Easy Butter Cookies

Sadly we’ve come to the last cookie blog post. This week we’re keeping it simple and going with a basic butter cookie. They’re really simple cookies. You can pair them with a nice cup of coffee or tea.

Butter Cookies:

To make these cookies you will need...

2 ½ cups of flour

1 tsp. salt

1 cup of butter

2/3 cup of sugar

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk

1 tsp. of vanilla

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl.

Next use your mixer and beat the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Then add in the egg and then the vanilla.

Add in the flour gradually until all incorporated. Chill the dough for about 10 minutes so that it’s easier to work with.

In a small bowl place your yolk and whisk it with a teaspoon of water.

Take the dough out of the fridge and roll into small balls. Place the balls on the cookies sheets and lightly pat down and score with a fork.

Brush the yolk over the tops of the cookies and bake for 10 minutes.

Cool completely before serving.

Flourless Chocolate Cookies

Happy Thursday! We’ve almost made it to the end of the week and what better way to celebrate than some fudgy flourless cookies. We went with the “healthy” veggie cookies last week, and this week we are going flourless and super chocolatey. These cookies are so ooey and gooey and yummy. The egg whites in these cookies almost make them seem like gooey chocolate meringues. These cookies don’t last long at all, once they’re baked and in the fridge. Grab the following ingredients and get ready to bake!

*When I bake these, I usually double the recipe; that’s how popular they are!

2 ½ cups icing sugar

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ tsp. salt

4 egg whites

½ tsp. vanilla

1 ½ cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips

All you need is one bowl to make these cookies.

Add the icing sugar, cocoa powder, and salt to the bowl and stir it up.

Separate 4 eggs and add the whites to the dry mixture along with the vanilla and stir until mixed well.

Lastly add in and stir the chocolate chips.

Line a couple of cookies sheets with parchment paper. This is a really important step when making these cookies because they can get sticky.

The batter is quite runny; this is normal. I used a teaspoon to scoop the batter onto the cookie sheet. It may look like a little spot on the sheet but these cookies spread out so much; they get huge while baking so all you need is a small amount of batter. I found this out the hard way when I scooped about a tablespoon and they doubled and ran together in the oven.

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes.

When they come out, allowed them to cool for a few minutes on the sheet and then carefully scrape them off to cool a bit more on cooling racks. You can eat them at room temperature or put them in the fridge to get cool. This is what my family likes. They don’t get hard, they stay gooey and are so delicious when nice and cold.

Veggie Cookies

Now that Thanksgiving is over and done with, we’re going to do a mini cookie theme for our blogs in the coming weeks. Maybe it’ll give you some inspiration for your holiday baking that’s to come or maybe it’ll be some sweet treat to snack on after the weeks of pumpkin flavoured things.

When I say healthy cookies, you’re probably thinking, healthy cookies, yeah right! No cookies can be perfectly healthy and they don’t need to be because they are treats, but these couple of recipes have hidden veggies in them that can make them a healthier choice for a sweet treat if you are craving one. We’re using zucchini and the ever so popular avocado (which is actually a fruit) to make some healthy cookies.

First off...some chocolate chip zucchini cookies.

You will need:

1 ½ cups of flour

1 tsp. of cinnamon

½ tsp. baking soda

½ cup of butter

¾ cup of sugar

1 egg

¾ tsp. of vanilla

1 ½ cups of zucchini (about 1 medium one)

2 cups of quick oats

1 2/3 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

First of all, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Then grate your zucchini and set aside.

Now you can mix up your dry ingredients in a bowl.

Next cream the butter and sugar together with your mixer. Add in the vanilla and egg.

Now add in the zucchini and then gradually add the flour mixture.

Finally stir in the oats and chocolate chips.

Scoop onto a parchment covered cookie sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes or until just about golden brown.

Let cool on racks a bit and enjoy.

Next up...fudgy chocolate chip avocado cookies!

For these cookies you will need:

1 ripe avocado, mashed

¼ cup of sugar

¼ cup of brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. of vanilla

½ cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

1/3 cup of flour

½ tsp. of baking soda

¼ cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

*I doubled the recipe when I made it because it seemed like it wouldn’t make too much.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Mash you avocado and then add the sugars, egg, and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, whisk the cocoa powder, flour, and baking soda.

Your mashed avocado mix will be quite runny so you can do this next step by hand (no mixer needed). Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just combined.

Lastly add the chocolate chips in.

Scoop onto a prepared cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 8-10 minutes or until just set. Don’t over bake.

Veggie/fruit cookies...yum!

What to do with Thanksgiving Leftovers

With Thanksgiving coming up, you might have a lot of food leftover! I always do the basic reheat or sandwiches, but there is so much more that you can do with these leftovers. This week we have just the blog for you. We’re doing a Thanksgiving leftover blog and we’ll take a look at a bunch of things you can do with your turkey leftovers.

The obvious things would be your cold turkey sandwich. You can make the basic with bread, lettuce, and lots of mayo. Or you can make a warm one with stuffing piled inside of it and cranberry sauce and gravy; really utilize all of the leftovers. You can even make a toasted hot turkey sandwich. I’ve done open faced ones on toasted bread with gravy poured on top or you can add some stuffing on that as well. Make it fancy and upgrade your bread (make it a panini or pita), but you really want to use what you have leftover from dinner; don’t add too much extras. I love making clubhouses with my fresh turkey. On toasted bread with lots of mayo, I layer on turkey, bacon, avocado, tomato, and a little lettuce and sometimes cheese. So divine!

Another popular thing to make with turkey leftovers is turkey pie. Buy a pie crust or make one. Mix some of your leftover veggies (bean, corn, carrots, and peas are the best) add in some chopped onions and celery and then pour in your leftover gravy with a bit of salt and pepper and any other flavours you like. You can decide how runny you want your pie filling to be. If you don’t have enough gravy left you can add in some water, chicken broth, or cream of chicken soup until it reaches the consistency you want. Pour the filling into one pie crust and then place another one on top and brush with some egg wash and put in a few slits on the top. Bake at 375 degrees for about 40 minutes or until golden and you can see the filling bubbling.

Pasta is always popular. You can make a tomato based sauce or rose and add turkey to it along with some veggies or you can make more of an alfredo sauce with turkey added to it or you can make a baked tetrazzini.

Soup is also a good way to use up your leftovers. You can make a turkey noodle soup with veggies and your turkey. You can even add in some mashed potatoes in. If you like a really hearty soup you can make a chowder as well.  

Other less obvious but creative things to make are waffles topped with turkey trimmings, mashed potato pizza, cranberry mixed in with your oatmeal/yogurt, turkey poutine, frittata, quiche, turkey dumplings, apple/pumpkin pie milkshakes, turkey and stuffing stuffed peppers, turkey lasagna, turkey roll ups, turkey nachos, turkey chilli, enchiladas, turkey egg rolls, turkey and veggie casserole, turkey and veggie Shepard’s pie, turkey hash...the recipes are endless! 

One recipe that really stood out to me was this turkey dinner in a biscuit.

https://www.bobbiskozykitchen.com/2015/12/turkey-dinner-in-biscuit.html

Take a look here for more ideas..

https://www.google.ca/search?q=thanksgiving+leftovers&rlz=1C1PRFC_enCA731CA731&oq=thanksgiving+leftovers&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.3423j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8