve got us in mind when they are figuring out all the things you may need while you are visiting one of their facilities. For instance, would you have ever thought you would go to a hospital and see a sign telling you to make sure and let a volunteer know if you need someone to just help you with an extra set of hands and hold a baby, read a child a book and just help you keep it all together. Yep, they really do have those signs, and while I haven’t actually called for a volunteer yet, just the fact that they’ve thought it through is proof in my book that they are thinking about us.

The point of all this is pretty clear in my mind, and honestly, I could ramble on about this subject forever because this is my real life and what I really know about, but I want to get down to why I’m telling you all of this.

Here is the way I see it. Every company has their downsides, and everyone will have different experiences with them, and even though there is a lot of angst out there politically about our health care system, the bottom line in my book is that in my village, I’m working with people who see the hardest things every day and can look me in the eye and see me as who I am, and not just names on a form. They are PEOPLE and they treat me like a PERSON. My experience, with my complicated and often frustrating children has happened to have been mostly with Intermountain Healthcare personnel and I have to tell you that when I said I would like to do this review, I wasn’t really expecting to get choked up about it, but now I’m sitting here tearing up and thinking about all the nurses, staff and doctors, receptionists, security personnel and volunteers who come in and out of my life while I’m trying to keep it together for my family, and it is getting to me.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years feeling underwater or in a fog, dealing with all the difficult things that have come our way, even while being grateful that they aren’t any more difficult than they are! I’ve spent more time in doctor’s offices and hospitals over the past four years than I ever thought I would in my life. Those experiences could have been a whole lot worse if I had been someplace cold and uncaring. The fact that I didn’t have that extra layer of stress to cope with hasn’t been lost on me, and I know I have the staff at those facilities to thank for that.

I figure, any company that can have so many wonderful people working for them who are able to convey their caring, concern and compassion for me and my children, with love and humor, must be doing something right.

The Giveaway:

Intermountain Moms (Intermountain Healthcare) is sponsoring this giveaway because they want to let people know about the Intermountain Moms page on Facebook where you can ask a real nurse (Nurse Dani) questions about pregnancy or children and she even often answers with a video! The page has a lot of information and videos that have great support information for new mom’s too. Most of the videos are from OBGYN’s and Pediatricians answering frequently asked questions. The page also has a community of mothers that share their stories and experiences and fans of the page are very active, engaged and quick to help each other. I think that, especially as we are now in the cold/flu season, this is a great resource for mom’s to find info about how to take care of themselves and their kids.

In fact, to help you take care of yourself Intermountain Moms (Intermountain Healthcare) is offering the following giveaway to readers here at PheMOMenon! This is a GREAT giveaway and will go a long way to helping you take care of yourself! Trust me, you can be a much better mama when you have taken some time to recharge your batteries!

I will be sharing some more recipes later this week and before Thanksgiving, as I tell you about more of my villagers and remind myself of all the things I have to be grateful for. I would love to hear from you in the comments about what you are grateful for, especially if it is something unexpected like the silver lining types of things in life when we are all dealing with difficult times in many ways. What keeps you going?

It has been a little while since I made Madeleines, and every time I do, I wonder why I waited so long… other than I snarf them all so quickly it is probably better that I don’t make them that often.

I knew when I saw the November recipes for Tuesdays with Dorie that I didn’t want to miss out on this one since I had purchased a mini madeleine pan a couple of years ago just because I knew that someday we would be doing this recipe. I’ve used it plenty of times since then as well, but it seemed like I just absolutely couldn’t miss out on this week. So, here I am, posting halfway through Tuesday, but at least I’m here!

This week’s recipe was chosen by Di, of Di’s Kitchen Notebook. Thanks Di!!

I’ve made the lemon flavored madeleines before and love them, but I decided I wanted to change up the flavors a bit and turn them into a kind of spice cake flavored cookie. The only changes it took to the recipe to do that were to add a few spices to the flour mixture (specifically, I used 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, a pinch of cloves and a pinch of allspice) and to replace the honey with molasses. These were a hit at our house and perfect for the Fall weather (I’m still in denial that it already snowed once and that Winter is well on it’s way, so I’m just going to stick with thoughts of Fall!

For more variations on the mini madeleines, or to see what else the TWD bakers were up to this week, please visit the blog and check it out!

Well. Apparently another month has already evaporated right before my eyes. I am hoping that November is a bit kinder with my schedule, but frankly I think I’m just slightly delusional to think that is gonna happen. I have had about a billion and one (ok, at least 20 for reals) posts that I wanted to post in the past month and yet though I have pictures and recipes jotted on various scraps somewhere, I cannot seem to get my act together. So, I know I completely stink and still haven’t posted that recipe for those Levain Double Chocolate Chip Cookies I teased you with… last month. Seriously, I stink. I only hope you can forgive me and know that I have actually just been trying to track down my dang notes!! In fact, to that end, I have spent the last week dejunking and sorting through the various piles, boxes and bags of notes, recipes, ideas and notebooks I have running around my kitchen. Organization is obviously NOT my strong suit. Nonetheless, I have made progress and tracked down and organized my notes, not just for the chocolate cookies, but for many other recipes I’ve put together over the past few months and couldn’t seem to keep track of. I’m determined to get caught up and get posting!

To that end, at least I still haven’t failed on a Secret Recipe Club post (about the only thing I haven’t!) and am now (yep, at the last minute) happy to bring you my review of my SRC blog assignment for the month. Incidentally, I also wanted to give a quick shout-out to our groups’ new hostess, Jane Bonacci of The Heritage Cook! Amanda is still playing along as part of the group, but is working hard behind the scenes to grow and improve the SRC site. Thanks ladies!

This month I received the beautiful blog, All Day I Dream About Food, belonging to the also lovely Carolyn. She is a SAHM (like me!) of 3 (also like me!) who loves to cook, bake and eat (ding ding ding – like me again!). Unlike me however, Carolyn was diagnosed last year with pre-diabetes and cooks many absolutely amazing looking low-carb and gluten-free recipes. I am still just barely figuring out how to adapt recipes for various dietary reasons around our house, and am always so impressed with those bakers and home cooks who are killin’ it in that department. Carolyn definitely qualifies for that description!

I have to tell you, when I received yet another blog that had a specific dietary focus, I wasn’t actually phased at all. Especially this time. I couldn’t have been more thrilled! Why you may ask? Because I never really know where to begin looking for blogs that cover other types of dietary concerns that I’m not as familiar with, and fate decided last month that my nephew (a fellow food lover) was to find out that he has Type 1 Diabetes. Needless to say, the past several weeks have been an adjustment for him and my SIL. Actually, in reality they are very healthy eaters and didn’t have that much of a change to make, but it is definitely a change to have to track things so carefully and learn all about how this would affect their lives. I was thrilled to be able to tell my SIL that I knew about a fabulous blog with many great recipes that would help them with this. Seriously, the timing couldn’t have been better! In fact, I was also excited to see that Carolyn recently participated in a new cookbook project that is called Low Carbing Among Friends, and will be a great resource for them.

Carolyn also has many recipes that are ‘regular’ and since I didn’t have some of the specialty ingredients some of her other baking calls for I decided to adapt a couple of those recipes.

The first one I decided to make was a version of Carolyn’s Triple Chocolate Granola Bars, which looked perfect as is, but I decided to go for a really dark chocolate flavor and substitute the honey in the recipe with molasses (I really love chocolate and molasses together, but if you aren’t a big molasses fan I would suggest just sticking with the honey or going for a combination). The only other change I made was to frost them with a white chocolate peanut butter layer instead of the pretty swirls of white chocolate Carolyn used, and to sprinkle a few extra mini chocolate chips over the top. Luckily for me, my boys love a good dark chocolate flavor too, so they have loved these granola bars, and I felt pretty darn good about them as a treat/snack for my kiddos! They are chocolatey, just a little chewy and packed with flavor. We will definitely make these again!

Incidentally, the thing you should understand about the fact that I love feeding my boys fattening food is that we are STILL working with the nutrition clinic for all 3 kiddos trying to get their growth on track. Literally, to try and just get ANY calories into my grazing/non-eaters I’ve been pretty much given carte blanche with their diets to just try to fatten them up. Hi, my name is Holly, and I live in Oppositeville. It drives me nuts! Anyway, I digress.

The other recipe I decided to adapt was one that she posted for Easter. These little buns are basically a yeast raised dough that includes a bit of baking soda for a little extra oomph. The dough itself is cut into little balls, dipped in butter, rolled in cinnamon and sugar and then fit into muffin cups for baking. I decided to adapt these for Fall and turned them into Pumpkin Bubble Buns. I have to tell you, we went nuts over these (and we aren’t even huge pumpkin fans!). The pumpkin flavor was noticeable, but still fairly subtle. The buns themselves were tender, and laced with cinnamon, sugar and a little nutmeg and allspice in the dough for a spiced flavor. I was originally going to drizzle a little bit of a simple glaze over these or at least some maple syrup or something, but honestly, they didn’t need anything else. We absolutely devoured these and my boys have already been bugging me to make them again!

Just as a reminder for me (and other ideas for you) here are a few more recipes I can’t wait to try from Carolyn’s blog:

Homemade White Chocolate Peanut Butter – can’t WAIT to make this! My boys would go bonkers over it! Especially now that we have that recipe from last month’s SRC!
Caramelitas – these sound like the cookie/bar of my dreams – chocolate, caramel, oats, pecans – all in one place – yes please!
Homemade Chocolate Chips – yep, you read that right, she figured out how to make her own chocolate chips (not just chopped chocolate either)
Coconut Cocoa Nib Breakfast Bars – I love cocoa nibs and there is something so tempting about the idea of eating these for breakfast!
Gingerbread Chocolate Chip Pancakes – ’nuff said. Tis the season, and she includes two versions of the recipe
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies – these ones are low carb and gluten free and I will hopefully be making them soon for my nephew

It’s hard for me to believe that it is time again already for another Secret Recipe Club! Seriously, where does the time go? Oy! Be prepared. This is another loooong post. I hope you’ll stick with me through it!

Anyway, I was super excited this month (again) when I received my blog assignment and found that I was going to be taking a blog tour of another old bloggy friend of mine. This month I got to go on an extended tour of Katrina’s blog – Baking and Boys! As per usual of course though, no amount of planning ahead and good intentions stopped me from only finally finishing this post at the last minute.

The problem, you see, is three-fold. 1) Katrina already had my blog for SRC and went above and beyond, making multiple recipes – I certainly couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything less, 2) like Amanda, I’ve ‘known’ Katrina for years through our blogs and now that she has moved to Utah (though one of us lives at the wrong end of the valley so we still haven’t had a chance to meet in person — I’ll let you all decide who lives at the wrong end because any given day I change my mind) it is a given that I wanted to do right by her and 3) Katrina has a plethora of fantastic recipes on her blog that she has created or found and an awful lot of them are for my one true weakness. Cookies.

It’s true. While I love cake, chocolate, pies, tarts, bars, brownies and all other baked goods to a ridiculous degree, it is actually the humble little cookie that is my kryptonite. I could probably actually claim a fairly decent diet if it weren’t for my undying devotion to cookies. Point in fact, there are only two non-homemade treats I buy at the store – Oreos and Dark Chocolate Milanos. What’s worse is that, though I buy them for use in recipes – most of the time I just devour them.

It should therefore come as no real surprise when I tell you that my downfall in pre-planning this month came from not being able to decide what to make. I had so many things bookmarked that I wanted to try and just couldn’t decide. I wanted to go big again and get crazy, but then real life came to call bringing along with it our first flus of the season already. Ick. I hope that is not a sign of what this winter is going to be like, because if it is, I’m all ready to just give up and hide in the house. Hibernation here we come!

But we’ll have cookies, so, maybe not so bad?!

The first recipe that I ended up making from Katrina’s blog was the Flourless White Chocolate Chunk Peanut Butter Cookies (my adapted version pictured above). I’m generally not one for wanting to purchase specific ingredients just for one recipe, but when I read the ingredients and saw that the recipe uses Peanut Butter & Co.’s White Chocolate Wonderful Peanut Butter (my Smith’s and Target both have it), I knew I had to try them. I’ve heard about that stuff before and, being a big fan of the peanut butter/white chocolate combination, decided I had to remember to pick up a jar at the store.

I actually made the cookies *shocker here* exactly as written – flourless and all (I actually saw this on Saveur today that even says if you want your PB cookies to have more PB flavor, then to leave the flour out!). We loved these flourless cookies! In fact, we snarfed them so quickly they didn’t even get their pictures taken and so almost didn’t tell you about them… but we just had to make them again! Not hard to do since they couldn’t be easier or faster to make!

The only issue I had with them, which really wasn’t much of an issue at all, was that the flourless version was so soft and melt-in-your-mouth amazing that they weren’t really sturdy enough to go in Aidan’s lunch box – which was where he wanted them. Incidentally, the jar of White Chocolate Wonderful was half gone since we used it on sandwiches for Aidan’s lunch before I ever got the cookies made, and now that we’ve made the cookies two times, I am very sad to report it is already gone. They need to sell bigger jars. Seriously.

Therefore, we slightly adapted the recipe and added a tiny amount of flour for sturdiness and a bit more body and chew, along with using the whole egg instead of just the egg white as we did the first time – my kids are still too skinny and literally on calorie power packing diets, which, while tough for me, are delightful for them since they get to eat just about anything they want.

Back when Katrina did her review of my blog she also went back to the very beginning to see what my very first post was. I started off with a Chocolate Chip Cookie from Food Network (terrible pictures – sorry!) that used melted butter. Funny enough, though Katrina started with more of the ‘Boys!’ side of her blog for a few posts, the first recipe she posted was actually also for a chocolate chip cookie recipe that used melted butter! What are the odds, right?!

The recipes weren’t even the same ones as far as I can tell. The recipe she posted was from a contest on FN and the original recipe included walnuts and looked awesome. While I would have happily added nuts to these cookies, I am currently all out (we use a lot of nuts around here!). I decided to stick with smallish sized cookies for these ones and made a half batch of the cookies, with a little bit of adapting, to turn them into Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies. They are another super fast, easy and delicious cookie and the boys around our house – big and small – have already consumed a fair amount of these bad boys as well.

Now, though the last two cookies were on the small side, we now head over to a complete departure and it’s like going from Munchkinland to Giantville. Seriously. If only I could indicate how huge that cookie above is. Think burger bun size. A full 6 oz – that’s just shy of a half a pound of chocolate cookie insanity!

The saga of this cookie is, apparently, as enormous as its size. If, like me, you have partially been living in hibernation and seclusion and delusions of not-so-grandeur for the past few months, then you may not have really processed the phenomenon that is the Levain Bakery cookies.

I say processed it, because, while I ended up seeing Katrina mention their cookies and knock-off recipes going around and big (huge!) cookies etc., it was the first time I processed that I had indeed actually seen and fantasized about these cookies before. I actually first saw them on Food Network’s Best Thing I Ever Ate show – the episode about CHOCOLATE! and about fainted when I saw them …. and yet, it still didn’t sink in.

Then, a while back Maria tweeted a picture of one of the famous Levain Bakery Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies when she was touring around through NYC visiting bakeries – and, I once again drooled, but never followed through on finding out more information. Apparently, it still wasn’t enough to tip me off when I saw these cookies posted over on Annie’s Eats (even though I pinned them!) either that there was a real trend happening – that even had to do with my #1 ingredient crush – chocolate!

Apparently, living in our usual brand of crazy around here even those cookies couldn’t penetrate my haze. So, Katrina, I’m not sure whether to thank you or not for mentioning the Levain phenomenon enough times that as I read through your posts this finally got through my thick skull. Actually, I will thank you, but my thighs may not.

I’ve now joined the ranks of those other food bloggers out there in putting together my own attempt at creating My knock-off version of the Infamous Levain Bakery Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie. If it isn’t quite perfected yet, I know what I want to try differently and will share the recipe as soon as I’ve had a chance to put together another attempt – but from what I’ve seen on their site, I think I am darn close! The amount of intel I’ve gathered is extensive enough that I just don’t have the time to add it along to this post and do it justice, but it won’t be long in coming, I promise!

To finish things off, in honor of Katrina, I thought I would share some pictures of my kiddos from this past weekend. I admire that Katrina is always just as dedicated in chronicling her family as she is the kitchen experiments. I don’t do that often enough for my liking and really do need to do better.

Thanks again Katrina for always being a great friend and for the many great ideas – and three new cookie recipes to add to our repertoire!

The boys, Cole (almost 4!) and Aidan (8) spinning together at the park – it’s so nice to see them get along occasionally It’s not actually an easy thing for them, and I think that is why I have a hard time sometimes writing about the kids here. We are struggling with all three of them still for one thing or another and I spend all my *free* time just trying to juggle their various doctor appointments – and now that we are heading into our ‘busy’ season I’ve found myself already starting to shut down a bit more and get feeling down. I’m going to try not to do that because I know it isn’t a good way to handle it. So, if by chance you don’t see me around on (yes, shameless plugs here) Twitter or Facebook or Pinterest where I spend a lot of my time whiling away the hours I spend in waiting rooms and doctor offices, please feel free to give me a nudge and tell me to wake up from my hibernation a bit.

Here’s Aidan! I told him to run towards me. He thought that was hilarious!

I find it strangely humerous that all my children’s issues seem to be coming to a head this time of year as well – after all, it’s not I like I need to be hit over the head with our *issues*. I saw on Twitter that there is an ADHD Awareness Week coming up in October and that September was ADHD Awareness Month – yep, I’m aware. Check. Seriously, it’s actually good to know, but just the fact that ALL our issues are grouped together is overwhelming! You’ll see why if you keep reading…

This Thursday is Cole’s 4th birthday… which technically should have been in November since he was 7 1/2 weeks premature. Just for good measure too, November is actually Prematurity Awareness Month. Cole is awesome. He is doing great, loves preschool and couldn’t be sweeter. He is just still ridiculously skinny and small. Go figure. The poor dude only started out in life at a whopping 3 lbs 6 oz. To give you a quick idea of what life is like with him right now, his diet (as ordered by his doctors and dietician) is to eat as much ice cream as he wants, have chips 5 times a day, put butter and/or cream on everything and I have to tell him he can’t have his broccoli or fruit until dessert. Seriously. I’m not making a word of that up. I live in backwards-land!

It’s also actually Down syndrome awareness month in October… and in case that weren’t enough, Kayla is also sporting her pink for Breast Cancer Awareness this month because that is an issue incredibly important to us as well (my darling MIL is a breast cancer survivor).

I’m still learning more and more about Down syndrome all the time, but I’ve also really started to learn why parents of kids with Down syndrome told me when Kayla was born that it would be the greatest blessing. I finally get it. I didn’t at first. She is the glue in our family.

As I’ve said to folks that ‘know’ me many, many times, it really does take a ‘village’ of doctors, therapists, social workers, counselors, fantastic nursing staff, hospitals, friends and family to raise my little family. In case I don’t say it enough, let it be here in writing for all to see that we are eternally grateful for the support. I’ll be taking (more) cookies to all those people soon! Aside from that, with all the Awareness events this month, let’s just say that I am indeed extremely aware now.

Kayla was enjoying a rare break from her oxygen in the picture above – this was just before I had to put it back on. She is getting so big (not really – just finally hit about 18 lbs and 29 inches) but is growing at her own pace. I keep being told to just enjoy the fact that she will be my baby for a while and that life is in slow motion. She is almost 20 months old here – and just took her first steps this week, but is now ready to be off and running! She is our little princess and her brothers absolutely adore her! She’s also got her Daddy (and Mommy for that matter) wrapped around her little fingers.

Speaking of The Daddy, I’m not sure I remember the last time he got his picture on here, so, since I’ve been spending much more time blogging for him and helping him out at all the skydiving demo’s and events we went to this summer, I thought I’d share one of my favorite pictures of him.

Then again, maybe this is why he doesn’t get his picture on here too often. As you can see, the “if all your friends wanted to go jump off a cliff…” speech will obviously never work in our house.

That’s Dusty in the red. Show off… Just sayin’.

Enjoy the cookies!!

Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies – Levain Bakery Knockoff Attempt #1 – recipe coming soon – stay tuned!