Happy Thanksgiving!

Well I had an early Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's house today (which means I'll probably have more pictures tomorrow), so Tina, a friend I brought home for the weekend, and I made biscuits!




... okayokay I admit.. they're the Pillsbury ones.
But they were delicious. And I was short on time. I WONT DO IT AGAIN I PROMISE T__T












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About two weeks ago, I ran out of cereal (Kashi GoLean. YUmmieee) so my mom bought me a huge box of Cheerios. I don't think ANYONE can eat two ENTIRE full sized bags of Cheerios without getting sick, so naturally, I wanted to do something with them OTHER than mixing them with soymilk. So I went on the Cheerios website, found a recipe for Breakfast Cookies (like.. cookies.. AND breakfast. What could be better?!). The original version was a bit high sugar and high fat, so I changed the recipe a little. Here's my version:

Cheerios Breakfast Cookies
ingredients:
1 1/4 cups Splenda Granular
1/2 cup Blue Bonnet Spread
1/2 cup Peanut Butter
1/4 cup water
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 cup Gold Metal Whole Wheat Flour
1 cup Quaker Old Fashioned Oatmeal
1/2 cup Raisins
1/2 cup Pine Nuts
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Soda

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375°F.
2. In large bowl, stir together sugar, butter, peanut butter, water, vanilla and egg. Stir in remaining ingredients except cereal. Gently stir in cereal. On ungreased large cookie sheet, drop dough by rounded 1/2 cupfuls (rounded 1/3 cupfuls for 15 cookies) 4 inches apart. Flatten dough to about 1 inch thick. (Bake these crispy cookies as soon as the dough is mixed. Letting the dough stand awhile or refrigerating the dough will make the cookies softer.)
3. Bake 13 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand 5 minutes before removing from cookie sheet. Store loosely covered.

Notes: I ran out of vanilla, so I only used 1/2 a tablespoon (this is reflected in the recipe). I also didn't have the 1 cup of raisins called for in the original recipe, so I used pine nuts instead. When I was mixing the wet ingredients with the dry (especially when mixing the cheerios in), the peanut butter + butter mixture just stuck to itself, and the cheerios didn't really stick to that dry mixture. I think next time I make this recipe I'll try adding a bit more water (What my mom suggested). What worked out this time though, was just shaping the cookies with my hands. I just smooshed whatever excess cheerios I had on top of the balls of dough I made with my hands. Granted, this process made the cookies a lot more breakable than they should be, but they were yummy. My cookies got REALLY big so I left them in the oven for a couple extra minutes, and the cheerios got nice and crunchy, while the dough was still chewy. They were DELICIOUS.

*The following contains possibly graphic pictures of whole, cooked fish, and other examples of food Chinese people eat during Thanksgiving. Read at your own risk!*






yum. whole fish.


















if i'm not terribly mistaken, this is king albacore.













ahhh its late and.. i'm making sushi tomorrow! So time for sleep. I'll finish up the rest of tonight's dinner pictures tomorrow.

Good night, and happy thanksgiving!