Peanut Butter Cookies

It seems as though it's been quite some time since I've actually posted something about baking, so I'm getting back to the heart of this blog today.

I made these cookies on a stormy Friday night. There was no real reason I chose these cookies, mostly because I realized I had all of the ingredients when I was perusing recipes in my new Pie in the Sky cookbook. I modified the recipe slightly in that I didn't do the sugar coating or criss cross portions of the recipe.

Because I'm lazy.

And because wine.

One thing you may or may not have noticed is that a lot of times I seem to be out of something and have to
run to the store. Usually for eggs. I have no idea why it's usually the eggs. This comes from me assuming that I have the basics and because I tend to quickly look at a recipe just to make sure I have all the ingredients. Which is usually fine. But not this time because the recipe called for the egg (which I did have!) to be "room temperature."  So, I may or may not have attempted to warm up the egg in my cleavage.

Because wine.

I tried to pass these off to my coworkers as "healthy" because they have peanut butter in them and peanut butter has protein. Although I'm pretty sure they would have eaten them regardless.

The bulk of these cookies went to my friend for her Birthday (who said they were "baller")...of which we missed the festivities.

Because beer.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chunky peanut butter

Preheat oven to 375.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. In a mixer, blend together butter and sugars until smooth. Mix in egg, vanilla and peanut butter. Slowly mix in the flour mixture a little at a time until everything is completely blended. Drop cookies, about an inch around, onto an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and place on a cooling rack or wax paper.

Kiwi Strawberry Smoothie

"Quartered" kiwis. You probs don't need to do this

Kiwis were on sale so I decided to stock up on them for the sole purpose of putting them into a smoothie. The strawberry kiwi combo is nothing new by any stretch of the imagination, so I apologize for my lack of creativity. Also, this was a total pain in my ass to do. Thinking back, kiwis are soft enough that I probably didn't need to peel, slice and quarter the kiwis. The process was extremely time consuming but the results were tasty!

Kiwi Strawberry Smoothie

1 1/4 cups kiwis, peeled, sliced and quartered
1 1/4 cups strawberries, quartered
1 1/4 cups white grape juice

Clean and cut strawberries. Peel and cut kiwi. Place into blender with white grape juice. Blend until smooth. Pour into a glass.

Apple Spice Cookies

Conversations between my husband and me yesterday went a little something like this:

Husband: so I have this thing for work tomorrow
Me: uh-huh...[knowing full well where this is going]
Husband: and I need to bring something
Me: ...like a baked good?
Husband: yeah! that would be great. could you make something?
Husband: oh, there was a request for blueberry and pecans
Me: ...you're getting something from whatever we already have in the kitchen

I almost made plain old chocolate chips (and I swear I'll do so one of these days!) but I flipped quickly through my cookbooks and saw a recipe for these cookies in my High Altitude Baking book. I have a ton of
apples and  typically they end up going bad because I don't manage to eat the quickly enough so I thought it would be a great way to get some use out of them.

The directions call for "finely chopped peeled" apples, which I took to mean "as long as it isn't bigger than the size of a chocolate chip it's probably okay."

Looks fine to me. Heh.

On a side note, I just got cooling racks for the first time in my life and they are so super awesome.

Apple Spice Cookies

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup shortening

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup peeled and chopped apple

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, nutmeg and cinnamon. In a large bowl, cream sugars and shortening. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add flour mixture slowly and thoroughly, a little at a time. Stir in apples. Drop cookies, about an inch around, onto an ungreased cookie sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and place on a cooling rack or wax paper.

Asian Toasted Sesame Chicken

One of my favorite and probably the most simple ways to spruce up chicken is to simply marinate it in salad dressing. Sometimes I'll top it with cheese, sometimes I won't. There are a ton of variations that I've tried and will try that I'll surely share with you in the future.

This variation came about as I was just walking through the aisle at the supermarket looking at the dressings. I saw the whatever dressing and was thought it sounded good and different from what I usually make (which usually leans towards Irish or Italian). That and stir frying is quite terrifying of a concept to me as well as ridiculously time-consuming.

While I was getting ready to prepare the chicken I was like, "dang (okay, let's be serious, I probably did not use the word 'dang' in my head), it would be really awesome if I had sesame seeds. I should have gotten some!" Then in a stroke of brilliance I realized I should check my spice rack (I usually only use the cinnamon, garlic, basil and garlic salt) and lo and behold, I actually did have some. If you don't have any, I'm sure your chicken will be just as good. I don't think it added any flavor, it was just a nice touch, but I could be totally wrong cause I really don't know anything about cooking, which I mentioned previously.

Asian Toasted Sesame Chicken

2 chicken breasts

1/4 cup Asian Toasted Seasame (or something similar) dressing

1/2 tablespoon sesame seeds

Wash the chicken and remove any excess fat. Pour dressing into a large plastic zip locking bag. Place chicken in bag, shake a bunch until the chicken is covered and then let it sit in the fridge for 30-45 minutes (or longer, it doesn't matter). 

Preheat oven to 350. 

Remove chicken from bag and place into a glass baking dish. Top with sesame seeds. Bake for 20-40 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken breasts.

Blueberry Watermelon Strawberry Smoothie

I learned this morning that it is National Blueberry Muffin Day. I actually don't have a blueberry muffin recipe nor do I have the time to make any today, so instead, I will give you this picture of a blueberry muffin

and then will proceed with posting another smoothie recipe (that contains blueberries!) even though I just posted one a few days ago.

I originally intended to make another Watermelon Strawberry Smoothie, but I didn't have much watermelon left. But I did have plenty of leftover strawberries and blueberries from the American Flag Cake from July 4th. I substituted blueberries to cover the amount of watermelon I was missing.

I really enjoyed the end result, especially with the addition of some leftover whipped topping, also because of the American Flag Cake.

This is what a "quartered" strawberry looks like.

Blueberry Watermelon Strawberry Smoothie

1/4 cup watermelon, sliced, no rind
1 1/2 cups blueberries
3/4 cup strawberries, quartered
1 1/4 cups white grape juice
whipped topping, if desired

Clean and cut watermelon and strawberries. Rinse blueberries. Place into blender with white grape juice. Blend until smooth. Pour into a glass and top with whipped topping and blueberries (but only if you want to - I don't want to seem bossy or anything).

Watermelon and Strawberry Smoothie

When the weather gets hot there is nothing better than a cold smoothie. The problem for me though, is that I am super picky when it comes to fruit juices (and to an extent, fruit). I do not like orange or apple juice, which are the two most common types of juice (from my extensive research). I also cannot stand bananas, which seems to make regular appearances in smoothies (again, from my own extensive research). I was delighted when I found this recipe which doesn't contain any of the aforementioned atrocities. I decided to give it a go and was delighted with the results.

Watermelon and Strawberry Smoothie

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced, no rind
3/4 cup strawberries, quartered
1 1/4 cups white grape juice

Clean and cut watermelon and strawberries. Place into blender with white grape juice. Blend until smooth.

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced and rind removed

3/4 cup strawberries, cleaned and quartered

1 1/4 cups white grape juice

- See more at: http://www.foodfanatic.com/recipes/watermelon-strawberry-smoothie-recipe/#sthash.n6Ck1gIK.dpuf

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced and rind removed

3/4 cup strawberries, cleaned and quartered

1 1/4 cups white grape juice

- See more at: http://www.foodfanatic.com/recipes/watermelon-strawberry-smoothie-recipe/#sthash.n6Ck1gIK.dpuf

1 3/4 cups watermelon, sliced and rind removed

3/4 cup strawberries, cleaned and quartered

1 1/4 cups white grape juice

- See more at: http://www.foodfanatic.com/recipes/watermelon-strawberry-smoothie-recipe/#sthash.n6Ck1gIK.dpuf

American Flag Cake

Happy 4th of July everybody! I have many fond memories of Independence Days growing up. Every year my neighborhood (actually, to be fair, it was actually the neighborhood next to mine but we "crashed" it every year) would hold a parade. One of my neighbors had a flatbed trailer that we would decorate the night before. The day of the parade we would climb into the flatbed, decked out in as much red, white and blue as possible and throw candy and sing and shout to the parade watchers. After, we would gather at my godmother's house for a swim and a BBQ with all our neighbors. We'd then head home to change and regrouped to walk to the mall where would would set up our towels on a hill to watch the fireworks display. After the trek home we'd stop at my next door neighbors for ice cream sundaes. We'd top off the night with some night swimming with the pool lights on at my best friend's house. So yes, I totally love the 4th of July!

This flag cake became a yearly tradition for me. It is super easy and I admit I made it even easier by cheating and using a box cake mix (oh the horror!).

I decided this year I wouldn't cheat and I found a white cake recipe on this website. It wasn't complicated and was pretty simple to follow.



American Flag Cake

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoon shortening (room temperature)
1 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup + 3 tablespoons milk (refrigerator temperature)
5 egg whites (refrigerator temperature)
1 container of whipped topping
1 container blueberries
1 container strawberries

 Preheat oven to 375.

Mix and sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into mixer bowl. Add shortening, vanilla, milk and egg whites. Beat 30 seconds on low speed, scraping frequently. Beat 7 1/2 minutes on high speed. Scrape twice during this beating.

Bake for 30-35 minutes (until toothpick inserted comes out clean).

Once completely cooled completely, cover cake with whipped topping. Place blueberries in the top left corner to make the blue square of the American flag. Halve the strawberries and place end to end in rows. Leave an equal amount of space between the next row to make the stripes of the flag.

Apple Mustard Pork Chops

Although I enjoy baking, I am not much of a fan of actual cooking. I'm actually pretty terrified of it, if I'm being honest. What, I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?

But, since you really can't healthfully live on baked goods and eating out every night gets expensive, I do the bare minimum. If a meal requires more than 5 ingredients, it's not happening.

I've started experimenting and trying different stuff together and so far nobody has died so I thought maybe I'd start sharing some of my creations. They are all super simple and easy and are usually the end result of me just looking through my fridge and pantry to see what I have.

To reiterate, I do not consider myself to be a cook and I actually have quite a fear of cooking. So who better than to show the world that maybe cooking might not be so scary than the girl who is afraid?

I figured I might as well start with what I cooked this week. I'm not typically in the habit of taking pictures while I'm cooking and didn't want to post a recipe without them. I came up with this concoction on the fly and it ended up being quite tasty.

The apple butter and the dijon mustard I used for these pork chops really compliment each other quite nicely and the mixture makes it so that neither overwhelms the other. If you prefer the taste of one over the other you can change the ratio of the apple butter to dijon mustard (50/50 in this version). I'll offer some variations I've tried in the past at the end of the post.


Apple Mustard Pork Chops
2 pork chops
1 1/2 tablespoons apple butter
1 1/2 tablespoons dijon mustard
Planko Japanese style breadcrumbs

Mix together apple butter and mustard in a medium-sized bowl (alternately you can mix them in a large zip lock bag). Dip pork chops into the mixture, one at a time, until fully covered. Place in a large zip lock bag and let sit in the fridge for 30 - 60 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400.

Place breadcrumbs into a medium sized bowl. Dip pork chops into the breadcrumbs until completely covered. Place into a glass dish. Bake in the over 30-40 minutes until thoroughly cooked (depending on the size of the pork chops).

Alternate versions:
Apple Butter Pork Chops:
2 pork chops
3 tablespoons of apple butter
with or without Planko Japanese style breadcrumbs or  regular style breadcrumbs (like Shake 'n Bake)

Cook as directed above.

or

Dijon Mustard Pork Chops:
2 pork chops
3 tablespoons of dijon mustard
with or without Planko Japanese style breadcrumbs or  regular style breadcrumbs (like Shake 'n Bake)

Cook as directed above.