Loaded Peanut Butter Cookies

So for our cookie recipe contest this year with my family I decided to make peanut butter chocolate chip pretzel cookies. That's a mouthful so I think I'm just going to call them Loaded Peanut Butter cookies. I was looking for a chewy cookie not a crunchy one and found this one from the Novice Chef to use as my base.

One of the requirements for the contest was to use whiskey as an ingredient so I made a whiskey vanilla extract in place of one made with a vodka base. I also added pretzels and chocolate chips to the recipe. Good enough to for third place!

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 egg

1 tsp whiskey vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup pretzel sticks, broken into pieces

Cream the butter, sugars and peanut butter until mixed. Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix. Then add the flour, baking soda and salt. Once everything is fully combined, add in the chocolate chips and pretzels.

Drop rounded tablespoons onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 11 minutes (I have a convection oven so I actually did 340 for 10 minutes)

 

Easter brownie bites

I knew I wanted to make a dessert for Easter this year - holidays always seem like a chance to bust out something fun. I had an idea that started forming after I did the cupcakes for C's birthday party. (I wanted the cupcakes to look like grass and dirt so I did chocolate cupcakes and piped buttercream frosting to look like grass.) I realized I could sort of do the same thing for Easter just by adding some embellishments.

I changed it up a little and made brownie bites instead of cupcakes (truthfully I like brownies way better than cake). I found the most amazing recipe for brownies on All Recipes - to turn it into to bites, I just shortened the baking time to 15 minutes.

Then came the fun part. I made a basic buttercream frosting (3/4 cup of sugar beaten with vanilla until smooth, add 2 1/4 cups of powdered sugar a little bit at a time, add 1 tbps of milk to thin it slightly) and added green food dye to give it a pale green color. I piped this onto my brownies using a star tip. Then I added two candy eggs to the top - I used the Hershey's ones for half and the Reese's one for half. If I had to pick, I'd give a slight edge to the Reese's ones; the peanut butter was a really nice contrast.

I'm really excited that they looked as good on the plate as they did in my head plus they are so yummy!

 

Vanilla Extract Part 2

About 2 and a half years ago I made some homemade vanilla extract. Homemade vanilla extract is the easiest thing in the world to make. It only has two ingredients - alcohol and vanilla beans. Most people use vodka because it has the cleanest flavor but any alcohol over a certain percentage can be used. The beans are steeped in the alcohol for about two months before use but the longer it sits the richer it becomes. So at this point my vanilla is a really rich brown color and imparts a great flavor to my baking.

Recently I decided to try something new. I am currently making a vanilla extract with Seagrams 7 as my base. Why Seagrams? Because I'm competitive. For the last three years my family has had a friendly competition on Christmas Eve. The first year was salsa (I lost), the next was fudge (I won), and this past year was mixed drinks (I came in second). This coming year will be cookies but we decided to put a twist on it. Everybody wrote down an ingredient on a piece of paper and we picked two that need to be included in the cookie. We ended up with Seagrams and peanut butter. I figured if I treated the Seagrams the same way I treat any vanilla extract, the peanut butter should be easy to incorporate.

I found the cutest bottles to use at a store called Home Goods. Since they had two bottles I picked up both and decided to do another batch of vanilla extract with a vodka base (I think it may end up divvied up into Christmas gifts.)

Hopefully this plan works for my cookies. I can't wait to start experimenting in a few months

 

2013 recap and 2014 resolutions

2013 was a pretty ordinary year but definitely had some high points. We took an epic family road trip at the beginning of the summer with my family. We visited my relatives in Iowa and and also detoured over to Mount Rushmore on the way home. In the process I also got to visit three new states. We also took the boys to San Diego for a long weekend with E's family. Plus E and I took a short vacation just the two of us to Las Vegas.

C finished up kindergarten and started first grade. He played basketball again this summer. He also lost his first tooth and is working on learning to ride a bike without training wheels.

J started preschool this fall and got to perform in his first school program. He's always such a bright, bouncing fun kid.

As with years past, I made a list of resolutions for the year as goals I wanted to accomplish. Just like other years I only made it through about 40% of the list. But that's okay - that's why I have a large list. If I miss on things it still doesn't feel like I completely failed. It also shows where my priorities change. For instance I didn't organize the pantry but I still worked on getting my house in order by fixing up the office somewhat. (I'm still working on some parts of it.

So where did I succeed? Well I finally lost the ten pounds that have been on my list for a few years. In fact I actually ended up losing 19 total. I knit a cardigan, which was done as a test knit. Unfortunately it was a little big to begin with and the aforementioned weight loss made it even bigger.

E and I did get an inground sandbox built for the boys. It's been great for them to play in this time of year, when it is so nice out here. I tried to garden again. It went okay for a while but then it got too hot out. E bought me an indoor garden set so I'm going to try again this year.

I used my sewing machine this year. I tried to practice by sewing a bear shirt for C. It doesn't look that great up close but it is actually shirt shaped and fits the bear so I'd call it a mild success. I also made some heating packs for my FIL. I made him one years ago with a hand stitcher but he really needed a new one. They looked pretty good when I was done. Definitely want to keep practicing though.

I also read more this year, reading five books. It doesn't sound like a lot but it's more than I had been reading in the past. I discovered my local library has a digital library available to subscribers so I've been taking advantage of that. It's super helpful since I can't seem to make it to the library during the week and they are closed on Sunday, leaving me only Saturdays to get there.

Now to this years list:

Read five books (Knitting Rules - 1/19/14; Things I Learned from Knitting; I've Got Your Number - 4/15/14; I think I Love You - 4/22/14; The Amazing Thing About the Way it Goes - 5/20/14; The Shopping Swap - 8/9/14; Shopaholic to the Stars - 10/24/14)

Organize the pantry (1/20/14)

Learn to play guitar

Learn a new cast on or cast off

Learn entrelac

Make a crochet project

Sew a needle holder (3/30/14)

Sew an item of clothing

Garden

Practice my frosting piping skills (4/8/14)

Make fresh bread

Make caramels

Make truffles

Lose 23 pounds

Blog at least three times a month

There are some repeats on my list - caramels, truffles and bread seem to be on my cooking "bucket list". 23 pounds is a really specific weight loss number, but it gets me to my goal weight. And if I did 19 in six months I should be able to do 23 in one year. I'm starting to get more comfortable knitting so I really would just like to expand my cast on/off variety. I'm kind of stuck on backwards loop and knitted cast on for the cast on types I know how to do. I can't seem to wrap my brain around it but I'll try again. After entrelac, I need to learn intarsia and then I think it will be a matter of fine tuning my skills, rather than big leaps. Maybe intarsia will be my 2015 resolution!

I kept some of my other goals the same but went more specific. I think that will help me have better luck at finishing. For example instead of blog more I set a specific amount (I pretty epically failed at this one last year). I want to practice my sewing so I set out two sort of specific projects. And I want to finish a whole crocheted project this year instead of the nonspecific "crochet more". Hopefully I can get to at least half this year!

Happy new year!

 

Christmas Baking

I did a lot of baking this Christmas season. As I mentioned I went to a cookie exchange earlier in the month. Basically all of the participants had to bring half a dozen treats and exchange them and then bring an appetizer to share. For my treat I ended up doing mini loaves of chocolate toffee bread - I found a great recipe at Crazy Little Projects that I used. Rather than slicing it and then packaging it, I just decided to give away whole loaves.

For my appetizer I decided to go with a Brie cup. I was inspired by a recipe on Recipe Girl's site but decided to shake it up. I took phyllo cups (in the frozen section at the grocery store) and added a little bit of raspberry jam to the bottom of each cup. Then I added a piece of Brie on the top. I baked them at 375 for about five minutes. As soon as they came out of the oven I topped them with chopped walnuts. They were so delicious but bad blogger that I am, I forgot to take a picture of them.

In addition to the cookie exchange I did my usual Christmas baking. I made peanut butter balls as I usually do but the rest of my baking was very mint-centric. I had fun with the seasonal m&ms and Hershey kisses! For one of my goodies I took a chocolate cookie recipe I've used in the past and added 1/4 teaspoon of mint extract and then mixed in mint m&ms. These were probably my favorites.

Next up were brownie bites with candy cane kisses. I followed this recipe and while it ultimately ended up fine, I had some problems along the way. I have a convection oven and was having a hard time getting the settings right. The were underdone in the center but ended up dry in the end. I think I need to work on my temperature control. I also didn't grease the tin enough on the first batch so they stuck but luckily fixed that on the second (but hey at least I was able to eat the messy batch myself!) The other thing is the candy cane kisses are much softer than the normal ones - it takes a while for them to set but I was prepared for that to happen at least.

Last up were sugar cookies with the rest of the candy cane kisses. I took the sugar cookies and rolled them green colored sugar for a festive look. Like the brownies, the kisses ended up very soft but they ended up setting up okay.

(This was taken pre-kisses)

And for good measure here's a picture of the peanut butter balls!

My favorite!

 

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas! We had a very nice Christmas here in Arizona. Our church had an absolutely amazing service filled with songs and focusing on how we can be lights in this world. Very uplifting and a great start to the weekend.

I think the boys both enjoyed Christmas this year. They got to see all of their cousins and I think they enjoyed their presents too! We also had a fudge making contest at my mom's - I won! I made a white chocolate peppermint fudge with chocolate chips. It was delicious. I also made my peanut butter balls, a peanut butter cream cheese ball and s'mores scones for my Christmas baking.

Unfortunately because I was having so much fun I didn't get too many pictures but here is a couple from the weekend.

J and me

Yes he is in shorts in that picture

The award winning fudge and my peanut butter balls

And a little treat for me (Opal sock yarn in their Van Gogh color way - this one is Starry Night)

 

Bruschetta for one

My basil, shockingly, has been growing well. Between the sickening heat and my typical black thumb I'm really shocked I'm still talking about it in June. I did think I was going to lose the plant in late May when we had a couple of 110 degree days. But a good watering and they sprang back to life. I totally recommend basil for newbie gardeners.

This, however, has left me with the problem of what to do with it. I went for the obvious recipe the first time picked some leaves and made pesto. This time I went for another obvious recipe and decided to make bruschetta. The only problem is I'm the only one in the family who likes tomatoes. Many recipes serve 4-8 people so I decided to wing it and come up with my own. The great thing about bruschetta is the flexibility of the recipe. Like basil? Add extra. A big garlic fan? Throw in an extra clove. Here's my version:

Serves 1 (or 2)

• 1 ripe tomato
• 3 tablespoons fresh basil
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic
• Squirt of lemon juice
• Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl. Serve over toasted bread.

 

Linked to i heart Naptime and It's Overflowing

 

Basil Pesto

My basil plant has been absolutely flourishing, to the point where I finally had to pick some of it. Oh my goodness, it was so fragrant as I was picking it! Check out how much I was able to pick.

I knew from the moment I planted it the first thing I was going to make was pesto. I'm a big pesto fan! I've never made from scratch but it was so easy.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of basil, pressed down
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1-2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tablespoons of pine nuts
• 1/4 grated Parmesan cheese
• Dash of salt
• Squirt of lemon juice (this is not for flavor, rather to keep the basil from turning brown)
  

Throw everything in a blender (I used my Magic Bullet) and blend until everything in chopped and it turns into a paste. Then enjoy! I spread mine on a few slices of fresh mozzarella - it was delicious. 

 

I'm linking up to Sundae Scoop today!

Gummi candy!

I wanted to make some treats for Easter and I have some really cute bunny and chick molds so I decided to make some gummi candies. I found a good recipe from Skip to My Lou. It's so simple - just three ingredients! To make them all you need is a box (3 oz size) of flavored jello, two envelopes of unflavored gelatin (1/4 oz each) and 1/3 cup water. Add the water to a small sauce pan. Add in the gelatin and stir gently until it is mixed in. The mixture will have the consistency of jelly at this point.

 

Let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Put the pan over medium heat and stir for 2-5 minutes until the mixture is liquid - no lumps! (All four of my batches barely took two minutes.) Let it cool for a minute and then pour into the molds.

After 20 minutes remove them from the molds. They pop right out! I did dust just a tiny bit of powdered sugar on the backs before I pulled them out to make them less sticky. The gummies absorb most of it but they still ended up sticky and they tasted the same.

I made strawberry, orange and lime. I think the strawberry was my favorite. Yummy!

Check out Wayward Weekend and I heart Naptime for other great crafts.

 

Peanut butter chocolate chip muffins

 This past Christmas my sisters gave me baking stuff since I have been trying to bake more. So far I've put the measuring cups and mixer to good use but I haven't had a chance to use my mini muffin tin. I decided that my baking this weekend would have to include using it, so I made some chocolate chip muffins with peanut butter. I found the recipe here.

• 3/4 cup milk
  
• 2/3 cup peanut butter 
  
• 1 egg 
  
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla 
  
• 1/4 cup oil 
  
• 1 3/4 cup flour 
  
• 2/3 cup brown sugar 
  
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 
  
• 1/4 tsp salt 
  
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
  

Mix the milk, peanut butter, oil, egg and vanilla together.

 Next add the dry ingredients (the original recipe calls for mixing the dry ingredients and the wet separately but mine came out fine without mixing the dry ingredients together first)

 After it is all mixed together add in the chocolate chips and stir.

 Lightly grease the mini muffin tin and drop the batter in. The originally recipe says it will make 24 muffins but I was able to make . I found out why after these came out of the oven - mine didn't rise very much. The tins need to be filled to the very top. They still tasted great though!

 

 

Christmas recipes

As I mentioned in a previous post, I made a few desserts and a batch of salsa for Christmas. I wasn't the happiest with how the salsa turned out but it wasn't too bad for my first attempt.

Ingredients

2 cans of tomatoes (I like my salsa really smooth so I used one can crushed and one finely diced.

1 onion, chopped

1-2 jalapeños, diced

1 tbsp chopped garlic

Cilantro (I used a handful or so)

Dash of salt

I would also recommend adding some green chiles and lime juice; I think at was the missing component.

I mixed it up in a bowl and the used my immersion blender to really blend it together.

The next item I made was peppermint bark. Usually I just do candy quick with  the peppermints but this year I added semi sweet chocolate too.

Ingredients:

6 pieces of almond bark (aka white chocolate aka candy quick)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 small bag of starlight mints (candy canes work too)

Line an 8" x 8" pan with wax paper. Crush mints until they are a fine powder and set aside. Melt the chocolate chips over low heat. When fully melted spread into pan. Melt the almond bark and add in most of the mints and stir. Pour over the chocolate in the pan. Sprinkle the remaining mints on top. Refrigerate until set. Break into pieces.

Last but certainly not least were my peanut butter balls (aka buckeyes)

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2-2 cups peanut butter

3 1/4 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

On low-medium heat melt the butter and peanut butter until liquid and well blended. Add in vanilla and stir. Remove from heat and incorporate powdered sugar. Once blended form into little balls (1") and drop the balls on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Allow them to set in the refrigerator for at least half an hour. Melt the chocolate over low heat. Using a toothpick dip the balls in the melted chocolate. Return them to the fridge when dipped to set up.

I make these every year so in my haste I forgot to get a picture. But trust me these are good! 

Peanut Butter "Cheese" Ball

As part of the cookie exchange I went to today, I had to bring something to share for our potluck lunch. I decided to go with something I found on Pinterest(Have I mentioned lately how much I love that site?!). It linked me to this fabulous peanut butter ball from The Girl Who Ate Everything.

This recipe is really easy. All you need are:

1 package of cream cheese (8 oz package)

3/4 cup peanut butter

1 cup powdered sugar

3 tbsp of brown sugar

1 package chocolate chips

Combine everything except the chocolate chips in a bowl until well blended

Place the mixture on some Saran wrap and draw up the sides, forming it into a bowl. Secure the wrap and place in the freezer for a few hours, until it sets up. Next roll the mixture in the chocolate chips and freeze until 2-3 hours before you need to serve it. It needs at least a few hours to set up but I left mine in there for a few days and it still tasted great. I served mine with graham crackers.

Cookie Exchange

Why are there a bunch of snowmen on my counter? Well I am going to a cookie exchange tomorrow. There are a few cookies in each of those bags.

Sometimes prepping for the cookie exchange can be hard work. It's on a Saturday so I don't really have much time to prep (week nights are hard to get anything done). On the other hand if I bake the cookies too early they go stale. This year I decided to try something new. I made three batches of my chocolate cookie recipe. I froze on batch before cooking and the other two after. I think freezing the cookie turned out better than the dough. A few of the crumbled but overall they look fine. The dough however never froze solid so it was hard to condense it own. If I can't save the space the I'd rather bake then freeze.

I'm really looking forward tomorrow. Can't wait to see what everyone has made.

Planning for Christmas

Now that Thanksgiving is over, I feel like things are just rolling right into the Christmas season. I am going to a cookie exchange next Saturday so I started working my cookies today. I'm making chocolate cookies for the base and varying it up a little by adding butterscotch chips to one batch, peanut butter chips to another and white chocolate chips to the third. I baked them today to freeze for next weekend. I also have to bring a dish for lunch so I'm making a peanut butter cheese ball with graham crackers (I'll post about it when I complete it.) 

The other big project was to decorate for Christmas. We got the tree put together today with the boys' "help". I love how it looks - so festive!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family this week. We were able to spend time with my family and E's family. I absolutely love Thanksgiving - it may be my favorite holiday! When I was a teenager I used to go over to my grandma's early, before the rest of the family, and help her cook. It was sort of a joke with my family because I had a reputation for being able to burn water but under her supervision everything turned out wonderful.

Eventually I was put in charge of the mashed potatoes. We used to do boxed but about 10 or 12 years ago grandma and I switched to real potatoes. Now we do Thanksgiving at my mom's but I still bring the potatoes. 

My potatoes are super simple to make:

~8 lbs of potatoes (I had two 5 lb bags but didn't use all of the second bag)

2 cups of milk

1 1/2 cup of butter

Pinch of salt

Boil the potatoes until they are very well cooked. Drain and dump in a bowl. Add the milk, butter and salt. Blend with a mixer until mixed and the lumps are gone. More milk can be added for a thinner potato.

Vanilla Extract

I made my vanilla extract today. The recipe is so simple - the only two ingredients are vanilla beans and vodka. (Any alcohol can be used but vodka has the cleanest flavor.) I had a hard time finding my beans so I ended up ordering some on Amazon.

I had five beans for a cup of vodka, which I think is a good amount based on what I've seen listed around the web. I split each bean in half lengthwise and scraped out the seeds.

Here's the all of the beans after they were split and scraped.

I cut the pods into pieces and placed the seeds and pods into the vodka and gave it a shake. It needs to be shaken once a week and should be ready in about 8 weeks, although it can take up to six months to really get the flavor of vanilla extract.

I also set aside one pod to add to a cup of sugar so I could have vanilla sugar as well. Can't wait to try that in my baking too!

(linked up with www.iheartnaptime.net)

Vanilla Beans

I'm so excited - I ordered some vanilla beans to make vanilla extract and they came today! Unfortunately I got home too late to do anything with them tonight but come this weekend I'll get my chance. It's supposed to be really simple. I need to add a few beans to a cup of vodka and let it sit; it needs to be shaken once a week. It's ready after 8 weeks or so. I'll post the results when I'm done!

Taco Soup

I'm a little late in writing this but we actually did try a new dinner idea in October so I can cross another thing off my resolutions list.

On Sunday I made crockpot taco soup. The recipe is super simple. It's basically dump in cans and turn on the crockpot all day. The only extra step is browning the beef ahead of time if you want it (we did). I didn't get any pics of the dish though.

Ingredients:
2 cans of corn
2 cans of pinto beans
2 cans of kidney beans
1 can of tomatoes with chiles
1 large can of diced tomatoes
1 packet ranch dressing mix
1 lb seasoned ground beef
Toppings

Directions:
Brown the beef and drain the grease. Season with whatever spices you usually use for taco meat. Add this to the bottom of the crockpot. Drain and rinse the beans then add to the pot. Add the corn and tomatoes (don't drain the liquid for these) and the dressing. Simmer on low for 8 hours. Add toppings after it is dished.

Notes:
I think the original recipe was looking for a six quart pot and mine's only four so it was a little too full - I had to take a couple spoonfuls out. Next time I will cut back accordingly.
E was the only one who ate it. C (unsurprisingly) and J (surprisingly) wouldn't eat it. I'm unsure of my vote as I didn't eat it (I had a bit of an upset stomach so I ate crackers instead). E and I both thought it would be better without kidney beans so we will probably try that next time (it will help with the space issue too!). I think we will end up trying this again at some point.


ETA: I just noticed this is my 100th post! Yay!

Homemade Oreos

I love Pinterest! Long story short I had to make treats for my grandma's birthday party tomorrow and work on Monday so I decided to make two different items so I could have some variety. Originally I was going to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookie bars and double chocolate chip cookies. The bars were done without any issues. I did however run into problems with the cookies - I was down to my last cup of sugar and the recipe called for twice that.

So I decided to look through a few of my favorite websites and found this recipe pinned on Pinterest. Since I had all of the ingredients on hand it seemed like a winner.

Homemade Oreos

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Cookies:
1 cup sugar (note: the original recipe suggests between 1-1 1/2 cup but I found them plenty sweet with one cup)
1 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 stick of butter
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (note: I just used very run of the mill Nestlé cocoa powder)
1 large egg

In a bowl mix all of the ingredients except the butter and egg. Once they are mixed together, add the butter and then the egg until it comes together.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Drop rounded teaspoons of dough onto a greased pan and press them down slightly. Be sure to space them 1 1/2-2 inches apart - these cookies really spread out. I ended up with 32 cookies (these are quite a bit bigger than store bought Oreos). Bake for 9 minutes and let them cool. Once they are cool, it's time to fill them.

Filling:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 shortening (you can do half a cup of butter if you don't want to use shortening)
2 cups powdered sugar
2 cups vanilla

Cream the butter and shortening together. With the mixer on low slowly add in the sugar, then the vanilla. Once it is mixed beat on high for 2-3 minutes. Take one a your cookies and spread the cream on with a spatula (pipping it with a pastry bag would work too). Press the second cookie on top and voila - homemade Oreo!

Homemade Donuts

Today we made homemade donuts. This was a recipe that E and his sister made when they were kids so E thought it would be fun to try with our family. The recipe is simple - all that is needed is biscuit dough, oil, donut toppings and a fryer. We used powdered sugar and chocolate frosting.





(Side note: I'm really excited about the fryer. Our old one was one my in-laws let us have that was older than E. It was a good machine while it lasted!)

The biscuits are placed in the fryer - only three or four at a time so they don't get crowded.





They are cooked for just a few minutes on one side until they are golden brown then they are turned to cook on the other side. They fry super fast so the whole batch only takes about five minutes.





Place them on a plate with paper towels to absorb the the excess oil and let them set for a few minutes until they are cool enough to handle. The goal is to have them warm enough that the powdered sugar sticks to them but not so hot that the powdered sugar absorbs. If you are frosting them, they can sit for a little longer.





We did three variations - powdered sugar, chocolate frosted and powdered sugar filled with chocolate.





I think the chocolate filled was my favorite - it reminded me of one of the flavors at Dunkin Donuts. Happy donut making!

This post is linked over at I heart naptime