Burnt oatmeal cookies smell like popcorn?

It's TUESDAY. No posts since Friday! Holy potatoes!

It's 12:17 am and instead of catching up on sleep, I'm trying to catch up on blogs as I wait for my cookies to bake. Yes, cookies. Somehow I got bamboozled into baking cookies for my fellow jury members...all 20-something of them. I mentioned this to our admin assistant when I walked into the office this evening and all she said was, "as if you don't have enough to do."

It's true. My name is Karena and I just can't say no. I think it's pretty evident with all the stuff I've been juggling lately. Instead of taking advantage of the fact that I don't have to be in the office Mondays - Fridays, I've found a way to get into the office when I'm not at jury duty or at the store. Instead of saying 'hey, ease up on my hours' at the store, I deal with it. Instead of taking time to chill out, I try to cram in some runs and cooking/baking sessions.

And I secretly love it all. I think part of me really enjoys running from one thing to another. I love the stress? The rush? The control? Who knows. It can't be good.

Anyway, I left the office around 8 and was determined to get a run/walk in. I needed it. Stopped at the Giant for some important ingredients and then made my way home. I noticed all 3 treadmills were full (um, at 8:45? seriously?) so I took my time getting changed. Perfect timing - by the time I got down there, all the treadmills were free :)

Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to report that I have worked my way up to a 4:1 run/walk and kept up my speed! Woohoo! Since I upped the run portion, I kept my total time short - 25 minutes. I threw Nemo on when I got back to the apartment just to be safe and then it was time to bake!

I decided to go with those Oatmeal Crasin with White Chocolate Chip Cookies I sent to Jamie earlier this year. Um, DISASTER. I think I need to take a time out from baking. This is the THIRD botched baking attempt in the past month and a half! I have no idea what went wrong...maybe I messed something up along the way. Math and I aren't good friends. I was also on the phone with my sister trying to get baking advice...Math+Karena+phone conversation = ??

It also doesn't help that I was also trying to find this stupid song from The Devil Wears Prada (o, did I mention I was also half watching that? Sensory overload!!). I love it in a beachy/summer dance club circa 2001 sort of way.

Anyway, this is what they looked like.

Yes, those are burnt nuggets on the left side. I may have forgotten to put the timer on for that batch. I also didn't realize that cinnamon was absent from my spice cabinet. Luckily we had 2 cinnamon sticks from a random spice set Jamie and I picked up when we were in Grenada. I ground those suckers up in a coffee grinder and almost fell over they were so potent. My cookies taste like a cinnamon stick. AAAGGGHHH. Whatever. I think I prefaced the whole 'ok, I'll bake cookies' thing with 'I'm really not a good baker.' Are you a better cook or a better baker? Are you one of the lucky ones that's good at both???

Ok. Off to bed. FINALLY done with the rest of the cookies. Hoping to get another run/walk in tomorrow morning, but since it's almost 1am, I seriously doubt that's happening. I wonder if the security guards at jury duty will look at me funny for going on a run during my lunch break. I always wonder what security guards think of people wandering into office buildings in workout attire. I like to think it's totally normal...maybe....

Ah yes, good day indeed :)

Sorry for that spastic first post. I was way too excited to download all my recent food adventures that just kept piling up in my camera! I guess I'll just add the recipes onto that post??

Just got back from a nice long gym session - I put in 50 minutes of QT with the elliptical machine! I think that's a big deal for me, no?? I also did a 10 minute shuffle on the treadmill, which bothered me a little more than my 20 minute adventure on Friday. I think it might be because I attempted to stop heel striking, but maybe it's too soon. I'll take it. 10 minutes of shuffling is better than nothing.

I had another fun playlist with some songs that actually had me grinning since they were pretty old and brought back memories. Ahh, college.

Beija Flor - Thievery Corporation

Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas

Put Your Hands On Me - Joss Stone

All That We Needed - Plain White T's

Underneath the Sky - Oasis

Ghostwriter - RJD2

Body Movin' - Beastie Boys

Higher State of Consciousness - Josh Wink

Runaway (Charlie Fanclub Remix) - Grum

Flight Tonight - The Avalanches

Straight Out the Jungle - Jungle Brothers

I was pretty surprised that I was able to stay down there so long...perhaps it was my brunch of champions:

After seeing a couple of Allison's posts (Green Dog Wine) on Spicy Oats, I was determined to try them.

I didn't have any sausage handy so my spicy oats contained oats, one egg (microwaved scrambled), shredded cheddar cheese and a whole lotta sriracha! Verdict? Savory, spicy oats = yummy in my tummy!

Why on earth did I have a container of oats in my home? Well, I was busy baking up a storm since I'm sending a package over to Jamie this week. It appears he's in need of some items that he can't find on base so I figured I'd toss in some goodies.

I took a basic chewy oatmeal cookie recipe from Smitten Kitchen (who btw, has a lot of fun recipes - two thumbs up for the Dal recipe which I'll write about later), subbed in some ingredients and voila! Oatmeal Raisin with Dark Chocolate Chips and

Oatmeal Crasin with White Chocolate Chips!

Personally, I prefer the craisin one. Basically, I doubled the recipe, using 1/2 c butter and 1/2 c shortening. Then I split the dough into two bowls and subbed in the chips for the nuts. Very easy and delicious!

C is for cookie...

I'm not much of a baker. In fact, I'm terrible at following directions...which is why I usually steer clear of baking. For some reason, I felt compelled to bake last night. Compelled to bake not one batch of cookies, but THREE different kinds. Holy potatoes.

I picked up 2lbs of butter, a tub of shortening, a container of sugar, a bag of flour and a crapton of chocolate chips. It was a party in my shopping cart.

I decided on Monday that I was going to lay off the sweet treats for an entire month (I tend to eat a ton of sweet treats during the holidays for no apparent reason - I don't even like sweets!), but the Betty Crocker in me was triggered and I thought I should bake a bunch of cookies for my coworkers - running store and office. It seemed like the appropriate holiday thing to do.

I browsed Foodgawker and found three cookies I really really wanted to make (note, these are what they are supposed to look like):

Chocolate Chip Shortbread courtesy of Not without Salt
Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies courtesy of The Recipe Girl
Pudding Cookies courtesy of Taste and Tell
How did mine turn out?? Um, I think they were pretty successful...considering I'm a novice baker. My hand mixer is from CVS. My arm got sore after the first cookie. I only own spatulas that come with gift packs. I had to pick up cooling racks at the Giant because I don't find them to be a necessary item in my home.

First cookie up - Chocolate Chip Shortbread.
These were pretty easy to make. Very few ingredients and I think the hardest part was rolling it in parchment to chill. My cookies are a bit misshapen as you can see ;p. The final product was a little greasier than I expected...but I guess that comes with all the butter that was used hehe.

This guy had to chill for at least 30 minutes so I got started on the dough as soon as I devoured a bowl of this, which btw, was delicious for canned soup. It also had the least amount of sodium of Amy's Organic canned soups:
I scarfed the soup down pretty quickly because I hadn't eaten since noon...and at noon I only had a salad. Totally had the shakes. It was a little sweet for a black bean soup, so I tossed in some extra corn (can't go wrong with extra corn!) and some Texas Pete for a li'l kick.

While the Chocolate Chip Shortbread chilled, I started on the Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies.
Apparently I own the last bag of Candy Cane Kisses on the planet. I went to THREE stores and couldn't find them anywhere! Luckily I had grabbed a bag for home decor last weekend and didn't touch them. Score. I unwrapped the entire bag of Kisses before I realized the recipe only called for ONE CUP not ONE PACKAGE. Oopsie!
So I chopped those suckers up and sprinkled them on top and then drizzled only a portion of the bag of white chocolate chips. SO YUMMY. The rest of the white chocolate chips went into these bad boys (my second favorite of the bunch)
These Pudding Cookies were pretty delish. I prefer white chocolate chips to regular chocolate chips any day and these were fantastic with the pudding mix, which is used to keep the cookies chewy. Do you prefer crispy or chewy cookies?

I have you know that I sampled one of each before packing a few up to send to Jamie and distribute to coworkers. :)

I had a mini snow day today and got lazy with dinner as I chatted with Jamie on the phone. I grabbed a small butternut squash, a bag of spinach and a wee ham (we're talking like no wider than a CD case. I was going to get fancy and saute things, but I ended up just roasting the squash with some salt, olive oil, nutmeg, thyme and sage. Since I was on the phone when the squash was done roasting, I threw some chopped up ham and all the spinach into the roasting pan with the squash. Tossed it with the squash, added some garlic powder and put it back in for another 15 minutes.
Final product was not pretty, but it wasn't inedible. Could have been better though. Scooped some in a bowl,
poured a glass of wine and turned on Empire Records - LOVE DVR and I forgot how much I loved that movie AND the soundtrack...even to this day! Great end to a snow day! Hope everyone is staying warm!!