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?

Run Tracking

I finally downloaded MapMyRUN on my iPhone here in Korea and was excited to get out this morning for a run. Isn’t it amazing how the smallest things can make you so pumped for a workout? I went to bed last night already anxious to hit the streets when I woke up.

Workout

I did a loop around the area and ended up with an exactly 3 mile run in 24:33. I’ll take it.

Next up on the agenda is Body Revolution, Phase 3, Workout 10. Almost down to the last two weeks!!! Ekkk!

Breakfast

Breakfast this morning was simple bowl of oats that I dressed up with some agave nectar and a crumbled piece of peanut butter bread.

Not only is this bread amazing on its own and on top of oats for breakfast but check out how last night’s sundae turned out.

Yea, it’s also amazing as dessert too!

Along with my oats this morning, I had a cup of coffee on the side.

Not as exciting as the ice cream sundae, huh? I agree.

Off to get workout part II in before we head out for the day. Have I mentioned that off days are my favorite? 🙂

Question:

Do you have a running app that you use to track your workouts.

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?

Camping Out in the Kitchen

I drug my feet a little longer this morning before getting my workout in but with completely good reason – time in the kitchen! And from that time in the kitchen, we now have three more treats on our counter to snack on.

I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing though…

First thing to get put together was peanut butter bread that I caught my attention over at Chocolate Covered Katie.

I mean, peanut. butter. bread. Of course I was going to want to make it and luckily I had all of the ingredients on hand.

I followed Katie’s recipe using the following options:

• 1/3 cup of peanut butter over the 1/2 cup
• 2 Tbsp. of additional peanut butter for the applesauce or mashed banana (had neither on hand)
• 1/4 cup regular sugar with 1/4 cup brown sugar for the sweetener
• 2 Tbsp. of additional regular sugar and brown sugar instead of the stevia extract (again, didn’t have that on hand)
• 1 tsp. of vanilla powder in place of the 2 tsp. of vanilla extract

Brian and I both sampled a piece after lunch and loved it.

It would definitely be good with jelly or heated with sliced bananas and a hot cup of coffee. Or even with some vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce as dessert?! 🙂

The second thing I put together was trail mix for Brian. This is one of his favorite snacks and yesterday at Costco we picked up raisins, peanuts and a bag of mini Hershey bars to break up in place of his usual M&M’s (we couldn’t find any chocolate chips or a big bag of M&M’s).

Improvising wasn’t hard though. I unwrapped a mix of special dark and milk chocolate mini bars and got to smashing them in a plastic baggie.

Chocolate bits in no time!

Finally the last treat to come out of the kitchen was another batch of granola. Blueberry Vanilla Granola.

Recipe coming soon!

Workout

By time I was done with mixing, chopping, stirring and baking in the kitchen, Brian was already home from practice so I figured it was time to finally get to my workout.

Body Revolution, Phase 3, Cardio 3. Week 10 starts tomorrow which means only one more week with Workouts 9 & 10 and only 3 weeks total left in the program!

Lunch

After my workout (and before sampling the peanut butter bread!) I had a lunch that was super simple to throw together.

Salad greens topped with the leftover Avocado Chicken Salad from yesterday.

It looked so good again today that Brian had me back another batch with chicken he was boiling to shred so he could have some in a wrap for his lunch. I love when he jumps on board with healthy meals! 🙂

Question:

Do you ever get into the kitchen and just want to keep cooking or baking up a storm?