German Chocolate Fudge Bites

Ok. So apparently peanut butter week is over. 

This recipe does have ground up pecans in it, so that sort of counts.

You know. If you squint and hop on one foot.

These German chocolate fudge bites from Chocolate covered Katie are a pretty healthy treat.  The main sweetness of these chocolate-y treats comes from dates!

Apparently I like dates.  Even though they look like bugs.  But with this recipe, it's not like you're popping a squishy buggy shaped critter in your mouth.  The dates get pureed in the food processor along with pecans, cocoa and coconut. 

I'm sure if you used unsweetened coconut and omitted the chocolate chips, they would be even better for you.  Of course I did nothing of the sort.  Momma's got a sweet tooth that must be satisfied!

The fudge-y treats were perfect when I wanted just a little something sweet.  They were chocolate-y without being overwhelming.  Sometimes in the summer I don't like the way a piece of chocolate melts and coats the inside of my mouth.  For some reason it makes me feel warmer. 

I stuck these little babies in the freezer because they didn't seem to want to hold together properly otherwise.  This helped them last a bit longer as I don't go into the freezer nearly as much as I do the fridge.  They were a nice cool little snack.  They were firm from the freezer, but not jawbreakingly so.

Oh and did I mention that there is no baking involved?  Yeah.  Another reason why these are the perfect sweet for summer!


German-Chocolate Fudge Bites from Chocolate Covered Katie  (Makes 10-14 balls)
3/4 cup pitted dates  (120g)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/16 tsp salt
2 T cocoa powder (or raw cacao powder)
2 T shredded coconut
1/3 to 1/2 cup raw pecans
optional: feel free to add some mini chocolate chips

Blend all ingredients together very well. (I recommend using a food processor.) Squish the dough together. Roll into balls, cookie-cuttered shapes, or bars… or you can even use it for a pie crust!

Thankful Thurs #26

1. Being able to stay all night at Relay.

2. Not going into the "ugly cry" once at Relay.

3. Finding the full size air mattress so I could get a few hours of sleep at Relay.

4. Sleeping in until 9AM on Sunday. (Yeah we missed church, but the sleep was amazing!)

5. I haven't killed my plants yet.

6. Air Conditioning.

7. Playdates.

8. Running errands before it got massivly hot.

9. A really good day, after a really bad day with Blockette.

10. My mom has come to visit!!!

Peanut Buttery Banana Bread

Hmmm... it must be peanut butter week or something.

So I know that you are thinking, "That looks like your average run of the mill banana bread."

You are sooooo totally wrong.

There's nothing ordinary about this banana bread!

This is Reeses peanut butter cup peanut butter banana bread from Cookies and Cups.  Yeah.  You read that right...there are Reeses Peanut Butter cups IN the banana bread.

I've actually had this recipe on my to do list since October.  How do I specifically know that I planned to make this back in October? The pb cups that I used were pumpkin shaped.  Somehow, they had gotten jammed behind some random baking supplies in the pantry.  Then I went and forgot about this recipe, and the lil' punkin' shaped pb cups!

Oh the horror!  The travesty!  It's peanut butter cup abuse for sure!

I made it up to the little guys by chopping them up and making them a part of this scrumpdidilyumptious bread.  It was worth the wait.  I decided to make three small loaves as opposed to one large one as suggested.  We gobbled up the third loaf, fighting over who got the last slice.  (I won by the way.  Muhahahaha!)  But what the rest of my family doesn't realize is that there are two other wee loaves chillin' in the freezer.  I'll probably share with them...if they aren't rotten stinkers!  OK.  Who am I kidding?  They ARE rotten stinkers, but I'll share anyhow.


Reese's PB Cup PB Banana Bread from Cookies and Cups
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz bag of Reese’s Mini cups (Or pumpkin shaped ones chilled and cut into 6ths)

Preheat oven to 350 Grease your loaf pan ( 8 x 4 is the recommended size.  Mine is 8.5x5, so i used 3 small loaf pans) with butter or shortening. In a medium bowl whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside. In a large bowl stir bananas, peanut butter, oil, egg and sugars. Pour dry ingredients into wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Batter will be lumpy. DO NOT OVER-STIR. Fold in Reese’s cups and spread batter into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 10 minutes, then loosen edges of pan with a knife and remove from loaf pan, transferring bread to a cooling rack.

Biscuits and Peanut Butter BaconGravy

I had really high hopes for this peanut butter biscuits and gravy from Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body. It was probably one of those cases where I just set my expectations too high.

I mean the gravy was ok.  It just wasn't nearly as good as the sausage gravy that I'm used to.  In fact, I think sausage gravy was easier to make than the peanut butter gravy was.

Strangely, the gravy improved the second time around.  Maybe because the flavors had a chance to marry as they sat in the fridge for a day?  In my opinion, the leftovers were much tastier.

Also, I tried the dish with and without a slice of cheddar cheese.  A plain biscuit and this gravy was pretty mediocre.  You gotta have a thin melty slice of cheddar cheese to make this dish sing.  Somehow the cheese brings out the meaty flavor of the bacon.  I'm not sure how that works, but more bacon flavor is always a good thing.

This was also my first attempt at making biscuits from scratch.

They aren't the best looking things ever, but fairly decent for this Yankee's first attempt.  There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to biscuit making.  And if you don't have a Southern granny to learn from, expect to have a few less than stellar attempts.

There are a ton of biscuit recipes out there and I wasn't sure which one to try first.  I settled on the recipe for biscuits from My Adventures in the Country.

I probably handled the dough too much on an overly floured surface.  I'm also fairly certain that I rolled the dough out too thin. My butter was probably too warm as well.

The biscuits didn't turn out like little bricks though, and were still fairly tender, so in my book, as a first attempt, that was pretty awesome.

I don't think I'll make the peanut butter gravy again.  We just prefer plain old sausage gravy on our biscuits.  I am going to keep trying out different biscuit recipes until I can produce that mile high, tender but sturdy biscuit.  Practice makes perfect!

Peanut Butter Gravy adapted from Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body
6 strips bacon, reserve the grease
3T flour
3-4 c milk
1/2 c peanut butter
Freshly ground pepper
1 tsp salt

Brown bacon in a skillet. Once bacon is fully browned, take it out and set aside. Chop the bacon once it has cooled enough to touch. Keep grease in the pan.

Turn pan onto low/medium heat and slowly whisk flour into grease, stirring constantly until smooth, cooking about 2 minutes. Scrape all pieces stuck to bottom.

Slowly begin whisking in first 2c  milk until fully incorporated and mixture begins to bubble. Whisk in peanut butter. Continue whisking in additional milk a little bit at a time, until gravy reaches desired consistency. It will get thick! If you like it thinner, you will need more milk.

Grind some pepper directly into the gravy, add salt, and return bacon bits to the skillet. Stir to mix. Serve over biscuits with sliced apples and cheese.

Biscuits from My Adventures in the Country
 3 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cream of tartar (or 2 1/2 tsp vinegar)
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450°.  In med bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar. Cut butter into pats and add to flour mix.  Using a pastry blender, cut in butter til mix resembles course crumbs. Make well in mix and add  milk.  Use a rubber scraper to slowly combine.  Stir til forms somewhat slightly sticky dough.

Prepare a work surface and lightly dust with flour. Knead 7-8 times, being careful not to overwork  dough.  The less you work it, the more tender and moist your biscuits will be!

Flour your hands and pat dough out into a circle that’s about 3/4″ – 1″ thick. Using a floured biscuit cutter, cut out biscuits and place on an ungreased baking sheet, 1-2" apart. A 3″ cutter will yield 9  biscuits, and 2 1/2″ cutter 15. Bake 10-12 minutes.  Remove from the oven and serve warm

Honey nut peanut butter

Hey! I just made my own peanut butter.

Isn't that neato?

All you do is dump some peanuts into a food processor and 

whiz it around for about 4 minutes until it's smooth and creamy.

Oh ho...but this is no ordinary peanut butter. It's made from honey roasted peanuts.

I'm a weirdo and actually preferred the Meijer's brand creamy peanut butter, 

but Mrblocko and Blockette thought it was 

super awesome.  

I even got a "best mom ever" from Blockette. She thought it was that good.

So there you have it...peanut butter from scratch...you're only four minutes from being the 

best mom EVER! 

Graham Cracker Frozen Treats

A few weeks ago I got this crazy notion to make some graham crackers.

Weird, huh? Why make graham crackers when they are so cheap at the store?

Cause I wanted to see if I could.

It turns out they weren't any harder than making cookies.  The hardest part was rolling them very very thin.  I wound up making graham crackers from the recipe over at Culinary Adventures in the Kitchen.  I chose that particular recipe because it was so unusual. It uses whole wheat flour instead of white, and instead of butter, the fat is olive oil. 

No one could taste the olive oil in the crackers.  I'm not sure if that was because they just don't taste olive oil-y, or because I sprinkled the tops of the crackers with a cinnamon sugar blend that had orange zest in it.  All you could really taste was the orange cinnamon goodness.

But it wasn't enough to just make the Graham crackers.  Nope.  I had to take it one step further. I made them into "ice cream" bars using sweet puddin'head filling, an idea I pilfered from Not Just Cute.  Sweet puddin'head is basically a mixture of Cool Whip and pudding.  I used sugar free vanilla pudding mix and Lite Cool Whip, cause that makes it healthy, doncha know.  And we are all about the healthy desserts in this house.  (Insert eye roll here.)

 

MMMMM! Delicious!

What is great about these frozen goodies is that they don't turn into a brick after chilling.  They firm up nicely in the freezer, but aren't so rock hard that a child with two missing front teeth couldn't consume them.   It did take the toothless child a considerable amount of time to eat her ice cream bar, but I am not entirely certain that had anything to do with her lack of pearly whites.

While I won't be making the graham crackers again this summer, (unless we get another cool spell,) I will make these treats again with store bought crackers.  I can't wait to try other pudding flavors.  I'm particularly looking forward to the cheesecake pudding flavor.  

Graham Crackers from Culinary Adventures in the Kitchen
2 cups whole-wheat flour
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 large egg
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
¼ cup honey
2-3 tablespoons milk
additional milk for glaze
cinnamon-sugar (optional)

In a mixing bowl, combine whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. In a separate bowl, beat egg till light, then add oil, honey and 2 T milk. Stir into dry ingredients until you have a fairly stiff dough, adding additional milk if necessary. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill until firm, about 1 hour (or longer, if it’s more convenient). Preheat your oven to 375°F. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently until it holds together. Roll dough out till it’s about 1/16-inch thick; make sure rolling surface is well-floured, or you’ll have trouble transferring crackers to baking sheet. Cut dough into 3" squares (or cut out using cookie cutters), prick each square several times with a fork, and place on lightly greased cookie sheets.  Brush tops with milk, sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar, and bake 15-20 min, til crackers are lightly browned. Remove crackers from oven, transfer to a wire cooling rack, and cool completely.

Sweet Puddin'head from Not Just Cute
8oz cool whip or similar
1 package of pudding mix
half milk suggested on pudding box

Combine milk and pudding until thick.  Fold in cool whip.  This recipe is actually just a guideline. Use any combination or size of cool whip or pudding.  You can even add some cream cheese if that suits your fancy. 

Just try not to eat the whole bowl in one sitting.  Save some for ice cream sandwiches! 

I stuck the filling in a zip bag and piped them onto the crackers. This made things a lot less messy for me.

Thankful Thurs #25

Source

1. New rules in the house for Blockette.

2. New rules are resulting in less yelling by me.

3. Free ride tickets at the local festival.

4. A pencil sharpener that actually works...and looks super cool too!(Yeah, that's a pencil sharpener!)

5. Great weather for walking in the parade.

6. A wonderful visit with family.

7. None of us got sunburned this weekend.

8. Eating veggies from the garden.

9. Air conditioning!

10. All the political phone calls are now automated so I don't have to hang up and be rude to an actual person.  (I got three phone calls in the course of composing this post.  If it's like this now, what will it be like in the fall?  YIKES!)