Chocolate Andes Mint Cookies

On Sunday I baked mint brownies for a friend as a thank you present, but I was still left with half a bag of mint chocolate chips. My coworker Sam and I wanted to bake cookies, so I thought it would be the perfect time to put the mint chips to use. The recipe I used can be found here, but I also pasted it below.



My picture does not do these cookies justice. They're soooo delicious. My favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin, but I think these cookies may take the top rank when it comes to my cookie preferences. Out of the 26 cookies that came from this batch, I ate 8. Yeah, they're that good.


Chocolate Andes Mint Cookies


Yield: 2 Dozen

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
5 Tbsp butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Andes mint chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour through salt).
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together on high speed for 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add the flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, and mix until combined. Fold in the mint chips.
Drop the dough by teaspoon-fulls onto a large baking sheet coated with cooking spray.
Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until no longer doughy. Cool completely on a wire rack.
80 calories per cookie
Slightly adapted from About.com

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

I had a muffin craze all week!!! The other day I made blueberry muffins and banana nut muffins, but it wasn't enough! I wanted to bake even more muffins! Hence, this post!



Photo Credit goes to Danielle who helped me bake them along with Mandy. Two girls I absolutely adore!

I found the recipe on this blog here that I stumbled upon during my google search. I also posted it below in case you were too lazy to click the link!

I must say. They were delicious, especially with french jam (although orange jam does not go well with it). I actually ended up making 18 muffins so that they came to 92 calories each. From my whole batch, I ate 6 of them (no wonder I'm not losing any weight despite my efforts at the gym :P)

Apple Cinnamon Muffins
Servings: 16
Serving size: 1 muffin
Approximate nutritional information
Calories: 100 * Carbs: 20 * Protein: 3 * Fat: 1 * Fiber: 1 * Points+: 1 * Old Points: 2
Ingredients:
1 cup whole wheat Flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon (next time I will add more because I really like cinnamon)
2 large eggs
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup 1% milk
1 cup applesauce
1 cup finely chopped apples
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Step 1. Combine flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside.
Step 2. Using a hand or stand mixer combine eggs, brown sugar, milk, and applesauce.
Step 3. Slowing combine dry ingredients into wet ingredients.
Step 4:  Fold in apples.
Spray muffin pan with cooking spray, fill muffin cups about halfway,  and cook app 15 – 18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
Variations: You can also add apple pie spice and walnuts. Please note the walnuts will change the nutritional information.

Freezer Instructions

Wrap each muffin individually in plastic wrap then place all of them together in labeled freezer bag.

Reheating Instructions

Take muffin out of freezer and let thaw (this will only take a couple hours) or remove wrapping and place in microwave (1 -2 minutes) or toaster oven (10-15 minutes at 350 degrees) until heated through.

Type of Writer

I love writing, but I don't know what kind of writer I am. It all really started with journaling. Then in my journals I began writing poems. After switching my major, I wanted to go into fiction. But as I see my peers moving on with their lives and actually getting jobs, I know that it'll be really difficult for me to become a fiction writer straight out of college. Then there's also the intense yearning I have for traveling; thus, I would also love being a travel writer. But it's also difficult to do so without money, and no one would pay me to travel unless I was an accredited writer. Hmmmm... Well then I also love baking and cooking! I wouldn't mind writing about that either....

Let's just say I want to do everything!

I've even contemplated opening my own business. Maybe a cafe and bakery? There's so much to do in life, how can I only focus on one aspect as a future occupation? I really can't.

I guess this is where my blog comes in handy. I'm gonna write about everything I love in life.

Beauty Template

Someone told me that "beautiful" people are treated better.

I knew immediately that they meant conventional beauty-the template that society has created in order to judge and determine whether or not a person is aesthetically pleasing.

But I wish society saw everyone beautiful because beauty isn't only found on the surface, but beneath and everywhere in-between. And thus society's template should not be a determiner of how others are treated.

----

Scars sleeping along the skin
marks our stories deep within.
A testimony to our strength
shines on its pearly seam
making us who we are
as our courage is redeemed-

For what are flaws
but misshaped clouds in the sky?
What are imperfections
but beauty's own twin,
that should not be denied?

Thus we should live gracefully
in all of our actions;
expressing heart and truth
as we follow our passions.

Templates function as a mold,
but with time they change
and become forgotten and old.

But those who are remembered,
have hearts that are rare.
They know the value of beauty,
and they know how to care.
----

Break the template and care for others. We are all beautiful.


We all want to fall in love.

We are human, and because we are, their is a slight yearning within us; we all want to fall in love. What that exactly entails however, it completely ambiguous (or to me at least). What is it about human companionship that makes it so attractive? Is it sharing those little but precious moments in life? Having someone understand you in some way that everyone else can't? Or is it simply the feeling of being loved and being in love, an emotion greater than all the rest, that draws us into a different realm from reality. That realm being better than reality itself, making me wonder if it is all an allusion.

Allusion or not, I have it. That slight yearning to fall in love. A love so great that it changes me and my perception of the world. But in my case, it's not romantic love I'm talking about (although, that would be nice too). I'm writing along the lines of falling in love with words. Words made into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into chapters, and chapters into a novel. I want to fall in love with a novel. I want to read something that leaves me breathless. I want to read something that completely changes me. I want something that shares a precious moment with me, or understands me in some way that I didn't even know of about myself. Something that gives me a feeling that can't be described. Whether it is an allusion or not, I don't care. I just want it.

I've read three novels this week. They seemed so promising at first, but just didn't satisfy me in the end. They just fell flat. Now I'm left disappointed, almost like all of my past relationships. Now I'm left waiting and wondering if their will be a book that sweeps me off my feet.

And as an after thought it all just makes me completely frightened. What if one day I'm a writer and I disappoint my readers? Or what if none of my readers fall in love with my writing? What if I never sweep someone off their feet?

The Disappointment of the Superficial

In a sea of intoxicated people, I stand with a clear mind envisioning a place I would rather be: somewhere up high, between the earth and sky, where I am unreachable and untouchable, yet I'm able to see it all.

But at that point in time, I didn't need a bird's eye view; I saw it all before me on the ground.

And what I found is that I didn't want to be in that sea filled with all things superficial.
 I'm different. I'm me. That's who I want to be.

So I'm gonna jump off this pedestal that you've placed me on so that you can sit there instead; the place you've always coveted. May it feed your ego, your only happiness.


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