She Says: Double Download Day!
Hi Everyone!
First things first. I wanted to show you what all of your comments on the Food Drive post accomplished.
The total number of comments was 335 or $17.75, but I rounded up and got $25 worth of items at Wal-Mart. I was surprised to see the wide variety of no salt added canned veggies and no sugar added canned fruit Wal-Mart had!
My goal for shopping was to get as much healthy food as possible. We (that means me, Mark and ALL of you!) ended up with:
- 2 boxes of instant brown rice
- 1 container of quick oats
- 1 box toasted oat cereal
- 2 cans of no salt added corn
- 2 cans of no salt added peas
- 2 cans no sugar added peaches
- 2 cans no sugar added pears
- 2 cans black beans
- 2 cans kidney beans
- 2 cans pinto beans
- 10 cans tuna fish
As for the Peanut Butter dilemma, I took the easy way out! I had a jar of Skippy Natural in my cart and then I realized I could buy 3 cans of tuna instead, so I put it back.
I will be dropping this off at the Food Bank tomorrow! I know it doesn’t look like a lot, but it’s something and it will help people.
Thank you all for participating. I hope we can have another Hangry Pants Food Drive in the future!
In other news.
The rest of the day consisted of not one, but two Yoga Downloads. I did the Yoga for Runners in the morning and Yoga for Buns (woah Dawnelle!) in the afternoon. I think I should start paying for full classes. I’m starting to feel like a mooch!
For dinner I wasn’t sure what I wanted, then I saw on Mark’s Twitter that he was enjoying four burritos to celebrate almost finding us a place to live. I decided to join in and have a burrito, too.
My first time with the Amy’s Burrito and I quite enjoyed it. Inside is rice, beans cheese and something yummy that makes it spicy.
Then I was hungry/bored so I had Greek Yogurt, banana, wheat germ and PB.
Cookies of the Day: Heather’s Christmas Cookies ‘08
Are you sick of cookies yet? I am sick of eating them, but not making them.
As you’ve learned this month, I have lots of cookies to choose from around the holidays. But, I also consider myself to be fairly healthy and conscious about what I eat. This year, I decided to challenge myself by making more natural and healthy cookies. Now, this does not mean they are low fat or low calorie. A cookies is still a cookie, but it doesn’t have to contain nasty or scary ingredients to taste good!
To accomplish this I made two major substitutions in all the recipes:
(1) replace all white flour with whole wheat pastry flour; and
(2) replace all white and brown sugar with either raw cane sugar or turbinado sugar (this did not include confectioner’s sugar).
From left to right:
White Chocolate Lime Cookies, which I originally found here. These are one of my favorite cookies because of the balance between the white chocolate and lime. I felt the green bits of lime made them festive!
Thin Mints from Heidi Swanson. I made white chocolate, milk chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate. They were a paint to dip, but look really cute and according to those who have tasted them and like mint (not me), they are tasty.
Gingerbread Men also from Heidi Swanson. Clearly mine are circles, not men. This is because the dough never got hard or firm enough to roll out and cut. It was just too soft. I think this could have been the whole wheat pastry flour, but I’m not sure. In the end, they taste great and look pretty cute. I’m calling them Gingerbread Ornaments! The frosting on them is confectioner’s sugar, skim milk and vanilla.
Tags: amy's burrito, banana, cookies, gingerbread, Greek yogurt, peanut butter, thin mints, white chocolate lime cookies, yogurt
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:32 pm
SO IMPRESSED with you for donating like that… nice work hangry heather!
ooooo… i like making them more “natural” too without cutting all the goodness out.
yoga… seriously, i am not computer challenged but i have tried to download ones and i can’t seem to get them to work… help ??
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:33 pm
the cookies look incredible! i’m going to make your egg nog oaties tomorrow but couldn’t fint egg nog mix ANYWHERE, so i’m using chai mix instead. hope it works!
thank you so much to you and mark for a very successful food drive!!
have a great night!
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:41 pm
Great job at Wal-Mart!! Awesome substitutions on the cookies.
December 22nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm
You did a great job shopping for the food bank!
I love Amy’s products!
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:22 am
Aw how nice of you to shop for the food bank! Good kharma
Kelly Turner
http://www.everygymsnightmare.com
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:51 am
Good work for the food bank! Love your cookies. Girl after my own heart.
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:15 am
Great job at the food bank! And mmm cookies!
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:38 am
Whoa I am so drooling over the plate of cookies!! YUMMMMY!!
KO
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:17 am
Great donation!! I love those yoga downloads and I haven’t tried the buns one yet – I should get on that. I usually do 2 a day as well.
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:45 am
Congrats on a job well done with the food drive. It was such a great idea – and I like how you rounded up
Good call on the tuna over the PB!
Those cookies look so yummy! Thin Mints?! I thought I could only enjoy those when I ordered from the Girl Scouts – they are my favorite! Thanks for posting the recipe link, I will have to check it out and see if I could handle it.
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:53 am
Congrats again on the food drive! Very exciting!
I am loving all of your cookie recipes. I am def not sick of having cookies yet
Have a nice Tuesday!
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:57 am
Heather – the Rhode Island Community Food Bank is going to be so appreciative, and I love that you tried to make the food as healthy as possible. Canned tuna – great idea for protein. Thanks again for doing that.
Now onto the cookies…love the gingerbread “circles”, and I am intrigued by the white chocolate lime – what a combo! I will have to try those someday. Your eggnog oaties have been a huge hit
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:07 am
what an amazing thing you did!!
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:36 am
anything helps…and you got alot…such a great thing you guys did!
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:07 am
fabulous goods! and great cookies
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:46 am
Great job on getting all this stuff for just $25!
Those cookies look delicious. You just inspired me to get rid of the box of white sugar in my pantry and replace it with something better like raw cane sugar.
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:50 am
Hooray for all the fab goods you were able to get for the Food Bank!
Heather + Mark = two amazing people!!!
Your cookies look so good! I have to quit reading blogs in the wee morn … it makes me crave cookies at 8AM!! But, is that really so bad?!?
Have a great day, girl!
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:56 am
Fabulous Food Bank outcome; hooray for YOGA!!!
, and I LOOOOOVE all those cookies.
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:04 am
Mmmm…look at all those yummy cookies!
Great job an the Food Drive!
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:14 am
Great job on the donation AND the cookie plate!!
Glad to hear there’s another winner in Amy’s line
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:31 am
Good picks for the donations!!
December 23rd, 2008 at 10:57 am
that is AWESOME! it really will help people.
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:07 am
Awesome loot. Every little bit counts. You came up with quite the stash!
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:08 am
Yay for food drive goodies! I really think it amazing you guys did this. You are amazing bloggers!
December 23rd, 2008 at 11:17 am
That’s great that you donated all that food
Your cookies look amazing also!! Congrats on finishing up student teaching and I’m sure you will find a job in NJ! good luck !! 
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm
That is SO amazing that you got all that food to donate. I’m sure there are people out there very thankful for it.
I’ve been wanting to try Heidi’s thin mints for a while! She has some great recipes.
December 23rd, 2008 at 12:31 pm
Way to go on the double downloads!! I hear ya on the cookie burnout—all that sugar gets to you after awhile. But baking is so much fun!
December 23rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I’m really interested in those white chocolate lime cookies! Although I think I’m been banished from the kitchen (too many cooking disasters. My sister tells me my baking hobby is an expensive one. Damn).
Good idea to simply forgo the PB. Looks like you found a ton of great stuff!
Also much as I don’t like to get pre-made food for myself, I’m really not in the mood to cook and would love a burrito right now. Or taco. Hm.
December 23rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Unfortunately I am not sick of cookies. I love Heidi Swanson’s cookies!
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Congrats on the success of the food drive!
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Hoooray for your loot!!
That cookie tray looks fab!
December 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
cute blog too! How do you find the motivation to do the yoga downloads? i have 2 of them and i just can’t make it through 20 minutes, because I dont know my poses yet so it sucks having to look at the guide lol.
alright time to bake for tomorrow!
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Great job on the food drive!
I so want those dipped cookies!
December 23rd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I wasn’t going to share because I thought it was bragging, but then I read yours and realized it’s just encouraging others to do that same.
We went to Costco and bought 2 cases of soup, a large box of pasta, and a bunch of pasta sauce to go with it. This was all for a Giving Tree we found locally. We dropped it off to the one who set up the Giving Tree, but have no idea who it will go to. In that sense it was anonymous, and I hope it makes a difference.
Thanks for setting an example!
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
That’s great! You’re right, Wal-Mart has lots of no-salt. We get our tomatoes there. Good decision on the tuna/pb situation.
I love that you are all about baking. You’re so good at it!
December 8th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
[...] cookies from Christmas ‘08 – Thin Mints, White Chocolate Chip Lime & Gingerbread. (recipes linked in the [...]
December 8th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Aw the food drive idea is so great! I just found Yoga to the People podcasts on ITunes – they’re great!