Cheesecake Cookies

I think the person who came up with this is a genius. I mean, cheesecake is good, cookies are good, why not bring those two together to create something awesome!?!?!?

Just look at it. Isn't it beautiful? It's pretty much a mini cheesecake. And it's delicious.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 crushed graham crackers
• 1 cup of flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1 stick of butter, softened
•  1 egg, separated
• 1/2 cup of brown sugar
• 4 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• Raspberry or other pie filling (optional)

The first part is the cookie.

In one bowl, stir together the graham crackers, flour, and baking powder.

Then, in another bowl, you want to beat the butter and the brown sugar. Once those are combined, add the egg white and mix it until combined.

Butter, Bronw Sugar and the Egg White.

For the next part, you gradually add the graham cracker mix to the brown sugar mix. You'll know when its all combined together, when you can make a ball with it.

The second part is the cheesecake filling.

For this you beat the cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla until its all nice and smooth.

The last part is bringing it all together into an awesome cookie.

The first step is to scoop the graham cracker dough onto a cookie sheet. I used an ice cream scoop.

Once they are all scooped, the second step is to shape them into bowls.

The third step is to add the cheesecake filling. Now, this could be the last step, if you want a nice  vanilla cheesecake cookie.

Or you can add a little raspberry pie filing before you put the cookies in the oven. We've had them both ways and I think everyone prefers them with the raspberry filling. It's up to you... why not try both?

The next step is to bake them. They bake at 350°F for about 12 minutes or until the cookies are golden and the filling is barely set. Once they were cooled, we stored them in the fridge. This cookie really blows the boring cookies out of the water at parties, be prepared and bring a couple of copies of the recipe to share with others :-).

Enjoy!

This recipe gets 5 out of 5 cat whiskers!
The original recipe can be found here.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER!

I know... That title is so over-used. And yes, I know that you are more than likely skeptical  that they are the best chocolate chip cookies ever, after all, taste is subjective.  But seriously! These are the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies-ever!

Just look at it... Does that not look delicious? They are moist, soft and so chocolatey. These cookies are cake-like, but they aren't... They ARE so soft. And best of all, these cookies are fantastic fresh out of the oven and fantastic when they are cooled.

Would you like to know the secret? (I'm just going to assume you said yes!) It's cream cheese. Yes. That magical ingredient that makes bagels fantastic, eventually makes cookies magical too. 

Ingredients:

• 1 stick of butter, softened
• 1/4 cup of cream cheese
• 3/4 cup of brown sugar
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla
• 2 teaspoons of cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 2 1/4 cups of  flour
• 2 1/4 cups of chocolate chips
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt (it's optional)

In your mixing bowl, you want to combined the cream cheese, butter, egg, vanilla, and sugars. Mix them until it's light and fluffy.

Next, you add the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt.) You mix it until it's just combined. I forgot to take a picture of the next couple of steps.

After it's all combined, you add the chocolate chips! Then, you scoop the dough onto cookie sheets. But, it's not time to bake them. You let them chill in the freezer for a little while. The recipe said to let them freeze for at least 2 hours, but being the non-patient person I am, I let them freeze for a little more than an hour. They still turned out excellent! Perhaps next time, I'll investigate if they puff up more the longer they've been in the freezer.

Anyway, after they have been chilling however long you can wait, they bake in an oven at 350°F for 8 to 9 minutes. They are done when the edges are slightly golden.

This recipe gets 5 out of 5 cat whiskers! I found the recipe here.

Homemade Vanilla Extract

It sounds hard, but it could not be simpler. All you need are:

• 2 vanilla beans
• An alcohol like vodka (and an adult to authorize you to use it/help you)
• A bottle to store it in
• A dark place to store the mixture for 27 weeks 

The first thing you need to do is to cut the vanilla beans in half lengthwise. Don't scrape the vanilla beans, you want the seeds to stay in the pods.

Once the beans are cut, stick them in the bottle and pour the alcohol in.

After everything is in the bottle, you close it up and you let it brew for about 2 months in a dark cabinet. We did this around Thanksgiving and pulled it out a little while ago. This is the result!

This is the real deal! It smells and tastes fantastic! Whew who!!!!! This is only to be used in our favorite recipes! :-)

Crusty Flat-bread

Looking for a flat-bread recipe was interesting and challenging mainly because most of the results on Pinterest that came up didn't look like flat-bread. They looked more like tortillas and pitas, which I suppose, are flat-breads. But not what I was looking for. And then my Mom found this recipe. It turns out that I should have searched for "Crusty Flat-bread"

For this recipe you will need:

• 11/2 cups warm water
• 11/2 teaspoon yeast
• 1 packed cup of cooked mashed potato
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 41/2 cups flour 

Topping (If desired)

• 1 to 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 2 teaspoon fresh rosemary
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

The first thing you need to do is activate the yeast. Add the yeast to the water in a bowl, be sure to let it stand for 2 minutes. 

In a separate bowl, combine the mashed potatoes and olive oil together. Then add the flour and salt. Next, you add the water/yeast mixture and combine it all together until its just starting to come off of the sides of the bowl.

The next step is to turn the dough onto a floured counter, and knead it about 30 times with lightly oiled hands. Once you've done that, place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl to let it rise. You want to let it rise is a safe place, a cool oven is a good place - just make sure that you advise everyone that your dough is in there so they don't accidentally turn on the oven and bake your dough. This dough needs to rise for 3-4 hours.

After it has risen, you want to divide it in half.

The next step is to shape each half into a ball.

Once that is done, the next step is to flatten out the dough on a cookie sheet, press dimples into it and lightly oil it.

After that, you sprinkle the rosemary and salt. You could experiment with other herbs on it, as well.

This bakes at 425° Fahrenheit, for 25 minutes or until golden. When the flat-bread is done, it should sound hollow when you tap on it.


This flat-bread was delicious! It was good by itself and it was good as the bread for a sandwich. I am going to try this recipe again sometime, but I am not going to flatten it out so much because cutting the flat-bread in half, proved to be difficult, since it was so thin.

5 out of 5 cat whiskers.
Mom found the recipe here.

Maggie Moo and Rosemary

Not a month has passed since Jack found his forever home and we are already back to full capacity... We are back to having 5 dogs in the house. 

Maggie Moo (left) and Rosemary (right)

We are fostering Maggie Moo and Rosemary for S.O.A.R. Doggy Rescue.

Maggie Moo

They are sisters. They were dumped at a local kill shelter. They are absolutely adorable!

Rosemary

If you have any guesses as to what breed they are, PLEASE comment!

Rosemary French Bread!

 I have no problem admitting that this is my favorite recipe. I just find it amusing because I thought for sure that it would be a desert recipe for my sweet tooth!

  
So, what do you do to your favorite recipe? Why, you try to make it better, of course! I put fresh rosemary in it. And boy, oh, boy was it good. 

To make this, you follow the instructions for the French Bread. The only difference is the rosemary. You add the finely chopped rosemary (2 sprigs) with the dry ingredients, and then you proceed as normal. (I used fresh rosemary from my garden.)

I rubbed some olive oil on the loaves before they went in the oven. But I would recommend rubbing olive oil on them after they have baked, that way you can taste the olive oil more.

5 out of 5 cat whiskers!

Dog Painiting Part 2

As promised... Here are Apple, Charlie and Luna's works of art!

Apple's

Charlie's

Luna's

I might be a little biased because the three are our dogs, but these are my favorite paintings :-)