Because we love you and we love Ladies Learn so much, we strive to do all we can to educate ourselves and improve this site so that ultimately, you can get more out of it! And us too of course!

The Ladies Learn Team sent me up to good old Utah for the 2010 Casual Blogger Conference. I met a lot of really great bloggers, and learned some really great information on how to enhance and improve Ladies Learn! Woo hoo!

Here are some highlights from the weekend…

I finally learned how to make these awesome fabric rosettes!! They are so super easy and require a skill set of glue-gunning. Sa-weet! Yep there is a post coming about them… look for it…

There were some really awesome speakers, who taught me a lot! My brain is on super-over load! This is Shannon Johnson from SeagullFountain. I loved all the preggos! There were lots of them! You go girls!

HUGE HIGHLIGHT: MINDY GLEDHILL PERFORMED!!! I love her! If you’ve never heard of her, your life in incomplete. Get up from your computer right now and go buy her CD. What the freak am I saying?!?! Don’t get up! Just download it on iTunes (duh). She performed all (I think?) of the songs from her recently completed, but not released album, due out August 4th. It’s simply amazing!  Okay, I know this post is about the conference, but i just have to post this video of Mindy’s new song, because it’s just the best. Also check out her other songs on YouTube (especially ‘All About Your Heart’)

Here’s Mindy tweeting about performing at CBC—in the middle of her performance. It was so funny! She’s just the best!

Thanks for letting me act like a crazed fan and come and give you a hug Mindy! You have inspired me beyond measure!

What could possibly go better with the sweet sugary sounds of Mindy Gledhill than mounds of candy? This one is for you Lacey…what a delightful candy bar this was. Think I’m going to put one permanently in my house…

The giveaways… yes that is an iPad in the center. If I had won it, this post would not be on the CBC conference, but rather how amazing my new iPad is. But as life would have it, I was actually the winner right AFTER the iPad winner…which means if she wasn’t there…this would be a post on how amazing my new iPad is. As happy as I am for that sweet girl, I am not so happy that this is not a post about how amazing my new iPad is. I won’t tell you what I won, because it wasn’t my amazing new iPad. But thank you CBC sponsors for the white string bikini, it’s awesome. I’ll pretend it’s an iPad, I have a killer imagination.

(if you think I’m joking about the white string bikini, just dare me to take a picture of it…because I will…)

CBC was awesome, I loved it! I met so many awesome people and had a blast. Thank you all! Here are some of the great bloggers I met…check them out, but promise not to love them more than me…I’m a jealous person.

Vanessa Brown from http://www.INeverGrewUp.net –awesome blogging guru

Monica the Mighty from In Plain English http://monicathemighty.blogspot.com/ –what an AWESOME AWESOME mother and woman!

Amy Sanford from Family Trifecta http://www.TheFamilyTrifecta.com –Amy, I’m very picky about business cards, yours takes the cake!

Sarah Johnson from Red Head Recipes http://RHRecipes.blogspot.com –yeah go “H’s!”

Candis Ellis from http://HeirloomPaperie.com –Candis your business cards rock too!

Hannah Cramer from http://sherbertblossom.blogspot.com –another cute business card, loving it

Melissa Bastow from http://BecauseIReallyCantGetEnoughOfMyself.blogspot.com –read her blog, you will laugh your head off

Mrs. R from http://TheRHouse.blogspot.com –oh my heck you have to check out her Etsy shop, SUPER cute jewlery!

Marie LeBaron from http://www.MakeAndTakes.com –oh how I wish I spent more time talking with you Marie, your site rocks my world

Missy Karding from http://SoYouThinkYoureCrafty.com –the ultimate crafting competition…hmmm think I might be interested in that one…

Mari Sweeten from http://kari-youcanmakeit.blogspot.com –another cute crafting site

Kami Bigler from http://www.nobiggie.net -super fun site, you gotta watch the iPad + Velco video, I think I may cry I want one so bad

I’m doing a giveaway for CBC attendees (or for anyone who wants to participate really…) if you write a post, tweet, or do a Facebook status ABOUT Ladies Learn, or talk about Ladies Learn, you will be entered to win one of 5 of my custom made camera strap covers. Yes they’re the bomb, you’ll never let your camera go naked again.

I gotta go to bed…been up for about 22 hours.

Sending lots of bloggin’ love…

So my son is really into letters. Which is really exciting for me because I know he’s going to be a genius someday. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit of a stretch… genius or no-genius, I wanted him to have an alphabet set that was not only fun to play with, but that I would be happy about him sticking to my fridge. That being said, I’m not a fan of the regular old plastic magnetic alphabet letters…you know the ones…

My mom has made these glass pebble magnets and they are so fun, so I thought why not make an alphabet set with them! They are inexpensive to make, so cute, and super customizable—you can have them match your kids room, your kitchen, or your favorite toe nail polish—whatever you fancy!

Total cost= about $8

Total time = about 2 hours

So here goes…

Supplies:

Paper or fabric for the front and back of your magnets, any weight will do, although thicker is better.

Stickers—about 1/2” in size (this set was not for my son, but for a friend—the one for my son I actually printed out letters and cut them out by hand, I don’t recommend this because it takes a LONG time, but would save you money by not buying stickers, and you can choose the font)

Clear glue: I used Elmer’s because it’s all I had, however Diamond Glaze works best because it dries faster which will help to eliminate any bubbles, and it’s a stronger glue.  I’ve only found it online, so if you’re a procrastinator like me and didn’t order any online, Elmer’s works just fine.

Paint brush for applying glue

Super glue: for adhering magnets (you don’t have to do magnets, in fact these make great ‘spelling word’ tools, just lay them out on the table and rearrange to create spelling words –you’d probably want to do extra letters, additional vowels, etc.)

Marbles: you want to make sure that your marbles are flat on one side. I found these in the floral section at Joanns, I know Hobby Lobby has them as well.

Magnets: any kind will do

Scissors OR a 1” circle punch: These babies will save you so much time! They run about $10, but if you use a Joanns coupon, you can usually get it for 40-50% off. (Michaels also accepts Joann’s coupons). If you are going to go the old fashion route and use scissors, make sure you trace or print out your circle so you get a nice, even shape (cut circles to be 1” in diameter).

The first thing you’ll need to do is wash your marbles. They can get really dusty and dirty and you don’t want that on your magnets!

Rinse and then dry really well

Then you’ll want to inspect the magnets to make sure none of them are chipped, broken, or have cracks in them. For this reason, it’s good to buy extra.

Use the ‘rejects’ in your floral displays

Next cut out all your circles

I like to have all the backs of the magnets be the same print, so I cut out additional circles to glue onto the backs of the magnets

Stick your stickers on the circles, making sure to center them (I had to peel off the stickers a lot and re-center). If you cut out your own letters, you would add a step before this to cut out your letters and then adhere them to the circles (I used a glue stick to adhere them).

Please ignore my ghetto manicure (or lack thereof). I don’t know why but I just never bother to take off my nail polish… I’m sure you’ve noticed this in other posts… I like to keep it real…

Do this for all your circles. I’ll take the time to mention that this tutorial works for ANYTHING. You can do letters, photos, fabric, dried flowers, fingernail clippings, numbers, whatever you feel like. Get creative! Get crazy!

Add a little dollop of glue to the flat side of the pebble. Just a teensy bit, you don’t want it to be too globoldy gloobledy.

Press the circle down nice and hard. Smooth out any bubbles. If you’re using Elmer’s, it’s a good idea to wait and then do this again since it takes the Elmer’s a little bit to dry. As you press down, some glue will come out from the sides, use this to smooth around the edges of the paper, be sure to wipe it off the edges and front (if it gets there) of the pebble.

Then apply a little more glue to the back and add on your ‘back piece’ circle

Press down firmly

Add some more glue

‘

Brush over the entire backing, making sure to get the edges really well.

Repeat all steps for the rest of your pebbles, and then let dry for a little while (until glue is no longer tacky to the touch), then repeat this last step to get  a really good solid bond.

Allow to dry (over night is ideal, pull out your hair dryer if the party you’re making these for is in 15 minutes…I know I’m not the only one out there that does this…)

Note: so being a direction follower (call me crazy), I strictly followed the directions on this super glue. Which stated that you should apply glue to both sides of the ‘to-be-adhered’ objects and wait 2-10 minutes before adhering. I waiting about 7, and the glue was too dry by this time. So…if you’re using the same glue as me, consider me to be smarter than the glue and do what I say… (not because I’m necessarily smarter than glue—although I’d like to think so—but because you can greatly benefit from my mistakes, ‘aint life grand?).

Once the back of the circle is dry, apply a TINY amount of super glue to the back of the pebble.

Adhere magnet and firmly press. I’d even go as far as to put it on the table and really put your back into and prrrrrrrreeeessssssssss down really hard. Toddlers like to eat small objects like magnets…

Voila! You’re done. Easy peasy lemon squeezy (ok I know, the jokes are getting lame, but it’s late…so forgive me)

A few more notes:

-Although these glass pebble magnets are very durable (my toddler thinks its so fun to chuck them across the kitchen, landing on the hard tile floor—no broken ones yet), they are still glass, so be careful

-If you’re super cool and you have a fancy fridge that is not magnetic, you can use the back of a cookie sheet, or purchase a magnet board

Have fun!

I had a nice morning doing a mentoring session with Ashley.  She is an aspiring photographer and has a love of learning.  We spent the morning talking photography and then when we were finished we went through a list she typed up.  It was a list of questions for me.  So I am going to answer some of her questions here:

1. Do you use manual or auto focusing? What settings do you adjust to get what you want in focus. I have a hard time getting all faces in focus when photographing two or more people.

Okay, for sure I have my camera do the focusing for me – I have it set to auto focusing.  There is a little button that looks like a rectangle with a plus sign in it that you press and then you can choose what dot focuses on what.  I am constantly changing that focus point.  I believe it is called back button focusing (I could do an entire post on this subject).  If ever you feel like you aren’t getting all the people in focus make your f-stop number bigger.  I would stick to a f5.6 or f6.3.  However, I think it’s interesting to show depth so I usually don’t mind if some people are out of focus.

2. Which lenses do you use and for which occasion?

In general, use my 50mm 1.4 lens for babies, seniors, and couples and I use my 24-70mm 2.8 lens for weddings and larger groups.  But there are a few more lens I would love to buy in the near future: 85mm 1.2 and the 35mm 1.4.

3. What type of equipment would you recommend for beginning photographers?

I’m a canon girl so for canon I would recommend getting the 40D, 7D, 5D, or 5D Mark II.  They are all good cameras, but the higher the price the more advanced the camera tends to be.  I shoot with the 5D Mark II and love it.  As for lenses?  Here’s what to start out with : 50mm 1.4 and the 85mm 1.8.  In particular the 50mm – it’s the best lens to learn on: 

4. Do you use a flash and under what circumstances. Was it a learning process using a flash?

I don’t use flash, if I ever did in the past it was after the sun went down during a wedding.  I love natural shadows and would rather have a high ISO with some grain than pull out my flash.

5. What are some tips you could give for posing families and what are the most flattering angles to photograph large people?

Sorry, Ashley, I did a poor job answering this question when we went over it.  I really just throw them together, I usually put the parents in place and then go from there.  of course it’s awesome when you get a super candid feel like there was no posing at all.  As far as posing larger people?  I don’t do anything different than I would with anyone else.

She had a couple more questions that were more related to establishing a business, marketing, and post processing.  Let me know if you have any specific questions you want answered and I could add them to the next “Q and A”.

Here’s what you need:

Ingredients

4 chicken breasts with bone in and skin on

1 small onion

1 small bell pepper

1 can black beans

2 cans tomato paste

Extra chicken broth

Salt, pepper, ground cumin, garlic powder.

1 tbs. Oil

You will need a large skillet with a lid. Set your burner to low or just above low.  Add oil to pan and place chicken into pan on top of oil with skin side up.

Add 3 Tbs. of Cumin Powder

Add 1 Tbs. of Garlic Powder

1 Tbs. of Salt and a 1/2 Tbs. of Pepper

Then flip the chicken and take note of the time.

Also cover the chicken with a lid. You will need to turn the chicken every 15 minutes for about an hour.

While the chicken is cooking low and slow you can prep the rest of the ingredients.

Empty the can of beans into a colander and rinse them.

Then dice the bell pepper

and onion

Remember to turn your chicken every 15 minutes and keep the lid on, don’t have your heat too high!

At about 45 minutes you will notice this beautiful little pool of juice and broth at the bottom of the pan.  You want this!  Great job!

Once the chicken is cooked all the way through and pulls apart easily, turn off your burner and remove the chicken to cool.

Your broth will look like this…

With a slotted spoon remove all of the floating scraps, for lack of a better word, and discard them.

Now your broth should look like this.  You don’t have to remove every little thing, it came from the chicken, you’re gonna eat the chicken, it’ll be fine!

Now add your tomato paste.  Now here’s where I turn into my grandma… I put in one can, if I find a want a little more then I bust open the other can and add a tablespoon at a time.  The tomato paste is what makes it taste a little sweet.  I’ve tried tomato sauce, tomato juice, but the paste is where it’s at.

Throw your paste, onions, peppers, and beans into the broth on a medium burner.  It should be a low simmer.  you want the peppers to turn to a dark green a little and the onions to soften.  Don’t turn your heat up so high that you cook away your broth.

While this is cooking, shred your chicken.  It may still be hot, so be careful.

Once the mixture has cooked for a little while and the chicken is all shredded add it to the pan.

Stir it together, and analyze… this is where I added a little more tomato sauce, thinned it out with the canned chicken broth.  You may also want to add more cumin, salt and pepper or even some chili heat.

Stick them in a taco shell with some fresh lettuce, cilantro and lime or whatever you like and enjoy!

This recipe takes about two hours to prep and cook.  It is not one you want to do in a crunch.  But I have made it with ground turkey and I’m sure it is still fabulous with ground beef.  To do that just cook the meat, season it with the cumin, garlic powder, salt and pepper and set it aside when it is done.  Prepare the beans, onion and bell pepper the same. Then you will need 2 cans of chicken broth, add the paste, beans, onions, and peppers to the broth and proceed the same as above.

Okay so we’re slackers, but better late than never right!

And the winner of our iPod shuffle contest is…

Rachel Snider!

Rachel, please email contact@ladieslearn.com to claim your prize!

Fan #70 on Facebook!

We entered all our Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and two entries for every blog widget into our contest. Thanks to everyone who has shown their support for Ladies Learn!

Stay tuned for our next contest!!

And congrats to Loni Theurer for being our 100th Facebook fan! Loni won a $10 iTunes gift card!

After the birth of my son, I experienced severe sciatic nerve pain. The pain would come and go, but would sometime be so intense, I literally could not move my legs. I would have to yell for my husband and he would pick me up, and place me on the bed. I would have to just lay there with my legs as straight as possible (it hurt to move them at all) until the pain subsided. I chalked it up to just not exercising for a while and pregnancy.

When I did start exercising, about 3 months post-partum, I experienced less of the ‘freeze’ episodes and was glad it was getting better.

At about 5 month post-partum, I decided to start running. I’ve always wanted to be a runner, and it was a great way to lose the extra baby weight.

After about 6 weeks of running every other day, my sciatic nerve pain came back, almost instantly in the middle of one of my runs. I could barely walk home.

I rested for the next few days and hoped I just had a ‘cramp’ or was just sore. However, it did not go away and I had a difficult time walking for almost two weeks.

I went to a sports medicine doctor and he explained to me that the muscles around my sciatic nerve were cramping it, causing my pain. The only way to help alleviate it and release the tension was 3 weeks of physical therapy, three times a week.

After some research, I found out that the average cost of physical therapy is between $150-$250 per session. Yikes!

My Dad recommended to me reflexology. I had never heard of it before, but had seen some places around town. I looked into it and decided to give it a try, as it was only about $30 a session.

After 4 sessions over the course of about 2 weeks, I was totally pain free! I ran a 5k a few days later, and have been running without any sciatic pain ever since.

What is Reflexology?

Reflexology is an alternative medicine method used to invoke a physical change in the body by applying pressure to the feet and hands with specific thumb, finger, and hand techniques. While the effectiveness of reflexology is highly disputed, and is an alterative form of healing, it worked for me and I would recommend it to anyone with any type of pain.

Although the reflexologist concentrates on your foot and hands, they do also massage other areas of your body, so it was a relaxing, peaceful ‘massage’ type of a treatment.

Read more about Reflexology here.

Below is an example of a reflexology chart displaying different pressure points on the foot which correspond to areas of the body.

If you’re in the Phoenix area, I highly recommend QC Reflexology. To find a reflexologist in your area, perform a Google search or ask friends and family.

Try it out, see what you think, and report back!

Hope it helps you with whatever is ailing you!!

What does “Organic” mean?

Organic- means that every ingredient in the product or the single ingredient product itself was raised and harvested in an organic environment and is approved and certified by the USDA.

Still confused?

This means no pesticides, insecticides or herbicides are used while growing or collecting any product deemed organic.  When animals are involved neither antibiotics nor growth hormones are used, also no pesticides, insecticides and herbicides or synthetic fertilizers are used on the food of the animals.

-Just a side note here…If you are eating animals or eating their eggs or dinking their milk you are ingesting everything they have ingested right down to the fertilizer put on their food, the antibiotics given to them for sores and/or hormones given to them to increase their size for sale; if you are pregnant or a nursing mother you are passing all of these things on to your child in utero or through your breast milk.

Starting in 2002 growers who wanted to use the word “Organic” on their labels had to be certified under federal rules.   These regulations and certifications are costly for the grower and take years to obtain.  This leaves many farmers raising organic farms without going through the headache of being certified.

Organic classifications are broken up into percentages of organic ingredients used.

100% Organic – This is an obvious one; all of the ingredients are organic.

Organic – The products bearing this have to contain at least 95–99% organic ingredients (by weight). This means that the other ingredients are not available organically but have to be approved by the NOP.

Both 100% Organic and Organic labeled products may display the USDA Organic seal.

Made with Organic Ingredients—If something is labeled this way it means that it must contain at least 70–94% organic ingredients. These products will not bear the USDA Organic seal.  But you may see that they will list up to three ingredients on the front of the packaging.

Other—These products contain less than 70% organic ingredients. They are also not allowed to bear the USDA Organic seal, but may only list organic ingredients on the information panel of the packaging.

The Environmental Working Group or EWG has even designed a free iphone app to help you while shopping.  It gives a complete list of the “Dirty Dozen and Clean 15” right on your phone.  Find it here:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dirty-produce/id312336368?mt=8

“The Clean 15” or produce  confirmed to have the least amounts of pesticides by the EWG include: Onions, avocados, corn, pineapples, mangoes, asparagus, sweet peas, kiwifruits, cabbages, eggplants, papayas, watermelons, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes.  This means if you are going to buy organic you can save a little money don’t buy these organic.

According to the EWG, here are the 12 fruits and vegetables with the most pesticide residue.  Deeming them the “Dirty Dozen” and suggested as the 12 most recommend fruits and vegetables you should buy organic. Peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes, carrots, and pears.

Beware!  Don’t let products trick you into buying something.  Using words like smart, vitamin, clean and pure are marketing strategies to get consumers to buy products that are not always healthy for you.  Free range, sustainable, locally grown, seasonal, wild, fair trade, all natural and pure –  even though these are all positive and wonderful ways of living, if it doesn’t have the 100% certified organic symbol or the word organic on it, it is NOT organic.  Just because there is a locally grown, seasonal, sustainable farmers market on the corner of your town, it does not mean it is organic.  Ask them directly how they grow their crops. And know that there are many organic farms out there that cannot bear the seal because they have not yet attained it due to cost and time.  Yet, they are still growing organic farms.

Did you know that things grown in the wild cannot be considered organic?  It’s true!  This includes the wild blueberries in my back yard untouched by chemicals, the water running off the snow topped mountains into a stream and the fish running in the fresh water stream off a beaten path, also clay and other minerals found in the earth possibly used in skin products.  Even though they are not contaminated by chemicals they are not classified as organic.

I hope this helped you better understand some of the classifications of “Organic” on your journey to living a healthier life through Organic Living.

Do you have a favorite workout song that is just FANTASTIC to workout to? It gets your heart pumping, makes your push your pedals faster, run an extra mile, or turn up the ‘incline’ on the treadmill? Except there’s just one problem…that dang swearword. Completely audible and completely unnecessary. And the ‘clean’ version isn’t available on iTunes? Or that song that is so great up until the end of it when the artists are blabbing or doing something weird that really just interrupts your ‘zone’. What to do, what to do…

Well I have a solution for you!

It’s a program called, Audacity. I’ve been using it since my days of creating ‘pep rally’ music back in high school.

It’s a super easy-to-use music editing software. And the best part? IT’S FREE! Yep. Free. Ahhh, now that’s music to my ears!

You can also use it to make ringtones (I’ll show you how in another post), clips of songs for video montages (also coming soon), and to cut out those annoying ‘talking’ parts at the beginning or end of songs (Black Eyed Peas are guilty of this!).

First thing you need to do to is download Audacity. Download it using this link, from Download.com, it’s a trusted source:

http://download.cnet.com/Audacity/3000-2170_4-10058117.html?tag=mncol

Next, if you are going to edit a song that is a Mp4 (the typical iTunes format), you will need to convert it to MP3 format. To do this, I use this program:

http://free-mp3-wma-converter.en.softonic.com/

(If these video tutorials are too small, click on the ‘You Tube’ icon on the video to watch it in You Tube, you can then watch it a little larger or full screen)

Then convert your music, this tutorial will show you how:

To trim a songs beginning, middle or end, see this tutorial:

To edit out a specific word or small part of the song, see this tutorial:

After your song is the way you would like it, in Audacity, go to File>Export As WAV  OR Export As Mp3. This is a matter of preference, but both formats are very similar, I usually go with Mp3, it’s more universal.

And that’s it! Play around with Audacity, it’s a lot of fun. You can create little song snipits, record your voice to a song, mix two songs together, there are really a lot of options!

Good luck!

social, upbeat, motivating instructor, accountability, crazy cardio, plenty of strength training and did I mention, social?

My bootcamp is indoors, but most other bootcamps meet at a park or high school.  The only drawbacks could be…

1. They typically take place in the early morning

2. The investment ($40-$100 a month)

Yet, when compared to personal training it is a bargain, and I am definitely a morning person.

Using your own body weight and all the abs exercises give you amazing core strength.

For upper body we workout with some smaller free weights, medicine balls and of course, we do plenty of push-ups

Every workout is different so it keeps your muscles from pattern overload, and it’s exciting to see what challenges the instructor comes up with.

There is also the nutrition counseling and someone always pushing you to give it your best.

Okay, sorry, this one I made them do because this is how you feel when you are done.  Happy that it’s over and a perfect way to start your day.  I have to give props to this bootcamp instructor; her name is Jessica Walters and this is her website www.fitnessrevolutionaz.com.  It has great articles and more information about her bootcamp class.  Thanks Jessica, you amaze me.

If I’m making cookies, 9 times out of 10, it’s these. My mom has made them my whole life. In fact, it never occurred to me (until later of course) that chocolate chip cookies didn’t ‘normally’ have oatmeal in them. That’s just what I knew. Apparently, this recipe came from her best friend, who got it from a friend, who probably got it from a friend. That person probably stole them from Mrs. Fields, because they’re pretty dang close. My mom and I modified them a bit to make them ‘fluffier.’

DISCLAIMER: I cannot be responsible for any weight gain, over indulgence of cookies, or diet mishaps that may occur from baking these cookies. You will want to eat the whole batch, I promise. So do a little meditating before making them and pray for some self-control, you’ll need it.

What you’ll need:

1 cup of butter (salted is best, unsalted works, just add more salt)—make sure it’s room temp

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 cup of brown sugar (golden)

2 eggs

1 teaspoon of vanilla

2 cups of flour (when I’m feeling guilty, I use half whole-wheat flour, makes them calorie-free…haha)

2 1/2 cups of rolled oats (It’s VERY important that you do NOT use instant oats, your cookies will not turn out right)

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt (1/2 if you use unsalted butter)

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup finely chopped milk chocolate (I use a Hershey bar or Kisses—freeze these for better chopping)

1/2 cup walnuts (or pecans)

Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees

Start by mixing the wet ingredients:

First, cream together butter and sugar

Add in eggs

And then the vanilla

Cream together until well mixed, it should look like this

Set wet ingredients aside and mix dry ingredients:

Flour

Oats

Baking powder and baking soda

Salt

Then mix dry ingredients well with a fork

After dry ingredients are mixed, add the wet ingredients

Mix together

Feel free to taste the dough at this point, you know, to make sure it’s not poisoned or anything…

Next add in your semi-sweet chocolate

Then chop up your milk chocolate if needed:

Either by pounding with a mallet

Or in a chopper

You want your milk chocolate to be pretty finely chopped, this will create little ‘slivers’ of milk chocolate in your cookies…mmm…

Add to dough

Then add the nuts. As you can see, I don’t measure this part. I just go by ‘feel’, yeah that looks about right.

Then mix all the goodies in until you have a scrumptious looking dough like this. Good place to do the ‘poison’ test.

Roll dough into balls, about 1” thick

Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes

The secret to making moist, soft cookies is when you think they’re done, it’s too late. You want them to be just barely golden, flip over a cookie to see if the bottom is golden to determine if it’s done or not. If the bottom’s a little golden, they’re perfect.

Place cookies on a paper towel to cool.

Enjoy!

I have also just frozen the dough balls, to bake up fresh warm cookies. I will note that the dough is just as tasty frozen as it is not, so this trick doesn’t really work for not eating the dough.

Click here to download the recipe in PDF format!