Kitchen Must Haves + A Giveaway

I am so excited for this weeks kitchen must haves. Homemade baking is something that speaks to my heart. I have fond memories of my grandma's home made cookies cooling on the counter waiting patiently to be devoured by tiny mouths. I also remember my grandma scrub my fave with a dish cloth until my skin hurt, cleanliness is close to Godliness right.

So we do a lot of baking around here especially cookies and thought that maybe sharing my cookie baking must haves would be a good topic for today. Including a new recipe find.

Here are two of the tools I use when baking cookies.


The colored mats are silicone baking mats that I use in place of parchment paper. I find they help with more even baking and I at they same time they keep the cookies from sticking to the pan, the cookies just slide right off. The other nice thing about the baking sheets is they are reusable for an amazing amount. I have read that you can use them 100's of times before needing to be replaced. When cleaning you just wipe they with a damp cloth and most everything disappears. For stickier uses such as meringue cookies or something with lots of chocolate you may need to use some warm soapy water, however no scrubbing needed

The second tool I find to be a kitchen must have is a cookie scoop. Pictured above is an OXO brand cookie scoop that my Grandma gave me years ago. I heart this tool. It makes all of your cookies the same uniform size and prevents the rogue extra large cookie from crowding its neighbors space. This also helps all of your cookies take the same amount of time to bake.

The last piece of info will answer a question I get a lot....what type of cookie sheets do you use. There are 100's of types of baking sheets out there and I have tried a number of them, however I have completely switched to a plain jane commercial style cookie sheet. You can get them at any wholesale market, in our area I get them from cash and carry. They are not fancy by any means, just plain stainless steel. I like this because you can scrub them down without ruining the surface and they are good to go for the next time. They also work for many other cooking needs.

The giveaway item is a brand new OXO Cookie Scoop . Hope you are excited, if you don't use one already it will change the way you make cookies for sure.


So that leads us to the give away and rules for winning. You can enter in one or both of the following ways.
1- Leave a comment telling me what your favorite kind of cookie is. Leave your email so that I can get back to you if you win.
2-For an extra entry- Post about the giveaway on your blog.
Any one is eligible to win and I will ship the cookie scoop to whoever the lucky winner is.
By the way I will allow entries until Saturday at 4pm Pacific time.

And as promised my new favorite cookie recipe.
I am calling it the Triple Threat.

Triple Threat Cookies
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 sticks butter softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 tblsp vanilla
3/4 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
8 oz of chocolate chips
8 oz chocolate chips - crushed up

in a food processor or blender grind up 1 cup of the oatmeal.

Combine - Oats, flour baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Cream Together - butter and sugar until light and fluffy ( I usually turn on a timer for 5 minutes) and then beat in canilla and peanut butter. Add eggs one at a time.

Gradually blend in Flour mixture.

Add Chocolate Chips, beat just until combined.

Chill cookie dough for 1-2 hours.

Form into balls smashing slightly (perfect time to use your cookie scoop).

Bake at 325 degrees for about 15 minutes.

Enjoy and good luck to whoever wins.