Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Adventures in Baking: Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies


I told you I wouldn't stay away too long!! I have so many great recipes to share so you will be seeing a lot more of me. I'm totally addicted to Pinterest these days so I am finding new food blogs and recipes all the time; as well as fun baby things, home decor ideas, and DIY projects that I'm dying to try. Back to the food... I had some ripe bananas and now that I have the opportunity to spend more time in my lovely new kitchen I figured rather than waste them and throw them away I should use them. I perused Pinterest where there were plenty of banana bread recipes but then I came across this cookie recipe and I had to try it. Bananas and oats and chocolate chips just sounded so damn good. I gave it a shot and I have to say my first attempt at making cookies from scratch was totally successful. Ok, ok, I'll admit they were a bit spongy and some got a little dark on the bottom but I think that's easily fixed by cutting back the baking time a bit. I also may have over mixed my dough but quite frankly, the Kitchen Aid Mixer and I just started dating so we are still getting to know each other. Now that I know her a little better I'm sure they'll be close to perfect next time.

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

About 1 medium banana, mashed
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lg egg
about 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups old fashion rolled oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup semisweet choc chips (I really like a cookie with lots of chocolate chips so I suggest adding 3/4 to 1 cup)
cooking spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine first 5 ingredients, through vanilla extract, in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth. Add egg, beat well.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups and level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl stirring with a whisk. Add flour mixture to banana mixture in bowl, beat with mixer at medium speed until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Coat baking sheets with cooking spray. Drop batter by the tablespoon onto cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake in pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until cookies are golden. Cool on pans 2 minutes them move to wire cooling racks to finish cooling.

recipe adapted from myrecipes.com

Monday, January 23, 2012

Life at the Farmhouse Since I Last Saw You and... a BIG announcement!

Why hello there! it's been a very long 5 months and I'm truly sorry I stayed away. I've made a couple attempts to get back into this blog thing but for some reason I just wasn't able to see it through... until now! I started to write posts to tell you all about life at the farmhouse over the last few months but frankly, when I look at my favorite blogs, I hate when there is too much to read. Thus, I figured I'd tell you the tale of Fall 2011 at the farmhouse in as few words as possible but with a few photos so you get the gist of things.

Here goes... Hurricane Irene hit the farmhouse on August 28th, 2011. We went to bed a little before midnight on Saturday night with rain and heavy winds. We woke up Sunday morning surrounded by about 6-8 feet of water covering our entire 2 acres of property and beyond.



Eventually it came into the house where we ended up with about a foot of water on our first floor.



 

We had to evacuate by boat and didn't return until the water had gone down a few days later. Because of the flooding inside our home, we had mold and bacteria in our walls therefore we basically had to renovate our entire first floor as walls were ripped out to get rid of the mold.


p.s. this is what your house looks like when a restoration company comes into your home after a natural disaster to clean out mold and bacteria. I had no time to pack anything so this is what my house looked like for days.


It is now January 2012 and we have a home again! We fully re-did our kitchen which I absolutely love and starting a couple weeks ago was finally able to start cooking in again.



As for that BIG announcement I promised, if you didn't figure it out from the last two photos... we are expecting!!!! I'm 29 weeks pregnant with a little baby girl Keane due April 7th. We are absolutely ecstatic. In all honesty, who gives a sh*t about a little water in our house when we have a baby to look forward to!


2012 is gonna be BIG and I promise not to stay away anymore! I have a few recipes to share with you that I've made in my new kitchen and promise you'll enjoy so I'll see you soon... in way less than 5 months!!