Chocolate and Peanut Butter

I was looking at Bake at 350 and I found the perfect recipe to try. Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip bars. Thank you Bridgette. These were delicious. I did a little reworking with the recipe and it turned out great. I made half a recipe when I made it, but the recipe below is the full recipe.

 PB+C Bars

Adapted from Bake at 350

6 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and 8×8″ pan (ramekins worked fantastic with the half recipe). Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Set aside. Cream butter, and peanut butter. (Does anybody else like the taste of peanut butter and butter sandwiches?) Add the sugar. Add eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl after each one. Stir in vanilla. Stir in the flour/cocoa mixture until combined. Stir in chocolate chips (you can always add more if you want to). Spread batter into pan or ramekins. Bake for 30-32 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Enjoy!

Rice Pudding

With a rice milk I didn’t enjoy, came a rice pudding that was very enjoyable. It would’ve been creamier with normal milk, but the rice milk tasted fine.

 

Grammy’s Rice Pudding (Serves 4)
           Family Recipe

1/2 cup rice
1 cup water
2 cups milk/rice milk
2/3 cup raisins
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cook rice, raisins, and salt in water until absorbed. Add milk and cook 45 minutes or until creamy. Add sugar and for 5 more minutes. Remove from heat, add vanilla and cinnamon. Serve warm or cold. Enjoy!

Chicken Fajitas

I love chicken fajitas and I’ve seen them a few places lately so I decided to make them. They were easier than I expected. I didn’t even barbeque the chicken. Just grilled it on our wonderful ‘Lean Mean Fat reducing Grilling Machine’. I kid you not, that is the name of our grill. Anyways, the chicken only used one ingredient so it was simple to make, and vegies were really the only thing required. Recipe is below…

 Chicken Fajita’s

5 Chicken Breasts
Tex Mex Seasoning
2 Cans of Heinz beans
1/4 cup Bean Salsa
lettuce
tomato
cheese
tortilla’s
plain yogurt

Grill the chicken breasts with the tex mex seasoning (grill until white). Meanwhile start the beans. Take a medium sized pot and put the 2 cans of beans in as well as 1/4 cup bean salsa (you may also use regular salsa). Sprinkle some tex mex seasoning in and heat. Once chicken breasts are finished, pull them apart in to strips. Grill the tortilla’s quickly. Chop lettuce and tomato, grate some cheese. Take a grilled tortilla. Put bean mixture on, then cheese, and vegetables as well as plain yogurt. Wrap up and enjoy!

Happy Mother’s Day!

The sun is shining and flowers are everywhere today. I like mother’s day because the simplistic nature it has with a flair. Mother’s really don’t want much, as long as their family is okay (I find this with my mom) but when they get the simplest gift of gratitude, their smile is priceless. Now that spring has come around I felt that something with lemon in it was in order for a mother’s day surprise. We didn’t have any lemons, but we had grapefruit. I was going to make Lemon Meringue Cupcakes. So instead I made Grapefruit Meringue Cupcakes.

Blushing Grapefruit Cupcakes

Adapted from WomensDay.com

1/4 cups all purpose flour

3/4 sugar

1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup oil
1/4 cup water
3 large egg yolks
3 large egg whites
4 Tablespoons fresh grapefruit juice and additional 2 teaspoons
2 teaspoons grapefruit zest

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a dozen muffin cups with liners. 
Stir flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center; put oil, water, egg yolks, 4 Tablespoons grapefruit juice, and zest in well. Whisk with dry ingredients until blended and smooth.
Beat egg whites in the mixer on a high speed until frothy. Add remaining 2 teaspoons of grapefruit juice; beat just until stiff peaks start to form when beater is lifted. With a rubber spatula, stir 1/3 of the beaten egg whites into the cupcake batter. Gently fold remaining whites, just until blended. Spoon mixture into each lined cup.
Bake 15-18 minutes, until tops are browned and a tooth pick inserted near the centers comes out clean.

Grapefruit Meringue

4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoons grapefruit zest

Mix together sugar and grapefruit zest to create a light pink mixture.
Beat egg whites on high for 1 minute. Add cream of tartar. Slowly add the sugar/grapefruit mixture (mixing on medium). Beat on high until stiff peaks form when beater is lifted. Broil (on cupcakes) for 3 minutes.

These were some of the best cupcakes I’ve had. The meringue was perfection and the hints of grapefruit were refreshing.

Apple Crisp

I’m excited to be one of twenty picked for the Awesomest Food Blog awards. If you have nothing else to do, why not go over to i am mommy and vote for me. It’s the first blog award I’ve been considered for so it’s pretty exciting. Now back to the usual program…

Apple Crisp. Are you seeing a trend here? Apples in my cake Apple Crisp. I’m really enjoying the use of the little tart apples we have. This was the best Apple crisp I’ve ever had. It tastes good warm and cold.
Apple Crisp
1991-1992 Clipper Cuisine Cookbook (Adaption)

4 cups sliced, pared tart apples (6 small)
2/3 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup oats
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup softened butter

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 8×8″ pan (I didn’t and it seemed to come off of the pan fine). Place chopped apples in pan. Mix remaining ingredients thoroughly. Sprinkle over apples. Bake for 35 minutes or until tender.  *I mixed everything together with my hands. It’s okay if the butter clumps with the dry ingredients, as long as you spread it out on the apples.
 Enjoy!

Upside Down Apple Cake

I got the ramekins. They’re really cute which makes having them worth-while…doesn’t it? I made a delicious Chocolate Molten Cake, but that’s not what I’m posting about today. Not at all. You’ll have to wait just a bit longer. Instead I’m giving you a recipe for Upside Down Apple cake. It turned out a little messier than hoped but it smells and tastes delicious.

Instead of having the brown sugar, melted butter, and apples on the bottom they were mixed throughout the cake. I wish I could say I did this on purpose but I can’t. I had to switch pans after I had assembled everything so I just poured it into the second pan. Everything was mixed

together so that’s how I put it in. I love the way the brown sugar made a caramel mixture throughout the

  cake. It tastes really good.

Upside Down Apple Cake

 a family recipe

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 Tablespoons melted butter

2 apples

Sprinkle over the bottom of and 8×8 inch pan. Core the apples and arrange on top of the brown sugar and melted butter.

1 cup sugar

1 Tablespoon butter

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup warm rice milk*

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg                                                                                             

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

Cream the sugar and butter together. Slowly add each ingredient (follow the ingredients order). Pour mixture over apples. Bake at 350 degrees F. for ~25 minutes.  *The rice milk is optional. You can use normal milk or soy milk instead, as long as they are warmed.

Mug Cake II

I was about to start making a couple chocolate molten cakes when I realized I didn’t have any ramekins. Without ramekins I found it rather hard to create a perfect looking chocolate molten cake. I felt the need to have something with chocolate so I went through my list of recipes and found the perfect thing. A Mug Cake. A quick and yummy solution. I’ve made it once before but I don’t think it turned out quite as well as it did this time.

Last time I made it…

This time I made it!

I didn’t do the full recipe but it seemed to turn out a little better than the last time. Here is the modified version.

2 Tablespoons flour

1/8 teaspoon baking powder

2 Tablespoons sugar

1 Tablespoon cocoa

1. In mug mix well and add:

1 large egg

1 1/2 Tablespoons rice milk*

1 1/2 Tablespoons oil

2. Pour into 2 coffee mugs. Mix well, microwave for 1 1/2 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or chocolate chips and enjoy!

*The original recipe calls for milk but of course I substituted to make it dairy and soy free.

In the original recipe it calls for 1 small egg for the full recipe but I found 1 large egg for half a recipe made it more moist.

Enjoy.

Finally!!

After much switching around of blog background I believe I have finally found the one. I never realized how hard it actually is to choose the right blog background for me. Okay. On to the cookies. I made these about a month ago but I was a little slow on the putting them onto the computer part. So here they are. I tried the recipe off of 17 and Baking. Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. I won’t be putting the recipe up until I get the okay from Elissa. I didn’t know how well the cookies would work out for me, with the higher altitude. But they turned out just peachy. I covered them in Confectioners Sugar and Cocoa powder.
 I enjoyed the cocoa ones because of the bitter outer layer and the sweeter inner layer. The Confectioners sugar ones were quite good too. I’m definitely going to make these again!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
     From 17 and Baking
Makes around 7 dozen (depending on size)

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup confectioners sugar

In a medium bowl, mix cocoa, white sugar, and vegetable oil together. Beat eggs in, one at a time.Stir in vanilla. In seperate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir into cocoa mixture. Chill dough for 4 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or a silicone liner. Roll dough into 1 inch balls with lightly oiled palms. I used a melon ball scooper to make them. Coat each ball with confectioners sugar before placing onto cookie sheet. (I used both confectioners sugar and cocoa powder to cover the balls. Elissa {17 and baking} also suggests cinnamon-sugar and sprinkles).

Bake in preheated oven from 10-12 minutes. Let stand on the cookie sheets for a minute before transferring to wire racks to cool.

Simple Friday

I wish I could honestly say I’ve been busy. But I can’t. So I won’t. I’ve been known to post-pone things as long as possible but sometimes I don’t realize my own skill. I have the pictures and recipes to do a blog post, or three, but I’ve been putting off the plugging of the camera into my computer. I have a few pictures on my computer now, and many more on my camera. So here it goes.

A simply delicious supper.

Sorry for the messy bowl but I didn’t really think to clean off the edges until after, and by then the guacamole was gone. It was a simple Friday supper. Finger foods. We had two avocado’s sitting in the fridge so I made guacamole. Good stuff from Mexico (recipe to come). I had just watched a cooking show and I decided to make pita chips. They were really easy. I cut three pitas into eight pieces. I then put them on a baking sheet and rubbed olive oil onto them and put them in the oven to bake at 350. They turned out better than I thought they would. A definite keeper. I then pulled out chickent fingers and honey garlic wings from the freezer (does that make me a bad person? I didn’t even make homemade chicken fingers and wings!) Carrots and green peppers went along with this.  Now I need to somehow get those pictures from the camera to my computer!

Routine

It’s amazing how fast you can settle into a routine. Every Friday I get home, clean up my stuff, sit down at the computer, and turn on the television. I turn the channel to viva and get onto my blog. Viva, you ask? yes, viva. They have cooking shows on throughout the afternoon. Starting at 2. Everyday Food, Nigella Express, Anna and Kristina’s Grocery Bag, and Cook Yourself Thin. I always have to explain myself on the last one. I am not trying to lose weight, they just make amazing food on there. I watched one episode where they covered a chocolate cake in melted dark chocolate. I also picked up their cookbook and made some goat cheese Mac and Cheese. It was very good. I finished a book this weekend by Elizabeth White, Tour de Force. Since it is about ballet it had me captivated. It was beautiful and true to life. I would definitely read it again. It’s a two thumbs up book, by my standards.