oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

Oatmeal cookies can be tricky. At large gatherings, potlucks, or any catered events, there are usually oatmeal cookies. To be specific, there are usually oatmeal cookies with dark chunks in them. And it's always a risky game of discovering whether those chunks are raisins (bleh) or chocolate chips (YES).

chocolate zucchini bread.

Spring Break!!

I could've been blogging this from the sunny, sparkling beaches of PCB or Mexico or Cancun. Of course, if I were in any of those places, I wouldn't be blogging - I'd be letting the sun's warm rays blotting my stresses away. That blue sky breeze would be welcome, not just another hurdle to run through. And my only worry would be whether the waves would reach my chair on the shore.

At that point, I'd be obligated to play Knee Deep [by Zac Brown Band].

As it is, I'm still wearing a sweatshirt, am still hesitant to shower for fear that maybe this will be the time I dilly dally a little too long & lose an appendage to hypothermia, and would still rather stay in my warm bed than do anything else. The latter works perfectly with my recent House of Cards obsession.

chocolate chip cookies III.

I just wrote a blogpost for a community service trip I'm going on soon, and doing so encouraged me to write a post here, too. Well, in addition to the fact that it's past 1 am .. I stayed up too late and am not sleepy now.

These delicious cookies were consumed partially by my brother within five minutes of their transfer from baking sheet to cooling rack his plate. The rest, I brought with me on a road trip with friends. I've been wanting to road trip for so long and it finally happened!

red wine chocolate cake.

I recently bought this wine - it's called Sweet Red and total college budget level (Carlo Rossi anyone?). Wine is definitely growing on me, especially red. I mean no big deal that I can't pair it with food or make any knowledgable comment about it whatsoever, but I'm slowly learning!

So this Sweet Red. I tried it, and was like, yeah it's totally sweet! Then I looked at the label and was like oh yeah. It's totally less than 10% alcohol. So it's sort of like juice. Right?

Ha ha. Kidding. But that's more sugar than I would want in an occasional drink with dinner. So I decided that it must be put into cake. It made perfect sense to me. And apparently to Deb from Smitten Kitchen, too, because that's where I found the recipe for this delicious cake.

chocolate chip cookies II.

Oh baking. It's been so long.

This is embarrassing to admit, but from the moment I started beating butter with the sugars for these (albeit normal, but delicious) cookies, I literally became so happy. It was like somebody injected ... I don't know what drug makes you super relaxed (crack pie from momofuku??), but that, directly into my veins and instantly circulated throughout my body.

one-bowl toaster oven chocolate chip cookies.

Despite the heat, I still keep using the oven. One day when I had a hankering for something sweet, but didn't want to flood the house with waves of heat rolling out from the kitchen, I decided to use the toaster oven.

And lo and behold, one of the blogs I regularly follow had a recipe for toaster oven chocolate chip cookies! It was fate. I also hadn't made chocolate chip cookies in forever, and my brothers always appreciate a break from the random, creative, awesome sometimes unusual things I prefer to bake.

buttermilk waffles (optional: wutella).

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My roommate and I are on spring break, but we're pretending to be Irish for the day.

Green's not really my color, so I'm not such a good faux-Irish, but I do have these awesome waffles to share! My brothers decided they wanted waffles this morning. So I left my bowl of half-cooked oatmeal (the poor little oats sodden in a pool of almond milk) in the microwave, and started scooping out flour and buttermilk.

pumpkin chocolate chunk oat muffins.

This past week was so odd.

Hurricane Sandy hit. And believe it or not, it barely rained! It was mostly wind damage, by where I lived. I know the Jersey shoreline suffered severe damage, as did parts of New York. The subway system was flooded! All that salt water corrosion!

I won't add to how much you've been hearing about this natural disaster on the news and other social media networks. Instead I will give you my narrative of what I did during these last 7 days.

chocolate chip whoopie pies, with espresso filling.

I reformatted the blog!! It was a lot of work .. had to code HTML and adjust tons of image sizes. I like the new look. It puts more attention on the pictures, which is what usually catches people's attention. Besides my highly entertaining writing, that is.

My hair's in a crazy bun right now. I have headphones in my ears, but no music on. The yellow light of the little bed clip-on lamp is casting dramatic shadows on my hands, emphasizing my newly acquired tan (50 minutes outside is all I need) and sculpting crevices, making everything more angular. It's 11:55 pm and although that's not particularly late, I'm questioning why I'm up.

I feel like the novel I've been reading is influencing my writing a lil bit. Anyway, what I'm not questioning is my decision, an hour ago, to have another one of these whoopie pies. I'll tell you why.

layered chocolate birthday cake.

I just backed up my computer. I feel so accomplished .. for two reasons. One, it's break. Almost everything qualifies as productive. Fix my hair? Awesome. Change my clothes? Go me. Leave the house? Woah I'm wild! And will need to sleep by 10pm to compensate for the exhausting day I had.

Secondly, I feel like backing up a computer is something that's always advised to do, and no one really does it.

I'm trying to do things I should be doing more. Like backing up my data. Not eating PBJ's everyday. Exercising. Stimulating my brain. Keeping up with responsibilities. All these things juxtapose what I said earlier, my idealized vision of break.

But long term .. they'll help me, right?

cookie dough stuffed chocolate cupcakes, with cookie dough frosting.

I can't believe it's Tuesday! This week was supposed to be crazy filled with work. I haven't yet done said work ... which is probably an issue.

I did make these beautiful cupcakes as promised on Monday night, however.

"lighter" brownie pie.

Inspiration is a funny thing. It hits you when you least expect it, and when you are totally unprepared. But it gives you the motivation to do what you know you need to do.

It's even funnier in that it's difficult to describe. What exactly is inspiration? And how does it affect you? Interesting questions. But yet, you are aware when you are inspired. You realize just what you want to do,  and everything just seems to fall into place. It's a complex feeling that brings such clarity.

Each creature has a place in life. I have a friend who believes that maturity is the realization of one's place in the cycle of life. Regardless, each creature also has one thing to offer to the world - themselves. I just watched the most recent JennaMarbles video, and weird as it sounds, that, along with a couple of other things, happened close enough in proximity to inspire me. To do what? Not sure. But I definitely feel a heightened sense of responsibility, maturity, and direction.

It all hit me after I ate a piece of this brownie pie with some warm milk while chatting with my little brother.

tell me about: Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate Cookie Mix!

I am home. That means I'll probably go crazy making things, now that my stress has significantly decreased and I actually have some time. What a concept!

perfect golden colour. 

However, I eased into baking one morning by making cookies using a mix that I had seen sitting around our house for far too long. It originally was on this shelf that was just too high for me to reach, which was enough resistance to prevent me from making them. But then I came home and my mom had moved them down to the countertop. Ahh, much better.

chocolate chip cookies.

chewy, but slightly crisp on the edges. fat & thick, with gooey chocolate chips. the non-chocolate chip portions must also taste excellent. or else everything is ruined. EVERYTHING. non-uniform shapes. craggy edges & tops with ridges. almost slightly underbaked middle.

My ideal chocolate chip cookie. 

Okay, now that you know what I like (I have briefly gone over this before), I hope you can decide whether you want to follow this recipe or not. Of course you can continue to read my babblings, but if you are a die-hard lover of those thin, crispy chocolate chip cookies ... or cakey ones that are really puffy ... this is not the place where you will find your perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe.

chocolate chip cookie cake, with chocolate frosting.

I love birthdays! Because birthdays need cake. And they provide an easy excuse to bake.

I also love those cookie cakes you can get at, for example, Shoprite. They're alway so attractive looking and so darn tasty.