Mint Chocolate Cookies- I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Experiment

Hooray for the weekend! How are you doing? I hope your Friday is treating you well! Mine has involved a good deal of running around, but has been great overall. It seems as though there has been a serious lack of baking in my kitchen lately...


...but today, all that changed! The nice people over at I Can't Believe It's Not Butter gave me the opportunity to try some of their product in my baked goods. I usually stick to regular butter or Smart Balance, but figured I'd give ICBINB a chance. I picked up a container of their ICBINB cooking & baking sticks at the food store this past weekend using the coupon they sent me:

I used it to make up Jessica's Double Chocolate Chip cookies and added in some mint & chocolate chips. These cookies are going to be given (along with a few other special gifts) to one of our friends whose birthday was this past week! The outcome:

They baked up nice and fluffy:

I had Josh, my official cookie taste tester, given them a try. His thoughts: "They're delicious but they taste a little more cake like (in consistency) vs. cookie like." So there ya have it!

Thank you I Can't Believe It's Not Butter for the coupon! Do you bake with butter, butter substitutes, or do you use fruit substitutes (like applesauce) in place of the fat in recipes? I do a little bit of all of the above. Depends upon what/who I'm making the recipe for.

And just because its been a while, a little Frank:

Have a great weekend!!

Light Spinach & Potato Soup

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!! Although I'm not Irish, I'm celebrating a little bit tonight through our dinner. But before I get to that, I wanted to give myself a little pat on the back (which I think is good to do every once in a while, what do you think??). Yesterday, I was able to squeeze in a run before heading out to Josh's work dinner. I hit the pavement and did 6 miles. I have been working a bit on my speed on the treadmill and was super excited to see I did my 6 miles in an under 8 minute mile average:

Yahoo! Josh's work dinner was great. I had a garden salad and a vegetable pasta dish. This morning, I taught Body Pump, worked and cleaned up the house a bit. For dinner tonight, I made a light Spinach and Potato Soup based on this recipe.

I made a few adjustments and the result is VERY yummy! Check it out:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups (85 g) spinach
• ½ medium onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped
• 1 ½ large potatoes, diced with skin (for me this was ~17.5 ounces)
• 3 cups vegetable broth
• 1 cup non-fat milk
• ½ teaspoon TJs 21 Salute Seasoning (or whatever seasoning blend you have on hand)
• ¼ teaspoon red pepper (use less or eliminate if you don't like a little kick)
• 1 tablespoon shredded 2% milk Cheddar on top of each bowl

Directions

1. Boil potatoes and onion with vegetable broth over medium-high heat until tender.
2. Add garlic and spinach and continue to cook until spinach is tender.
3. Add milk and seasonings
4. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.
5. Puree in blender (I used an emulsion blender)
6. Serve topped with cheddar

Any weekend plans yet?