Afternoon Baking

My sister is traveling to Philadelphia this weekend for a Memorial Day party with her in-laws and volunteered to bring a dessert to add to the party spread. However, somewhere between her volunteering and Wednesday night, I guess she decided that she really wasn’t in the mood for baking because I received this text message from her:

Lucky for her, she knows that I am always up for baking and gladly agreed to help her out.

The only problem came this morning when I realized I didn’t have any idea of what I wanted to make and I wasn’t sure what ingredients I had in the kitchen to even use. After some surveying of the situation, she will now be stocked with three separate desserts when she gets to PA tonight!

First up was some no-bake Reese’s Dessert Bars that I had the mix for in the pantry, just waiting to be put together.

They were a piece of cake to make since everything needed except butter and water was in the box and ready to go.

Next up I grabbed the lone box of cake mix in the pantry and made some pretty awesome cookies which are the main attraction in this afternoon’s post.

And last but not least, some of Chocolate Covered Katie’s peanut butter sandwich bread. I made this bread in Korea and Brian and I both instantly fell in love with it – Especially served warm with vanilla ice cream or frozen with vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two half pieces. A-ma-zing!

The only differences that I made this go-round is that I added chocolate chips to the bread and a sprinkle of halved peanuts on top for a decorative touch.

Someone isn’t going to her party empty-handed!

Strawberry Oatmeal White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 box strawberry cake mix
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup raw original oats

Directions:

Combine cake mix with oil and eggs and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips and oats. Bake at 350°F for 12-14 minutes – until slightly browned on top. Cool and serve!

I may have gotten a little carried away in the kitchen this afternoon but hopefully everyone at the party enjoys the outcome of it! 🙂

Question:

Are you going to a Memorial Day party this weekend? What are you taking to share with the crowd?

Fro Yo Hold Over

Since there aren’t any self-serve frozen yogurt places here in Korea (at least not to my knowledge), I came up with a way to improvise for a slightly different frozen yogurt dessert.

For the past few nights, Brian and I have been enjoying homemade frozen yogurt mixtures filled with plain yogurt, agave nectar, dark chocolate chips and fresh frozen berries.

While dinner is cooking, I having been mixing everything together in small containers and popping them back into the freezer to harden.

After about 90 minutes chilling, the mixture is the perfect combination of creamy yogurt with some icy frozen pieces around the edges.

Definitely no cup of frozen yogurt topped with goodies galore but it’s close enough for now.

And a heck of a lot healthier than hitting up Baskin Robbins on a nightly basis! Instead, we are going to have to just hit up Costco on a bi-weekly basis to restock on yogurt! 🙂

Chewy Banana Honey Oat Squares

When I started the Keeping it Clean Challenge, I decided to put together a healthy snack that would be acceptable for me to have when I wanted something “sweet” that wouldn’t be breaking my challenge guidelines. With that in mind, I obviously started out going for a favorite treat of mine, granola.

I had half a banana that needed to be used before it went bad so I wondered what mixing it in with the honey would do to make a banana flavored granola. The results weren’t exactly what I was looking for; instead of a crunchy granola bar, I ended up with a chewy one. However, regardless of them being chewy rather than crunchy, they still make a perfect little treat.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup oats
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 banana, mashed

Directions:

Heat and mashed banana in the microwave for 45 seconds, stirring half way through. Add oats and stir until completely mixed with the honey and banana. Spread the mixture on a baking pan covered with foil and shape into a large rectangle. Bake at 350°F for 30 minutes, flipping halfway through. Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes before slicing into the squares. Wrap individual squares in foil and store in fridge for easy snacks throughout the week.

Considering the difference in what I was aiming for when I started this recipe and what the final outcome was, these squares are an easy, sweet treat that makes a convenient on-the-go snack or even a satisfying dessert.

Try topping them with a smear of peanut butter.

And even a sprinkle of dark chocolate chips!

Not your typical snack bar but a surprisingly delicious treat.

A Healthy Repeat

Today was quite the low-key afternoon.

We broke open Monopoly and had a nice little set up with the game on the coffee table and the Eagles game on TV.

Even if B isn’t up with the team right now, it is still nice that we can watch the games.

He gets to observe more of the Korean baseball style and I just like having a baseball game on TV the regardless. Hence, why the first thing I do in the mornings is pull the Orioles game up on my computer.

After the game was over (another loss – womp! womp!) and I threw in the towel on the Monopoly game, we relaxed with a little Modern Family.

I’ve seen random episodes of the show over the three seasons that it has been on TV but Brian had never seen any, so we just started from the very first episode and are watching our way through until we are fully caught up.

It seriously cracks us up.

Dinner

Dinner tonight definitely played off of last night’s dinner from Kraze Burgers but was a tad bit healthier with some alterations that we were able to make by cooking it in our own kitchen.

We bought a bunch of meat while we were at Costco yesterday so that we would have it on hand and wouldn’t need to make trips to Home Plus or Emart every time we wanted to make dinner at home. We walked out with fresh pork and ground beef and frozen chicken breasts and turkey burgers – and we wasted no time breaking into the turkey burgers for dinner tonight.

We topped the burgers with pepperjack cheese. I added avocado slices while B replicated the Semi Nude burger from last night with two patties, cheese and a fried egg.

On the side, it was asparagus for me, green beans for him.

And french fries – or baked potato discs, to adequately describe them.

Definitely mimicked last night’s dinner with a healthier twist, right?

We plan to continue with the low-key trend this evening and watch some more Modern Family before making some peanut butter bread ice cream sundaes for dessert. Yumm!

Question:

Do you watch Modern Family?