Friday Five: Celebrating National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day

February 27, 2015February 26, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

I just found the most amazing food calendar that tells me dates of the most important holidays – food holidays! And first up is one holiday that I certainly will observe – National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day!!

I wish I had more advance notice, but National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day is Sunday, March 1. So, in early celebration, here are five recipes that I think look AMAZING (disclosure, I’ve made some of them) and the perfect way to celebrate:

1. Peanut Butter Heath Bar Blondies

[recipe]

2. Reese’s Soft Peanut Butter Cookies

[recipe]

3. Peanut Butter Brookies

[recipe]

4. Soft Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanut Butter Frosting

[recipe]

5. Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Caramel Club Bars

[recipe]

For more peanut butter recipes, here are a few on here. Apparently I have a peanut butter addiction because that’s a lot of peanut butter!

Some questions for you:

If you had to choose from one of the treats above – which would you want to eat?
Do you like peanut butter? Believe it or not, I’ve met people who don’t!
Favorite way to enjoy peanut butter? On ice cream. Or a tortilla with honey and granola. Or with carrots. Or as a peanut butter cup! Yum!

Brown Butter Butterscotch Oatmeal Coconut Bars

February 26, 2015February 24, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 1 Comment

You guys. I just discovered brown butter. I don’t know HOW it took me so long to try it out – but my life is changed. I will never bake again without browning my butter!

Okay so that’s false – but in all seriousness, browning the butter for at least this recipe was amazing. It smelled SO good and I think made these bars so much better than they could have been. You MUST try it – I promise, if you get a good browned butter, you won’t be sorry.

Anyway, I had a hankering for baking with butterscotch and while I love these butterscotch oatmeal cookies, I was seeking something somewhat different. After reviewing a few recipes (and my pantry), I came up with these. They’re chewy, really sweet (warning- not for the non-sweet tooth!), and I think they’re delicious. Be careful – they’re also addicting!

brown butter butterscotch oatmeal coconut bars-icrashedtheweb

Brown Butter Butterscotch Oatmeal Coconut Bars

(adapted from Cook’s Country … because I don’t have cable and am addicted to this show)

Here’s what you need:

For the bars:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups oatmeal (I used 1 cup quick oats and 1 cup old fashioned – the texture is more chewy with the quick oats and more fibrous / gritty / textured with the old fashioned so i like to mix)
1/2 sweetened coconut
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup butterscotch chips divided in half
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 TBS vanilla extract

Butterscotch drizzle:

1/4 cup butterscotch chips
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon water

Here’s what you do:

Preheat your oven to 350. Prepare a 9×13 baking pan by spraying with a nonstick cooking spray or butter.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, coconut, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Brown your butter! In a small pan at medium heat, melt the butter. Let the butter continue to cook until a rich golden brown color. Stir continuously so as not to burn the butter – burned butter does not equal brown butter! Feel free to use this site as a guide as well for additional direction on how to perfectly brown your butter.
In a large bowl, combine the hot brown butter with half of the 1 1/2 cup chips (3/4 cup). Mix together until melted and smooth. Add in the brown sugar, egg and vanilla.
Slowly add in flour/oat/coconut mixture, just until incorporated.
Add in other half of chips (3/4) and combine. (Note: I like to add in about 1/2 chips and sprinkle rest on top of batter when in pan)
Pour batter into the prepared pan and spread so it is even. Bake about 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
When the bars are almost done, make the butterscotch drizzle: Mix 1/4 cup butterscotch chips, brown sugar and water and melt in a saucepan over medium, stirring so not to burn. Alternatively, you could make in the microwave – again, just be careful to not burn it!
Drizzle over the warm bars. Let the bars cool completely before removing them – this will be tough, but it’s so worth it! Enjoy – share some with your coworkers or family 🙂

brown butter butterscotch oatmeal coconut bars-icrashedtheweb

WIAW: Case of the Mondays = Cookie for Breakfast

February 25, 2015February 25, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 6 Comments

I decided to switch it up a little bit this week – I’m sharing with you Monday’s eats for this edition of What I Ate Wednesday. I typically share a Tuesday eats but guess what – I remembered to take food pics on Monday!

Full disclosure: Today (Wednesday) I’m going out to eat for dinner and likely having chips and guac, tacos, margs and dessert. Sorry you’re stuck with viewing pictures of zoodles (and some treats) instead of Mexican 🙂

Monday morning I started my day with a cookie. That’s right – a cookie. I ran before work and was hungry before I even had a chance to make breakfast (B had to pick up his dry-cleaning so I made my OWN breakfast!) so I had a butterscotch oatmeal coconut cookie bar. Delicious! And there’s oatmeal in them so it’s totally a great pre-breakfast treat.

butterscotch oatmeal cookie

When I got to work, I had my egg whites and veggies – this time a mix of spaghetti squash and frozen vegetables. Oh, and coffee with cinnamon. I don’t drink coffee daily, but when a colleague puts in Vietnamese cinnamon AND it’s Monday, it’s hard to resist.

breakfst

Lunch was a mix of leftovers from our dinner out with my parents on Friday (salmon and lentils – both my mom’s and my leftovers) and some roasted broccoli and tomatoes I had prepared on Sunday.

Salmon, lentils, roasted broccoli and tomatoes. Yes, my lunches often look like a dinner.

Snacks during the day included:

Bag of red and yellow peppers

20150223_154411

A few werthers (not pictured) and tons of tea with honey (also not pictured)

A sweet potato with honey

sweet potato

Some Arctic Zero! Yes it’s cold, but I still have a sweet tooth (as evidenced by the cookie for breakfast)

I didn’t quite eat the whole pint ..

And for dinner – I made some shrimp scampi-type dish with zoodles! I don’t know what is officially in shrimp scampi, but this was sautéed onions, garlic and shrimp over zoodles with some peperoncino flakes and fresh basil.

Shrimp scampi over zoodles!

Some questions for you:

Does anyone have a spiralizer? What do you recommend making?
Cookies for breakfast – anyone else guilty?
Arctic Zero fans – what’s your favorite flavor?

*Note: The original WIAW linkup seems to be on hiatus sadly – but I’ll be sharing this here too!

Training Tuesday: Running Confessions

February 24, 2015February 23, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 7 Comments

Welp, the week is finally here – it’s time to start my Cleveland Half Marathon Training!

As you may recall, I’m a Cleveland Marathon Ambassador – meaning I’ll be sharing fun news about the race, doing a giveaway AND sharing my training reports.

So, for my first report, I’ll share with you what I’ve been doing to get ready to train – the good and the bad. These are my confessions …

The good:

I finally got back into shape after our Asia trip. As I shared, I didn’t run for a few weeks in Dec/Jan and really got out of shape fast. I can tell you that I more than made up for it by running every day since we returned (see: the bad).
I bought new shoes! My purple sauconys have about 450+ miles on them, and I’m starting with a new pair for training.

Can’t wait to try out these new sneakers!

I have a training plan! Thanks to B (and Hal Higdon), I have a plan in place for my half-marathon training.

B made me a schedule 🙂

The bad:

I have not been running outside. I’m a baby when it comes to cold and ice; thus, I have run outside maybe 3 times since the New Year. I need to get back out there – treadmill runs just aren’t the same for me!

With weather like this, it’s hard to get myself outside.

I haven’t signed up for ANY other races. Typically by this time, I’ve signed up for a few local races or even run some (last year’s Chili Bowl) – but this ear I just can’t seem to get myself motivated! Maybe it’s because B stopped running with me?
I may not have given my body enough rest. See #1 above – I ran every day from January 16 through February 16. Some days it was only 1-2 miles, other days it was 7. I decided to try to take last week easy and do the elliptical most days, but I got tired and missed the treadmill and caved and ran 3 times. I did take my first complete rest day on Sunday, only going for a walk with B.

Weekly mileage from the week we got back thru last week before I decided to take a few days off from running … Yeah, that’s high (for me)

So those are my confessions. Some questions for you:

What do you do to keep yourself in check? Have you signed up for any races?
Clevelanders – or others with this frigid weather – have you been running outside? Please tell me how you do it.
What’s your favorite pair of running shoes?
How do you stay motivated on the treadmill?

My parents in the CLE! (and that weekend I ate a lot of Italian food)

February 23, 2015February 22, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

This past weekend, my parents came to town. It was very up in the air at first – if the weather looked iffy, they wouldn’t make the 8ish hour drive from NY – so I wasn’t expecting them to come. We’ve had a less-than-stellar winter in Cleveland – very cold and snowy – and I expected this weekend to be the same.

It was -5 when I woke up on Friday. Thus the day started with a treadmill run. Again.

Thankfully, even though the weekend did have a dose of cold and snow, my parents were still able to make it! They came in Friday night and left Sunday morning, so we really only had one full day with them … so we packed in as much wintry fun as we could!

Friday night, we had reservations for Cibreo. Sidenote – it’s Downtown Cleveland Restaurant Week, so if you’re in Cleveland, be sure to check out the list of participating restaurants and get yourself to one this week!My mom and I both dined off the Cibeo restaurant week menu and it was great – we both had the arugula butternut squash salad, salmon and lentils, and split both desserts (zeppoli and a custard). B and my dad got off the regular menu. Everyone loved their meals – I love Cibreo and their great Italian food.

The salmon from the Cibreo restaurant week menu – my mom and I both got it and had leftovers so I have lunch for this week!

Friday was pretty frigid – like single digits plus wind. So after dinner, we relaxed in our apartment, showed off some photos from our Asia trip, and well, that was the extent of our Friday night.

Saturday started off with a 4 mile run and then some Insanity cardio abs. Ouch. I haven’t done any Insanity workouts since B and I did them right before our wedding, and this only 15 minute workout killed me. In a good way, of course.

insanity cardio abs

After that, I met my parents and we walked to the West Side Market! The weather was warmer than Friday, but super snowy. Still, it felt SO good to be outside and walking! It had been so long since I’d been outside for an extended period of time and I was really getting stir crazy.

Selfie during the walk

After walking to the Market and picking up some groceries, we walked over to Hingetown to my favorite tea spot. Yes, this was the third time I’d been to Cleveland Tea Revival in one week and I’m not ashamed. Their ginger tea = amazing. My mom also loves their tea and even ordered some ginger turmeric to be shipped to New York.

Family at the tea shop

By then, we were all pretty hungry so we walked back to Ohio City and got some soup at Souper Market. Yet again, I got the mulligatawny so I’ll spare you another photo of that soup – it looks the same each week and now that I’ve given up meat for Lent it was the easiest soup to select. AND I have some leftovers for lunch next week!

20150221_134357

After driving back downtown (B had met us at the market and gave us a ride – we had walked enough already), my parents and I checked out the North Coast Harbor Ice Festival. It was cool to see the sculptures – I have no idea HOW people make those!

My mom and I goofing around with the ice sculptures

Anchors away!

Then it was time to relax a bit – we had been walking a lot and we were all a little tired after going nonstop since the morning. We decided to watch a movie that was on TV, the Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise. Have you seen it? I have NO IDEA what the ending was about. Seriously – if someone has seen it, please tell me what happened!

For dinner we decided to brave the snow and cold yet again and drive to Little Italy for Pizza at Mama Santa’s and dessert at Presti’s. I think my favorite comfort foods are Italian and soup, and I got both in one day. Pretty lucky!

Disclosure: I had mushroom pizza (no meat for Lent). But I ate the slices before I remembered to take a photo.

Cannoli=happiness. I ate the one on the right – every single bite.

Sunday I decided to take a rest day. That means no elliptical, no running. This was the first rest day I’ve taken since we got back from Asia (more than a month ago) and with training for the Cleveland half marathon starting this week, I convinced myself somehow that my body needed some time off. Instead of working out in the morning, I joined my parents for breakfast before they hit the road. After saying goodbye (never easy), B and I took a walk, which always seems to help me get my mind off things. We went back to the ice sculptures and spent an hour exploring the area and other parts of downtown. It was a nice feeling to yet again be outside, enjoying the weather even if I had a day off from working out. Oh yeah, and we had some sunshine! IMG_20150221_211231

SUNSHINE AND BLUE SKIES!

Sunday dinner was per usual with B’s family and we had even MORE ITALIAN comfort food – this time, lasagna and ice cream sundaes for dessert. Pretty much the cherry on top (yup, pun intended) to a wonderful weekend.

B’s mom’s lasagna. One had veggies in it and the other had meat.

How was your weekend?

Do you still eat ice cream in the winter?Yes! Year round please.

What’s your favorite comfort food? Soup or Italian food.

Red Velvet Oreo Chex Mix {My first attempt at Puppy Chow}

February 19, 2015February 10, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 4 Comments

A confession – while I love to bake, I’ve never ever made the infamous Puppy Chow. You know, that Chex Mix that is coated in chocolate, peanut butter and some powdered sugar? I’ve been on a mission to make it and the perfect occasion finally happened – baking with Nicole!

I’ve been hearing a lot about the Red Velvet Oreo cookies and when I finally found them at Target (don’t worry, I went into Target to buy a “few things” and left with a cart full – EVERY TIME), I couldn’t wait to buy them. They came in a smaller-than-typical Oreo box, meaning I used the whole box in the recipe and wasn’t left with leftovers .. okay, besides the 2-3 that I had to try first.

not my photo – but this is what they look like!

I am not a big Oreo fan – sorry, I just am not. But I do love cream cheese frosting and when I heard the Red Velvet OREOS weren’t as chocolatey and had a cream cheese type frosting, I knew I had to buy a box. And of course bake with them. Want an excuse to try the Red Velvet OREOs? Here you go!

red velvet oreo puppy chow chex mix for valentine's day

Red Velvet OREO Puppy Chow

(I added in Valentine’s M&Ms and sent a bag of this to my brother for Valentine’s Day feel free to make it any time of year you can find these OREOs though! – modified from Sally’s Baking Addiction)

Here’s what you need:

20 Red Velvet OREOs, finely crushed into crumbs (divided into two halves)
1 c. powdered sugar (divided into half)
10 cups Rice Chex cereal (divided into two halves – 5 c. + 5 c.)
1 1/4 c. white chocolate melting wafers
1 1/4 c. milk chocolate melting wafers
Extra OREOs, roughly chopped (I used probably 4-5)
1/2 c. M&Ms – I used the Valentine’s ones

Here’s what you do:

Measure out powdered sugar and crushed Oreos and mix together. Divide mixture in half – you’ll use half for the white Rice Chex and half for the chocolate Rice Chex.
Measure out half the Rice Chex – about 5 cups. Pour into a large bowl or tupperware with a lid.
Melt white chocolate on low, in a microwave. Stir throughout to make sure you don’t burn chocolate. Pour melted white chocolate over Rice Chex and store until cereal is covered.
Pour half powdered sugar/OREO mixture over white chocolate Chex. Put lid on tupperware and shake until cereal is coated with sugar and OREO mixture.
Repeat the above steps with the chocolate Chex. Melt chocolate on low, pour over remaining 5 c. Rice Chex and coat, pour remaining powdered sugar/OREO mixture over chocolate Chex and shake to coat.
Combine cooled white chocolate and chocolate Chex mix. Add in extra chopped OREOs and M&M. Share with a loved one or friend!

red velvet oreo puppy chow for valentine's day

Yum! What’s your favorite kind of Chex Mix or Puppy Chow?

WIAW: A Not-So-Fat Tuesday

February 18, 2015February 17, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 6 Comments

Guess what – I’m back again for another What I Ate Wednesday post!

I was super excited to share with you a Fat Tuesday post, complete with King Cake, jambalaya, these cupcakes and lots of food. Because – why not? It’s Fat Tuesday? But I have a confession – my Fat Tuesday was really pretty normal.

Per usual, my day started with egg whites and veggies, made by B. I was too lazy to make spinach or Brussels sprouts for breakfast so I had some frozen organic veggies from Whole Foods and tomatoes from the West Side Market to fill me up.

breakfast

Our office celebrated Fat Tuesday with paczkis! Don’t know what a paczki is? Don’t worry, I didn’t either until I moved to Cleveland where apparently they’re a BIG deal. (Note – they’re Polish so also a big deal in Poland. And according to Wikipedia, also in “Philadelphia, the Boston area, the Greater Detroit and Mid Michigan areas, Central Connecticut, Northern and Central New Jersey, Chicago and Northern Illinois, Northwest Indiana and Southeastern Wisconsin”). Some people even call Fat Tuesday Paczki Day!

Paczkis are basically powdered donuts with a filling. And honestly, the only donut I really enjoy is an apple fritter so I passed. But I took a picture anyway – pretty, huh?

paczki

Lunch was a ginormous salad! I had made some roasted chicken over the weekend (I know! B typically roasts it but this week I did it with his help when I did some meal prep) and paired half a breast with roasted Brussels sprouts, butternut squash and cauliflower – but this morning I decided to add some extra salad mix to the container and it was a good decision! For an unintended salad, it was pretty! I didn’t need any dressing because I’m picky about dressings and the roasted veggies had enough oil/flavor for me.

Yup, a HUGE salad that wasn’t supposed to be a salad.

Snacks during the day included:

Bag of celery

celery

A red pepper, sliced. Yup, that’s one entire red pepper. #Notashamed

red pepper snack

Chewy ginger candy. Yes, again. And I’ve run out so I don’t know what I’m going to do!

wiaw ginger chews

One of many cups of tea!

And dinner! I know – you’re like “wait those are the only snacks today? You usually snack so much more! Where are the granola bars? Where are the nuts? And carrots?!” but I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon which prevented me from snacking so much – snack time became dentist time. And good news – no cavities! Anyway, I digress. Dinner.

I was planning on making dinner but after the dentist I had some work to do, so B ~~tried to convince me to pick up McDonald’s~~ graciously made the meal. And it was SO good! We had bought sushi-grade tuna at the West Side Market, along with tons of veggies, so we at them for dinner. Seared ahi tuna, roasted cauliflower, roasted asparagus and 1/3 a sweet potato. Because what day wouldn’t be complete without a sweet potato? (I only had 1/3 of it because I reallllly wanted leftovers for today. It took a lot of restraint. And I didn’t take a picture it because I ate it after my meal)

When B makes me dinner it looks a lot better

After dinner I enjoyed that 1/3 of sweet potato and tea with lots of honey. Yes, I have an herbal tea problem.

tea and honey after dinner!

AND here is an update of my Fitbit for the day! I decided to take it easy this week and not run every day (big deal for me!) because next week starts my Cleveland half marathon training. So today’s workout included a really slow and easy 60 minutes on the elliptical followed by some ab and weights. As usual, you’ll see practically no flights of stairs on my end. I don’t have any stairs in my life!

Screenshot_2015-02-17-21-30-45

Some questions for you:

Well, how did I do?
How was your day? Which of these foods would you eat? Any you wouldn’t enjoy?
Did you have a REAL Fat Tuesday? Please let me know and I can live vicariously through your indulgences.

A LOVEly Weekend

February 16, 2015February 16, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

I’ll admit it – I like Valentine’s Day. I like any holiday that celebrates love – how can you not? I consider it a day to celebrate ALL love – love of your family, friends, significant others, etc. That’s how I was brought up (yes, my parents still send me a Valentine’s Day card and I send my brother one!) and I LOVE it.

That being said, I’m not one of those people who expects to celebrate myself all weekend long – with Christmas in late December and my birthday being in late January, there’s hardly a reason for me to expect any gifts, a big celebration, etc. BUT I do enjoy celebrating in other ways … like good food, good company, good drinks and well – goodness all around! Luckily, that’s how the weekend turned out.

Friday night was cold and snowy, so B and I decided to stay in, watch the Interview, and get takeout Vietnamese to eat with our new chopsticks we’d bought in Vietnam.

Saturday morning I woke up somewhat early to get in a little treadmill and elliptical action at the gym. I had thought about doing the Chili Bowl 5k (last year, B and I ran it after doing a 9 mile training run) but the weather was cold, super windy (20+mph winds), and snowy so I was happy to stay inside and run while B slept. And of course the elliptical and treadmill helped me work up a hunger for brunch! That’s right, B and I went to Phuel for brunch – I got my favorite (granola, fruit, yogurt and honey) and B got his standard order – banana chocolate chip pancakes.

B and his pancakes. He’s probably thinking “Please take the picture so I can eat these soon”

Glorious homemade granola. Not quite as good as my mom’s recipe – but the closest thing here 🙂

After brunch it was time to get in some of our weekly shopping at the West Side Market. We picked up some treats too – a cannoli for the night’s dessert. We had plans to cook a homemade Italian dinner and I of course wanted my favorite Italian dessert.

So many types of cannoli!

After the Market, B stopped in Hingetown for a coffee/tea stop. I decided to try a new tea at Cleveland Tea Revival – not my standard Ginger or Ginger Turmeric – and I wasn’t disappointed. Their Shark Week Tea may be a new favorite of mine.

Shark Week tea. I just googled what that meant and whoops! I’ll still drink it.

We also were able to stop off at Gallucci’s to pick up some supplies for dinner. I wish I had taken a photo of my cart – Gallucci’s is like Target to me. I go there with the full intent to buy 3-4 things and come out with 10+ items.

I <3 Gallucci's - and not just for their wine.

For dinner, B and I prepared an Italian feast together. My favorite way to spend the night! We prepared homemade pasta, sauce and chicken cutlets. With some bubbly and cheese and meat as an appetizer and I was in heaven.

love me some cheese!!!

Pasta making experts.

Prosecco and crystal. Because why not?

I love going out to dinner – don’t get me wrong, but there’s just something about spending the time making a meal together – B and I made the pasta and chicken together, so instead of having a 1-2 hour meal at a restaurant, it turned into a whole evening activity. And it was delicious!

Dinner.

The pistachio cannoli from the West Side Market – and homemade limoncello

Sunday was another COLD day. And I’m talking super cold – I woke up to -1 degree temps with 15mph winds meaning it “felt like -25”. So of course B and I decided it would be a great day for a “Lazy Sunday.” Which for me meant doing as very little as possible – but enough so that I wouldn’t get bored. I decided to play it safe and run inside again, bringing this week’s mileage to 36!

After the workout, I wanted to do some meal prep for the week. I roasted a chicken (usually B’s job), sweet potato, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and acorn squash.

A bit of meal prep

Then it was time for dinner with B’s family. We were celebrating my niece’s birthday (can’t believe she’s SIX!).

my contribution to the dinner – salad!

The gorgeous red velvet birthday cake B’s mom made

blowing out the candles!

We go over there almost every week, but this week was special not only for the birthday but it was also a goodbye dinner for B’s brother. He’s is traveling abroad to Germany so we had a big family meal before he leaves this week. I’m so jealous – I loved studying abroad and hope he has as much fun as I did!

A throwback to my days in Ecuador – at a futbol game!

Some questions for you:

Love or hate Valentine’s Day?
Did you study abroad? If not, where do you wish you would have visited?
What’s your favorite type of meal to prepare?

Graham cracker M&M cookies {{in time for Valentine’s Day!}}

February 12, 2015February 10, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 6 Comments

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I’m sharing with you a dessert recipe you can share with your friends … or save them for yourself. I won’t tell anyone!

OR you could just eat the batter … who am I to judge?

I had bought Valentine’s colored M&Ms at Target (I can’t resist anything when I’m at Target – especially seasonal items … thus the Red Velvet Oreos – which I’m also baking with!) and because I’m not a big fan of traditional M&Ms, I decided to scour my pantry to find something to bake them with. I found an unused sleeve of graham crackers and realized that was it – graham cracker, chocolate chip cookies with M&Ms would be perfect!

Graham cracker M&M cookies for valentines day

So here you go – make these any time of year (just swap out the M&M colors – or try a different candy or more chips) and enjoy the buttery and crunchy-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside texture.

Graham cracker M&M cookies for valentines day

Graham Cracker Chocolate Chip M&M Cookies

Here’s what you need:

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup crushed graham cracker crumbs (about a whole sleeve)
1/3 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup M&Ms

Here’s what you do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a parchment paper or spray with Pam.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars until smooth and fluffy.
Add the egg and vanilla and beat until mixed thoroughly.
Add the flour, baking soda, graham cracker crumbs and mix well. Use a spatula to make sure it’s all mixed throughout before finished. Stir in the chocolate chips and about half the M&Ms.
Using a spoon (or ice cream scoop!), scoop dough into rounded tablespoons and place on prepared baking sheet.* Place a few M&Ms on top of each cookie before putting in the oven – this will make them look nicer as not all M&Ms are hidden inside the batter.
Bake for 9-10 minutes or until edges start to brown. Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheet for about a minute before removing and letting finish cool on wire rack.
Enjoy!

*I’ve tried this recipe keeping the dough in the fridge for about 30 min- 1 hour and just baking as is – they are slightly more plump if you chill first, but it didn’t seem necessary. They didn’t spread out too much if they’re not chilled.

Graham cracker M&M cookies for valentines day

What are you baking for Valentine’s Day? I’ve pinned quite a few recipes that I’d love to make – too bad there’s not enough time!

Some questions for you:

What’s your favorite kind of M&M? I’m a fan of peanut or peanut butter or pretzel! Not as much for the regular ones.
Do you like graham crackers? I ate them with peanut butter as a snack growing up – so yes! Also froze cool whip in two crackers as a sandwich to make an ice cream sandwich type snack (try it with the cinnamon and chocolate ones!)

WIAW: I’m hooked!

February 11, 2015February 10, 2015 / Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 7 Comments

I’m not going to lie – I’ve really been enjoying participating in What I Ate Wednesday posts. I love seeing what you are all are eating and love sharing (and remembering) my eats!

Once again, today’s eats are from my Tuesday meals and were a pretty planned out day with all meals as normal – no meals out, no traveling, no unexpected surprises. But hopefully still delicious looking!

As usual, my day started with egg whites and veggies, made by B. I ran out of my 100% egg whites so B added a few Egg Beaters as well.

I <3 breakfast! Egg whites, tomato and frozen veggies.

I ❤ breakfast! Egg whites, tomatoes and frozen veggies.

Oh, I also had some hard boiled egg whites for a snack – 3 of them. I HAVE AN EGG WHITE ADDICTION. Oh, and we ran out so what am I to do the rest of the week?!

20150210_115409

Lunch was leftovers again – I love making extra food for lunches! I honestly used to hate leftovers – but now if I can I plan ahead just so I have a delicious lunch ready to go. (Is this what happens when you turn 30?!) Monday night I had made chicken sausage, peppers, onions (all from West Side Market!) over spaghetti squash with homemade sauce. So for lunch today, I had leftover spaghetti squash marinara with peppers, onions and a half a chicken breast that B had roasted.

roasted chicken breast on top of spaghetti squash marinara … nomnomnom

Snacks during the day included:

Carrots and celery

20150210_155250

A Vanilla protein shake – B buys the BioTrust low carb protein and I think it’s pretty good. And filling!

Protein Shake Selfie!

Some pinto beans. Yes, they may be a weird snack but I was hungry when I got home and had made pinto beans last night so that’s what I snacked on.

20150210_174042 2

For dinner, I made a sweet potato zucchini hash with some chicken sausage we had bought at the West Side Market on Saturday. Oh my goodness – I wish you could taste this. It was SO good! It took me forever to chop everything up but it was SO WORTH IT. You’d better believe I have leftovers for today’s lunch!

Dinner! Sweet potato chicken sausage hash - so many good veggies - peppers, onions, hot pepper and zucchini

Dinner! Sweet potato chicken sausage hash with peppers, onions, hot pepper and zucchini

And here is where my Fitbit ended up for the day – I ran 5.5 miles in the morning, walked to and from work and got in some steps during a short (10 min) walk during the day.

Screenshot_2015-02-10-20-06-27