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  Here’s my confession : I love cookies. I’ve always loved them and I will always love them. I know, pretty intense for a confession, but what can I say, I’m a kid at heart.

But just like for kids, until recently, oatmeal cookies, or for that matter anything that had to do with oatmeal, was never on my list. It’s actually only since I moved to Canada that it became a thing. Being one of the most frequent snack you see out here, especially in the university’s cafeteria, at some point, you kind of get used to it.

And, you like it even more when they say it’s supposedly healthy. I say supposedly because when you make the recipe, you realize that it’s actually a regular cookie dough where you added old fashioned oats. But shhh…it’s a secret, my body doesn’t know it yet.

    Since it’s a pretty standard cookie dough, it’s really versatile and you can make other versions, that you might prefer, and make it more “healthy”. Here are some ideas : cinnamon and crystal sugar/or apples, blueberries, cranberries and/or goji berries, raisins and macadamia nuts (with white chocolate chips if you’re obsessed with chocolate like me), etc.. The list is endless, as I always say make it your masterpiece, cooking is just another art that you can eat, which is obviously so much better.

Here’s another confession : as I’m writing this, I’m waiting for another batch to cool down enough so that I can eat them all, alone, while it’s raining outside. Who said my life was boring 😀

  Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

(recipe inspired by Olivia from Liv for Cake)

  Ingredients :

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon optional

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 cup unsalted butter room temperature

1 cup light brown sugar packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs room temperature

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment

In a medium bowl, whisk together all of your dry ingredients : flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a bigger bowl beat your butter and sugars fluffy. I used a hand mixer this time, but a whisk had worked just as fine.

Add eggs one at a time, and mix well before adding the other. Then, add vanilla.

Start adding flour bit by bit until fully combined.

Add oats and chocolate chips. Mix until well incorporated.

Tip : Chill dough in the fridge for an hour (It’s optional, but as Olivia recommended, it gives better results and I can vouch for that).

Using a small cookie scoop, or an ice-cream scoop, place cookies on baking sheet. Tip : roll them in a ball shape and flatten it slightly.

Bake for 10mins or until edges are lightly browned but the center is still soft and unset.

Cool for 5 minutes on baking sheet, then transfer to cooling rack to cool completely, or until you can’t hold yourself anymore.

  Either way, I hope you enjoy these delicious treats with loved ones in these cold autumnal days. And eat a lot of them ! It’s healthy… 😉

  Dearly,

  K.

Oatmeal chocolate chips cookies Here's my confession : I love cookies. I've always loved them and I will always love them.

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7 things I've been loving lately

7 things I’ve been loving lately

Hey everyone, 

How are you ? It’s been a while ! I know, I know, I’ve let you down. But the last month was entirely dedicated to me resourcing myself with my family, and frankly, I didn’t want to do anything else but just be with them. But anyway, I’m back and better than ever. Today’s post is all about self-care, and how to be and feel happy in simple ways.

I sometimes get really blue,…

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Best cinnamon crumble coffee cake

Best cinnamon crumble coffee cake

  Ever since I was young I always loved to bake cakes, but as everybody in my family came to realize I was better with fondants than regular or coffee cakes. The amount of time that I failed was remarkably high. So high actually that they came to like my failed attempts better than the regular ones. Dark irony I know. 

But not a year ago I finally found the perfect coffee cake recipe that I…

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Inspiration : My Favorite type of home decor

Inspiration : My Favorite type of home decor

Being a really visual person, I love to look for new photos or images that will inspire me in almost every aspect of my life. I think it’s because it’s just such a simple way to discover new things, and also kind of redefine your own taste and style. So, keeping that in mind, I decided to create this series of inspirational posts that I hope will inspire you as much as they did inspire me.

This…

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Going down Cherry Lane

Going down Cherry Lane

Hi everyone, 

My week in Toronto is finally coming to an end, and it’s time to go home. So as a last day in town, I decided to go to Toronto’s greatest park : Hyde Park. 

If you love nature, this is going to be your favorite place. It’s the perfect place for picnics or peaceful walks. Plus, it’s so beautiful with all the trees and the river that runs near, especially at sunset. Everytime I come…

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Brunching downtown

Hi everyone !

I am finally back. The semester being finally over, (yes, we survived it !), I decided to come for a week in one of my favorite cities to kind of cool down, see members of my family, and revisit the town because I like it so much here. 

Toronto is so cool, it makes me kind of think of New York and because I love eating so much, it has everything I need lol.

If you are a food lover…

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  Hi friends,

Today’s recipe is for us chocolate lovers on diets that don’t allow any sweet things.  Keto and Vegan-friendly!

For a month now, I have been in one of those. Hence the lack of new recipes on my blog. I have been trying to figure out what to post about in that area because obviously there are some things that I can’t eat. But in the end, I’ve just decided to go with the flow. I’m going to post about all and everything, but for now, most of them will be revolving around the kind of diet that I’m following.

Don’t worry, it’s still gonna be delicious and tasty !

But anyway, back to this recipe.

So basically it’s a really easy recipe, as usual, with just a few ingredients.

You’ll see that to make it less caloric and less carby, I used mainly sugar-free items. But if you have no problems regarding that, you can just use regular items just the same. It’ll only make it tastier ! Also for the chocolate, I personally prefer dark for this recipe, but you can absolutely use any kind you want.

If you are looking for the same items I used, I got them either on amazon or walmart.

    Sugar-free Chocolate and Pecan Bark

  This slideshow requires JavaScript.

  Ingredients :

250 g 70% or sugar-free chocolate chips

2 tbsp sugar-free caramel syrup (I used DaVinci’s)

2 tbsp coconut oil

1 tbsp butter

1/3 cup almond butter (you can use peanut butter too)

3 tbsp stevia or any kind of sweetener

sliced almonds to taste

pecans to taste

  Directions :

Preheat your oven at 300.

Lay parchment paper on a cookie tray and place your pecans on it before pouring melted butter on them. Oven-bake them for 5-10 min, then let stand to cool.

In a big microwavable bowl, melt your chocolate with your coconut oil for about 1 min., checking every 30 sec.

Take the bowl out and mix well before adding the rest of your ingredients.

On a parchment-layed cookie tray, pour your chocolate and spread somewhat evenly.

Sprinkle your pecans and almonds, and place the whole in your freezer for about an hour.

Take it out and break unevenly with hands.  Tip : be careful in this step, as there are a lot of oils in it. It might melt in your hands if not frozen for long enough.

Store in a ziplock bag or container, in your freezer.

Tip : Be creative ! Add any type of topping you like to this. See it as a blank canvas !

All that’s left to do is enjoy ! But be careful, as it might cause some light binging lol. :’D

I hope you like it as much as I did.

Dearly,

K.

  Easy treat : Sugar-free Chocolate and Pecan Bark Hi friends, Today's recipe is for us chocolate lovers on diets that don't allow any sweet things.  

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What I’ve learned in 2017 Hi everyone ! Happy new year !!  Yeah I know we’re kind of almost already a month trough.

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What to do when there’s nothing to do Lately, I’ve been really struggling as to know what to really blog about. Because let's face it, nothing much is happening in my life right now.

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    Hello friends! Here I come again with a delicious recipe. It is not as easy as a mug cake recipe but it’s definitely not far from it. You know I got you lazy family!

So the soup season is here, or is it in winter? I’m not sure, but for me it definitely is. I seriously love having soup during fall. And the best thing about it is that I can picture myself into an Instagram picture having soup on a cozy side of my apartment, under the window, on my couch, in cozy sweater clothes, with the plant right behind me. Can you see it? Yeah ? Well, that is until you realize that your house wasn’t decorated by Mr. Kate (one of the best and cutest interior designers I’ve ever seen on youtube FYI), that you don’t have a couch, yet, (#studentproblems), and that you inadvertently just spilled your bowl of soup on your already not so stylish living room carpet, while you were daydreaming.

Yes. Some of us are shockingly clumsy.

But at least we can keep on daydreaming about that beautiful apartment while cleaning! Fantastic ! *sighs*

  Anyway, this soup is a really easy one to make in batches and store in your freezer, for days you are out of money. Which is so not my case.

I also really like it because you can put a variety of seasonal veggies and fruits to personalize it, like carrots, parsnips (yeah me too. Never had heard of it either. Although, we’ve all seen it, thinking it was just a discolored carrot), pumpkins, apples etc. Go about it to your liking like I always say. Cooking is just an art you can eat which makes it so much cooler in my opinion!

In my version, I didn’t add all these things because I wanted to keep it as low carb as possible. That is because I am currently following a Keto diet. But until it really becomes a lifestyle and not a miserably failed attempt at losing weight to add to my already very long list of failed diets, I won’t talk much about it. Although, if you are really interested in seeing me experience with Keto recipes and whatnot, please let me know!

Also, you’ll see that the recipe is pretty spicy, with a bit of heat. It’s just a personal preference. If you are not really into those flavors, again feel free to switch it up as you please.

As part of the failed Instagram picture, I decided to add toasted bread with black olive tapenade and parmesan cheese to go with my soup. Now you can put whatever you like on those toasts. Other versions I also really liked had pesto and cheese on it, or harissa ( a paste made with cooked red bell peppers and red peppers).

But enough talk about me, let’s see the recipe.

  This recipe was inspired by the book 1001 recipes for students by French blogger Cooking Lili in Solar editions.

Butternut Squash Soup and Toasts

  For 4 to 5 servings.

Ingredients :

750 g of butternut squash (I used frozen so both work just fine).

1 big onion

4 tbsp of olive oil

2 cloves minced garlic

1L (4 cups) of vegetable or chicken stock (I used 2 Knorr cubes so its good as well. Use  what is at hand)

1/3 cup of whipping cream (or to taste)

2 bay leaves

1 tbsp ground coriander

1 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp cumin (or to taste)

about 1 tbsp of ginger (leave as a whole)

a few leaves of coriander

salt and pepper to taste

  Directions :

      Preheat oven to 375 F.

If you have a fresh butternut squash, peel, remove the seeds, and cut into dices. If frozen, just get it out the pack and lay directly on a foiled oven plate with your onion that you cut into wedges.

Add two tbsp of olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste, to the whole. Place in the oven for 45 min.

 When the time is almost up, start the stove on low heat. In your pot, place the remaining two tbsp of olive oil. To that add your garlic, bay leaves, ground coriander, red pepper flakes, and the chunk of ginger.

After 3 minutes, add the stock or water plus cubes to the pan.

Remove the squash and onion from the oven and add to stock when starting to simmer.

After about 10 minutes, add some of the coriander leaves and cumin for extra flavor.

 After 5 more minutes, you can turn the stove off. Make sure you adjust spices to your liking and remove ginger chunk plus bay leaves from the mixture.

Now it’s time to blend. Be really careful with this step as the blender might spill over. Tip: only fill half way and remove the top. Cover partially with a clean napkin. Be careful not to burn yourself!!

After all the soup has been blended, add the whipping cream.

Reheat as needed and serve.

Place a plate with toats, and tapenade or whatever you’re using on the table with your parmesan and you’re done!

  I really hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did.

Dearly,

K.

Butternut Squash Soup and Toasts Hello friends! Here I come again with a delicious recipe. It is not as easy as a mug cake recipe but it’s definitely not far from it.

[kweenzyworld-blog]

Shea butter hair and body cream 

    Hello, everyone ! Today I’m finally back with a beauty recipe. This is going to be the first of many to come and I can’t wait to share them all with you. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always liked and been good at creating things with my own hands. Whenever I’ve had something to buy, I would try to see first if I could make it. And since I’ve started college, that has been a major…

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Chocolate Mug Cake

Hey there ! I am back with another mug cake recipe. I told you ! Get ready to see a lot of them. This time it’s a chocolate one. I am a chocolate addict so I couldn’t miss the chance to show you this recipe. It’s a delicious cake, moisten with a rich chocolaty flavour. And above all it’s quick and easy, my two favorite words when it comes to cooking.   As I said this recipe isn’t hard at all. It…

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Bucket list : All the countries I want to visit

Bucket list : All the countries I want to visit

If someone asked me which countries I would want to travel to, the list wouldn’t be long. It would actually fit in three words : “all of them”. But I guess it wouldn’t be considered as an elaborated answer, would it ? So in this post I am about to share with you my goals concerning the countries I’d like to visit. First of, let me explain something. When I talk about my travel bucket list, unlike…

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10 Things I've learned in China

10 Things I’ve learned in China

  I recently just finished a 2 months internship in China. Well, recently, I mean last summer. It was in order to practice the mandarin that I’ve been learning for the past year, and also to discover the beautiful chinese culture. At first I was a bit afraid to go, because you know being black and tall it was sure that I would no doubt stand out from the crowd, which at the time was really not…

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Peanut Butter Mug Cake

Peanut Butter Mug Cake

Hi there ! How have you been ? Me as usual, really lazy ! This is the first recipe I am going to be posting on this blog. I want to share with you as much recipes as I can. Since I am a lazy student, most of them are going to be quick and easy with usually simple ingredients. And what a best way to show you that principle than with a mug cake. Over my college years, I’ve come to really appreciate…

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Breakfast mango strawberry smoothy

Breakfast mango strawberry smoothy

  Welcome back ! Today I have a recipe as usual easy and quick for mornings you just don’t feel like cooking or eating salty dishes. I tend to make these a lot lately with different variations. You have all you need in it.