The Big Cookie Project: Week 47

Somebody seriously needs to come help me get off this "chocolate and peanut butter" kick. It's the umpteenth recipe that contains my two favorite things. I'm actually surprised at how many recipes I've found to contain so much chocolate and peanut butter. And the best thing about this recipe this week? NO BAKE!

I've been eyeing this recipe for some time, and finally got around to making it. For me, it's a little rich, so it doesn't take a lot to fill me up. But like always, these will disappear :)

NO-BAKE PEANUT BUTTER BARS

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup butter, melted

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1 cup and 4 Tbsp. peanut butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Combine melted butter, graham cracker crumbs, powdered sugar and 1 cup peanut butter in a mixer. Press this mixture in to an 8x8 pan. Then, in a microwave-safe bowl combine the 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolates and 4Tbsp. of peanut butter. Microwave for 30 seconds, and mix. Continue until chocolate chips are melted and mixture is creamy. Pour chocolate on top of peanut butter mixture. Smooth over evenly. Place in fridge for 1 hour until hardened.
I wouldn't call this sweet and salty combination my addiction, but it is very addicting.
Happy Baking!

"I Speak for the Trees" Party

Mallory is officially 2 as of today! Let the Terrible Twos begin! Since Mallory was born on St. Patrick's Day, a green-themed birthday party was used up instantly on her first birthday. I thought of so many ideas for her 2nd birthday, it was really hard to narrow it down to one. But since this is probably the last year that she really won't have a say in what her party is AND "The Lorax" came out in theatres, we went with a Lorax-themed party. To begin with, I love Dr. Seuss. Secondly, I love The Lorax and the message it gives to the kids. I really didn't know what that message was until I got older and could really understand what he was writing about, but now as an adult I appreciate the environmental approach he took in the book especially to a younger audience.
Back to Mallory's birthday...
Carrie helped me make a Picture Wall. We had a few Truffula Trees, brown-bar-ba-loots frisking about in the their barbaloot suits and a few fish humming. My mom whipped up a Lorax mustache and someone brought a Dr. Seuss hat. Some double-sided tape, and you have a cute wall for kids to dress up and take pictures. I will be using those pictures as a thank you card for coming. I know my sister looks miserable, but she really did have a good time!

Her food table and decorations on the wall. The wreaths are shades of green felt (leaning toward St. Patty's Day-theme). I downloaded a Dr. Seuss font (for free) from the internet and made a Happy Birthday banner. Nolan really wanted to help, so I printed out some free Lorax coloring pages and let him color them and we taped them to the wall.

All of the food corresponded with something from the book. The picture above is Swomee Swan Eggs, which were Robin's Eggs. I had such a hard time figuring that one out. I got lucky with Robin's Eggs since it is Easter time. Then, the Brown Barbaloots are brown Teddy Grahams.

Then, we have Truffula Fruit. Yet again, I sort of combined St. Patty's Day and The Lorax by making a rainbow with gold at the end . The marshmallows represent the puffy clouds, the Pot of Gold are Rolos. Not pictured: Humming Fish=Gold fish , I "Thneed" a Chip= Chips (I know I was using my imagination on this one, but I had to think of something.

Mallory loved every minute of it, especially the pinata. Greg came home with a huge unicorn pinata a few days ago that Mallory has been eyeing every time they go in to HEB together. After Mallory took a few good swings with her dad, it was the big kid's turn. It took only a few swings for the head of the unicorn to be knocked off. Then, her face was priceless, "Oh, no!" The head of the unicorn is now laying in her room. The reason? I have no idea why.

I know I had a great time, and I hope everyone did too. I am a little bit exhausted though and glad that birthdays only happen once a year. :)

Milestones Galore in the Jones' House

This is my first time to download a video, so let's see if it works...it's just a sillly video I took of the kids this morning. They like helping to dust when they get to wear socks on their hands. Hey, whatever works, right?

I don't know about other moms, but I always think, "I can't wait until they can do (fill in the blank) by themselves." I have filled in the blank with, "I can't wait until they can walk by themselves" or "I can't wait until they can go to the bathroom by themselves." But it seems like these milestones are coming fast and frequently. Pardon for the sappiness, but I want them to slow down!

Nolan has begged to not have an afternoon nap anymore. I agreed, but it had to be filled with chores/quiet playing or learning activities...no watching TV for hours. Yesterday, I was laid up on the couch with the flu and Nolan played quietly all by himself, would come in every few minutes and feel my head proclaiming, "Yup, you're still hot!" We're on Day #3 of "Operation: No Nap". He then hit me with another hard question. He wanted to play outside by himself. I don't know what I think will happen outside, but I always worry. It may be I don't have a good point of view to see what is going on outside. I pulled up my big girl britches and told him he could play outside for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, I heard him shouting. I ran to see what had happened. He was shouting for joy, playing all by himself. Geez, I am paranoid!! I gave him another 10 minutes because he was doing so well. After his time was up he greeted me with a bunch of flowers he had picked for me. I don't know what I did to deserve these kids, but I feel super blessed to be their mom.

Now on to Mallory. She is turning 2 on Saturday. No, I did not type that wrong, TWO! I know it's cliche to say it, but I will anyways, "I feel like I just brought her home yesterday." In the blink of an eye she has grown so much. I love how she sweeps her hair out of her face in exasperation, and in the process smears food everywhere. I love how she does her little dances and jumps everywhere, that girl will be athletic someday! So, her big milestone was big-girl panties. She's been doing a great job at school with me taking her to the restroom. We started out slow with only 3 pairs...those things are a little pricey. After her third accident on day #2, we're waiting for laundry to be done so we can start again. I ALMOST put her in some of Nolan's Thomas underwear, but decided to hold off.

I feel like if I blink too much the next thing I know they will be in high school. Nolan will be starting kindergarten next year, and I keep thinking, "I'm too young to be the parent of a kindergartner! My son is too young to be a kindergartner!" But neither of those are true...especially the one about my age :) It happened day by day, week by week. Five years later my babies have grown up. Now instead of thinking, "I can't wait for you to do something by yourself" I'm thinking that they need to slow down so my heart and emotions can catch up.

Very sappy post today, but every word is true!

The Big Cookie Project: Week 46

I'm the kind of girl (or baker) who likes to add chocolate chips to everything. Something missing in those cookies?? Add chocolate chips! Bread seem a little bland?? Add chocolate chips! I even have the bad habit of eating them straight out of the bag. I remember a few years ago Greg's parents took us on a shopping spree to Sam's Club. The one item that I HAD to have was this HUGE bag of chocolate chips...I think it was 5 lbs. That bag should have lasted a lot longer than it did. A few handfuls in baking, a handful to me...you can see where this is going, they disappeared pretty quickly. So, this week I made one of my go-to breads (with chocolate chips, of course!)
CHOCOLATE CHIP BANANA BREAD
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
DIRECTIONS
1. Cream butter; gradually add sugar, add eggs one at a time beating after each one. Stir in bananas.
2. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl
3. Add flour mixture to cream mixture
4. Stir in chocolate chips and walnuts
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes I love this recipe because whenever we have some bananas that turned too quickly, it's a great way to use them instead of throwing them away.
WORD OF WARNING!! If you can tell from the picture the sides are fairly brown, but the center is ooey-gooey. I love the ooey-gooey part, if you must know I eat raw cookie dough as well. Greg HATES this part. He's a "Cook Thoroughly, no gooey parts!" kind of guy. I guess we compliment each other in that area, he eats the edges, I eat the center. And then there was peace in the Jones' household!

Happy Baking!

The Big Cookie Project: Week 45

Best combination yet of salty, sweet and peanut buttery. You must have noticed that I liked this combination by now! I found a picture of these on Pinterest and decided to make them. They were really quick and you don't even have to bake anything! From what I saw on the internet they are popular in the midwest and called "Buckeyes". I found the recipe on a website (really easy to remember), but forgot to save the link, so I don't have the original link, sorry!
PRETZEL PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES
Ingredients:
1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
bag of pretzels
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
1. Combine peanut butter and powdered sugar. You might have to increase/decrease amount of powdered sugar. You want the peanut butter to be able to roll in to balls without leaving a sticky mess on your hands.
2. Roll peanut butter mixture in to small balls, sandwich in between two pretzels and press lightly.
3. Melt chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl. Dip half of the peanut butter sandwiches in to the chocolate, and place on wax paper to cool and harden.
Done!Here are my pretzel sandwiches pre-chocolateHere are the sandwiches post-chocolate already hardening on the wax paper. They were a little soft for my liking right off of the wax paper, so I lined a tupperware with some wax paper and put them in the fridge to harden up a little more...much better.

Mallory was my little helper. She's got the crazed "I'm eating CHOCOLATE!!!!" look in her eyes. I think she got the look from me.

Happy Baking!

The Big Cookie Project: Week 44

I almost forgot about this week. Sadly, no pictures of this week's dessert. I ate it before I could take a picture of it. I've actually fixed this dessert twice in the past few weeks. Super easy, and makes two servings, know what it is yet??

Nutella Cake in a Cup...mmmm. I happened across it while searching for Nutella recipes and the appeal was that it was to make only one serving in a large mug. I made it the first time and I barely ate half, there was so much cake. The second time I made it, I divided the recipe in half and still had some cake left over. Here's the recipe:

NUTELLA CAKE IN A CUP

INGREDIENTS:

a large mug
4Tbsp all purpose flour
4Tbsp sugar
1 egg
3Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3Tbsp Nutella
3Tbsp milk
2 1/2 Tbsp oil
*Any toppings you want! I used some caramel drizzle on top, but some whipped cream on top sounds delicious too.

Mix all the ingredients together and microwave on high for 1 minute and 45 seconds.

Another great thing about this recipe is that you should have all the ingredients in your pantry right now. If you don't have Nutella, peanut butter is a great substitute. If you don't like some much sugar you can add some Splenda instead.

Hope you enjoy this quick dessert. Happy Baking....I mean "Happy Microwaving" :)

Take THAT Crockpot Yogurt!

Take that crockpot yogurt, I beat you! (Insert evil laugh here)
I signed up to make crockpot yogurt at a church function for this upcoming Wednesday night. I had never made it before, but thought, "How hard could it be?"
Pretty hard, in fact.
I tried for the first time two weeks ago, following the instructions carefully. In the morning, I was expecting gorgeous yogurt, instead I was greeted with sour smelling milk that was a little lumpy.
Try #2 happened a week after that. A little different instructions, same results. My hopes for homemade yogurt were quickly going down the drain.
Try #3 was yesterday. I asked anyone and everyone on tips they had to make homemade yogurt. I was ready! Instead of a list of ingredients, I'll just give you my timeline of events with the ingredients, it will make it easier to understand.
11:30 AM- Pour 1 gallon milk in to large crockpot. Turn on high, let sit for 4 hours. If you take a peak during this time, there will be bubbles forming on the top, but it SHOULDN'T be boiling.
3:30 PM- Unplug crockpot, and let it cool down slowly. This will take 3 hours. You are wanting to be able to stick your finger in the milk for about 10 seconds and for it to not be too hot.
6:30 PM- Now that the milk has cooled down, it's time to add your yogurt and powdered milk.
These are what I used. For every 1/2 gallon milk, you will use 1/2 cup yogurt (with active cultures) and 1/2 cup powdered milk. Since I used a whole gallon of milk, I added 1 cup yogurt and 1 cup powdered milk. ***The first two times I tried this recipe I went and bought super expensive yogurt. You don't need to do that. I got this Yoplait Greek yogurt for .99 cents each. Super cheap and the flavor is really good.
To add the yogurt, remove 2 cups milk in to separate container, add the yogurt and whisk together. Combine the yogurt mixture back in to the crockpot and whisk. Do the same thing with the powdered milk (Remove 2 cups milk, whisk in the powdered milk until combined. Add the powdered milk mixture back in to the crockpot and whisk together).
The next part is the hardest: Wrap it in a big bath towel and just let it sit....for forever! Well, not forever, but close to 12 hours.
7:30 AM - I got up this morning really excited and nervous to see if it had worked. 3rd time's a charm, right?? I carefully unwrapped my crockpot from the towel and took off the lid. I put my spoon in, and SCORE! It's yogurt. Below is my accomplishment!
So, now I have A LOT of yogurt. The consistency is pretty good to my taste. If you want it thicker, like Greek Yogurt you should line a collander with coffee filters and then spoon in your yogurt. Make sure to put something under your collander to catch some of the stuff that will separate. The extra whey (I don't know if that's exactly right) will drain, and you will be left with thicker yogurt. I went ahed and put the whole crockpot in the fridge to thicken up a little bit. In a few days it will be carted off to church and enjoyed by many.
The sad thing is, I don't even like yogurt that much...haha. It was just bugging me that I couldn't figure it out. Greg was really happy I only wasted 1 gallon of milk instead of more.
If you try it, good luck!