Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

This recipe is from Ree Drummond's new food network show The Pioneer Woman. Jacob was watching it with me and asked me to make it for him. No prob babe! Yum...

One change I made: I used chunky instead of creamy peanut butter. The crunch is mo better.

You will need:

Crust:

(note: I doubled this to make sure I ended up with a thick enough crust)

 

- 25 whole chocolate sandwich cookies, such as Oreos
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:

- 1 cup chunky peanut butter
- One 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
- 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
- One 8-ounce package whipped topping, such as Cool Whip, thawed

Directions:

For the crust: 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Crush the cookies until they're fine crumbs. 

Pour the melted butter over the top and stir with a fork to combine. Press into a pie pan and bake until set, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

For the filling: 

Beat the peanut butter with the cream cheese until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth. 
Add in the thawed whipped topping and beat until smooth, scraping the sides as needed.

Pour the filling into the crust, evening out the top with a knife or spatula. Chill for at least an hour before serving.

Coleslaw (Paula Deen)

I made BBQ pulled pork sandwiches last night and topped them off with this version of Paula Deen's coleslaw recipe. They were delicious! Find her original recipe HERE. 

You will need:

• 1/2 large carrot, grated
• 1/2 cabbage head
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon-pepper seasoning
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar

Directions:

 Slice the cabbage thinly. Mix the cabbage together with the carrot. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining ingredients together and allow to stand for a few minutes. Combine the mayonnaise mixture with the vegetables and toss. Chill for 1 hour. You can jazz up this recipe by adding grated or thinly sliced apple, or craisens. But when using to top BBQ pork sandwiches I like to keep it simple.

Mac and Cheese (Carnation Brand Recipe, Pollock Family Favorite)

This is the mac and cheese Jacob was raised on. Now it's a Finnley, and soon to be a Penny, favorite too.

You will need:
- 1 and 2/3 to 2 cups dried macaroni noodles, cooked and drained
- 2 T butter
- 2 T corn starch
- 1t salt
- 1/2 t dried mustard
-  1/4 t pepper
- 1 can evaporated milk (12 oz)
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups grated cheddar cheese (or cheese combo of your choice, pepper jack is awesome)

Directions:
 Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.
Melt butter in sauce pan over med-high heat. Whisk in corn starch and spices until thickened (only takes a few seconds to thicken up). Add evap milk and water and allow to thicken, still over med-high heat (will take 7 to 10 minutes) stirring often. Turn off heat and add cheese.

Pour cheese sauce over macaroni noodles in a 9x13. At this point I like to mix in sauteed kielbasa sausage, and/or add thin slices of salted and garlic-ed tomatoes over top. This is of course optional, but Jacob and I love it.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes (or until tomatoes look roasted and yummy). Then eat and enjoy!

Marinara, Mo Better

Now, I know I have another marinara recipe on here, and that one was good, until I tasted this one. I still like the other recipe just fine, especially for kids you have a hard time getting veggie's into, because it is vegetable packed. But this one is simpler, with fewer ingredients, and tastes mo better.

This is my go-to spaghetti etc sauce. It is yummy as a basic tomato sauce on pasta, and a great base sauce to jazz up (with Italian sausage, heavy cream or fresh mozzarella). I also use it as my pizza sauce.

It can require roasting your own tomatoes, but only if you want. I combine both roasted and canned tomatoes in order to yield enough sauce to freeze some for later use. I roast about 15 medium tomatoes and combine with enough canned diced tomatoes to yield 10 cups of puree.

Here's what you will need:
- 15 medium tomatoes of your choice
- olive oil, about 1/4 cup
- 6 to 8 cloves garlic, I use about a half clove per tomato. You will be pureeing the garlic into the sauce, so keep that in mind.
- sea salt and fresh ground pepper

Directions:
Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.

Remove the stems from the tomatoes and place on a cookie sheet (I line mine with tin foil for easy clean up). break up garlic cloves and push pieces down into the tomato, if any of the garlic is exposed during roasting it will burn. Drizzle oil over tomatoes to coat and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast until tomato skins brown and burst (see photo below), about 45 minutes.

After roasting, allow the tomatoes to sit until they are cool enough to handle. You will need to remove the skins before you puree the tomatoes for the sauce.

Starting the Sauce:
You will need:

- olive oil
- 5 oz pancetta (optional)
- 10 cups tomato puree (canned and/or home roasted)
- 2 large onions, small diced
- 2 to 3 cups chicken broth, or white wine and water to equal same amount
- salt and pepper to taste
- crushed red pepper (optional)

Directions:
Add oil to a sauce pot over medium high heat.
Add pancetta, and cook until browned (4-5 min).

Add onions and season with salt. Cook onions until soft (about 7 min). 

Add tomato puree along with your 2 to 3 cups of liquid (either broth or wine) and allow to cook 2 to 3 hours.

Basil Whipped Cream

A cool idea I read about in the June 2012 Better Homes and Gardens Mag.

Directions:

Beat a cup of cold whipping cream and sugar to taste (about 1 Tablespoon) in a large bowl until soft peaks form. Mix in a handful of finely diced basil.

Eat with fresh fruit, muffins, or berry pies and tarts.

Blueberries! Muffins and more.

I got some awesome blueberries at my grocery store this last week, and after a particularly grueling... no, I should say spirit crushing... day of house hunting I came home and made these:

Blueberry muffins, from my Williams-Sonoma Breakfast Comforts cookbook, and THIS:

Blueberry and Almond Tart (with Basil Whipped Cream, yumm!) which I have made before. They were delicious, and re-inflated my spirit like only fresh home-baked goods can. To find the recipe for the tart click on the link above. Here is the recipe for the muffins:

You will need:


- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 cup buttermilk (or regular milk with a splash of plain white vinegar)
- 2 large eggs
- 5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional, but what makes these so special)
- 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

for streusel (optional, my Jacob prefers them without):

- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup sliced almonds or pecans

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter and flour 12 standard muffin cups or line them with paper liners. Butter the top of the muffin pan.
In a bowl, sift together all DRY ingredients. In another bowl whisk together the WET ingredients. Pour WET ingredients into dry and stir unit just combined. Fold in the blueberries. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups.
 - To make the streusel, in a small bowl combine the flour, sugar, and butter. Using your fingers or a fork, work the ingredients together until just combined. Work in the almonds/pecans. Press into a ball, and then separate with your fingers into coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the tops of the muffins.

Bake until the muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto the rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. I love mine warm, with lemon curd or basil whipped cream, or plain!

Coco's Ooohy Goohy Cake

So I was pretty excited because this last weekend I had reason to make our cousin Coco's FAMOUS Ooohy Goohy Cake. It goes without saying that you never need a reason for cake, but I do feel a little, teeny tiny bit of shame baking up a full 9x13 for just the three of us. I need to get over it. Anyway, my excuse came in the form of a Forest Service Archaeologist Work BBQ! Doesn't that sound fun!? Well, it was even cooler, and weirder than it sounds. I wish I had been brave enough to snap photos of the goings on. Jacob may have the coolest boss on planet Earth. The BBQ was at said bosses house. A collector of bizarre hats, one each was handed out to the party goers and we continued to trade off throughout the day. Finn played with his daughter, who, as the daughter of a single male archaeologist had a room that made Finn's blush with shame. She had boxes of dinosaurs, Indiana Jones figurines, a knee high Godzilla and a knee high King Kong, a terrarium with TWO real live lizards...on and on. Finn cried for an hour after we left. Aside from the cool stuff in her room they also played: dinosaur hunters (in the back yard with squirt guns), attack of the mummy, and (with the aid of a super creepy ware-wolf mask) attack of the ware-wolf. They got everyone in on the action, and one poor girl almost got pantsed and had her shirt ripped off at the same time in the kid's excitement.

Anyway, in case you have forgotten about the simple easy glory that is the Ooohy Goohy Cake, you can find it HERE.