Weekending and M is for Monster Cookies and a monster mistake

Linking up with Holly and Sarah for Hello Monday:

Had a nice, quiet weekend at home. I foresee busier weekends in our future- at least the weekends leading up to Christmas. I enjoyed being restful at home and getting things done there.

It is continuing to look like fall here... though I did order another Christmas tree this weekend so Christmas is on my mind. I just need it look a little more like Christmas!

On Friday, I subbed and then picked up pizza for dinner. Donatos (chain pizza place- not sure where geographically the restaurants are all) hot honey pizza is such a favorite of ours. I have not made homemade pizza in weeks because of it!! I’m sure it would not be difficult to replicate. You can see red pepper flakes on the pizza which explains the hot and then honey is drizzled on top of it- I don’t think there is a special hot honey sauce but maybe there is?

Saturday, I woke up early and ran. Then got ready for the day, finished a blog post (writing more than I am used to is time consuming- I knew that it would be and it is!! It’s all good, though :)) and then Alyssa and I ran an errand. Later, Alyssa went shopping with a friend, Donnie had some work to do and I had headed to a store to take back some things. A hamburger sounded really good so I went to the McDonald’s drive thru. A small hamburger, small fries and a large drink cost over $6.  I was surprised and not in a good way! I am old enough to remember the dollar menu at McDonald’s well, actually, it was only about three years ago. Inflation is awful!

One of Donnie’s good friends had surgery and was back home by Saturday. I told his wife and him that I would bring dinner over to them on Saturday to give them one less thing to worry about. They expressed their thanks for offering that and asked if we wanted to stay for dinner and watch a movie with them. We asked if they were sure- had thought that I’d just drop off a meal, not make them host, but they said they would like our company. So I picked up a family meal at Bob Evan’s and we went over to our friends’ house to eat that and spend some time with them.

The Bob Evans family meals seem like a decent deal and they are not super unhealthy (based on what you choose) either. We used to get them quite a bit so we know what we like (there are many choices!). We got the six grilled chicken breasts, a large garden salad, mashed potatoes, fruit, and four large chocolate chip cookies. All of those items come with the meal though there are other options. There was plenty of food for us and there was some of everything left over for our friends to enjoy the following day.

Abby sent these photos to me. She said it’s an app that takes pictures to look like they came from a disposable camera. OK! I thought the girls looked cute but I have no idea why one would want to use this app!! 

Sunday was church and getting to see friends there whom we hadn’t seen in a long time. They used to attend the church we did but they know that they are looking to find a new church. They liked the service and we enjoyed talking to them for a long time afterward. 

Sunday afternoon was watching part of the Bengals game. Oh dear! Not a good one. I was glad that I didn’t commit the time to exclusively watch the game. I spent a lot of time in the kitchen where I could still see the TV (when I wanted to, lol). I cleaned out the refrigerator, tossed out old food (committed to making sure to use more in the future so less waste...) and made fresh marinara sauce for dinner that evening. 

Alyssa was in her room decorating it for Christmas. She said she heard me yelling and thought that something bad was happening downstairs but she didn’t hear dad in distress so she knew it was just me getting mad during the game! I truly don’t care that much about football but I can all too easily get caught up in a particular game. Sunday’s was not a good one to get caught up in!!

That was our weekend- 

Now on to the M- M is for monster cookies- the recipe and a tip to avoid making a monster mistake like I did! Most everyone likes these cookies. If you’re not a fan of oatmeal/ and or peanut butter in cookies then you likely would not like them. But absent either of those two dislikes, they are highly likely going to be something enjoyable to consume.  One of my friends commented that they remind her of those chocolate no bake cookies- you know the ones that consist of oatmeal, cocoa, peanut butter, milk, vanilla and butter? Especially if these cookies are underbaked (the best way to bake them and enjoy them!), they are similar to the chocolate no bakes but are even better in my opinion.

Here is the recipe:

Here was my big mistake, a monster one, to alliterate: 

Many cookie recipes call for a cup of butter. So two sticks of butter, right? The last time that I made these, I started to do them from memory- normal cookie recipe. I added the cup of sugar, the cup of brown sugar and two sticks of butter and began to cream them. Then I glanced at the recipe. Wait a minute- a half cup of butter?? But I’d just put in a full cup. Uh-huh. By the time I realized my mistake, the Kitchenaide was already mixing the excess butter and sugars together. If I started over, I would have wasted two sticks of butter and two cups of sugar. The only thing to do was double the recipe. So, I added two more cups of sugar and then proceeded to double everything else. So many ingredients! So many cookies! I just hope that the cookies will stay fresh in the freezer until I need another large batch of them.