Chocolate-Cream Cheese-Peanut Butter Bars

Cookie base and topping
1 pouch peanut butter cookie mix
3 tbsp oil
1 tbsp water
1 egg

Filling
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup butter
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2/3 cup crunchy or creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup whipping cream

Mix cookie base and topping ingredients until soft dough forms. Shape 6 (1-inch) balls of dough. On ungreased cookie sheet, place balls 2 inches apart and flatten in crisscross pattern with fork. Press remaining dough in 9x13 greased pan. Bake cookies and base 10 to 12 minutes or until edges are light golden brown at 350 degrees. Cool 10 minutes. Reserve cookies for topping. In small microwave bowl, melt chocolate chips and butter uncovered 1 minute to 1 minute 30 seconds, stirring every 30 seconds, until stirred smooth. Spread evenly over bars. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. In bowl, beat cream cheese, peanut butter, powdered sugar and whipping cream until light anf fluffy. Spread over chocolate layer. Crush reserved cookies, sprinkle over cream cheese layer. Press in lightly. Refrigerate until set, about 30 minutes. Store covered in refrigerator.

These were absolutely awesome!!! I got the recipe from the Betty Crocker website. For some reason when I was shopping for the ingredients, I was thinking that whipping cream and cool whip were the same thing, but we know that they are not. So, instead of whipping cream, we used 2 to 3 tablespoons of milk, and it turned out fantastic. The bars were not as rich as I thought they would be, and were very moist. When I make them again, I will use crunchy peanut butter.

Honey Glazed Carrots

1 lb baby carrots
1/4 cup butter
2 1/2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp ground ginger

Bring carrots to boil, then lower the heat to medium-high and cook until tender. Drain and set aside. Melt butter in pan. Add honey and cook over low heat until combined. Add lemon juice and ginger; mix well. Add carrots to the pan and sitr to coat with honey mixture. Cook over medium high heat, until carrots are heated through. Serve hot.

I got this recipe off of one of the cards you get in the mail that's trying to get you to subscribe to their cookbook. I don't think I have ever really tried honey glazed carrots, so didn't know what to expect. The carrots tasted good, but were not as sweet as I thought it would be. I would make them again.

Banana Bread

1/2 c butter, softened
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 c mashed ripe bananas
2c flour
1 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs, then bananas. Add flour and soda, stirring just unil combined. Pour into greased 9x5 loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from pan and let cool, store in regrigerator or freeze.

This is the easiest and best banana bread recipe I have ever made. I am not sure where I got the recipe. When I make this bread, I will usually do 1 1/2 of the recipe and then put into two loaf pans (the one loaf was too large and in order for it to get done, the outsides were too brown). Sometimes I will add in some cinnamon or nuts, depends on my mood. You could add anything to this recipe.

Turkey and stuffing casserole

1 can cream of mushroom
1 cup milk
1 16oz bag frozen vegetables
2 cups cubed cooked turkey
4 cups cubed herb seasoned stuffing
1 cup shredded swiss cheese

stir soup and milk together in large bowl. Stir in vegetables, turkey, and stuffing. Spoon into greased 8x12 pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until hot and bubbly, stir. Sprinkle the cheese over the top and bake for 5 more minutes.

I got this recipe out of a Campbell's cookbook. The dish was okay and I will make it again with a few changes. My husband is not a fan of fried meat, so next time I will boil the turkey. I also used just regular stuffing, not the cubed, so will try and find the cubed stuffing. I will also cook it in a 9x13 pan so it's not so thick, I thought the center was still too wet. I had my "cooking assistant" and "taste-tester" here last night and she thought it was a good supper.

This week

I have a couple of new recipes to try, some bread to make, and some snacks to make for this coming weekend (we are going out of town). So be on the look-out for several posts this week.

Chicken with ham sauce

4 chicken breast (about 2 pounds)
4 oz sliced cooked ham, cut into very thin strips
1 can cream of mushroom
8 oz sour cream
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
4 hot baked potatoes, or mashed potatoes

Put chicken in 9x13 pan and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Pour off any fat. Put the ham in the dish around the chicken. Stir the soup, sour cream, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, and pepper in a bowl. Spoon over chicken and bake for 30 minutes or until chicken is done. Remove chicken and stir remaining sauce to serve with the chicken and over the potatoes.

This was very good. The sauce was not as thick as I thought it would be, so next time I might put a small amount of flour in to help thicken it up. Also, for the ham, I just used luncheon meat ham, but next time I will try a ham steak cut-up to try and get a bit of the smoked taste in the sauce. But overall, it was very good. This recipe came from a Campbell's cookbook.

Apple Bread

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cup sugar
1 cup finely shredded peeled apple
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1/4 tsp finely shredded lemon zest
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. In another bowl, combine sugar, apple, oil, egg, and lemon peel; mix well. Add flour mixture, stil just til combined. Stir in nuts, if using.
Pour into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 50-60 minutes. Cool on wire rake

I got this recipe out of the Better Homes and Garden cookbook and the bread was so good that the entire loaf is gone. I used one large granny smith apple for the 1 cup needed. And I have another apple left, so I will be making another loaf of apple bread tomorrow.

Something's in the oven...

And it sure smells good!!! I had two apples that I wanted to do something with before they go bad, so I looked in my cookbooks and found a recipe. It's cooking now and we will eat it later, and I will post what it is and the recipe then. So, for now you can try and guess.

Triple-Layer Lemon Pie

2 cups cold milk
2 pkgs. (4 oz servings) Jell-O lemon instant pudding
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1 graham pie crust
1 tub (8oz) cool whip

Pour milk into large bowl. Add dry pudding mixes and juice. Beat with wire whisk for 2 minutes or until well blended. Spread 1 1/2 cups of the pudding into bottom of crust; set aside. Add half of the cool whip to remaining pudding, stir gently until well blended. Spread over pudding layer in crust; top with the remaining cool whip. Refrigerate 3 hours or until set.

I got this recipe out of a Jell-O cookbook and make the recipe as is. However, I would suggest using the Jell-O brand pudding mix, I have tried other brands with this recipe, but the Jell-O brand has a better lemon taste to it. This is one of my favorite pies. And very easy to make

A New Beginning

I have wanted to get into the blogging world for awhile now, but didn't know what to blog about. I have finally figured it out.

One thing I love to do is cook and try new recipes. So, I decided to make my blog about cooking. I will post recipes at least once a week (maybe more often). I will give my opinion of the recipe, if something should be changed, what I changed, and anything else I can think of. I might even try to post a picture of the recipe, but I know that photographing food is hard, so it might not happen to often.

I hope you will enjoy my blog.