Thursday, December 2, 2010

Krispie Peanut Butter Brownies

First, I must recognize the Brown Eyed Baker for introducing me to this recipe. One day, I was browsing her very neatly categorized blog. And as I was perusing the brownie category, this delicious treat caught my eye.


The Marshmallow Crunch Brownie Bars

I knew just what to do. I MADE THEM! And I have not regretted that decision. They are super easy to make, and I think kids would get a huge kick out of helping out. (Can't ask Jacob, cause he didn't help, but someday!)

So, I took a quick short cut, and I whipped up a box of Pillsbury brownies, according to the box directions. As soon as they are done, you top them with the marshmallows and you bake for 3 minutes, until they puff.

Just like a cloud... of sugar... above chocolate...

Then this sits off to the side, while you melt some chocolate and peanut butter together. When that is all melted, you stir in some rice krispies and get them all nicely coated.

Take a taste. I won't tell.

Then you let this sit for 3 minutes. Follow up by pouring this on top of the marshmallow layer. I thought this would be tricky, but the marshmallows hold up really well. If you want to make them look seasonal, you can poke a few candy corn on the top. (Love my cheater short cut to make all things seasonal? Candy corn.)


When that is all smooth and pretty, put them in the fridge until thoroughly chilled. I think I let them chill for 2 or 3 hours, before I had to pull them out and plate them, out of nessesity and a shortage in time. But they were ready to go. It is easier to cut them when they are chilled through.

And there they are. The best decision you will make in your life. (HA... definitely not. But a good decision none the less.)

And the winner is....

To those 4 of you who voted on my poll (yes, the 5th one was me.. he he...) YOU MADE MY DAY! The winner, was pumpkin in a cookie! I can't blame you. I picked all of the above! I can almost never get enough pumpkin this time of year.

Gobble... Gobble....

Well, now that it is too late for you all to make a treat for Thanksgiving, I will unveil my delicious Thanksgiving treat! (haha... am I just behind on life or what?) My plan this year was for these cute turkey sugar cookies. Thus Exhibit A.

EXHIBIT A:



How cute are those?! Well, they turned out to be a bit not so cute, when I realized I had to do a lot more work than I wanted to. I get lazy, what can I say.

So, then I see, Exhibit B.

EXHIBIT B:


How easy is that? Plop on some candy corn and call it good. That is when I came up with these little guys... If you would, Exhibit C.

EXHIBIT C:


Not so bad. I didn't have to buy anything I didn't already have. Which was a major point for me! Score! Looking back I wish that I had used chocolate frosting, but I've never made a chocolate frosting that I have liked. I think its just me. Any way, guess how many I made...

This many! And did you notice I got lazy, and just frosted some. The recipe made 50 cookies. I used a recipe from Better Home and Gardens cook book. Just a plain jane sugar cookie dough. Not sure if its my favorite one, yet.


And the big mess I made in my tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny kitchen. haha... Any one want to lick the beaters? Well, come over!!

And you want to know what I am dying to make next year. (Please, please let it happen!) This dude! He rocks my world.


I hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving and remembered all the wonderful people and blessings that you are thankful, and blessed to have.

Stay tuned, I've got a great brownie coming up next.

oops.... almost forgot these... in order of appearance.

Its Turkey Time Cookies

Turkey Cookie Treats

Turkey Cheese Ball


Monday, November 8, 2010

Chicken Pot Pie

Okay, as it was pointed out, some things I put on here are lacking sugar. So, I might have to do a title change. Cause sometimes I eat real food too. Like Chicken Pot Pie! Mmmm....

This is my momma's recipe: This makes on 8x8 pan

1/3 c. margarine
1/3 c. flour
1/3 c. chopped onion
1/3 c. chopped celery
1/4 t. pepper
1/8 t. thyme
1/2 t. salt
2 c. chicken broth (or one can)
2 c. cut chicken
1/2 c. carrots, par-boiled
1/2 c. frozen peas (or if you don't have them like me, use green beans)

Melt butter in a large skillet on medium heat. Add onion and celery, and cook until tender. Whisk in flour. Slowly stir in the chicken broth. Cook until thickened. Stir in salt, pepper, and thyme. Then, stir in carrots and chicken. Pour mixture over the pie crust. (Or if you just want crust on the top, pour into a greased pan) Top with frozen peas. Lay crust over the top. Vent with a few slits or a cookie cutter design. Bake 450 degrees for 20-25 min. Until crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.

I didn't really think about taking pictures until the final step when I realized that I had created a masterpiece. (Well, not really, but this is more intense than the usual day to day meal.)

Roll out the bottom, put in the yummy filling, top with peas/green beans, and then top with crust

Fold the edges together and make them as pretty as you can.

Ain't that pretty? Well, except for where I tore the crust. Oops! Wait... something is missing...

That's better, we need some vents! You can use a cookie cutter and put a cute shape in the center if you want. Be sure to do that after you roll out the dough.

Bake for 20-25 min. Until your desired "goldness."

Beware!!! This stuff is highly addicting! Its a good thing that it takes forever to make because I would eat it EVERY DAY! lol!

My mom's pie crust recipe?

Its a recipe used for Apple Turnovers, so it makes a lot (A LOT) of crust. You can half it if you dare. That's what I did, but you have to sorta use half of an egg. So, its tricky, and not an exact science.

Here is the full recipe (makes a really thick top and bottom crust. Almost too thick. Paula Deen style. haha...)

2- 1/2 c. flour
1 t. salt
1 c. shortening
1 T. vinegar
1 egg
1/4 c. cold water

Mix your flour and salt. Cut in the shortening using a pastry blender, until coarse crumbs. Whisk the egg, vinegar and water together. Add to the flour/shortening mixture. Do not over mix. (We like chunks of shortening. Keeps things flakey.)

If you half it, mix 1- 1/4 c. flour, and 1/2 t. salt. Cut in 1/2 c. shortening. Whisk together 1 egg, 1/4 c. water and 1 T. vinegar. Only pour in half of the mixture. (Exact I know) I actually spilled half on the counter, so I used what was left over. :(

This is a forgiving recipe. Mine turned out. haha... so good luck!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

What happens when you run out of bread?

You make TORTILLAS! Well, only if you run out of bread, AND your husband took the car with the car seat to work with him because his car is out of gas. Yep... story of my life. Any way, I used this recipe, which was not too shabby. I think I prefer a whole wheat tortilla. I have a good recipe for those, I just couldn't find it.

I only made half of the recipe. The dough was pretty easy to work with. I've learned the secret to getting a soft dough, and that is the boiling water. (Thank you Sparklett's dispenser for giving me hot and cold water any time of the day. So convenient.)

Just roll it out however you like it

Cook one side till little bubbles come up

Flip it, and brown the other side.

And be sure to take good care of your tortillas. They will dry out and harden. I revived a few hard ones today by brushing them with water and putting them in the microwave. It's just not the same though.

I frosted a cake!

For Jim's birthday, Kristy had a delicious spice bunt cake that she asked me to frost. So, I made up some cream cheese frosting. I used the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cook book. The recipe ended up tweaked, because it didn't call for any milk. (Weird, huh?) So it was...

1/3 cup of cream cheese (from the tub)
1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1 cup of powdered sugar

I put it all in the bowl, and used a hand mixer to try and whip it a little. It had a really strong cream cheese/vanilla flavor because I wasn't able to use all of the powdered sugar. This will make only enough frosting for the top of a cake.

When it came time to frost, I busted out a cake spatula and went to town. This is what happened.... I'm not going to lie, I was really excited about what happened...

Candy Corn Bark

I made it! I did! I didn't follow the recipe exactly, because I didn't have any oreos. They didn't have Halloween oreos at WinCo and I didn't really make any effort to find them after that! But candy corn bark tastes great without the oreos. But, if you can find them, go ahead and splurge. I'm sure it would taste UH-mazing. :)

So what did I use? I used raisins, pretzels, white bark, and candy corn. Pretty simple stuff.

So, first thing, is getting the pretzels and the raisins in the pan. Break the pretzels in half.

The directions say to "lightly grease the pan." I don't know if that helps. You'll see why. :)

Next, melt you bark in the microwave. I didn't really think it would take 1 1/2lbs, so I started small. I didn't have enough to cover the whole pan, so I did half at a time. I used almost a whole package of almond bark. (Minus one block, which I should have just added.)

Top it off with candy corn!

When it has set up, you need to somehow get this brick out of the pan. If you poke at the edges, it will just fall apart. So much for "lightly greasing" the pan. My brilliant mind decided to just flip over the pan and start banging. It came out in two chunks. (Since each half was separately done anyway.)

There will be casualties. You know what to do. Mmm...

Break it all up into pieces. I didn't try to cut them or do anything fancy. Just broke it into pieces. And I will make a note here. Push the candy corn into the chocolate pretty well. If you don't, then it will just fall off as you are breaking it apart.

Ta-Dah! Oh, and it tastes good too!

Ben had a birthday shout hooray!

For Ben's birthday, I decided at the last minute to make him an ice cream pie. There was one that he just LOVED from G's Dairy Delights in Rexburg. I knew that nothing could replace it, but I thought I would give it a try. They use their grasshopper ice cream that is mint ice cream with caramel, oreos, and chocolate chips. So, I bought Dreyer's Mint Cookie Crunch ice cream, and here is how I made it. I took an oreo crust, and added a layer of hot fudge on the bottom. I filled it halfway with the oreo ice cream, and topped that with mini chocolate chips, and caramel. I then added the rest of the ice cream, and topped it all off with some mint oreos, and a "Happy Birthday Ben" in fudge.

This is my only warning: THIS PIE TAKES TIME! I didn't even think about that. There is a lot of freezing involved, and if you get impatient, then you end up with a less than perfect pie. I wrote Happy Birthday before the ice cream was frozen solid, and the fudge went everywhere because it was too melty. So be careful!

Here is how it turned out...

I don't know why, but it won't upload straight. This is unusual. Just turn your head. :)

Add lots of fudge everywhere if you dare!

See the melty words? I wasn't too excited. No rushing!

Do you want to know the coolest thing? The Dreyer's website tells you which stores are carrying your favorite flavor. Just type in your zip code and it will bring up the nearby grocery stores. Now that is AWESOME!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

What's coming soon...

Halloween!!! Full of ghouls and goblins, and my cute little skeleton baby... (I'll post pictures of him too!) For Halloween this year, I am making something extra tasty. (At least I hope it will be!)

CANDY CORN BARK


You can find the recipe here. I hope you get to try it! If I find any other fun ideas to make, I'll post those too!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

My First Sugar Coma Post

Yay! I'm going to be making it official. My hidden passion revealed. I make delicious goodies, sugar being the main ingredient, or key ingredient, and I take pictures. I've just now decided to share them.