Posts Tagged ‘cooking’
Stellar Review: Betty Crocker Molasses Cookies & Giveaway
In the interest of full disclosure, “The product, information, and prize pack has been provided by Betty Crocker through MyBlogSpark.”
I was recently contacted by MyBlogSpark about trying out the new Betty Crocker Molasses. In the past, my experience with MyBlogSpark has always been positive, because in addition to trying out some new food, I usually get some type of new kitchen gadget or gizmo, too. This time, in addition to the cookie mix, I received a mixing spoon/paddle, a cookie sheet, and an apron. Woo hoo!
I didn’t think I had ever tried Molasses Cookies before, but I was certainly intrigued. When I was given the chance to try this product out, I jumped at it. After all, who doesn’t like a good cookie?
Yes, this is a healthy living and weight loss blog, but I am a firm believer that anything is allowed in moderation. These cookies contained only 90 calories (for two, if you use the same size as called for in the directions) each. For those of you following Weight Watchers Points Plus (like me), they come out to 4 points for two cookies. I consider that an affordable indulgence.
In the interest of further disclosure, I must admit… I didn’t make these cookies. My lovely wife Tina did.
She said they were remarkably easy to make. Now we didn’t follow the directions exactly. Rather than make 36 cookies, we made 18 larger cookies. You’ll notice 15 fit on the cookie sheet. The other three were made in a different batch.
Tina placed them on the cookie sheet, stamped them with a fork, and baked them. How did they turn out?
Oh my gosh. I could not BELIEVE how amazingly soft these cookies were. Melt in your mouth good. They were soft, chewy, and they have a wonderful spice cookie flavor that makes them one of my very favorite cookies now. (White chocolate chip macadamia nut is still my absolute favorite, though.) They seriously taste like autumn.
I had one fresh out of the oven and figured they wouldn’t be nearly as good the next day.
Wrong. Just as good, still as soft. This is definitely a mix that we will be buying again.
In addition, anyone who would like a 75 cent off coupon for these cookies can go here (http://bit.ly/cookiescoupon)!
And… one lucky reader will win the same prize pack I won! You’ll get the cookie mix, a mixing spoon, a cool apron, and the baking sheet! (Winner must live in the U.S. Sorry non-US readers!)
You have several ways to enter below! For each entry, please leave a separate comment. (If you do everything but post it in one comment, I’m afraid that counts as only one entry.)
1. Leave me a comment here, answering the question, “What is your favorite occasion to bake spice cookies for?”
2. Like the Betty Crocker page on Facebook here (http://on.fb.me/molassesbcfb)
3. Like Stellar Path on Facebook.
4. Follow me on twitter!
5. Tweet this… uhm, tweet. “@stellarpath is giving away a @bettycrocker prize pack #myblogspark #giveaway http://bit.ly/q2a4ih”
This giveaway will run until September 21, 2011 at midnight, so hurry and get your entries in! The winner will be selected via random number generator at random.org and announced next Thursday, September 22nd.
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Pizza Night!
On this blog, I think I have previously mentioned we have themed food nights. We started off doing it to save money, as many of our themed nights are cheaper foods. For instance, Wednesday night is often Omelet and Oatmeal night. Both are cheap foods to fix.
We sometimes switch things up, and we won’t do a theme night if we are bored of it. For instance, last night, we changed the plan and just fixed a hamburger. We’ll probably be back to omelets and oatmeal next Wednesday.
I think I’ve also shared that in our family, I am the cook and Tina is the baker. She sometimes like to cook, too, but more often than not, I cook. Tina is a scientist at heart. She likes things exact, which is why she likes to bake. In baking, if you slightly mis-measure something, it messes up. I can’t even tell you how many cakes and cookies I failed at before I just finally give up. I like cooking much better. In cooking, you don’t even really have to measure. You just throw stuff together until it becomes food.
We’ve recently added a Themed Night that allows us to merge our respective talents. Friday night is now…
Pizza Night!
We both love pizza. We’ve made homemade pizza plenty of times, but it’s usually involved me buying a premade pizza crust.
Tina recently found a recipe for her own pizza crust. It’s the whole nine yards. Punching down the dough, letting it rise, all that stuff that I, with my complete lack of baking ability, cannot do. However, I can cook the pizza.
Okay, my contribution to Pizza Night is pretty weak, because anyone can slather pizza sauce, cheese, and veggies on a pizza crust. But just the same – we still do it together because we’re still newlyweds and it’s not yet disgusting how much time we spend together. Right?
Friday night’s dinner is now my favorite of the week. Tina’s crust is AMAZING. I may ask her to do a guest post sometime this month on how she makes her dough. But I have to share this photo, and this is seriously how she prepares her crust. Not a staged photo.
Is my wife awesome or what?
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Veggie Dish #2 – Savory Sweet Potato Chips
Sorry that I’ve been a little blog MIA this week. Not sure what happened, because this hasn’t been a particularly crazy week. I guess I just got a little caught up in the “is it snowing yet” anticipation that I really should have outgrown once I graduated high school. My gym etiquette series is not over, but I am taking a brief hiatus. In the meantime, read this post on gym etiquette by the awesome Jody at Truth2BeingFit who has logged WAY more gym hours than me and knows WAY more about fitness than I do, too!
As I stated last week when I reported on my veggie dish, I decided to change it from an entirely vegetarian meal into just a new vegetarian dish. That means it may or may not be the entire meal. My main reason for wanting to do this is to expose myself to new and interesting vegetables and dishes.
This week, I chose to make a concoction of my own creation – Savory Sweet Potato Chips!
I eat sweet potatoes at least once a week, so this isn’t a new meal for me. However, I’ll admit I usually eat them in a sweet manner. They have nutmeg or cinnamon or sometimes just plain. I’ve never made them savory, however, so I decided to try that tonight.
The result – delicious. I think I may like them better this way. Try it yourself; it couldn’t have been easier.
Start off with a sweet potato. Oh, and go ahead and preheat your oven to 450 degrees, because it really doesn’t take long to get them prepped.
I washed and peeled mine because this one was trying to start a sweet potato family and I wasn’t sure how that would taste.
After washing it, I sliced it into 1/4″-ish slices like chips. This could just as easily have been done as fries, but tonight, I thought chips sounded better. I then put them in a large microwave safe container and nuked them for three minutes to help with the speed of cooking. If you don’t mind waiting longer, you can bake the entire time. I wanted to expedite the process. (Side note – if you nuke your potatoes a bit before you bake them, they cook a lot faster but still taste from-the-oven baked.)
Then drizzle a small amount of olive oil (less than a tablespoon) and a small amount of cornstarch (around a tablespoon) on your nuked potatoes. They’ll be hot, so carefully toss them around to cover them with the oil and cornstarch.
At this time, you need to add some seasonings to make them savory. The cornstarch will make them crunchy but otherwise won’t add any flavor. For my batch, I used a little garlic powder, sea salt, and black pepper. You could add smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, chili powder… the sky is truly the limit. (And if you wanted to do sweet instead of savory, just toss in some cinnamon, nutmeg, or allspice or the like.)
When they are fully tossed, lay them out in a single layer on a sprayed cookie sheet. You want to spray the cookie sheet with some non-stick cooking spray or they are a beast to try and get up.
Slide them in the oven for about fifteen minutes, pull them out, flip each one, and put them back in the oven for ten to fifteen minutes. Watch closely and pull them out before they burn.
When they have turned nicely brown, remove them from the oven and serve. Simple as that!
The verdict – very good, but I should have used more spices. This dish will definitely be made again.
How do you like your sweet potatoes?
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Erin’s Guest Post: Peach Crisp & Wedding Bells
Hey guys; at the time you are reading this, I am now a married man. Yay me! 
And while I probably won’t get to look at this blog again until I return from our honeymoon in a week, I didn’t want it to be dead quiet around here, so I asked a few of my favorite bloggers to fill in for me. Erin’s blog is probably one of the very first weight loss blogs I started reading late last year. In the past year, she’s become a great friend, and I am honored to have her write here at Stellar Path.
***
First of all, I’d like to thank Jeremy for asking me to guest post while he’s away gettin’ hitched! I’m so honored Jeremy asked me to rob his blog for a day! I wish I could be there to celebrate with you & Tina!
From the bottom of my heart, MANY CONGRATULATIONS, Jeremy & Tina! May your marriage be ever-blessed. May the good times overpower the tough times. May you cherish the good times. May you have the strength and tenacity to endure the tough times. May your love for each other always grow and mature. In short, I’ll stop being a sap and say: I hope you’re ready. You’re gonna be stuck together for a long time! (I kid, I kid.)
Before I get to the sweet stuff this blog post is made of, I want to share the chorus from a song. I’m not a huge country fan, but every time I hear this song, I’m reminded of what love is all about…thanks to Lee Brice, I’m reminded to “LOVE LIKE CRAZY.” The chorus gets me every time; it’s such a powerful message:
Be a best friend, tell the truth, and overuse I love you
Go to work, do your best, don’t outsmart your common sense
Never let your prayin’ knees get lazy
And love like crazy
Can I get an Amen?! Love like crazy, you guys. Ok, the rest of you (haha). If you don’t know me or my blog, I’m Erin from Erin Takes Control (waves “hi”). Pull up a chair…that was the longest introduction I’ve ever produced, I’m sure…sorry about that. I’m a sap for weddings!!!
While Jeremy’s away, I’ve decided to share with you an incredibly easy and freakin’ delish peach crisp. It’s so simple; I can prepare all the ingredients, bake it, do the dishes and put them away within an hour. I know that Jeremy & Tina love to cook. I decided I would share my recipe with you in celebration of their marriage.
Erin’s Super-Quick Peach Crisp
• ½ cup old-fashioned oatmeal
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• ¼ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ cup cold butter (unsalted or salted, either one works)
• Dash salt (if you use salted butter, this is optional)
• 5 cups diced fresh peaches
Place oatmeal, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Use a whisk to combine. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. If you don’t have a butter-cutter (that’s a technical term) use the back of a fork. If you use a fork, the butter will need to soften (SLIGHTLY). I just micro for 10 seconds if I don’t want to dirty the butter-cutter, but don’t let it get too soft or you will ruin the crumble!!! Once the mixture resembles coarse crumbs, resist the urge to eat some of the mixture (it’s soooo good! Don’t ask me how I know that. Really. Don’t ask.).
Place peaches in a 9×9 glass baking dish (I used Pyrex) and spread them out into a single layer. If you have enough dices for more than one layer, make sure they are layered evenly. Top with crumble mixture and spread it around so it evenly tops the peaches.
Bake for 30-40 minutes in a 350 degree oven. The crisp is done when the already brown crumbs turn golden and begin to caramelize. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack. Serve with or without vanilla ice cream.
TA DA!!!!!!
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