TWD: Crème Brûlée with Star Anise and White Chocolate

My moms favourite dessert is Crème Brûlée, so when I found out that Mari at Mevrouw Cupcake picked Crème Brûlée at page 393 of Baking: From My Home to Yours as this weeks recipe I knew I would make my mom a very happy camper.





This was my first attempt at making Crème Brûlée, so I thought (as if it wasn't enough challenge already to make my first Crème Brûlée) I would try something a little bit different: a Crème Brûlée with Star Anise and White Chocolate.



To do this I followed Dorie's directions on how to infuse the flavour of a herb or spice into the Crème Brûlée, so I dropped 8 star anises into the milk and cream, brought that to a boil, took the pan of the fire and let the mixture sit and infuse for 30 to 60 minutes. I let it sit for the full hour, then I removed the star anise and brought the mixture to a boil again. After that I took the mixture of the fire and stirred in 100 grams of white chocolate chips so that they would melt. Then I continued with the normal recipe, which can be found at Mari's blog. I let the Crème Brûlées sit in the oven for the full 60 minutes.

My mom gave this recipe a big thumbs up.I loved the crème brûlée: the texture was perfect, the taste of the star anise was very subtle, maybe a bit too subtle, and the chocolate seemed to make the Crème Brûlée even more creamt. I did think it to was very sweet: I should have used less sugar in the crème brûlée because I put in the white chocolate.... Oops!! I will definetely be making this recipe again, although with a little bit less sugar and a little bit more star anise.

Dad's verdict: 7 out of 10.

P.S. What do you think about my pictures? I bought my new camera last Thursday and I absolutely love it!! It's a simple point and shoot: a Panasonic FS-5. If you want check on my fellow-bloggers, go to TWD!

100 Desserts

Okay, I promise: this will be the last list you'll see appearing on my blog this month!! But again: it's about desserts and so I just had to check if I had more from this list than last list! This one was found at ReTorte.



1. Bold what you've tried.
2. * What you've made.
3. Cross out what you wouldn't like.
4. Italicize something you've tried but didn't like.


1. Baklava
2. Chocolate Cake
3. Blueberry Pie
4. Real Italian Gelato
5. Dessert Pizza
6. Lemon Meringue Pie
7. Rice Pudding
8. Spotted Dick
9. Amaretti
10. Jello Chocolate Pudding
12. Spumoni
13. Angel Food Cake
14. Creme Brulee* Well, okay I haven't actually made it yet, but I will make it this weekend for TWD!! So I think that counts!
15. Deep Fried Ice Cream
16. Chocolate Fondue*
17. New York Cheesecake
18. Fruit Crumble or Crisp
19. Sacher Torte
20. Jam Roly Poly
21. Crepes Suzette
22. Quark Cake*
23. Maple Sugar Pie
24. Key Lime Pie (the real stuff!)
25. Bananas Foster
26. Creme Caramel
27. Oeufs a la Neige
28. Baked Alaska
29. Gingerbread
30. Blancmange
31. Linzer Tart
32. Carrot Cake
33. Steamed Pudding
34. Nanaimo Bar
35. Flan (the South American kind)
36. Sernik
37. Pastel de Nata
38. Wagashi
39. Marzipan*
40. Dulce de Leche
41. Gulab Jamun
42. Tiramisu*
43. Moroccan Date Cake
44. Black Forest Cake
45. Scottish Shortbread
46. Halva
47. Clafuti
48. Pumpkin Pie
49. Gajar Halwa
50. Plum Pudding
51. Pflaumenkuchen
52. Makroud el Louse
53. Eclairs*
54. Palmier
55. Financier
56. Napoleons*
57. Pastel de Tres Leches
58. Wagon Wheel
59. Treacle Tart
60. Date Squares
61. Eve's Pudding
62. Pears Poached in Red Wine
63. Snickerdoodles*
64. Churros
65. Artisan Cheese Platter
66. Caramel Apple
67. Sex in a Pan
68. Devil's Food Cake
69. Red Velvet Cake
70. Mousse
71. Chocolate Dipped Strawberry*
72. Coconut Cream Pie
73. Semifreddo
74. Granita
75. Tortoni
76. Sticky Toffee Pudding
77. Peanut Buster Parfait
78. Zucchini Cake
79. Cannoli
80. Mont Blanc
81. Haupia
82. Eight Precious Pudding
83. Trifle
84. Popcorn Balls
85. Ambrosia
86. dessert soup
87. Pasha
88. Berry Fool
89. Sweet Potato Pie
90. Bread Pudding
91. Raisin Pie
92. Strawberry Shortcake
93. Apple Duff*
94. Fruit Cake
95. Pineapple Upside Down Cake
96. Waffle Cone
97. Mango Sorbet
98. Truffles*
99. Cherries Jubilee
100. Rice Crispy Square

Out of this list I tried 44 desserts.... More than on last list, but still plenty of desserts to try!

Jep, one more list: Sweet Top 100

This list was found at Cakespy and since I love anything sweet I knew I had to do this list!!

1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you've eaten!
3) Cross out any of them that you'd never ever eat.
4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your "To Do" List.
5) Optional: Post a comment here linking to your results.

1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars)
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
10. Kringle
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
14. Halvah
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca "pearls")
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
20. Alfajores
21. Blondies
22. Croquembouche
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar
29. Baba au rhum
30. King Cake
31. Sachertorte
32. Pavlova
33. Tres Leches Cake
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks
53. Daifuku
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
59. Jelly Roll
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe
62. An "upside down" dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte
69. Churro
70. Stollen
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
73. Concha
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S'mores
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables
98. Millionaire's Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

So far I have tried 33 of the above... Overall pretty good, don't you think? Please let me know how many you have tried!!

TWD: Dimply Plum Cake

This week Michelle of Bake-en chose the Dimply Plum Cake for our TWD challenge. Since I'm not a huge fan of plums or peaches I hesitated about participating. In the end I decided I would actually make this cake and I'm so happy I did!! The cake was delicious!!



I bought some yellow plums at the market, I quartered them and used lemon zest instead of orange. I bought a basil plant 2 months ago and it's still alive, which is a miracle on it's own as I don't have green fingers.... So far all the plants I had died in recordtime: either because they drown in water or because they get dehydrated by lack of water...... Since this basil plant is still very much alive and kicking I decided to add some of it to the cake.



After 40 minutes the cake was not quite done, so I left it in the oven for another 10 minutes. The first bite was sour and than it turned sweet, a scrumptious combination!! I really don't understand where the tartness comes from.... I tasted the plums beforehand and they were sweet. After baking they tasted a bit bitter.

Dad's verdict: 8 out of 10.

P.S. More crappy pictures this week, but it's probably the last time: I just got a letter from the insurance company and they are going to reimburse me for my broken camera!! So it's shopping time!!! Does anyone have some tips for which camera I should buy???

Another list - of books this time!!

I love to read and I love lists (as you may have read in my blog earlier), so when I came across this one at Butterbur's Bistro I had to post it on here!!


1) Bold those you have read.
2) Put an asterisk next to those you started but didn't finish.
3) Italicize those you intend to read (or have started and intend to finish).
4) Red the books you LOVE
5) Reprint this list in your own blog.

* * * * *

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee *
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marque
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So I have read 33 of the books on this list.... Hmmmm... Is this good or bad???

TWD: Chocolate Chunkers

Oh my God!!! That's my first reaction after tasting these cookies. If like cookies, you're going to love these cookies! If you're a chocoholic, you're really going to love these cookies! If you're a browniedan, you're definetely going to love these cookies! Thank you Claudia of Fool for Food, for picking this recipe!

Since I get a headache from bittersweet chocolate I only used this for the melting chocolate part. For the chunks of chocolate in these Chunkers I used milk chocolate and white chocolate. Besides all of the chocolate I also opted to use pecans and golden raisins.

I must admit: I had my worries when I saw the batter after adding all the chocolate, pecans and raisins. I couldn't imagine that this lumpy mess would be cookies that would hold their shape. But they turned out great!!

To protect myself from eating all the Chocolate Chunkers I took them to work. My colleagues absolutely adored them: the entire tin was empty by 2 pm!! Some reactions were: OMG, this is the best cookie ever!! What are you doing to us? Where can I buy these cookies? How can I get my fix after you leave? (I got a new job and start there the 3rd of November... I think some of my colleagues are actually going to miss the baking more than they are going to miss me!! ;))

Since my crappy old camera refuses to cooperate with me right now my pictures will follow later. (Don't get too excited, they will look horrible and very dark as it is a really crappy camera!!! :()

Check out the results of my co-bakers at TWD. If you want to start making these wonderful recipes, please consider buying Baking:From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. So far it is the best cookbook that I have bought!!

Dad's verdict: 9,5 out of 10.

N.B. Out of all the pictures I took only one is OK enough to be published.... But still crappy!!!

TWD: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

Yum, it's Tuesday again!! ( O well, it's actually Wednesday but I had some technical difficulties with my Internet yesterday, so I wasn't able to post earlier) Time for my next Tuesday With Dorie challenge: this week featuring Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops, picked by Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart



So first this recipe had me searching all over the Internet to find out what Whoppers are. Here in Holland Whoppers are Hamburges you can buy at Burger King, but I was sure this had nothing to do with cookies... Finally I found out that Whoppers are similar to Maltesers, fortunately those are available in Holland!!



On to the next one: what the *%$# is Malted Milk? I had never heared of it before... Another look at the TWD site informed me that I could also use Nesquik, so that's what I looked for in the supermarket. Three different kinds of Nesquik??? Chocolate, strawberry and banana?? I thought banana would be a great combo with all the chocolate that would be used, so on I went to the cash register.



With all the ingredients sought out and at home I could finally start baking. This recipe is really easy, and must be fun to make with your kids (because I don't have kids, I wasn't able to test this idea....) I substituted half of the bittersweet chocolate with milk chocolate, simply because I'm not a huge fan of bittersweet chocolate: I find that it is overpowering and it also gives me migraines....



These cookies are very very nice: cakelike and fluffy in the center with crunchy edges, the banana taste was nice and subtle. I couldn't find any Maltesers in the cookies though, I must have cut them too small: next time I'll just halve them.



P.S.1. I forgot to take pictures after baking the Drops..... Because my coworkers have eaten them all I can't take any pictures now... Sorry..... :)

P.S.2 Please forgive me for the horrible pictures, I am using this really old digital camera at the moment, still have to buy a new one after my one-year-old camera was distroyed by suitcases falling on top of my handluggage :(

My newest toys!!

Just wanted to show you my newest toys, I absolutely love them!!

Measuring cups made out of silicone:

Ofcourse I also have a wishlist... And on top of that list is a KitchenAid machine, preferably in red to match my other machines!

Blegh... First baking disaster!

So today I thought it would be a nice idea to try out one of the recipes already made by the TWD-group: Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread Cookies.




They look pretty good, right? Wrong!!! They are not normal cookies, they are Shortbread Cookies and should look like Shortbread Cookies...... Like these at Sugar & Spice.



Well, apparently you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover so I tried them anyway: They taste really good and have a nice crunch to them, although they do tend to crumble... Right when I took them out of the oven I dusted them with some icing sugar mixed with cinnamon, this is a nice extra touch. (Had I already mentioned that I am a great lover of cinnamon???)




I still have some dough in the fridge and will see tomorrow if that batch will still spread as much after more fridge-time...

103 Things I did and more....

So today I saw this list on Judy's blog and couldn't resist.... I love making lists and tikking of the things I did. Let me know if you do the list so I can check out all the wonderfull things you have already done!

If it's bold, I have...
1. Touched an iceberg
2. Slept under the stars
3. Been a part of a hockey fight (does Field Hockey count??)
4. Changed a baby's diaper
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Swam with wild dolphins
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a tarantula
10. Said "I love you" and meant it
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Stayed up all night long and watched the sun rise
15. Seen the Northern Lights
16. Gone to a huge sports game
17. Walked the stairs to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
19. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
20. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Bet on a winning horse
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Taken an ice cold bath
28. Had a meaningful conversation with a beggar
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Ridden a roller coaster
31. Hhit a home run
32. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
33. Adopted an accent for fun
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors (in fact I live there at the moment)
35. Felt very happy about your life, even for just a moment
36. Loved your job 90% of the time
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Watched wild whales
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Gone on a midnight walk on the beach
41. Gone sky diving
42. Visited Ireland
43. Ever bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited India
45. Bench-pressed your own weight
46. Milked a cow
47. Alphabetized your personal files ( I alphabetize almost everything.... Do I have a problem??)
48. Ever worn a superhero costume
49. Sung karaoke
50. Lounged around in bed all day
51. Gone scuba diving
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater (I don't think we have those in Holland...)
55. Done something you should regret, but don't
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Been in a movie (just a homevideo made by German friends when I was about 10 years old, does that count?)
60. Gone without food for 3 days
61. Made cookies from scratch
62. Won first prize in a costume contest
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Been in a combat zone
65. Spoken more than one language fluently
66. Gotten into a fight while attempting to defend someone
67. Bounced a check (by accident!!!)
68. Read - and understood - your credit report
69. Recently bought and played with a favorite childhood toy
70. Found out something significant that your ancestors did
71. Called or written your Congress person
72. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
73. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
74. Helped an animal give birth
75. Been fired or laid off from a job
76. Won money
77. Broken a bone
78. Ridden a motorcycle
79. Driven any land vehicle at a speed of greater than 100 mph
80. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
81. Slept through an entire flight: takeoff, flight, and landing
82. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
83. Eaten sushi
84. Had your picture in the newspaper (does a magazine count?)
85. Read The Bible cover to cover
86. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
87. Gotten someone fired for their actions
88. Gone back to school
89. Changed your name
90. Caught a fly in the air with your bare hands
91. Eaten fried green tomatoes
92. Read The Iliad
93. Taught yourself an art from scratch (what do you mean baking is not an art???)
94. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
95. Apologized to someone years after inflicting the hurt
96. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
97. Been elected to public office
98. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
99. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
100. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
101. Had a booth at a street fair
102. Dyed your hair
103 Been a DJ
104. Rocked a baby to sleep
105. Ever dropped a cat from a high place to see if it really lands on all fours
106. Raked your carpet
107. Brought out the best in people
108. Brought out the worst in people (Not proud of it, but who hasn't at one point in his/her life?)
109. Worn a mood ring
110. Ridden a horse
111. Carved an animal from a piece of wood or bar of soap
112. Prepared a dish where four people asked for the recipe
113. Buried a child
114. Gone to a Broadway play
115. Been inside the pyramids
116. Shot a basketball into a basket
117. Danced at a disco
118. Played in a band
119. Shot a bird
120. Gone to an arboretum
121. Tutored someone
122. Ridden a train
123. Brought an old fad back into style
124. Eaten caviar
125. Let a salesman talk you into something you didn’t need
126. Ridden a giraffe or elephant
127. Published a book
128. Pieced a quilt
129. Lived in an historic place
130. Acted in a play or performed on a stage (at school)
131. Asked for a raise
132. Made a hole-in-one
133. Gone deep sea fishing
134. Gone roller skating
135. Run a marathon
136. Learned to surf
137. Invented something
138. Flown first class
139. Spent the night in a 5-star luxury suite
140. Flown in a helicopter
141. Visited Africa
142. Sang a solo
143. Gone spelunking (and got claustrofobic so had to get out after only 15 minutes)
144. Learned how to take a compliment
145. Written a love-story
146. Seen Michelangelo’s David
147. Had your portrait painted (in Paris at Montmartre and in London)
148. Written a fan letter
149. Spent the night in something haunted
150. Owned a St. Bernard or Great Dane
151. Ran away (for like 5 minutes when I was about 6 years old)
152. Learned to juggle
153. Been a boss
154. Sat on a jury
155. Lied about your weight
156. Gone on a diet
157. Found an arrowhead or a gold nugget
158. Written a poem (and it got published in a magazine!!)
159. Carried your lunch in a lunchbox
160. Gotten food poisoning
161. Gone on a service, humanitarian or religious mission
162. Hiked the Grand Canyon
163. Sat on a park bench and fed the ducks
164. Gone to the opera
165. Gotten a letter from someone famous
166. Worn knickers
167. Ridden in a limousine
168. Attended the Olympics
169. Can hula or waltz and polka.
170. Read a half dozen Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys books
171. Been stuck in an elevator
172. Had a revelatory dream
173. Thought you might crash in an airplane
174. Had a song dedicated to you on the radio or at a concert
175. Saved someone’s life
176. Eaten raw whale
177. Know how to tat, smock or do needlepoint
178. Laughed till your side hurt
179. Straddled the equator
180. Taken a photograph of something other than people that is worth framing
181. Gone to a Shakespeare Festival
182. Sent a message in a bottle
183. Spent the night in a hostel
184. Been a cashier
185. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
186. Joined a union
187. Donated blood or plasma
188. Built a campfire
189. Kept a blog (what do you think this is???)
190. Had hives
191. Worn custom made shoes or boots
192. Made a PowerPoint presentation (Duh.... I'm a P.A.....!)
193. Taken a Hunter’s Safety Course
194. Served at a soup kitchen
195. Conquered the Rubik’s cube
196. Know CPR
197. Ridden in or owned a convertible
198. Found a long lost friend (Isn't Internet a wonderfull thing?)
199. Helped solve a crime
200. Responded to a NJP newsletter

I have only accomplished 80 things on this list.... Lots of things left to do, although there are some things on this list I prefer not to...

TWD: Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipster

Thank you Stefany from Proceed with Caution for picking this weeks TWD recipe: Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters! They were absolutely delicious!!

These babies were actually very easy to make, if you just follow Dories recipe. I skipped the part were the dough has to rest in the fridge and baked them right away. The cookies did spread out a lot and almost doubled in size: I was left with giant cookies!

Since my oven is really tiny I could only bake about 7 cookies at a time, so it took me a while to finish up all the cookie dough!

My mom came by before she went to a BBQ, so I gave her a load of cookies to take to the BBQ for dessert. The rest I took with me to work last Monday. My co-workers ate all of them!!

I must say that these cookies are very tasty, although the flavour of the peanut butter was very subtle. Next time I'll probably use a bit more peanut butter! I also subbed half of the bittersweet chocolate with milkchocolate.

Check out my co-bakers at TWD!!