Saturday, November 1, 2008

Peanut Butter Candy Bar Squares

DSC00613Can I be honest?  I can't think of a single interesting thing to say, nothing!  Sorry but if you're looking for witty prose or to crack up over some outlandish thing I've said or for something heartfelt other than if you like, no, love peanut butter than you need these Peanut Butter Candy Bar Squares in your life, well, you've come to the wrong place.  All you're gonna get is a great recipe that I found here at Bake or Break.

These squares are gooood and are even better if you are a lover of all things peanut buttery.  Let me break it down for you.  It starts with a layer of (a whole package)crushed Nutter Butter cookies and a melted stick of butter.  Then you sprinkle on top of the warm crust chopped peanut butter cups, Butterfinger candy bars, honey roasted peanuts, and because you have to have a little chocolate some semisweet chocolate chips. Poured over that is  a batter made up of 1/2 a cup of peanut butter added to a can of sweetened condensed milk and a tablespoon of vanilla.  Told you this is a peanut butter lovers dream.  Now you would think that that is just too much peanut butter, right?  Wrong!  It really isn't too much.  Want to know another great thing about this recipe?  You could actually put however much or little you want of the candies and chips and I'm pretty   certain you could also sub other goodies that would taste yummy with the peanut butter filling.  This is keeper!  Really it's just a glorified blondie and you KNOW how we/I feel about blondies!DSC00618

Speaking of blondies I have made several different recipes in the past month.  Unfortunately I have not gotten photos of the various ones I've tried but I thought I'd go ahead and tell you what I thought.

  1. Doehle Bread's Blondie's Blondie  Besides obviously being a blondie recipe the thing that intrigued me about this recipe was that it  called for Maple extract.  Well, I couldn't find any.  Because I knew what blondies tasted like using vanilla I figured I would get daring  and use Vanilla Butter & Nut extract instead.  No problems there.  Here's where I went wrong. Somehow, I don't know how,  I chopped off the 1 in front of the 1 1/2 cups flour when I printed the recipe. So instead of adding what was called for  I only added (& knew I needed  more flour) 1/2 cup.  So, of course, my first batch went down the garbage disposal to the dismay of my children who were waiting for their blondie fix.  The next night I tried again and all went well.  Were they earth shattering?  No. Were they good ? Yes.  Would I make them again?  Yes, but only after I track down some maple extract.  The deciding factor for me with blondies is whether or not they are chewy and gooey or cakey.  I'm about the chewy and gooey.  These were on the cakey side.
  2.  Smitten Kitchen's Blondies  I've also made these twice.  The first time adding in as suggested a 1/2 cup of mashed bananas.  Though the recipe didn't call for it I added a pinch of cinnamon to the bananas before mixing them into the batter.  While my children thought they were okay and ate them  Joe on the other hand said and I quote, "throw that recipe out"!  LOL!   He didn't even finish the piece he was eating.  The second time I made them I used white chocolate chips as the suggested add in and all was well.  I did undercook them a bit. The next time I think I'll cut back on the butter and cooked them a minute or two longer.  These are definitely gooey!
  3. Bake at 350's Toffee Blondies  Here's my problem, if I undercooked the last dessert I made (remember these)then there's a good chance I'm going to over cook the next dessert and that's exactly what happened with these blondies.  Though in my defense I did take them out earlier than what the recipe called for but still not soon enough.  I also don't think it helped that Babygirl whipped the batter on med high after she added each egg.  In a moment of what I think was genius,  I made a browned butter and cinnamon glaze for them.  Blondies that were good now became great.  The glaze was so good I went ahead a "frosted" the blondies instead of just drizzling some on.    I don't have a recipe to give you for the glaze as I  just winged it.  DSC00610  DSC00620

Happy Halloween!

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Here's my Babygirl as a dead bride.  Daddy ordered her costume and made her up!  She's such a daddy's girl!

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Hope everyone had a safe and Happy Halloween!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Twins.........again!

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Joe would freak out and shoot himself if I was pregnant and certainly if it was twins, again!  Honey, relax, it's twin awards! 

The first award is from Lorie at Rice and Beans and Other Fine Things.  Great blog which I recently found.  She has several desserts that are in my try stack.  She also has some great organizing tips for those of us that need help in that area.  Go by and check her. 

The second award is from Becky at  Satisfying My Sweet Tooth.  With a blog name like that you KNOW she's gonna have a tremendous amount of yummy desserts!  If you missed her brownies week, click here for day one.  I made day four's  Cookies and Cream Brownies, talk about delicious! The recipe made it from the "must try" stack to the ""must make again" stack which should tell you how just good these were.

7 Things I did before...........

  1. Worked as a Page at the public Library
  2. Attended Lehman's College in NY
  3. Worked at BookStop & then transferred to Barnes & Noble  in NYC
  4. Worked at the Tax Collector's office
  5. Worked at my parent's furniture store
  6. Shopped a lot
  7. Read  a lot

7 Things I do now..........

  1. Work at MMC
  2. Cook but especially bake
  3. Read alone & with the kids
  4. drive the kids to their sports practices and events
  5. study & do homework with the kids
  6. LAUNDRY
  7. Yell at the kids to "knock it off", "STOP", "run", "be quiet",
  8. Tell them I LOVE them!

7 thing I want to do.............

  1. Be more daring when it comes to baking
  2. Get McKenna to let me throw out more junk!
  3. Be MORE patient, less yelling
  4. Balance my time better
  5. Manage our finances better, save more
  6. Spend more one on one time with Joe
  7. Help my children achieve their full potential & be well rounded

7 things that attract me the opposite sex..........Joe

  1. Blue eyes
  2. loves me and the kids
  3. good with/to us
  4. athletic
  5. great sense of humor
  6. a terrific person
  7. works hard

7 favorite foods.............

  1. SALADS, no onions or tomatoes please
  2. warm gooey marshmallow filled desserts
  3. icy cold milk & water
  4. Blue Belle ice cream
  5. Pizza from NYC served on a piece of wax paper
  6. bread w/ real butter
  7. Pina Colada smoothies

7 things I say..............

  1. Knock it off, stop, be quiet, run, no, okay, I'll think about it
  2. I love you, good job
  3. Devon, Jalen, McKenna, Joe, Mom
  4. Seriously
  5. Holy cow
  6. Aaahh, man
  7. Hi, this is Ingrid from Miller Motorcar

7 awards & tags times 2

  1. Syndey from The Crepes of Wrath
  2. Julia from Dozen Flours
  3. Jin Hooi from Smell and Taste are My First Memory
  4. Fran from Apples Peaches Pumpkin Pie
  5. Cassie at How to Eat a Cupcake
  6. Miss.Cupcake.Face
  7. Cakebrain from Cake on the Brian
  8. Duckie from A Duck in Her Pond
  9. Grace from A Southern Grace
  10. Janna from Honeyed Hashette
  11. Frantic Home Cook
  12. Baking Blonde
  13. Nella from Peckerwood Gravy Company
  14. Jaime from Good Eats 'n Sweets

If you haven't visited any of the above blogs then please do so now.  All of them are wonderful and offer something special!!

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Saturday, October 25, 2008

Meme, what's in me purse?

I've never done a meme.  I'm not even quite sure what it is......I'm guess that it has something to do with "me"?

Jin Hooi from Smell and Taste are My First Memory tagged me for a Purse Meme.

Here are the rules.
Find a safe quiet place free of significant others, nosey meme makers, priests, nuns, all things religious and men in general. (If you're a guy just reverse this process to male and tell us about your wallet, tool box, briefcase or metro sexual accessory.)
1. Dump the contents of your handbag in a pile
2. Take a photo of your handbag and the contents
3. Be brave and explain to your fellow bloggers what lurks inside the handbag.
4. Tag others who might want to embarrass themselves
5. Answer these questions:
Describe the contents of your handbag.
What's the most important thing in your handbag?
What's the most embarrassing thing in your handbag?
What's the smallest thing in your handbag?
Is there anything illegal in your handbag?
This meme was started by Mimi, Queen of Memes who thinks up brilliant memes.

Here are the answers to the questions.....

1.  &  2.  Okay, I didn't dump my purse as it goes against my basic natural but here's the shot of what's in it.

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3.  & 5.  Here's the list of what's in my purse: 

    1. Red lipstick holder
    2. Spare key
    3. Wristlet, holds all my membership cards & coupons
    4. Wallet
    5. Paperback book
    6. Change purse
    7. Sunglass pouch
    8. Bobbypin
    9. Rice paper skin blotters
    10. 2 pens
    11. 1 mechanical pencil
    12. Info sheet for the Twins'  Duke's TIP SAT & ACT dates
    13. Lipliner
    14. posted note

5.  The most important thing is my wallet.  The most embarrassing is (I'm not embarrassed) is the post it note which has my stepmom's cell phone number.  I don't have anything illegal.  The smallest thing is a bobbypin!.

4.  Let me see?  Tag you're it:

Janna from Honeyed Hashette & Becky at Satisfying my Sweet Tooth & Leslie from The Hungry Housewife.  can't wait to see what's in YOUR purse!

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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Suppa Club

In a prior post I mentioned how Molly at Batter Splattered had the wonderful idea of getting a group of foodies together to cook a dish that was chosen the previous week by another member.  While our group is still small the past  two dishes have been huge in flavor.  This last one in particular.  DSC00594

This week's dish, Bavarian Sausage Hot Pot was a chosen by Corinne at Moonlit Knit .  I'll be honest after looking the ingredients over I wasn't certain this was for me but the whole point of my being a part of this club is to push myself out of my comfort zone.  I wasn't  quite sure how it was going to go over with my children but I went for it and boy, am I glad I did!  My photo does not do this dish justice.  

My children absolutely LOVED this! Before they finished with their first serving they were asking for seconds!  Joe and I loved this dish!  I've already given out the recipe to two different people.   Besides being so tasty this was super easy to throw together.  I had it on the table last night within 45 minutes.  I intended to serve it with crusty bread but after the football game I just didn't feel like running to the grocery store to then start cooking after 8 instead of 7:45pm so I just made some Pillsbury biscuits.  I pretty much followed along with the recipe though I did leave out the peas and I added about a 1/2 cup more beef broth (the kids like things saucy). Also, my spice measurements were heaping ones. 

To see how everyone one else did with this recipe please visit Moonlit Knit!  Thanks, Corinne we loved it!

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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Simple S'mores Bars

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Are simply delicious!  These bars are ridiculously easy, too!  It doesn't get  any easier or better.  This another recipe is from  the  The Crepes of Wrath

I have actually made these bars three times though the first time I didn't get to take a photo as I made them for Devon's baseball team.  The boys and parents raved about them but didn't leave me one to photograph.  The second time I made these was for lasts month's Operation Baking GALS.  Unfortunately that time my camera was in DSC00582Greece vacationing at 5 star spa resort for ten days.  (Must be nice! )Anyway I didn't have my camera so I once again was unable to take any pictures and this is one of those recipes that though it sounds good, it looks even BETTER!  With that said once my camera got back from its vacation it was S'mores time, baby!  When I made this these this past weekend I made them at 10:00 at night and had two new taste testers in the way of Devon's football buddies.  When they asked for seconds I figured theDSC00583y liked them.  Did I mention that I whipped these bad boys together in just minutes?  Because I ran out of semisweet chips and only had  bittersweet ones I didn't add the full amount that the recipe required. 

The exact recipe can be found here.  

 Question:  Has anyone heard of S'mores Ice Cream?  Recipe?

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Monday, October 20, 2008

Oops, my bad!

I don't remember when exactly but a week or so ago I saw DSC00570on the Recipe Girl's blog these drool-licious photos of Dulce de Leche Apple Bars with Browned Butter Icing!  Now what out of that name doesn't sound yummy?!  No brainer, right?! 
While I like apples I prefer them raw.  I won't turn down a slice of apple pie but it does head the top of my "to make" list so you can imagine how good these looked.  What drew me in was the browned butter icing dripping down slices of her bars and the swirled in dulce de leche.  I had never had dulce de leche before and thought what better way to try it!  Now if you've followed my link and hopped over to check out her photos you might notice a bit of a difference.  I followed her recipe and everything went well until the buzzer dinged and I pulled them out TOO SOON.  I kinda knew it too, but it was 11:30, I had just finished wiping down Devon's pads and helmet, we had to be out the door by 8:20 the next morning, and  I was just so tired!  I figured they would just be on the "moist" side.  Oops, they were moist all right.  Too moist! I salvaged all the pieces along the edge and tossed the undercooked middle over some ice cream.  DSC00557(YUM!)  Because the bars were so moist I passed on the icing (bummer) and instead just sprinkled a little powdered sugar over them .  The bars were very good and my children  liked them.  Babygirl wasn't fond of the apple chunks in them (didn't stop her from having 2 pieces) but she LOVED the dulce de leche.  As a matter of fact we ALL loved the dulce de leche!  Would I make these again, YES, but with just one basic change, outside of baking them the right length of time, I would leave out the apples and called them Recipe Girl's Dulce de Leche Blondies!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hip Hip Hoo ~RAYS!

YAY, the Tampa Bay 'Rays are going to the World Series!  While it's not my Yankees at least it's NOT the Boston Red Sox!

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