SMiLes by Meg

Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies

Greetings from Dublin! Well, actually, I’m writing this on Friday while sitting at my kitchen counter in Massachusetts. But, ever the planner, I wanted it to be ready to just hit “publish” because on Saturday I’d be flying to Ireland and England for a trip with my mom! So, as you read this, I am either at Guinness learning how to pull a pint, or, if you happen to be reading later in the week, hanging out with the wonderful Cate Laporte-Oshiro at Oxford, who I haven’t seen in far too long.

Pistachio Cookies

Summer has this really annoying way of seeming like it stretches on forever until all of a sudden the other end of it is almost here and you’re running out of time. Last weekend, my mom and I were casually browsing travel books while we planned our trip. Today we are in a position, two weeks from being in London,  where we should really have hotel accommodations booked.

Bakery Brownies

I was a little bit miffed with my students this week. They were waxing nostalgic about some brownies I had made for them once, asking when I would make them again. Now, I know that they meant well. They were saying that my brownies were the best brownies they had ever had. And normally, that would make me very happy. But the brownies they were talking about? I made them from a mix.

Big Soft Ginger Cookies

This week, I resorted to a tried-and-true method of teaching that for two months I had successfully avoided – bribery.  Some teachers give candy as rewards for different things, but being a science teacher, that had been impossible since we obviously can’t have food in laboratory classrooms.  I even had to take candy away from my students on Halloween (I know, I felt like a Halloween Scrooge) because they didn’t believe me about not eating in class.

Mexican Brownies

When I told some friends, also first year teachers, that I would bake for them if they came over to my apartment to lesson plan, their request was obvious: chocolate.  So naturally I immediately thought of brownies.  Now, I personally am a huge fan of boxed brownie mix.  I think Ghirardelli does a perfectly good job, and, honestly, duncan hines are delicious too.  But a blog post about how to add water to chocolate powder wouldn’t be all that exciting, and there was the additional request of chunks, which boxed mix doesn’t do all that well.

Fruit n Nut Granola

To preface this post, Yale Bake Shop Granola is hands down the best granola known to man.  It has brown sugar, it has salt, it has raisins, it has large chunks that could pass as granola bars on their own if you take the time to sift through it.  If you’ve ever seen me in the Calhoun dining hall, you know that I can eat the stuff by the bucketful.  It tastes good in alone, in milk, mixed with milk and peanut butter and small pieces of banana and chocolate sauce…  Unfortunately, I graduated already and no longer have access

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

So I had no intention of making carrot cake cupcakes today.  Tomorrow is the first day of school (Yay!) and I wanted to make something quick, but when I was looking through ingredients, I dropped my carton of eggs and three cracked.  This recipe called for three eggs, so I put on Mamma Mia and went for it (Side note: the Mamma Mia soundtrack is hands down the best baking music I’ve ever found).

Lil Elephant Sugar Cookies

In college, my friends all decided that my spirit animal was a baby elephant.  I’m not really sure what that says about me, but I do think that elephants are cute, so I decided to embrace it.  As my inaugural post to SMiLes by Meg, and my first baking adventure in my new apartment, it only seemed fitting that I would make elephant cookies.