Hamburger Cookies - A "No Bake" Recipe

It's been a busy summer, and for the most part on our down times we're ready to just unwind with some swimming, playing, and and other summer activities. But occasionally we get inspired to tackle some new projects. 

In the last few weeks we've been invited to several barbecues. I used to make these fun and easy "no bake" cookies with my mom as a kid, and they are the perfect treats to bring to a barbecue! 

Even better, while they are super cute they are also a "No Bake" recipe which means you don't have to run your oven in order to enjoy them. Perfect for hot summer days. 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

The season for pumpkin flavored treats is almost over, as the winter holiday baking season is fast approaching.

But, before it goes I wanted to share one last yummy treat. (Although I have to admit I love these enough to make them all year round.) I was introduced to pumpkin cookies several years ago through our Farm-to-School program. Over the years I've made a few tweaks to settle on this final recipe.

Chai Spiced Cookies with Egg Nog Glaze

It's that time of the Holiday Season where we focus on baking. We like making treats to share with neighbors, friends, and others. We're always looking for easy and yummy recipes to create with. I'm a big fan of chai teas and I love getting a hot one as a treat while wrapping up holiday shopping.

With that in mind, I tweaked one of our favorite rolled sugar cookie recipes to create these Chai Spiced Cookies with Egg Nog Glaze.

One Bowl Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

As we've shared before, the boys love muffins. Banana muffins are usually our go-to recipe as we almost always wind up with overripe bananas in the house. I'm always looking for ways to make them a little quicker and easier, which is why I've come up with this one bowl banana chocolate chip muffin recipe. Fast to make and easy to clean up.

When I make these, I always make them in our KitchenAid mixer, which makes the mixing fast and smooth. It had actually been a while since I made some, but we were pretty excited to enjoy a fresh batch this week.

Homemade Strawberry Shortcake

It's strawberry season here in our neck of the woods, which means it's Strawberry Shortcake time. And to me, nothing says summer quite like strawberries.

I've been playing with our recipe a little bit and tweaked our favorite biscuit recipe to make it a sweeter version for shortcake. 

Oatmeal Maple Raisin Cookies

This month we've loved experimenting with different varieties of oatmeal cookies. We've had a lot of fun playing around with our favorite recipe, adding in and taking away different ingredients.

One of the favorite varieties we've come up with is this Oatmeal Maple Raisin Cookie.

It's a cookie with a classic oatmeal cookie taste, except it has a maple twist. We did use a dry, maple sugar in addition to maple syrup. Sometimes this sugar is called "indian sugar" and can be found in baking stores and some larger grocery stores.  

Shortbread Fossil Cookies

We love tying snacks into our new weekly themes, which led us to create these yummy shortbread fossil cookies. Not only did they fit in with the dinosaur fun we've been having, but they are perfectly delicious too!

I've seen a couple of recipes like this before, but we based ours on a buttery shortbread. For this recipe I did most of the prep work and cooking while Big Brother helped with pressing in the images. This is a very soft dough, and as it was a very warm day that made the rolling and cutting of the dough a little trickier. 

Ingredients:

2 sticks of unsalted butter (softened to room temperature) 

1/2 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Red, White, & Blue Oatmeal Cookies

We love experimenting with different ingredients in oatmeal cookies, a few weeks ago we posted our favorite Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies. We also love holiday recipes, and this week we decided to combine the two with our new recipe for Red, White, and Blue Oatmeal Cookies.

 

The colors come from the add-ins: red craisins, white chocolate chips, and blue dried blueberries. The combination is yummy and creates the three colors with out artificial dyes. 

As always Big Brother was eager to help with the creating of the cookies, which included sampling the ingredients. This time he wanted to try mixing the ingredients by hand, but quickly discovered he liked the mixer better! 

Kids Cook: Banana Bread

We love getting kids into the kitchen, and this easy banana bread recipe means that everyone can get involved in the making of this treat.

If you've been reading our blog for a while now you know we love making muffins on a regular basis, but banana bread is also a staple in our household. The tips below really can be used with any banana bread recipe, but this just happens to be our favorite. 

Rocky Road Brownies

I discovered an amazing new brownie recipe today. So good, I made them twice. Yes, twice. In one day.

I wanted to give a thank you gift to a friend who loves brownies. And although I've developed a pretty good brownie recipe over the years I wanted to make something special. I was thinking about creating something like a "s'mores brownie" to go along with this coming weekend's theme of kicking off summer when I stumbled across this recipe for Rocky Road Brownies. A few tweaks, some time in the oven, and these brownies looked and smelled amazing. So amazing, that after they'd been delivered I knew I had to make a batch for us to try as well. Hence, two batches in one day. Our batch didn't let us down; this chocolate, gooey, nutty treat is perfect for a rainy day (or really any day.)

I didn't really plan to post the recipe today, so please excuse the lack of "how to" pictures.

Rocky Road Brownies

Ingredients:

1 stick of unsalted butter (plus a little extra for buttering the pan)

1 bag (12 oz.) of semisweet chocolate chips ( I used Ghirardelli chips)

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup flour

1 cup mini-marshmallows

3/4 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8 x 8 pan and then line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on the sides. Butter the paper as well. 

2. In a microwave safe bowl melt the stick of unsalted butter and 1 cup of the semisweet chips. (It's easy to burn the chocolate so I recommend melting the butter and chocolate in small increments and then stirring. I melted for 45 seconds, stirred, and then for another 45 seconds.) 

3. After the chocolate is melted add in the eggs and salt, stir until combined. 

4. Stir in the sugars and vanilla. 

5. Add the flour and stir until just combined. Pour into the prepared pan. 

6. Bake on the middle rack for 30 minutes. 

7. Remove the brownies from the oven and immediately sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips onto the top of the brownies. Sprinkle the chopped walnuts and marshmallows on top of the chocolate chips. 

8. Put the brownies back in the oven and bake for another 5 to 7 minutes until the marshmallows begin to toast. 

9. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Carefully use the extra parchment paper to lift the brownies out of the pan and onto the wire rack. Continue to let the brownies cool until the topping seems to hold together when gently touched with a finger. (Probably about another half hour at least.)

10. Cut the brownies up and enjoy!