Thank God for cookies :)

It is snowing again this evening, so I'm home early from work and what better way to warm up our home than by turning on the oven and testing out a new cookie recipe.

I came across this recipe the other day and I have been craving these cookies ever since. I love chocolate chip cookies, I love Nutella... why not combine them?! It seems crazy that I didn't think of this sooner haha I keep our kitchen well stocked with cookie baking supplies these days in case the mood strikes, but we didn't have any Nutella on hand. Keith went to the grocery store on his own last night and when I woke up this morning I almost screamed with joy to find a nice little jar of nutella in the cupboard... I didn't even ask! He must have read my mind.

On to the cookies. These are seriously a dream come true! Watch out, I may start adding Nutella to everything I bake haha. They are light and fluffy and not TOO chocolately which makes it very easy to eat a dozen of them without thinking twice.

Nutella Chip Cookies from Love and Olive Oil

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup Nutella
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt (mine came out a little fast and got a bit extra, but I kind of liked the salty/sweet effect)
1/3 cup chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Cream butter with a mixer and then add both sugars mixing well, until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla continuing to beat. Then add Nutella and mix well until combined.
In a small bowl whisk together dry ingredients and then slowly add to the wet until smooth and incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips. 
Form dough into little balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake 6-7 minutes and let cool for 5 minutes. 

Things I changed a bit: I don't know about your super sonic oven, but my cookies were not done at all after 6 minutes. I kept them in for about 12. Also, I didn't have any parchment paper so I just Pam-ed the heck out of our baking sheets haha they didn't need as much Pam as I gave them, I just get nervous about cookies permanently forging themselves to my pan. I let them cool on some paper towels to soak up the greasys. I didn't have very many chocolate chips (because I used most of them this weekend to top some rice krispie treats mmm) so they aren't super chippy. I think they could use more chips, but Keith thought they could do without them all together haha. Bakers choice ;)

These will DEFINITELY be added to my regular baking repertoire and I may even make them again this week haha.

Now Keith and I are enjoying a glass of wine on the couch and watching some television. It took him 2 1/2 hours to get home from work today, ugh. Nashvillians drive like they're handicapped when it snows and I have a cranky husband on my hands because of it. On the agenda: eat a yummy dinner, drink some more, watch Modern Family, and eat lots and lots of these cookies!!!!

Close to my Heart

Apparently I have a new found love for baking anything and everything, but when it comes to the holidays, there were a few things that my mother ALWAYS made that I'm now trying to replicate in our own home. First being apple pie, second being her super thin Christmas sugar cookies and lastly these little heavenly things that I like to call, Krispie Oatmeal cookies. I don't know where the recipe came from but it's been scribbled on a little card in her recipe box for years and they are a definite family favorite. Since I have lots and lots of baking and food prepping to do today I decided to bust these out last night after we got home from dinner and even my coconut hatin husband couldn't put them down :)

They include oats, rice krispie's cereal and coconut and they're crunchy and delicious and even though I was nervous because I had never made them before... they came out just like I remembered them. It might sound weird, but you just have to try them once and you'll be converted. Anyone want to try and make them too? I'd be glad to share the recipe, just comment or email me!

Another special thing that is close to my heart this afternoon is a belated wedding gift that I received from my Aunt Liz this morning. Ever since I was a kid I've seen the beautiful quilts that my Aunt Janice has made and wanted one of my own. My mom and all of her brothers and sisters have one that she made them when they were younger and I adopted my mothers for myself (it matched the colors in my room... duh!) I still have it today since it kind of became mine over the years. There is just something about a homemade quilt with all its love that you just can't beat. Well guess what I found when I opened up the box from Liz this morning? I beautiful handmade quilt from my Aunt Janice just for Keith and I! The fabrics are so incredible, and these pictures really do it no justice. It's got such a neat and unexpected pattern. What an awesome wedding present! I'm so excited to have a quilt of our own that we can keep forever, and that I can pass on to my own kids some day. My family is really really awesome :)

Try These!

I tried out a new cookie recipe this Sunday that I wanted to share. They were so incredibly good that there is actually only one left in the bowl haha. Super super easy and very yummy!!

Heath Bar Cookies:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups chopped Heath Bar pieces (I used about 2 cups haha)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Sift flour, salt and soda
Beat together butter and sugar and vanilla in a separate bowl, add eggs one at a time.
Alternatively mix in the heath bar pieces and flour mixture a third at a time until well blended
Chill batter for 30 minutes and then bake for 10-12 minutes

Check out the original recipe here!

Sunday we also had some amazing homemade white chicken chili brewing in our crock pot. SO GOOD! We make it pretty frequently, but I can never get enough haha. Leave me a comment or send me an email if you'd like the recipe!

A happy splurge

Keith and I have been on a sort of diet this past month. Nothing intense, we've just been watching what we eat more carefully, making sure we don't go overboard on calories everyday and exercising a lot more. So far so good, he's lost about 8 pounds and I've lost about 5. We both feel really great, which is really all that matters. We've been pretty strict about watching our food and watching how much money we spend and I think it was making us both a little crazy so Keith decided since he was off yesterday that we should go on a dinner date. When he mentioned going out for food all I could think about was how much I wanted a monster turkey burger and greasy fries with a coke to top it off so we made the easy decision to head back to Sketch and make sure we weren't exaggerating its awesomeness haha Turns out everything was just as great as it was the first time we visited, and I can't WAIT to head back when my favorite aunt visits next month :)

Since we knew that we were going to be in the part of town that our friend Molly lives, we gave her a call to see if she wanted to join. I hadn't seen her since classes ended and it was great to catch up; I did feel a little bad though because I didn't warn her that Keith and I hadn't eaten junk food in a month and we were definitely tearing our food up like mad dogs haha

Here's Molly. She tried to be healthier than us by choosing fruit soda instead of Coke.. but turns out she mistakenly grabbed grapefruit flavor... grosssssssssss


They make all their own sauces at Sketch, and our favorite by far (and only one we've really tried) is the aioli. Between the fries, burgers, and fries we stole from Molly, we polished off like 6 of these sauce cups. We're sauce people :)

Also! The picture I drew when we were there on Keith's birthday was hanging up! (he couldn't find the one he drew.. mine's better, no big deal haha)

We dropped off Molly at her apartment and I insisted that Keith meet her very... voluptuous cat Hedy. She's just a LITTLE bigger than Theo ;)

In the spirit of splurging I just had to have a chipwich for dessert. Simple pleasures. Yummmm!

DIY dye

So I know I mentioned this after we painted, but our living room has recently been stiflingly beige. We definitely can't afford a new couch anytime in the immediate future so we thought about getting a new cover for the futon that we have, just to introduce a little bit of color. After making the trek to Target only to find that they only sold beige futon covers my next bet was just to dye the thing myself. Last night with some help from Keith I took on the challenge with surprisingly great results.

Here is the cover before it got dyed.

Here it is in this giant tupperware bin we conveniently own (Thanks Aunt Liz haha). This was definitely a labor intensive task; I had to stir the fabric in that bin constantly for at least 30 minutes. (I took a few breaks sshhhh) and yes, now the top of our broom stick is blue and my fingers still have a smurf-ish tinge to them haha

We chose blue.. why not, we haven't decorated anything else in the room so it doesn't really need to match anything. I really like the way the color came out, I wasn't sure what would happen with the beige base.

Keith found it ironic that I was wearing a shirt that was the same color as the futon cover. I obviously am a fan of dark blues haha. We don't have a lot of space in our little apartment, so this it the cover drying over the top of our shower. I really wish that our landlord hadn't gotten rid of our beautiful claw foot tub, because this would have been a MUCH easy process with that instead of me standing in the shower for half an hour trying to rinse this thing.

$3.00 bottle of Rit later and here is the finished product. I must say.. it is very difficult to put a futon cover on by yourself haha but I showed that thing who was boss. It is by no means perfect, there are some strange spots that I can't really explain but over all I'm very very pleased to have just a little bit more color in the room.

Theo already approves :)

And lastly, a SUPER HUGE AWESOME THANKS to Keith's wonderful mother Tami. She sent us a HUGE package this week filled with all kinds of goodies, including all our favorite Girl Scout cookies. Keith and I never have cash on us, so we didn't get to purchase many cookies this year, and now we need to savor every last one :) Thank you so much Tami, I'm going to be so spoiled on junk food now. Loveee it.