Oatmeal peanut butter cup cookies

Over the weekend my god sister came to stay over my house and we decided to bake oatmeal cookies but not just any old oatmeal cookie, we put in reese’s peanut butter cups! I love peanut butter and with chocolate, it’s magical! Actually, every time we bake I am the one who bakes and she waits patiently but this time she took pictures for me. Thanks!

all the ingredients mixed together.

Ready for the oven!

baked and ready to eat!

Oatmeal peanut butter cup cookies
The recipe was adapted from the oatmeal raisin cookies and I swapped out the raisins for the peanut butter cups. If you want you could add 1/2 cup of dried cranberries for some tartness to balance out the sweetness of the peanut butter and chocolate. I would have done that but sadly I did not have any.

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup of brown sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 egg

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking spoon

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups oatmeal

1 cup mini Reese’s peanut butter cups, cut into quarters

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter, brown sugar, milk, egg and in a large bowl until combined.
Add flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt into the butter mixture and mix together.
Stir in oats and peanut butter cups. Drop tablespoonfuls onto aluminum foil or wax paper covered cookie sheets.
Bake 12 to 15 mins. Remove from oven and let it cool

Smoothie & Oatmeal raisin cookies

Yesterday I tried to make a super healthy smoothie with mango, banana, flaxseeds, kale, spinach, cranberry juice, yogurt and blueberry. Before I blended the ingredients it looked very colorful and pretty but oh my goodness afterwards…it did not look appealing. I have to say it didn’t taste that bad but after the first cup I couldn’t drink anymore, so that won’t be happening again anytime soon. Although my smoothie was better than the smoothie/liquified food a youtuber, named Alfie Deyes, made from a fry up, a traditional English breakfast. (click his name to see the video, eww but it’s funny!)

From colorful to a really bad shade of blurry beige.

On to a successful recipe, Oatmeal Raisin Cookies! Continuing on the oatmeal trend, from my previous recipe, these cookies smell & taste delicious (it’s that darn cinnamon). Also, it makes you feel a little less guilty for eating a cookie since its made with oatmeal. The reason I made the cookies was because my father requested me to make them for meeting he was going to have today and being a wonderful daughter I made them.

This is the butter, brown sugar, milk, egg and vanilla mixture. If you did not leave the butter out to soften, pop it into the microwave for about 30 seconds and out comes soften/melted butter. The mixture looks weird and lumpy but it’s okay, keep going!

Mixing the flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt into the butter mixture.

After the butter and flour mixture has been combined it will be smooth and velvety.

Stirred in the oatmeal and raisins until you see everything coated with the butter/flour mixture.


Done and plated! yum!

Oatmeal raisin cookies
adapted from sun maid raisin oatmeal cookie.
I got this recipe from the back of a sun-maid raisin package. Though I changed the amount of sugar and mixing pattern cause I realized after baking a lot that American recipes tend to add a boatload of sugar, which I don’t want extra if I don’t need it. As for the mixing I got lazy, skipped a step and it turns out perfectly fine.

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup of brown sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 cups oatmeal

1 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat butter, brown sugar, milk, egg and vanilla in a large bowl until combined.
Add flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt into the butter mixture and mix together.
Stir in oats and raisins. Drop tablespoonfuls onto aluminum foil or wax paper covered cookie sheets.
Bake 12 to 15 mins. Remove from oven and let it cool.

Granola

I thought I would share this granola recipe as a healthy way to “spring” into the new season (you see what I did there). A very simple recipe that I learned a long time ago and the best thing about it is that it makes your home smell delicious! While you are baking, turn on some music and do  a little dance. Today I was listening to Justin Timberlake’s new album “20/20 experience”, it’s pretty good and usually I don’t listen to his music.

I buy nuts in the bulk, so I put them in a plastic bag and use a meat tenderizer to crush the nuts. This is especially good if you are feeling stressed, it’s a great stress reliever, you get to hit the nuts and have a little scream while doing that and if someone asks why, you can tell them that you are making granola.

The ingredients and tools you will need for granola. As you can see my flaxseeds are not grounded there since it’s better to ground it when needed to keep all the flaxseeds fresh and your body utilizes the nutrients of omega 3 fatty acids in the seeds better when grounded. I used a coffee bean grinder to ground my flaxseeds, works perfectly.
I love cinnamon, this is what makes your home smell great, it has shown to give great health benefits. I would also put in wheat germ but I ran out, it’s great to add this since it provides protein and fiber.

Mix the oil and honey till it looks like this, a great golden mixture.

What the granola looks like when it’s all mixed together. You will see that everything has a shiny coat on it from the oil/honey mixture.

The granola spread out evenly, all ready to go into the oven. see you in 20 to 40 minutes!

Tada! granola all done and ready to eat with yogurt and raisins!

Granola

6 cups of oatmeal

1 cup of honey

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups crushed walnut, cashew & almond

1/2 cup ground flax seed

1/2 cup sunflower seed,

1/2 table spoon cinnamon

Directions:

Pre-heat oven to 250 degrees F

Mix the honey and oil first in a large bowl until it’s an even mixture.

Then mix the honey/oil with the rest of the ingredients until all ingredients appear shiny.

Spread the mixed ingredients thinly on a baking sheet (line the baking sheet with aluminum foil for easier clean up and transferring later).

Bake for a total of 40 minutes, at 20 minutes stir the mixture and re-spread it.

If you put the mixture on two baking sheets on different layers in the oven, swap the position of the baking sheets when you do the mixing at the 20th minute.

After you take out the granola, let it cool and then transfer the granola into a container.

You can enjoy your homemade granola with yogurt or eat it as is for a snack or mix it with some raisins or dried cranberries as trail mix.