Bites of My Life

Read, eat, workout, work, more work, staycation post-vacation, and the first of the Halloween celebrations. Keep reading if you want the details of my lazy recap sentence.

-My current lineup. Boom Town, Hey Ladies, and Bread & Wine (for the second time). I’m struggling to get through Boom Town and Hey Ladies so I added in one of my faves to help re-inspire my reading.
-This healthy little tostada stack was actually the victim of a clean out the fridge meal. Crisp 2 Siete tortillas in a little coconut oil. Top each with smashed black beans and some almond milk cheese. Stack the two tortillas and heat in the oven to melt the cheese. Top with tomato, chopped bell pepper, some lettuce, more cheese and salsa.
-After work walk with my best girl!
-One of my favorite events of the year is the chili cook-off that happens downtown OKC every year. Haggled The Jones Assembly into participating this year. We didn’t take a win, but getting to sample multiple chilis for lunch was worth it!
-Checked-in to the Avid and immediately checked out the snack selection. Props to Avid for the great snack options and complimentary chocolate bar.
-Fun little staycation Friday night. More on this coming later this week.
-French toast!
-A batch of Pumpkin Bread to kick off the holiday baking season.

Annie

Web bite: Need a last minute Halloween costume idea? Here’s three!

Last Minute Halloween Costumes

Halloween. I love it. I always have. I used to plan my Halloween costumes a year in advanced. I wish I were kidding. Some of my costume claim to fames include when I was a cup of hot chocolate, a present, a flower in a flower pot, candy corn…I clearly have a thing for inanimate objects as costumes. See a few more here.

Inspired by the past few years, I’m giving you three ideas for last minute costumes. Because yes, all three costumes shown below came together in about a day. They are also all food related. No surprise here.

French Toast

How to:
Black and white striped shirt
Red silk neck scarf
Black felt beret
Bread
String

Toast one or a couple pieces of toast. Let sit out for a few hours to get stale. Using a hot glue gun, glue the toast to a long piece of string. Let dry then tie behind your neck to act as a necklace.

Pig in a Blanket

How to:
Pink dress
Pig ears, nose and tail (buy this one today to have it in time for halloween!)
Blanket

Put on your dress, ears, tail and nose, wrap your self up in a blanket and enjoy the most comfortable costume ever. Optional, but suggested, make actual pigs in a blanket and bring to whatever halloween party you are headed to!

Cookie Monster

How to:
Blue dress
Blue skinny feather boa
Light brown and dark brown felt
safety pins
Headband
1, medium size foam ball
Hot glue
Black paint

Cut big circles from the light brown felt to act as the cookies. Cut small odd shaped circles from the dark brown to act as the chocolate chips. Hot glue the “chocolate chips” to the “cookies.” Safety pin the cookies to your blue dress. Using a serrated knife, cut your foam ball in half. Paint cookie monster shaped eyes onto the foam ball halves. Hot glue blue boa to your headband. Once the eyes have dried. hot glue them to your boa headband. Use the remaining boa to tie around your wrists. Put it all together and you have yourself a cookie monster! Optional, carry around a jar of Perfect CCCs!

If you take a bite of any of these costumes, tag me on social media so I can see!

Annie

Bites of My Life

Hi November! Hi daylight savings. Hi being dark at 5pm now....UGH. Love the fall so much, but nothing puts me in more of a cold weather slump then when it gets dark so early. I'll take it though since it means Thanksgiving, holiday parties, comfort food and cozy clothes. 

-Last of the Healing Bowl leftovers. I see a lot of this recipe being made again in my future. So easy to make a little different each day. 
-I have a thing for dressing up like inanimate objects for Halloween. I've been a cup of hot chocolate, a present, a flower in a flower pot, and this year...a glass of The Jones infamous Frosé. Gummy bear and all! 
-"Woods comma Elle!" Elle channeled her inner Legally Blonde this Halloween and we couldn't be more obsessed. 
-Giving Arbonne's nutrition line a try. From everything I have read and from what I have tried so far, I am looooooooving it. 
-Chocolate coconut smoothies for two! Elle bell approved! If only she could try it...
-My fave chocolate mint smoothie, now with a protein boost. I don't eat a lot of meat so I'm loving the added protein in my morning smoothies. 
-Claire's wedding pictures came in. I. can't. even. Every single one captured the day perfectly. 
-Happy 7th to my first fitness love, Barre3! I took a pretty big barre break these past couple months, but with sis back teaching post-pregnancy, I've loved adding it back in. 
-Rollin' with my homies straight into Stillwater for a Bedlam victory.
-Easy like a Sunday morning. 
-Skinny Vanilla Lattes and Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Lattes used to be my drink freshman year in college. It wasn't a productive study sesh without one in hand. Threw it back to the GSCDL days for an extra pep on my walk today. And I'll admit, it was also an excuse to get a Christmas cup.
-The best darn homemade meatballs. Adapted the recipe from Bon Appetit to make them whole 30 compliant and gluten-free and paleo. Hoping to get the recipe up this week.

Annie

Bites of My Life

A day late and a dollar short. Happy halloween and happy bites on a Tuesday!

-Halloween Candy Compost Cookie, the best way to swipe clean all the bowls of Halloween candy laying around. 
-Apparently biscuits are now a must when dining with Malory. Also seen here. Anyway, The Press opened in the Plaza District last week. Southwest comfort food and Fleetwood Mac on repeat #sold.
-Photoshoot for new brunch cocktails. Work is hard. 
-Lindsay's Healing Bowls were meal prepped for last week. They didn't quite heal me because of the nasty cold I caught last week, but still a huge fan. 
-Current snack obsession. Rice cake, almond butter, drizzle of maple syrup and sprinkle of Maldon salt. 
-Pumpkin bread, cause #NationalPumpkinDay. 
-Two Kardashians and two cats walked into a party...
-Have you heard about the Google Home Mini Donut Shop? It popped up in OKC this weekend and I walked away a winner! OK, google. 
-Best friends, in the living room, with the spoon. AKA Saturday involving a 2 rounds of Clue and 2 bowls of chili.

Annie

Halloween Candy Compost Cookie

Whether you are reading this recipe pre-Halloween or post-Halloween, I'm sure you are drowning in some kind of fun size candy mayhem. I used all my will power to keep my house clean of candy during the month of October, but then I broke down and rushed to the store for a bag of Halloween candy after deciding on making these cookies. 

I came up with the idea for these cookies after polling you all on insta last week. My baking itch was scratching and needing to be healed. I polled ginger cookies vs. some kind of compost cookie situation. Compost cookies won in a landslide, so here we are (I made ginger cookies too, because why not, but they were ugly and don't deserve to be posted).

Compost cookies are what they sound like. Basically a dump of every ingredient you can get your hands on. This time, Halloween candy being the spotlight. You want to use chocolate based candies for this. Although after the fact I thought that a few candy corn would have been cute added to the mix. But no one really likes candy corn so sorry bout ya. 

A mix of Milky Way (OG and Midnight), 3 Musketeers, and Twix got chopped up and added in. Along with pretzels, chopped pecans, butterscotch chips (my fave) and coffee grounds. *Pro tip, make sure and reserve a few of each ingredient to dot the tops of the balls of dough with. This way you can see them on top of the cookie after they bake instead of hiding. As seen below: broken pieces of candy bars and pretzels atop dough balls. A sprinkle of Maldon salt on top is also necessary, as always. 

Halloween Candy Compost Cookie
yields 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
3 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 cup pretzels
1-2 Tbsp. coffee grounds (I went the full 2 b/c i'm all about the coffee flavor)
1 cup + 1/2 cup halloween candy, chopped ( i used a mix of Milk Way, Twix and 3 Musketeers)
Maldon Salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. 

In an electric mixer, cream your sugars and butter on medium for 2 minutes until light and fluffy.  Scrape the sides then add the eggs and vanilla and mix to combine.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the flour mixture into the electric mixer and mix on low until the dough has come together. Stir in 1 cup of the candy, the coffee grounds, butterscotch chips, pecans and pretzels. 

Roll 2 tablespoon size balls. Place on a cookie sheet about 2 inches apart (8 balls per sheet). Now take the reserved 1/2 cup of candy and dot the top of each ball of dough with a chopped piece of candy and a sprinkle of Maldon Salt. This ensures for a pretty cookie with a peek of what's inside! *Important step* Freeze the balls of dough for about 5 minutes prior to baking. This will help your cookie from spreading out too thin. 

Bake for 12 minutes then allow to cool. 

Halloween candy is already wonderful as is, but why not bake it inside butter and sugar to make it even better???

Happy Halloween!

Annie