Peanut Butter Candy Bar Cookies

These were really good. Like ridiculously good. Especially for how easy they were. And these are easily adaptable depending on what you have. You can easily use other candy bars or some good chocolate or anything else that goes well with peanut butter.

It only takes 10 minutes prep time to make them. Mix. Spread. Sprinkle. Spread. Sprinkle. Bake. And there's nothing here that I don't have in my kitchen constantly.

I used Baby Ruth's and Nestle chocolate bars but you could easily use something else. They are very rich so cut them small. I cut the pan into about 80 pieces but do what you want.

And I should warn you to eat them slowly. If you scarf a bunch of them like I did then you will quickly feel really sick.


Peanut Butter Candy Bar Cookies

1 18 oz jar crunchy peanut butter
1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
about 8 fun size nut candy bars, crumbled
about 10 fun size chocolate bars, crumbled
1/2 cup toffee pieces


Line a 9x13" pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray
Mix together the peanut butter, brown sugar and eggs in a medium bowl.
Press half the cookie dough evenly into the pan.
Sprinkle the nut candy bars evenly over the dough.
Press the other half of the dough on top.
Sprinkle the toffee and chocolate bar pieces.
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the dough just looks cooked through.
Cut into bite size pieces.

Daring Bakers: Flourless Chocolate Cake

3 ingredients. Chocolate, butter and eggs. No problem. I totally got this one.

We were supposed to make this when K visited. And no, not for Valentine's Day. He has learned to bribe me and has brought me several blocks of good chocolate. I haven't brought myself to drive an hour to go to a fancy grocery store with fancy chocolate. He ended up with stomach issues as usual so I made it myself later. Means more for me anyway.

So I used one of those for this cake. I was feeling inspired when I was making it so I took lots of pics. I had made the ice cream the week before and was less inspired so I didn't take any pics then. Same with the raspberry sauce. The recipe for the ice cream is below. Figure out your own raspberry sauce. If you want a hint, Magic Bullet + frozen strawberries + sugar.



Anyway... here's my cake making.

Get a nice hunk of chocolate. This is a 1 lb block of 60% Callebaut chocolate. Mmmm I could eat it just like that.
Chop it up. I am a fan of flexible cutting boards.
Don't you want to jump in and go for a swim?
Then add a stick of butter.
Heat in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until it is all melted together like this. They want a double boiler but I like the microwave. The 30 second stirrings is important. Otherwise you'll burn it in the bowl. Trust me. I know.
Then let it sit on the counter cool while you beat up the eggs. Separate 6 eggs. Put the whites in you stand mixer.

Beat until you get to stiff peaks. Then transfer to another bowl. I used the spatula I used to mix up the chocolate to move it. No the streaks don't bother me. They are all getting mixed together anyway.
Then beat up the yolks in the mixer.
This is them beating. It's actually a live action shot. Because I am cool like that. Beat until light and fluffy.
Fold the yolks into the chocolate. Then fold in 1/3 of the whites. Then fold in the rest of the whites. Then put in an appropriate number of greased ramekins, filling about 3/4 of the way. I used cooking spray. I have no patience with melting butter and trying to spread it evenly.
Bake at 375 for about 25 minutes.
Look how they rose up just a bit.
Turn out onto a plate.
And top with vanilla ice cream and raspberry sauce.
Don't you with you were here? I have 7 of them sitting on the counter cooling to be frozen for later.



Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.


Vanilla Ice cream

4 cups half and half
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
6 egg yolks

Heat the half and half with the sugar and vanilla bean. Simmer for about 20 minutes to get all the vanilla goodness. Slowly pour about a cup of the cream over the egg yolks while stirring to temper the eggs. Then return to the pot. Cook on low until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Transfer to a bowl and chill in the fridge overnight. Churn in your ice cream maker, however you normally do that. Don't be impatient like me and underchurn it or else when it sets up it will be hard as a rock.




The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Barefoot Bloggers: Meringues Chantilly

The second recipe for the Barefoot Bloggers this month was chosen by Rebecca of Ezra Pound Cake. I mixed up the recipes and thought this was first so I suspect this is already up even though I moved the posting date out after it posted. I only realized it when I looked at other peoples' postings and wondered why they did the meatballs and spaghetti. Oops. Oh well.

Anyway.....The recipe she chose is Meringues Chantilly. Doesn't that sound fancy?

Now, Meringues Chantilly is just a fancy name. They are pretty much just big macaroons with whipped cream. Those are so much less intimidating. I've made macaroons. And I've made whipped cream.

They are quite easy to make. They take a bit of power to beat up the egg whites and then the cream but that's what the mixer is for. Really. I would not advise making this by hand. I've done angel food cake with a bowl and a whisk before. I wouldn't recommend it. Unless you really want a shoulder work out. On one shoulder. Or you are more coordinate than me and can whisk with both hands. Even if you don't have a pretty Kitchenaid stand mixer and don't want to shell out the money, at least get a hand mixer.

But now that I have a stand mixer which makes these a piece of cake. Just let the mixer go, come back in a couple minutes and just watch it from there. Just don't go away for too long. Or if you are me, clean up a bit. Somehow my counters end up covered in stuff constantly. So put stuff away and wash dishes. Don't go do a load of laundry or you'll have some sweet butter.

Strawberries aren't exactly in season yet. I opted to make a raspberry sauce and to top it with that rather than the strawberries. And that's just for the ones I had at home. The rest went to work. They would turn to mush if they were assembled and whipped cream and raspberry sauce won't make it to work very well. So I just took the meringues. They were a good sugar fix to help get through a morning meeting.

Fridge cleaning Frittata

It was Saturday morning and I was home. I couldn't seem to get going until after noon. But eventually I got up and I was hungry. I started rummaging around the fridge when I found the asparagus and smoked salmon we bought last week.

We had intended to make an omelet with them. I've never actually made a successful omelet. Not that looks like an omelet anyway. It ends up being scrambled eggs with stuff mixed in. Anyway, we didn't get to the asparagus but the smoked salmon was open so I decided to make this frittata. I had some goat cheese and cream cheese in the fridge too so those went in also. The cream cheese gives it a creamy richness whereas the goat cheese gives it a bit of a bite. But use whatever you find in the fridge. That's how my cooking goes anyway.






Fridge Cleaning Frittata

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
2 oz smoked salmon, cut into thin strips
about 1 tbsp cream cheese
about 1 oz goat cheese
6 eggs, lightly beaten
about 1/4 cup milk

Saute the asparagus in some olive oil, salt and red pepper flake in a nonstick oven safe pan over medium low heat until they start to sizzle and get fragrant. Meanwhile beat together eggs and milk. Add the smoked salmon to the asparagus and stir to combine. Pour the eggs over the pan so that they spread across the pan. Drop the goat cheese and cream cheese in small chunks into the egg. Allow it to continue to cook stovetop for a few minutes. Then transfer to the oven and allow it to finish cooking and start to brown on top, about 15 mins. I put it into an unpreheated oven set to 350 but just check for browning. To remove from pan, use a spatula to make sure it is loose and will release from the pan. Place a plate on top, upside down. Flip the whole thing over and remove the pan. Tada. Sprinkle with chives or parsley or whatever makes you happy.

French Onion Soup

So I've been in the south for almost 6 months now. I'm adapting. A little. Hush puppies are tasty. And I attempted biscuits. Can't quite handle the amount of deep fried stuff they eat down here. But that's OK.

I have adapted to the weather. It's a cold day if the high is below 60. It's been a kinda cold week. The highs have been just under 50! That's practically freezing! If I had to park my car outside there would be frost on it in the mornings sometimes.

So I decided to make soup. French Onion Soup, to be specific. Only trouble with this is, I don't have soup crocks (which I will totally buy one day). The other reason being I saw this recipe on Pioneer Woman. Her stuff always looks so good. I'm jealous.

I couldn't do it for a while because I had lotsa food in the fridge. Leftovers from assorted meals. And I figured I probably shouldn't overflow my fridge. Though on the other hand, I had thawed a quart of Turkey Stock. And a lot of my leftovers were... not the most balanced. Lotsa fried stuff. And onions are vegetables. And lots of stock. Stock isn't bad for you. Ignore the crunchy toast and gooey browned cheese on top. And the butter. And all the salt that's in the stock.



French Onion Soup

6 small onions, sliced thin
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1 quart chicken stock
1 quart beef stock
2 cloves garlic
a splash of Worcestershire Sauce
Thick sliced french bread or if you are me and realize as you are making the soup you forgot to pick up bread, use a piece of frozen garlic bread from the freezer
Gruyere cheese, shredded or you don't feel like getting out the grater and you have some shredded mozzerella go for it

Brown the onions in the oil and butter. Stir them only on occasion so that they get really really brown. Add the chicken stock, beef stock, garlic, and Worcestershire sauce. Simmer for at least a half an hour. Taste and season. Drizzle the bread with olive oil and toast in the oven until good and crunchy. Place the soup in a bowl, ramekin or any other vessel you want. Place the toast. Arrange piece or pieces as necessary to cover the soup. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake until the cheese is brown and bubbly and ooey and gooey.

Sesame Peanut Noodles

That picture doesn't look that great but it tastes better than it looks, I promise. And I realized I forgot to add the cucumber when I took the pic so I stirred them in later and redished it. Didn't take a pic because I used the same plate and it was all smudgy and gross. Not that that's stopped me from using a pic before.

This was another recipe that I had thought about for that chinese cooking binge I did a while ago but only made a couple of the recipes I had chosen. I'm not sure I even understand that sentence. Oh well. Your fault for reading it. And reading it again trying to make sense of it.

May want to double the sauce next time. There wasn't quite enough. And maybe use that wonderful chili sauce that I mentioned in my Sesame Chicken post instead of the red pepper flake.

This is definitely a serve at room temperature item. So when you keep it in the fridge, you want to let it sit on the counter for a bit or heat it up for a couple seconds in the microwave. I'm a fan of room temperature food.


Cold Sesame Peanut Noodles
based on this recipe from The Kitchn

1 lb rice noodles
1 cucumber, julienned
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

Sauce:
2 tbsp creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp rice vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tbsp sugar
red pepper flakes

Mix together all the sauce ingredients. Cook the noodles. Rinse in cold water to cool and remove the starch on the outside. Mix with cucumber. Pour the sauce over and toss. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Barefoot Bloggers: Meatballs and Spaghetti

This was the 1st Barefoot Bloggers recipe for the month. It was chosen by BMK of Reservations Not Required. This was a pretty easy recipe. Very straight forward. Only somewhat special ingredient was the parsley, which everything seems to call for. Yet I still don't buy all that often because I never seem to use more than a couple sprigs. But I did this time. We'll see how much parsley I end up throwing out in a few days.

So I'm lazy and they didn't have any mixed ground meat packs so I just used beef. They also didn't have any ground pork or veal packaged up and ready to go. So I went with just beef.

This was a Sunday project so I decided to make some fresh spaghetti to go with it. Well, actually I made 2 lbs of fettucine. I have a pasta maker attachment but I've only used a couple of the shapes so I decided to try another one. I used some of it for this recipe and the rest went in the freezer for future use.

It came out pretty good. I had it with a spinach crouton salad to claim that I ate a balanced meal. Well at least the first one was with a salad.

My only issue was there kinda wasn't enough sauce. I would say I was pretty close to 1 lb of pasta and I had less meat than the recipe called for but there just wasn't really enough sauce. Maybe because I used diced tomatoes and they didn't break down enough and form more sauce. You can see in my pic the pasta seems a bit dry. I thought about beefing it up with a jar of tomato sauce but then.... well I didn't.



Go here for the recipe.