Heidi Herrera Studio

It Looks and Smells Like Christmas Eve!

 
There's some last minute prep taking place over here tonight. First, the hubs took the girlies out "shopping" while "Santa" finished all the wrapping! Yay, finally done! Phew!

 
Except for the gifts the girlies bought for Baby A and Baby B while out on their shopping expedition! The presents, of course, had to be wrapped by the girls while sitting on top of the table. These are some of my favorite moments. Simple, fun and with the girls completely involved.

It's quite the foggy night outside and I suppose if we can't have a white Christmas then I will happily settle for some fog. Lily and I walked to the corner to capture some foggy-ish photos with our two grey kitties in tow.

 

And as we came back into the house, we were greeted by the scent of cookies baking in the oven. Cookies for none other than Santa of course!

Which we are leaving out for his arrival sometime this evening! I hope he enjoys them. They're Norwegian Christmas Butter Squares, I found the recipe on this lovely blog "here." This was the perfect recipe for me, super fast and it bakes all at once. This pregnant mama is thankful right now for recipes like this! I did promise the girls that we make and decorate sugar cookies soon though.

 

I can hardly believe it's almost Christmas tomorrow. We will have some family over to open presents and eat a bit and maybe, just maybe, the babies will decide it's a great day to make their appearance. After all, everyone will be here already and Christmas babies would be pretty cool!

Unintentional Cravings Spark New Cookie Recipe!

 
 

I was making PB&J for my girls the other day and I happened to get a dollop of pb on my finger, which I then of course had to lick off and for some reason it set off this overwhelming response of "omg, that is SO good, I must have more!" I wasn't craving it until I tasted it and then I just couldn't imagine not having it but WITH CHOCOLATE!

 Peanut butter and chocolate is literally one of those heaven sent flavor combos for me. It's an occasional treat that just hits the spot. It brought to mind peanut butter cups, but these days I can no longer imagine myself scarfing down Reeses, my sweet tooth has been seriously tamed over the last several years and they are over the top sweet to me. Plus, I wasn't about to drag my pregnant self to the store!

So then I thought of peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips, but really they wouldn't be hearty enough, still a bit on the sweet side and hardly any fiber to speak of (yes, you know you're getting old when fiber begins to seem important!). So, of course, the natural progression from there was to add oats. They're filling, they have additional fiber and they help cut down on the whole sweet factor. Perfect!

Except that I had yet to come across one of these cookie recipes that I actually liked. I'm not saying it's not out there, but I am not so very patient when it comes to searching for recipes while I'm in craving mode. So...why not...I made my own. These cookies turned out SO yummy! They're pretty too!

 

 

Aren't they pretty? They're chewy with slightly crispy edges. They can be super chocolatey or not, depending on the amount of chips you add. I added a whole 12 oz bag and, surprsingly, my husband who is not a huge chocoholic made no mention of there being too many chocloate chips in his cookies...it was a first! Seriously, you should try them!

 

 

Oatmeal PB & Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup white whole-wheat flour (or unbleached white)
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt (I used kosher) 
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 1 12 oz bag semi-sweet chocolate chips (or less depending on taste)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl combine oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, stir to combine.

Place butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and whip until light and fluffy. Add peanut butter and mix to combine. One at a time, add the eggs and vanilla extract, mixing to combine after each additon. Finally, add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and mix just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Scoop heaping teaspoons of the cookie batter and roll into a ball, spacing evenly on a cookie sheet, you should be able to get 12 cookies per sheet. *Note: you could probably just drop heaping teaspoon full size dollops of dough on the cookie sheet. However, I liked how uniformly they turned out when they were rolled buuuuut it does get your hands fairly messy!

Place baking sheet in the oven for 12-15 minutes until the edges of the cookies are a lovely golden brown. Remove from the oven, let cool several minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

At this point you can now devour them and be sure to share with your family and friends because this recipe makes about 3 dozen and you really don't want to eat all of them by yourself, or maybe you do, but you know you really shouldn't! :)

I'm not a huge nuts-in-my-cookie fan, but these might be really good with 1 cup of raw or roasted peanuts and 1 cup of chocolate chips. Totally up to you!

Hope you enjoy!