Simple things excite me.

Sometimes, there are things in life which are just so amazing you can't believe someone didn't think of it sooner.

I love bagels. They are a frequent addition to my lunch routine. Basically, I eat them 3-4 times a week. Yum. The downside to this is bagels aren't really all that great for you. Sure, I get the whole wheat variety but those suckers still have somewhere around 240 + calories. Which when you add cream cheese(low fat) and turkey, it all adds up.

Well on Monday Ryan are I were doing some grocery shopping and low and behold, what's this on the shelf?
Bagel Thins. (cue heavenly music)
Made by the Thomas brand: http://thomasbagelthins.com/
They are bagels, but half the thickness and half the calories! What a great idea. You still get the bagely taste and texture and they aren't as bad for you.
Usually I only buy things which are on sale, but I HAD to try these. I was so excited.

So wondering what the verdict is on these?

I am in love! They're delicious and you don't feel like you're missing out on any of the bagel goodness. I hope they keep making these because I plan on eating these forever. Or until I get sick of bagels which usually happens every 4-5 months (but then I start eating them again shortly after).

Pioneer Woman book signing.

I'm sure you've heard me mention Pioneerwoman.com at some point. I love her blog. She has great photography tips and delicious recipes.

Well, I found out she was coming to Seattle(aka, Lake Forest Park) for her cook book. Excited!

Now, I unfortunately fell asleep on my couch for a couple hours and woke up after the signing had already started. I was bummed. But, we decided to head over to Third Place Books anyways to see how long it was going to go on.

Apparently, they were giving out "tickets" to each person and you waited until the letter on your ticket got called to get your book signed. When we got there, they were on letter C and we ended up getting letter J. Ryan and I had a long wait ahead of us.

To make a boring long story short, we went back to the bookstore at 9:15pm and didn't get my book signed until around 10pm. I was tired. We were pretty much the last group to go. We met some nice people in line and chatted for a bit, which made the wait go a little faster.

Finally, I met Ree, she signed my book and I got a quick photo. She gets a lot of points in my book for sitting there for 5 hours so EVERYONE could get their book signed. You rock Ree!

We promptly returned home and fell asleep on the couch.

Cherry Cheesecake Cookies

These were so delicious and pretty easy to make. This recipe made a TON though.

Ingredients:

3-½ cups All-purpose Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
2 packages Cream Cheese (8 Oz Packages) (I used low fat)
2-½ sticks Butter, Softened
1-½ cup Sugar
2 whole Large Eggs
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs (See Note Below)
3 cans (21 Oz. Can) Cherry Pie Filling, Drained (I used the less sugar type)

Preparation instructions:

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese, butter, and sugar until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until incorporated. Reduce speed to low, add flour mixture, and mix until just combined. Refrigerate dough until firm, at least 30 minutes.

Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Place graham cracker crumbs in a shallow dish.
Roll dough into 1 ½ inch balls, then roll in crumbs. Place balls 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Using a tablespoon measure, make indentation in the center of each ball. Place 3 cherries in each dimple. Bake until golden around the edges, about 12 to 14 minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway through baking. Cool for 5 minutes on the sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

(Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 2 days.)

Note: to make graham cracker crumbs, process 8 whole graham crackers in a food processor until finely ground.

Makes 4 dozen cookies.

Can there be more than 24 hours in a day please?

I feel like I never have enough time... I have a bunch of things to blog about. Hopefully I can get somewhat caught up this week.



In the meantime, these are so totally cute and I really want them. From Williams-Sonoma. Farm animal pancake molds... These may just end up in my kitchen at some point. They're so fun!

Honey Oatmeal Bread

I've never made bread before. I've never even touched yeast before. But I found this recipe which claimed to be easy and sounded really yummy....
So I say to myself "Self, let's try making some bread".
Ryan of course helped because he is amazing like that. We had one mishap with the yeast, we killed it actually, but after figuring out how we killed it, we avoided doing so the second try. It turned out perfect and amazing. Not too hard either, just a little time consuming.

Ingredients

• 4-½ teaspoons Active Dry Yeast
• ½ cups Honey
• 4 Tablespoons Butter
• 2-¼ cups Water
• 1 Tablespoon Salt
• 2-¾ cups All-purpose Flour
• 4 cups Whole Wheat Flour
• 1 cup Quick Cooking Oats
• 1 whole Egg

Preparation Instructions

In a medium bowl (or in a saucepan), heat the butter and honey until the butter is melted. Add the water; the mixture should be warm (Around 100 degrees). Stir in the yeast and let sit until bubbly, about 10 minutes (this is called making a sponge).

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine salt, yeast mixture, 2 cups whole wheat flour and 1 cup all-purpose flour. With mixer on low, gradually blend liquid into dry ingredients until just blended. Increase the speed to medium, beat for two minutes, occasionally scraping bowl. Gradually beat in the egg and one cup of whole wheat flour to make a thick batter. Continue beating for two minutes. Stir in oats, 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup all purpose flour. Knead till smooth and elastic. Use more flour if dough is too sticky (I usually add about 2/3 cup more).

Place in a greased bowl and cover. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 1 hour.

Punch the dough down. Turn onto a floured surface; cover with the bowl and let rise for 15 minutes. Shape into loaves and let rise for 1 hour in greased 9 x 5 loaf pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes.

(You can make the dough in a bread machine, using bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. Use the dough mode setting for the largest size loaf. Follow the recipe’s directions for the second rise and baking.)

Rising

More rising

Finished product

mmmmmmm cupcakes...

So I found a interesting looking recipe on The Pioneer Woman (one of my fave blogs). So I decided to try it out. Olive oil cupcakes with lemon and thyme. Oh my goodness. They're so good I've made these cupcakes 3 times in less than a week! They are nice and dense and fresh. And you can pretend they aren't too bad for you because they use olive oil instead of butter! I can't seem to keep these around for very long, they get eaten up so quickly.

Olive Oil Cupcakes with Lemon and Thyme (from thepioneerwoman.com)

Prep time: 15 min Cook time: 20 Difficulty: Easy Servings: 12

Ingredients:

1 Tablespoon melted butter

1-1/3 cup sugar

2 Tablespoons Grated lemon zest (2 large lemons worked for me)

2 Whole Eggs

1/4 Cup Olive Oil

2/3 Cup Whole Milk

1 Cup flour

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Minced Fresh Thyme (I used lemon thyme)

For the Glaze:

1-1/2 cup Powdered Sugar

2 Tablespoons Melted Butter

3 Table spoons Fresh Lemon Juice, or more as needed.

Preparation Instructions:

Preheat you oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a muffin pan with melted butter and then dust with a little flour. (I used muffin/cupcake cups and was happier with how they turned out). Pulse the sugar and lemon zest in a blender until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, then gradually pour in the olive oil and milk, pulsing until emulsified into a thin batter, about 30 seconds. Don't overblend or the cakes will be too puffy.

Whisk one cup flour, the baking powder, salt and thyme in small bowl. Add to the blender in 2 batches until just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake until the cakes just start to pull away from the sides of the pan and spring back when lightly touched, about 25 minutes depending on your oven.

In the meantime, make the glaze: whisk the powdered sugar, melted butter and lemon juice until smooth, adding more lemon juice if too thick. Drizzle over the cooled cakes and garnish with a thyme sprig. (I dipped my cupcakes in the glaze).

First BBQ session of the season

Well the sky was blue and the sun was out yesterday. I'd say that calls for busting out the BBQ!

Ryan grilled us up some delicous turkey burgers and I wandered around outside taking pictures. As long as the sun was on us it wasn't too bad out, but as soon as it started to dip below the Olympics, it got cold and we could see our breath. Luckily, that's about the time the burgers got done.

I can't wait for nice weather and hanging out on our back deck!

Almost done!

Getting the bun all ready. I ALWAYS make a face with my ketchup and mustard. Silly I know, but I like it. :)

Finished product!