With Christmas only a couple days away, I imagine that most people already have finalized their holiday baking, but I thought I would throw one more recipe in the mix for all the tea lovers out there. Fun fact: I actually made these cookies at the beginning of the month for our condo’s holiday party, but I forgot to post the recipe until now. Pregnancy brain will do that to you!

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It feels really good to be back in the kitchen after a very busy couple of months. The rest of my summer was pretty much a write-off due to pregnancy fatigue, we were away for most of October due to our Italy trip and then I headed off to Ottawa to attend FBC2017. The beginning of November had us driving up to Newmarket for my brother’s wedding and afterward, my parents stayed and visited for an extra couple of days. Mid-November, we finally enjoyed some long-awaited weekends that allowed us to do nothing but sleep-in and catch up on housework and laundry. Now, I can’t believe we’re approaching the last month of the year – seriously, where did 2017 go?

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Nothing says last minute like pulling out a cookie recipe just two days before Mother’s Day. I’m nothing if not a procrastinator. Luckily, this recipe comes together really quickly and if you’re in a bind over what to make your Mom for Mother’s Day, may I recommend whipping up a batch of these coconut lime shortbread cookies and serve them alongside a pot of hot tea? While it may not be breakfast in bed, you can at least let your Mom sleep in. I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.

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I can’t believe that I almost forgot to post this recipe for Soft-Baked Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies. Do you want to know what reminded me? Here it is – scrolling through my own Instagram account. I spotted a photo I had posted over a month ago of these cookies cooling on a rack on my kitchen counter and my jaw dropped when I found these photos still on my camera. Am I the only person who does that? Forgetting to edit photos and post recipes I mean, not scrolling through one’s own Instagram profile. I like to at least pretend that everyone secretly checks out their own account from time to time.

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I’ve been cautiously enjoying the warm weather we’ve been experiencing as of late. Cautious because I know it won’t last. Concerned because it’s a little unnatural to have double digit weather in the middle of February. I think this Sarah Scribbles comic I recently saw on Facebook properly sums up my feelings best.

Despite my conflicted feelings, I took advantage of this nice weather a couple weeks ago and shot these cookie photos outside. I normally don’t do any photography on our little south-facing balcony, but I really wanted to make use of this old table I snagged a couple years ago from the furniture recycle drop-off room in our building. The last few wet winters have not been kind to this table, but this makes for an excellent surface for food photography. I’ll take what I can get, especially since our limited condo space makes hoarding multiple photography surfaces pretty difficult. In fact, at this point, I’m pretty sure my days of dragging this musty table inside for photos are now over.

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A couple weeks ago, I discovered the magic powers of dulce de leche. Dulce de leche is a thick, creamy, very addicting caramel spread that is made by heating milk and sugars for several hours. It can be purchased ready-made in grocery stores, but if you are feeling little more domestic, you can also cheat a little by using a can of sweetened condensed milk. There’s a ton of resources on the internet for how to make homemade dulce de leche using condensed milk, so instead, I’m going to share a cookie recipe you can make once you forcibly stop yourself from eating it straight from the jar.

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I’m hoping that by posting this recipe today, I’m putting it out there in the universe that we could really use some snow. I checked the weather this morning and I can’t believe it’s early December and it’s raining. To be quite honest, I’m not sure how I feel about that. A couple of weeks ago it was a little chilly and I bought a new winter jacket, but jokes on me because I’ve only been able to wear it once. Maybe I’ll re-watch the “Winter” episode of the Gilmore Girls Revival on Netflix and hopefully, that will set off something (PS: those #finalfourwords, am I right?).

While it doesn’t look like December outside, it’s starting to feel like the holiday season in our little condo. We haven’t yet made the trip down to our storage locker to get our Christmas decorations, but I’m already starting to prep some holiday treats and make lists for the upcoming cooking and baking I need to do. My office is holding it’s annual cookie exchange in a couple weeks and I’ve already signed an armload of cookbooks out of the library to conjure up some inspiration. During our weekend cleaning, I also found a couple of old holiday magazines from 2013/2014 that may come in handy. Hoarding magazines for the win!

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A couple weeks ago, I started mixing matcha with hot water in the morning as an attempt to try and cut back on all the coffee I was consuming. Drinking matcha was (is) a bit of an acquired taste (think strong, earthy flavour) but after the first week, I found myself getting used to it and now I look forward to my little cup in the mornings before work. I haven’t quite convinced my espresso-loving husband to give it a go, but that’s okay. It just means more for me which is good because matcha powder is always packed in the tiniest tins. At least a little bit goes a long way.

Whenever I purchase a new tin of matcha, I always start daydreaming about what I could bake with it. I have quite a few cookie recipes that feature various grades of matcha powder (actually three recipes), but this recipe tops them all because it’s made with cream cheese and each cookie has a subtle hint of cheesecake-y flavour softly nestled into each bite. Matcha cheesecake without having to make an actual cheesecake? Yes, I had to pinch myself too to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.

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The idea of revisiting a couple of my older recipes had crossed my mind once or twice over the last year. When I started in 2011, the only camera I owned was my point and shoot (aka Mr. P&S). Mr. P&S was very reliable as a travel camera that could be tossed in my purse, but that’s about where his usefulness ended. I upgraded to a DSLR camera in February 2012 (no nickname, too excited), but that means there were (are) a lot of recipes from that first year of blogging with grainy photos. Many of the shots were taken pretty close to the food too, because for some reason I thought it would, I don’t know, hide the fact that I used to bake and take all my photos in the evening right before I went to bed (hint: it didn’t).

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For the past month I’ve been making a point of going through and cleaning up old files on my computer (call it spring cleaning if you will) and a couple days ago I came across the cookbook I made for my Grandma. I filled it with family photos, fun little snippets and of course, a round-up of her most loved, family favourite recipes. Last December I hounded my Mom to send me photos from her recipe notebook and then spent countless evenings transcribing her handwritten notes. The structure of each handwritten recipe was the same: title, ingredient list, oven temperature and then total minutes (i.e. 350*F – 11 minutes). That’s it. Luckily I spent a lot of my childhood and teen years observing her in the kitchen, so I was able to understand the lack of instruction for the most part, along with the help of a little kitchen intuition and of course, advice from my Mom.

Over the years I’ve featured a couple of my Grandma’s recipes here on the blog, but it wasn’t until I started the cookbook project that I was able to get her recipe for monster cookies. And after having a blast stacking cookies, taking photos and getting crumbs everywhere, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to finally share the recipe. Always a crowd pleaser, monster cookies are fun, chewy cookies that are notably made with peanut butter, rolled oats and filled with lots of chocolate chips and M& M’s. As former peanut butter loathing child, I always wondered why my Grandma had jars of the stuff in her pantry and now I think I have my answer.

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