Greetings! I’ve been rummaging through old and new magazines and cookbooks alike in search of some new recipes that I can both use and jazz up by adding or subtracting ingredients. It’s such a turnoff when I see like 26 ingredients for a meal that looks and sounds so simple on paper, that I usually just turn the page and continue browsing. Let’s be honest here, if you’re trying to make something quick and creative everyday after work, you won’t have the patience or energy to do the shopping for all those ingredients let alone the time that goes into crafting your meal to look like the ones in the pictures. Plus those pictures are taken by actual food photographers who are obviously quite good at what they do!! 

Martha Stewart and I would get along very well I presume. She knows how to make a meal, and quickly, with no fuss or hard to find ingredients. Her recipes are simple, creative and best of all, very inexpensive to recreate. I love her magazine Martha Stewart Living and there’s always some craft, idea, outfit, book or tip that I have to cut out and save, hence why I have so many fat scrapbooks tucked away in my house. The subscription is totally worth it!

This morning, I made these easy peesy five ingredient cookies found in the recent edition of Martha’s mag. She even thinks like me, substituting nut butter for flour in order to hold the cookies together! These cookies are gluten-free because flour is NOT one of the five! And you can also buy a dairy-free chocolate chip so no worries if you you have a  sensitive stomach… you can and will love these! Oh! And I just picked up this new brand of peanut butter at Trader Joe’s that has flax and chai seeds in it… a great way to get extra nutrients and energy, even if it’s in the form of a cookie! Check out another one of my recipes with nut butter as a substitute here!

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5 Ingredient, 2 Bite Cookies- makes 21 

Ingredients:

-1 cup almond or peanut butter or any other kind of nut butter

-1/2 cup brown sugar

-2 eggs

-1/4 tsp course salt

-1 cup chocolate chips (I used unsweetened dark chocolate chips)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Mix all the ingredients together until a dough starts to form.

3. Using a tablespoon, scoop the batter onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

4. Bake for 10 minutes or until tops are firm.

5. Place on wire racks to cool.

Soft and gooey!

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Let’s talk books now before I go eat another cookie! My book club meets this weekend and we are discussing Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings, a novel about six friends who meet in summer camp and the deeper relationships they form with one another as they grow older in the midst of money, success, failure and missed opportunities. I really enjoyed the book and her writing style is like that of Jeffery Eugenides who wrote Middlesex and The Virgin Suicides, two of my favorites.

Currently, I’m reading The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins that is said to be a sick thriller like Gone Girl. I started in yesterday and I’m already 150 pages deep if that says anything! The author tells the story of three women, all loosely intertwined, but intertwined no less through quick chapters that begin always with the subtitle “morning” and end with “evening.” A true page-turner if I say so myself. My Ma just finished reading it and she really, really enjoyed it so I’m sure we’ll all like it too!

Lastly, I’m listening to the audio memoir It Was Me All Along by and narrated by Andie Mitchell. This book has made me want to hug the author who grew up with an alcoholic father who later kills himself, a mother who loves her but works four jobs because she has to, and a brother who was always off with his friends, leaving her alone to watch TV and eat, eat, and eat. By the age of 14 she is 200 pounds and her struggle only gets worse over time. I’m really hoping this book has a happy ending because the emotion is so raw and real in Mitchell’s voice when she talks about her past life, that she deserves nothing but the best. We’ll see if I can hold back the tears!