Whole Wheat Veggie Pizza Puffs

I saw this recipe and wanted to give it a try. It was our Sunday lunch while we watched the latest episode of The Office. Next time, I'm going to play with the fillings a bit. I'm thinking some onion and green pepper with the olives would be good and maybe a bit of oregano and/or basil in the mix. These are super easy to make and versatile. I used our homemade vegetable spaghetti sauce for dipping, instead of marinara like the recipe suggested. More veggies is a good thing :) Oh, and the other bonus to this recipe is it uses whole wheat flour instead of white. Cheers!

I got this recipe over at the Cooking with My Kid blog. Check it out! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf

This is such a delicious vegan moist quick bread. I'm all about cutting out too much fat in my baking so this was a delight. I made it for my sweetie who loves chocolate and pumpkin but doesn't do well with too much fat in foods so this was perfect! Off to have a slice now even. I hope you try it too.

I found the recipe on one of my regular blog stops - Post Punk Kitchen. For the Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf recipe go here. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Hello Flavorful Fall

I am officially in the Fall mood! This is confirmed by the overwhelming feeling to bake delicious treats for friends and family! I'm already making plans for the coming holiday treats - Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, oh my! I just have to make sure I burn some of those sugar and butter calories on the elliptical or bike. :)

So for my first treat of the season I made a Peach and Blueberry Cobbler from one of my favorite cook books, King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains (King Arthur Flour Cookbooks). They have a great website with lots of recipes to try. I didn't see the exact recipe for this Cobbler but will add it to this post if anyone is interested. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

My Favorite Oatmeal Raisin Bars

(image from Martha Stewart website.)

I couldn't resist making these awesome bars today. I made a tasty selection of desserts for my co-workers for our holiday party in December. These were one of my favorites. This time around, I changed up a few things to make them slightly healthier. For example, I did half white and half whole wheat flour and I replaced 1/4 c. of the butter with Smart Balance. They turned out soooo good!

Give it a try you won't be disappointed. You can find the recipe HERE. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Chocolate Chip Muffin Cookies

I made these tasty chocolate chip muffin cookies this afternoon to take into the studio tomorrow in celebration of all the January birthdays (including mine!).

I came across this recipe at Cooking With My Kid. If you like to cook and/or bake, this is another site to add to your google reader.

Have a sweet Monday! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Marshmallow Cookie Sandwiches

This is the new recipe I tried this year - the Marshmallow Cookie Sandwiches. They are a bit of work, but wow are they tasty! I'm going to cut them down to bite size bits and share them with co-workers this week. I made the graham crackers from scratch and they are way good. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Whole Wheat Zucchini Bread

I made some quick bread this weekend. I have the recipe over on my very neglected TastesWell food blog.

Get this great recipe here!

Tweet Follow @kellymedina

I made

this and loved it. Recipe here. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

New Baking Book

I got this book, King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking, earlier this week and we got to try the first recipe today. Yum!

You can find the details and recipe posted on my cooking site for Whole Grain Pancake Mix.

This is a great recipe - I have had other whole wheat pancakes and this just blows them off the skillet. Try it! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Baking - Oatmeal-Raisin Bars

A tasty treat I made recently.

I altered the recipe by replacing white flour with whole wheat flour. I think it turned out great - so if you prefer eating whole wheat flour this recipe is flexible. Oh, and since we were both wanting something with a little chocolate in it, I did half raisins and half semi-sweet chips. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Baking - Coconut-Pineapple Loaf Cake

I made a Coconut-Pineapple Loaf Cake today. It was a new recipe in the recent FOOD magazine.

Ingredients

Pre-baked

...and done! It is a tasty cake - the recipe asks for pineapple chunks, thought next time I will crush down the pineapple to slightly smaller sizes. But it is a great cake and not too sweet.

I had nothing for creative challenge today, some thing tomorrow I hope! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Strawberry Shortcake

I made this Strawberry Shortcake the other night. The first night we had some I completely forgot to take a picture before gobbling it down. Tonight, I remembered!


This is the only picture I took while cooking - I thought it was a pretty interesting photo. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Baking - Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Mmmm carrots! I can't wait to grow my own in the near future! :)

The bare muffins cooling before being iced.

Yum! Cream cheese frosting with some walnuts for decoration.

I used this recipe - the coconut is fantastic in it. I have never made a carrot cake using coconut, I like!

Oh, I almost forgot to add - I love to have something on in the background while I bake. Last night I had this movie playing - I love it! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Baking Break

As some of you know I find baking to be therapeutic. After a few weeks of all the "gotta sell the house!" business I am due for a little baking break this evening. I have been wanting to bake something for a few days now and I knew we forgot to buy more butter last time we went shopping. I found a recipe in my binder and altered it to work with what supplies I had on hand.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie (for when you don't have any butter)

1/3 c. Canola oil
2/3 c. packed light brown sugar
1/4 c. egg substitute (or 1 egg)
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c. whole wheat flour
1 c. old fashioned oats
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together oil, sugar, egg, vanilla. In another bowl blend together flour, oats, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips. Add in the dry mix to the wet mix and blend till combined.

Drop tablespoon onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 15 minutes.
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They really hit the spot for both of us! Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Zucchini Cranberry Bread

Mmm, one of my favorite quick breads is Zucchini Cranberry. I make it with whole wheat flour and it turns out perfect.

You can make 1 5" x 9" quick bread or 10 muffins with this recipe.

1 3/4 c whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1 c sugar
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 c finely grated zucchini (1 to 2 mediums) Usually only takes one.
1/2 c fresh or frozen whole cranberries.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Butter or spray bread pan or muffin tin. In medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixer, combine eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla. Stir in the zucchini. Add the flour mixture, stir to combine. Careful no to overmix. Fold in the cranberries. Divide batter up for muffins.

Baking:
Quick Bread: for 40-45 minutes
Muffins: 25-30 minutes
or until bread is golden and toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Rotate midway through cook time.

Cooling:
Quick Bread: remove bread from pan after cooling slightly onto a wire rack to cool.
Muffins: Turn muffins on their sides in their cups to cool. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Double Chocolate Cheesecake

Made Chris one mini and a 6" double chocolate cheesecake for his birthday. He ate too much the first night and got a belly ache. But he recovered for the next day and resumed eating - what a trooper! I used this recipe - though I made graham cracker crust instead of chocolate wafers, and I did half of the recipe since we did not need to have a huge 9" cheesecake tempting us!

I'm so glad it is Friday! It was one of those weeks... gah. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Last Day

A co-worker's last day is tomorrow - she has been working at the studio for 16 years. I made her favorite cookie, macaroon dipped in chocolate and made a card from one of my Illustration Friday submissions she said she liked. I made up a box to take in for everyone to have some, but gave her three of her very own. I'm glad we had left overs for Chris and I. :)

Update: The macaroons were a huge hit. I heard "best macaroon I have ever had", so if you want to make them use the above recipe. I rotate the pans half way through the cook time. Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Oh Cookie!

I ended up baking this evening. It was one of those nights to take a break from the computer after work. It can be a bit over kill to work on a computer all day and then come home and do it more. I'm not complaining, because I love that I am busily creating things for myself when I get home, but some nights it is hard to do much on a computer and tonight was one of those nights.

It was a nice evening :)

(Chewy chocolate chip oatmeal cookies. I had some left over white chocolate chips, so I added those with semi-sweets. Oh, and did whole wheat flour instead of white.) Tweet Follow @kellymedina

The Perfect Dessert Crime

I was busily trying to catch up on all my blogs and just cracked up when I saw these cupcakes and then had a gross out moment too (I am not much of a meat eater - insanely picky and easily grossed out). There is a recipe for something similar in this book which I will be treating myself to with Christmas money.

I get teased a lot by my family that live in Idaho for not eating meat, I hear a lot of "I can't imagine NOT eating meat" or "Gimme meat!", usually it is announced several times to folks "Kelly doesn't eat meat, ya know" and the odd looks follow. I usually scramble to say "well I eat fish sometimes.." hoping to hide the glowing horn that just sprouted from my forehead as if my mother just announced I am a meat-hating mythical creature of some sort. It used to drive me nuts when I was younger. Over the years I have learned to shrug it off a bit more - but not always.

I think these would be pretty shocking (at first) to make for the family. I am seriously going to try and remember to do that on my next visit. They better watch out or I might add in some tofu and make them all melt! Yeah, they completely and totally fear tofu, regardless they have never had it, know what is or even what it is made from, simply it IS to be FEARED!

Gotta love 'em! :)

*looking around evilly, rubbing her hands together slowly, she begins to plot the perfect dessert crime...muahaha*
(slight dramatization) Tweet Follow @kellymedina

Christmas Eve Yum!

Pre-cutting

After cutting to show the yummy filling!

I made this Chocolate Hazelnut Yule Log for our Christmas eve dessert. It is very tasty and light due to the frosting pretty much being whipped cream. I love the mushrooms!

I don't have any special serving platters so this is on the cooking sheet. I need to get one.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas eve! Tweet Follow @kellymedina