Purple Cowboy: Tenacious Red

I recently celebrated my birthday and one of my girlfriends threw me a "classy but trashy" party. What's that, you say? Well, we had super classy food and wine but in trashy ways! Beer Pong? puh-lease. Us classy girls play WINE pong! It was super fun and Mela went all out, complete with two lobsters, super aged and organic steak, a mimosa bar, and bottles and bottles of wine for us to do blind tastings. The fun and presents never stopped and it was a birthday I will never ever forget. MELA - YOU ROCK! I love you!

So back to the purpose of this post (other than relishing in the awesomeness of my friend). One of the wines that we had in our blind tasting was this one: PURPLE COWBOY. As soon as I tried it... I was in love. It's a nice mellow red with an easy finish. I love the body and fullness of the flavour. It was rich and... just so good. Like chocolate. If Michael Buble's voice were a wine, this would be it. Yup, that amazing and even a couple days after it was still just as good (so no, it wasn't the drunk-me just claiming it was good). It's from Napa Valley. No idea how much it cost but Mela really went all out and she has an elevated palate so I can't imagine it's a cheap bottle. Need to get my hands on more bottles of these!

Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies

My toddler LOVES food. It is not uncommon for her to wake up in the morning and her first words be, "I want !". Then she'll start to whine, cry and whimper (while still half asleep) repeating the food she wants.

So cookies were high on her list a couple weeks ago. She must have been influenced by Cookie Monster on TV because I don't buy pre-made cookies and I rarely make them. I had pinned this chocolate chip banana oatmeal cookie and one fine Sunday morning, decided that it was the day she and I were going to give that recipe a try.

Here is the original recipe link: http://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2012/08/chocolate-chip-banana-oatmeal-cookies.html

And here is the recipe:

Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large)

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Whisk together flour, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl and set aside.  Place butter and sugars into a mixing bowl and beat on medium speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to low.  Add egg and vanilla and mix until combined.   Mix in banana.  Add flour and mix until just combined.  Stir in oats and chocolate chips. Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop or cookie scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets spacing about 2 inches apart.  Bake cookies until golden brown and just set, about 12 to 13 minutes.

 

On the original website, the photo of the cookies make it appear as if the cookies turn out quite flat. I know that some recipe indicate that you "drop" the cookie batter onto the sheet and as they cook, they melt a bit and come out flat. With this one I dropped the cookie batter and they melted a little bit, but not that much and the cookies were quite... plump (see photo).

 

I didn't have the 2 cups of chocolate chips that it called for. Instead I used whatever I had leftover in the house which was 3/4 cup of large chocolate chips and 1/2 a cup of white chocolate chips. It was okay. You can taste the bananas in the cookies and the cookies themselves are quite soft. They were largely consumed by my husband with glasses of milk to accompany them. My daughter ate a few but she mainly zoned in on the chocolate chips. I don't normally like cookies but these were pretty good. 7.5 out of 10.