Fruity Pebbles Sugar Cookies

Rainy Saturdays are perfect for cookie making.

It's a fact.

Another fact is that just because there is cereal in a cookie, it does not make it breakfast.  I'm talking to you, Mom ;)

Thought I'd share this lovely recipe that my 7 year old nephew and I came up with on Saturday.  So super easy and delicious.  It would be a perfect recipe to keep your little ones occupied on their Summer break!

These cookies are chewy, sweet, and fruity, with a lovely crunch from the cereal.

Make them!!!

Fruity Pebbles Sugar Cookies 
Made about 2 dozen regular sized cookies & one giant cookie (see below)

1 1/2 sticks butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg, 1 egg white
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup Fruity Pebbles cereal (or you could use any cereal, really)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Cream butter and sugars together, add egg & vanilla. Dump in flour, salt, baking powder & baking soda. Stir until combined. Fold in the Fruity Pebbles.  Scoop out golf ball sized balls using spoon or cookie scoop and put your cookies on greased or lined cookie sheet (I used parchment paper) Bake at 375 degrees for 12-13 minutes.
*the big cookie baked for 18 minutes.

Here's the big cookie.  It was delicious!  We smashed some more fruity pebbles in the top of the dough before baking.

Big cookie lovvvveeeee!!  Can you tell the sun came out for this picture?

Have a Happy Monday, all!  See you for WIAW ;)

The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012: Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Cookies

I may have mentioned before, but I participated in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap again this year.  Such fun!  So, I'm delaying What I Ate Wednesday until later today, so I can tell you all about this!

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The way it works is if you have a blog, you sign up with the swap and they send you 3 matches.  You kind of keep it on the downlow for a bit.  Then you send your 3 matches a dozen cookies each.  There are a ton of participants and it is all across the U.S.

You will also receive a dozen cookies from 3 other bloggers, as well.  That's the fun part!  You get to sample someone else's cookies and share them with family and friends.

Then, everyone posts their recipes and we all link up to like a gazillion other recipes.  It's fun to browse through there and see what everyone comes up with.

This year proceeds go to Cookies for Kids' Cancer and they sent me an awesome cookie spatula!  Yay :)

So, for my recipe this year, I had one combination on my mind: peanut butter and chocolate.  I figured  I should swirl them together for maximum enjoyment.

This recipe makes a TON of cookies...so you might want to scale it down if you are not feeding a small army.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Cookies

makes 5-6 dozen (for real)

Chocolate Cookie Dough

12 tablespoons butter, melted

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Beat melted butter with brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. Cool slightly and beat in egg and egg yolk. Beat in vanilla.

Combine the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. Slowly beat into the butter and sugar mixture until well blended. 

Roll out the dough on plastic wrap that has been sprayed with oil until it makes a giant rectangle the size of your baking sheet.  No actual measurements from this gal!

Make your peanut butter dough.

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 cup packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

5 cups all-purpose flour

Combine butter, peanut butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla.  Add flour, baking soda and salt. 

Plop about 2/3 of the dough on top of the rolled out chocolate dough and roll it over it until even and smooth.  You will have extra peanut butter cookie dough (you're welcome), so you can make those, too or freeze the dough.

Roll the plastic wrap up a bit and use it as a guide to carefully roll your two doughs into a giant log.  I had to actually cut down the middle and separate the cookie logs, because they were so large.  Refrigerate dough for about 30 minutes.  

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and slice your cookies into about 1/4" slices.

Lay on parchment paper and bake for 11-12 minutes.  Cool on a cookie rack.

Chocolate cookie dough recipe adapted from About.com

Peanut butter cookie dough recipe adapted from All Recipes

cookies all ready to go to my recipients ;)

I love participating in this online cookie swap and meeting other bloggers!  So fun :)

Thanks so much to Love & Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen for hosting!

Also, I gotta give a shout out to the awesome bloggers whose cookies I received:

Amber from Caleigh's Kitchen made some killer chocolate buckeye cookies.  Holy moly.

Mal from The Chic Geek sent me some scrumptious cinnamon roll palmiers :)

My third cookie shipper got delayed, because she had the flu.  That's no fun :(  I'll update this once I receive hers.

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My cookies from last year's swap: Crispy Coconut Almond Cookies

WIAW: Down But Not Out

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I love when we get a new theme for What I Ate Wednesday!  This theme has to do with summer staples.  You can talk fitness or food.  I'm gonna stick with food today.

My summer staples are salads, fresh fruits and anything grilled!  Also, copious amounts of mojitos, but that's another story.

So, this week has been tough because I hurt my back.  Long story short (ok, it's not that long to begin with), these plank twists were involved.

not a picture of me, in case you were wondering ;)

I usually rock at these, but I slipped and ouch.  I feel like I'm 80.  It's crazy how I took for granted the fact that I could easily bend (and snap!-Legally Blonde...anyone??) and move my bod without any pain. Now, not so much.

Ok, my point here, is that it would be super duper easy to just throw all healthy behaviors out the window when you are laid up on the heating pad all day, but just keep truckin'.

Breakfast: Spinach Omelet & Toast

Needless to say, there was no boot camp for me this morning, as I can barely drive a car.  So just one breakfast for this ol' gal.  I made a spinach omelet with 1 cup of fresh spinach, 1 egg and 1 egg white. I enjoyed it with a side of high fiber toast smeared with fig jelly and a cup of Trop 50 orange juice.  I also had some coffee on the go, but did not take a pic.

Morning Snack: Yogurt & Granola

Yogurt has become a bit of a summer staple for me.  I really like this caramel flavor.  I topped it with a little vanilla almond granola for some crunch.

 Lunch: Garbage Salad

I know it looks like garbage, but this salad was pretty tasty.  I cleaned out the fridge with this one ;)  It contains: leftover bbq pork loin, leftover mixed veggies, the last of the salad mix with some fresh spinach added to it, a super ripe avocado and the last of the feta cheese.

Then a healthy cookie for dessert! 

I was craving oatmeal cookies the other day and found a great recipe at Chelsea Eats Treats.  I modified it a bit.  Here's the recipe:

Caramel Almond Butter Oatmeal Cookies (makes 1 1/2 dozen)

1 1/2 cup rolled oats

4 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

1/2 cup caramel almond butter (I used MaraNatha brand)

3 egg whites

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

Add first five ingredients in a large bowl (through egg whites) and mix until well combined.

Add chocolate chips, and mix just until incorporated.

Spoon cookies out onto parchment paper and bake for 15-20 minutes or until cookies start to brown on the edges.

After eating, I took my broke back self to the store to stretch and walk around...and this jumped in my cart.

Then I went back to work with a blue mouth.

No time for an afternoon snack today...

Dinner:  Salmon, Quinoa, Artichoke

For dinner I made Asian marinated salmon, quinoa cooked in the rice maker and artichokes.  It was my first time trying a fresh artichoke.  I didn't hate it.  An all around good meal :)

Then I had a gin and tonic and watched Baby the Cat waller around in the sunshine (waller is a word in the South, in case you didn't know).

It had been exactly a week since my last fro yo outing, so off to TCBY to load up on goodness!

I had white chocolate mousse and caramel yogurt with some Oreo, sprinkles, pecans and 2 circus animal cookies.  Oh, and a lone, tiny gummy bear.

Alright, guys.  That's it for food stuff.  Hopefully, I can get myself in gear for a Friday post this week...we shall see.

**UPDATE: My back feels about 50% better today, so yay.

Chewy, Spiced Brown Sugar Cookies

These cookies do not mess around.

They mean business.

They will hit your mouth hard (metaphorically speaking) with subtle spice and chewy texture.

How great is a big ole yummy cookie that is actually filling?

Pretty great, if you ask me.

This good looking, and whole grains to boot.

You just can't beat it.

Chewy, Spiced Brown Sugar Cookies

makes 1 dozen

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 large egg

Topping: 1/2 tbsp cinnamon, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp white sugar

Mix all your dry ingredients and set aside.  Mix the butter, sugar, egg and vanilla in another bowl and combine with dry ingredients.  

Scoop out the dough with a cookie scoop and drop it in the topping and get some on both sides of the ball.

Bake for 12 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

slightly adapted from Joy the Baker