Super Easy Smear Cookies!

So, I have to admit. Even though I looove healthy food. Deep down, I'm a junk food junkie. On the plus side, I've been making a lot more of my junk food at home, and made from scratch. Translation: Less preservatives, and I can alter the contents to be healthier (If I wanted to haha). Now, no worries about this recipe being altered in any way. This is a straight up Pioneer Woman recipe, and those are very rarely altered by moi. :)

*For those of you who are not familiar with the Pioneer woman the link to her website is here. She is one of my idols, and one hell-of-a woman! :D

Today were making "spreads". For a link to the original recipe Clickie here .


First: Pre-heat your oven, to about 350Degrees , and prepare a baking sheet as normal.


Next: Gather your ingreedents (full recipe can be found at the end of this post...)
Begin mixing
First... Blend your butter and sugar, then add your egg...
blend it carefully now, no one likes a tough cookie haha!

Add the Flour...
Salt and Vanilla...
Mix until blended.
Spread the cookie batter on your baking sheet, spatulas help, but a regular butter knife would work too...
Bake for 15-20 Min. (Because I'm using a gas oven, I stick with a time that is about half way between.)
Once the "cookie" is golden brown, pull from the oven and cover with chocolate chips... this is where the ONLY variation comes in... Because I was using dark chocolate, I decided to sweeten it up a bit by tossing in some white chocolate chips.
Pop that bad boy back in the oven for about a min or 2 and watch as the melty doom ensues...
Once melted, smear the chocolate chips to coat the cookie evenly... I added extra white chips at this point for extra effect.

*Drool*
Once the cookies have cooled, cut into bars with a knife or a pizza cutter and enjoy :D
Smear cookies:

1 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Cup Margarine (No subbing butter now use the good stuff its much better, trust me...)
1 Egg
2 Cups Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
6-8 oz. Dark/ Milk Chocolate chips
3 oz. White chocolate chips.

More 4-wheelin

Scotty and I were 'feelin some big city blues, so we decided to head up to the trails. I took my camera and tried to get some great pics. We took our time, and stopped many times along the trail. Usually we don't stop as much, but we were really enjoying the day.
Hope you enjoy viewing the photos, I had a great time taking them.
*click the images to see the photos larger*

Clouds drifting with the winds over the peaks. This was on our way back down on our way home. I put them in order of my favorite so they are out of time line but if you want to see all 130 some odd photos in order, I will be posting a link where you can find them all. :) I know I'm a dork.

Swirling winds, creating beautiful fluffy skies.

This is a shot of the town George Town from high up on the trail.
*hey! BUCKET! ha ha ha!*

Some of the fast moving waters. This was on the first stop where we rested, on the way up.
This was at the peak of the trail. We stopped for a while and enjoyed the sounds of the rushing waters.

More of the clouds swirling and whirling...

A great shot of the trail itself. This trip wasn't bad until the trip back when it started raining. Caused all the "little rocks" to stick out and create quite the bumpy ride haha.

I love this view of the Mountain, the snow looks like a zipper running right down the side.

This is my favorite of all the photos. This was back at the first stop along the waters edge. I thing I may play around with this one on photo shop a bit. I couldn't seem to get enough of the water. Of course, with all the run off this year, the sound of the rushing waters were amazing. :)

As I said earlier, here is the link to see the the whole set of images.

Click me

Happy Trails to you...

So, It's late, and we just got back from a long drive up to black hawk and back. We went off road through some of the back trails, and I wanted to share some of the pics. Hope you enjoy.

We drove through a ghost town on our way to the trails. Kinda gave me the creeps...


One of the houses in the old town. I believe it was called Nevadavile, but I'm not quite sure on that. We drove through it relatively quick, but I would like to go back and maybe spend an afternoon taking some great shots. There's a lot of black and white potential up there, especially this time of year when all the plant life around it is still sleeping.

A shot from the trail we were climbing. There were a couple of spots were it got kinda hairy...

A couple of spots... full of rocks, tight bends, and random missing road. LOL Scotty was having a wonderful time of course.

We stopped on this hillside for a break from all the jostling LOL. The view was amazing, and I can't believe all the beautiful houses up there. I was just trying to keep from freaking out in the tight spots :P In all honesty though it was wonderful :)

Some of the roads we were on were still covered in snow.

All in all it was a wonderful day, we ended up going to the buffet at the Ameristar casino on our way home. I didn't get any pics at that point becuase my batteries were kaput in my camera. It was a beautiful way to spend a Saturday.

Treasure hunts gone awry...

Seth and I are big fans of treasure hunts. We like to pretend to be pirates and we make maps (usually with crayons and some colored construction paper) and we set off with a list of things to find... or errands to run ;) (makes my day 10 times easier if he thinks its all part of the game :D).

We decided to have another hunt this weekend but this time we wanted to do a photo scavenger hunt... our target... things that a pirate might like if he were living today. Basically, I thought it would be fun to walk around the mall taking pictures of pirate-ity things. Well... it went great!

We started seeing things before we even go in the front door. Used his new camera and he did most of the shots himself. Things like a large fish sculpture made of recycled bicycle parts, some hand built replica ships at an art shop, and he even got the idea of taking a picture of his lemonade... "they didn't want to be a...mmm... what was it again?" LOL "limey buddy"

We had a great time! We ate dinner, made a couple of laps around the mall, and had some me and him time :) Then.... we get home and try to take the pictures off his camera. Apparently, the cheapo camera I picked up for him for Christmas is indeed just that... cheapo. It appears that the batteries sit in there just a little loose, and when it gets jostled even just a little, it resets and wipes the memory on the camera. His poor little heart was broken, as was mine :( we had a great time! and he was really hoping to have pictures to share. Were going to try again next weekend, but I think were going to bring a different camera. I'll keep you posted, and I have some finished projects to post too!

On that note, I have finished all but one of my projects... so naturally I have started another LOL. I'm working on a hat for Scotty and it's gonna look awesome :D... if I can ever get the pattern strait... *rme*

Wholy knitting maddness!!!

So, I have been knitting almost non stop since late September, and its been a whirl wind of yarn and fibers. I've made 4 scarfs (working on a 5th as we speak) 2 hats (working on a 3rd LOL) 1 shawl, and started a back pack for Seth. PHEW!!! Hopefully, I'll remember to take pictures of everything as I go along. I'm really starting to get the hang of this whole cable thing, and it's really encouraging that I'm getting all of these projects done so fast!

It's kinda silly, but i am starting to feel funny if I don't have either needles/a hook in my hand, or keys under my fingers. I love the online comunity I joined, www.ravlery.com loads of free patterns, feed back, and all sorts of tips and tricks! If you are a knitter, or just love looking at really neat home made projects check it out! :D

Is it seriously 2009?!?!

Happy New Year!!!

Welcome to 2009 and may each and every one of you have a great new year. :D

I have finished the loooong scarf this morning :D First project of 2009 was also the last project of 2008 :P Love it when things work out all silly like that. Scotty and I are staying home and relaxing for the most part, Spending lots of time looking for my next pattern, and stumbling in between.

Hopefully you all have a wonderful day as well, I will be posting pictures of the completed Lawng scarf later. For now, I'm off for breakfast and some photography.