OMG Peanut Butter

Good Quality White Chocolate

Milk's favorite cookie

                 I am   obsessed!

Cookies and White Chocolate Mixed in to PB

Filled Jars with the PB

Homemade Labels~ OMG Peanut Butter

One Happy Camper, : )

 My sis emailed me this recipe this morning after our talk about peanut butter yesterday. I thought it must have been meant to be for me to make flavored peanut butter's this week since I had a lot in the pantry. So I crushed up the cookies and mixed into the peanut butter. I melted the white chocolate (well what was left after my lil bit kept sneaking pieces, lol) and swirled it into the PB and cookie mixture. What's not to love peanut butter, oreo's, and white chocolate. Even if you aren't fond of white chocolate you will like this, it adds a subtle sweetness and the white swirls are pretty in the jar. I named it OMG(Oh My God) because once you try it you can't stop eating it! My sis suggested spreading on some good bakery bread and toasting. Yay, I have another use for my panini grill! But as you can see eating the PB with a spoon is another option, lol.

A House Divided Pizza

Half Chicken Fajita/Half Pepperoni

Ready to Eat!

I wanted to make pizza for dinner and I knew the kiddo's would want pepperoni, but I wanted chicken and veggie's. So I looked to see what I had in the fridge and saw that I had red and green bell pepper. i came up with chicken fajita for my side. I rolled out dough I bought earlier in the week, cooked up some chicken breasts, sliced them and the peppers and onion and added to half the pizza. Then added pepperoni to the other half. I decided to add pickled jalapeno to my side as well. Everyone was happy!*I named the pizza in honor of my sis who is part of the nc state wolfpack and bro-in-law who is a georgia bulldoq*

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Addiction

The beginning of a new obession.......

Good Quality Dark Chocolate

Filled Jar with PB

Favorite PB mixed with Dark Chocolate

Homemade Label~ Dark Chocolate & PB Addiction

I was in the mood for some chocolate peanut butter and usually I have a jar of nutella in the pantry but didnt today. I had some dark chocolate that I was trying to use up before I left and a lot of peanut butter I bought on sale the other day. So I melted the chocolate and mixed it in with the peanut butter using a 2:1 ratio. It tastes just like a reese's peanut butter cup! I made a jar for my sister and one for me. Once I finish up my peanut butter in my pantry I am going to try to make my own peanut butter and am going to try mixing and matching different ingredients. Oh the possibilities! This is going to be a fun project and I am sure my family and friends won't mind jars of flavored peanut butter, lol.

Strawberry Shortcake and Blueberry Muffins



Lately I have been talking to my baby sis, Linda about making recipes with strawberries. I finally got around to it. I had some in the freezer from when we went to the strawberry patch a few months ago and thought I would make strawberry muffins and I got blueberries today and decided to divide the batter in half and make both strawberry and blueberry muffins. These are for my lil princess, Sophia who loves blueberries and strawberries. I named them after one of my favorite shows growing up strawberry shortcake and her best friend blueberry muffin. They tried to bring the characters back every so often, I remember getting Sophia a strawberry shortcake doll last year that smelled like strawberries. Definetely not the same as the orginal though from the 1980's. Now I want to go find her doll and see if it smells like strawberries, lol. Anyways, going to take these into work tomorrow and will leave a few for my phia of course.

Vintage Kitchen Tool

Can you guess what this kitchen tool is? I was looking for some unique bundt pans.  Well I came across a lot of vintage kitchen tools on ebay last week to include a pastry blender, pie server, meat fork, loose tea strainer, a few other things and this gadget. As you can see I bid and won them. I couldnt figure out what it was I tried to google it but that was unsuccessful since I had no idea what to search. I thought maybe it could be an egg beater. The person who sold it didnt know and called it a syringe that when you pushed it open prongs came out. My exhusband came over and I figured I would ask him. He said that he hadnt seem one of those in a long time and that it was a pickle jar grabber. Can you believe it though that someone thought this was a neccessary product, I dont even know how many years ago and people bought them. Well I will definetely be using mine, lol. I hate when people put there hands in the jar, it will be good for lots of  other stuff like olives. This made me laugh and thought I would share.

Very Berry Pie

Pie in the oven before the topping

Pie 30 minutes later with the almond crumble topping

Pie out of the oven

Pie a la mode

 I wanted to make a dessert with berries and decided to make a pie. I have to say I had given up on making them for a few years and stuck crumbles and crisps. I have not had good luck with making a berry pie in the past. Either the crust isnt done or the filling shrinks to much or it is too runny. Today was a good day I have to say, the pie came out great! It was the perfect amount of sweet and tart. I made it with blackberries and raspberries. You could add strawberries and blueberries or use whichever berries of your liking. The filling was the perfect consistency and the crust was done, lol. Berry Pie a la mode, yummy! The vanilla ice cream was store bought, but I am thinking homemade next time would make it even better. So sorry Marie Callender, no more of your berry pie in this house. I think that this recipe beats yours out and its so easy. I love summer!

Blueberry"Violet" Rolls

I have been in a baking mood lately and wanting to try out new recipes. This is a take on cinnamon rolls, it still has the cinnamon but I added blueberry perserves. The dough is not a laminated dough that a cinnamon roll is made of and that usually has tons of butter, it has no butter actually but rather cream and also oats. The name Blueberry "Violet" Rolls is an ode to the girl, Violet who swells up and turns blue in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Because the rolls came out violet because of all the filling I put in them, lol. Also this recipe has no sugar since it has enough filling to add sweetness, perfect for breakfast with your coffee or for the kids to start their day.

Chocolate Cake Balls

I had leftover cake scraps when I leveled the cake layers for the campfire cake so I made cake balls. Its so easy and so Yum. ALl you have to do is crumble up a baked cake and then combine with frosting(which I had leftover) then use and ice cream scoop and place balls on a cookie sheet and freeze until firm. Melt your favorite chocolate and then dip the balls and top with whatever you so choose, the options are limitless. I used multi color sprinkles. I had them ready when the kids came home and they gobbled them up. This is such a simple application and you can use whatever cake flavor, frosting flavor and topping you want. They would be great to bring to a party or cookie swap. You can dress them up or down, add lolipop sticks for added fun. Its a great way to use up cake scraps which i always have when I make a cake.

Father's Day Cake- Cheery Campfire Cake

Toasted Marshmallows

Toasted Marshmallow Filling

Malted Choco Frosting

Dark Choco Cake layered with Mallow
and Chocolate Frosting

Cake Frosted

Camping Decorations

Teddy Grahams Added

I was talking to my little sis, Linda last week and we were trying to come up with a cake to make my dad for Father's Day. So we went back to our childhood and some memories that we had with our dad that we could incorporate into a cake. We both immediately thought about our summer camping trips and S'Mores of course! So I decided to make a cake loosely based off a smore. I toasted up some marshmallows for the filling. I baked 6 dark chocolate cake layers and chilled and leveled them to make them even. I made a malted chocolate frosting using really good quality Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate and a childhood ingredient of malted chocolate powder. I alternated the cake layers with the marshmallow filling and the chocolate frosting and then frosted with the chocolate frosting and made a swirled pattern to the sky high top.  Then decorated with little camping adornments. I told my sister the ingredients of the cake and she asked where was the graham cracker part to make it a smore cake...... I didnt feel the need to add any bc it had so much going on with it already, but the more I thought about it the more I realized i needed to add it. Well the cake was already made and decorated so I improvised and added a teddy graham cracker  family to the cake. I think it works..... lol. I cant wait to cut into the cake tomorrow! Happy Father's Day Dad, I love you!!!!!

Chicken Bacon Quesadillas with Honey Mustard Sauce

This was a twist on a dish I make quite often for the kids, chicken with bacon and honey mustard topped with cheddar cheese. You can't go wrong with any of those ingredients when it comes to kids. Well Ben loves quesadilla's usually just with plain cheese, he asked for me to make him one and i asked him if I could add some chicken. He said no, and so I asked if I could add bacon too and he could dip in honey mustard. He said yes to my suggestion and I happen to have leftover chicken breasts and bacon already cooked in the frig. I always have tortillas and shredded cheese on hand. I made a quick homemade honey mustard dipping sauce. So this took all of about 5 minutes to prepare and cook. So easy! I made one huge one and cut into wedges and the three of us ate it for dinner. We had ice cream for dessert our two new fav's are cookies and cream chocolate and waffle cone by Breyers. They have like 10 new blast flavor's that all look awesome and the kids intend to try them all. I wont complain about being a taste tester,lol.

Easy Bake Oven

Sophia and her Easy Bake Oven

Busy stirring away!

Proud of her creation

 Eating her creation and sharing with her big bro

Sophia decided that she wanted to bake alongside me today so she pulled out her Easy Bake Oven. She decided to make the yellow cake with the chocolate frosting. We were having some difficulty with the oven because I only had an energy efficient lightbulb to put in it to make it work. We tried it and it was taking forever for the cake to bake. I eventually had to just put the pans in the regular oven. They baked up finally and then we let cool and she made it a two layer cake and frosted it. Then I cut it in half and each of the kids ate their respective piece. They enjoyed it obviously, lol. They said they wanted to make cookies tomorrow! It made me nostalgic for the classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting my mom used to make it for us as kids. I think that will be my next endeavour to make a homemade version of the retro classic. Should be fun......

Mango Cardamom Coffee Cake

Ingredients from my pantry

 Coffee Cake Cut Top VIew

I wanted to make something to bring into work tomorrow and so I looked in my fridge and saw a mango and remembered that I found a recipe on an Indian website not to long ago that had one for a Mango Coffee Cake. The reason this recipe stuck out to me was for the use of cardamom in it as well as the mango. Cardamom is a wonderful spice orginating from India and is used in both sweet and savory dishes. It is part of the ginger family and is very aromatic. I used it in culinary school when we were cooking Indian Cuisine and never used it at home. Well while I was developing cupcake recipes I decided to try it in a carrot cake recipe and it worked wonderfully. Now I look for recipes to use this amazing spice. This simple crumb cake packs a lot of flavor the batter is simple just your basic creaming the butter and sugar, I used almond extract and a combo of AP flour and cake for a lighter cake. I folded in toasted sliced almonds and sprinkled the mango on top of the batter in the pan and then added your basic struesel topping with the addition of the cardamom. The tender cake and the crunch of the topping along with the pieces of mango all compliment each other nicely. I am going to try this recipe with other fruits as well.  I need to pull out my camera and stop using my camera on my phone, these pics dont do this lovely cake justice.

Pantry Chili



One Pot Chili

Curly Fries

Curly Fries with Chili

Curly Fries topped with Chili and Homemade Cheese Sauce

Kids digging in!

I made chili today as requested by Ben. Well actually he has been asking for the chili cheese fries from the diner down the road. I told him we could compromise and he agreed. So I looked in my pantry to make sure I in fact had the necessary ingredients to even be able to make it. Which luckliy I did, I had cannelini beans and black beans, I was hoping I had kidney beans to at least have 3 different beans but did not. I had chicken stock, tomato paste and diced rotel tomatoes. That was a start, I knew I would have all the spices and checked to see if I had beef in the freezer to make it a meat chili and I did as well. I had curly fries in the freezer which i baked while I worked on the chili. I sauteed some onion, garlic and beef then added all the spices and let cook for a few minutes then added the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for about 30 minutes. I have made quite a few chili's and came up with my own recipes and all of them were either done in a crock pot or my dutch oven and cooked for a good part of the day. This quick one I threw together in one pot and it took only 30 minutes. It came out just as good as all the others, lol. I will have to remember this version for an easy dinner later down the road. I also made a quick cheese sauce out of cheddar and pepper jack I had in the fridge and started with a classic bechemel sauce. It was the perfect addition to our chili fries. The kids were pleased and polished off their plates. That is always a good sign! My quest to empty out my pantry is going slowly but surely.....:)