Cowboy Cookies and Our Move to the Land of Cowboys!

The first item on the agenda is to announce.. 

that we're moving back to Texas! 

This is very bittersweet for us as we've learned so much and enjoyed so many friendships during our time in the Twin Cities over nearly the past year and a half. We are also excited for our future. Texas has been on our hearts for quite a while and this spring has been {really rough} for my fibro symptoms. We're looking forward to the nicer weather year round, being closer to my parents, and for future opportunities as well. 

If you're counting, this is our 4th move (across the country) since just before we were married in 2009. It's been a wild ride, especially for the two of us, who are known to prefer stability over spontaneity:) God is growing us new skills or shaping us one way or another through it all, and we're thankful He's guiding our steps in this process.

My phone crashed last week, we think because it didn't have enough space left to save to "the cloud" (I had nearly 5,000 photos on it... since I got the phone last September... don't judge;)). My sweet husband, despite all going on in our lives right now spent some time helping me restore my phone. Thankfully, everything saves onto my computer too so everything was backed up/saved, but we had to re-load my contacts, apps, etc. I had fun exploring with some new apps like the one I edited above. Note to self: delete photos from phone more often... :)

We also made it up to a record breaking 98 degrees this week which felt lovely - my bones finally thawed from this long winter! Our apartment has now gone from 60 degree to 80 degrees in just one week - I completely prefer the 80 degrees! 

A fun weather related comparison...
April 23rd:

May 10th: 

I made these cookies last week that happen to be pretty fitting with our news:
Cowboy Cookies

These cookies made an appearance on the blog in this post about gifts I made for family members with the cookie ingredients in the jar (such cute and convenient gift items). I hadn't made the cookies prior to giving them, but they had great reviews so I was confident they'd be good. 

I've been seriously missing out by not making these until now! Nick said they're the best cookies I've made, then corrected himself, saying "the best gluten free ones" haha:) I think they're great and they definitely don't taste gluten or dairy free. They're just delicious! 

Ingredients

  Liquid:
1/2 cup melted butter (I use Earth Balance (dairy free) - you could use regular)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

  Dry:
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 and 1/3 cups gluten free flour (I use Bob's Red Mill - you could use regular flour too)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life brand (dairy/soy free))
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 and 1/3 cups rolled oats

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix together liquid ingredients, then stir in the dry ingredients, using hands to mix if necessary. Shape into walnut sized balls. Place two inches apart on greased cookie sheets (or use parchment paper on the cookie sheet- my fave for easy cleanup!). Bake for 11 - 13 minutes and transfer to wire rack to cool. Makes about 3 dozen cookies. Enjoy these tasty cookies! 

Today's Pinspiration:

(Etsy source)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

The snow day continues! After making egg-free cookie dough this morning, I spent the rest of the day dreaming about chocolate chip cookies... so I made them. It may have been slightly rebellious of me, but I gave in since it's a snow day after all :)

The dough was SO chocolate chippy, but I won't complain :)

Ingredients:
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup melted butter
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I mixed in some whole wheat I wanted to use up too)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups chocolate chips (1 1/2 or 1 3/4 might be enough depending on your preference)



Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In medium bowl, combine sugars and butter until smooth. Mix in eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add in flour in 3 increments or so to stir it all in. Also stir in the salt, baking soda and baking powder. When all is mixed, stir in chocolate chips. Form into round dough balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet (or use parchment paper, my FAV for easy clean up) and bake 10-15 minutes, until edges are golden brown. Mine took about 12 minutes.

My taste tester and comfy snowed in husband enjoying his day off

I realized today I'm not sure how many times.. maybe.. never (?!) I've made homemade chocolate chip cookies. But this recipe was a keeper and will be made again for sure!

Like I said earlier, LOTS of chocolate chips!

But I won't complain :)

Also check out some new blog renovations (thank you snow day for the time to experiment!).

• I now have "pages" at toward the top right of the blog - "home", "recipes" (I categorized all of my recipes on that page! I'll post more as I write them) and a brief "about" page.
  
• I also made the navigation bar at the verrrry top of the blog "disappearing" so it's not always an eye sore.
  
• I changed some fonts/design elements (added a header!) and also added pretty post dividers... I had to change my blog HTML code and get all technical... and I didn't blow it up! Just spend hours figuring it out.. and a few trials, some errors, followed by success (thanks to this post)! Shabby Blogs helped me decorate my blog - they have lots of fun free blog stuff and great tutorials.

Now I'm off to enjoy the rest of my snow day and eat the scrumptious stir fry dinner Nick is making - it's the icing on my snow day cake... or cookie... :)