Super Easy Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies

I whipped up these cookies the other day for three reasons.

1. I picked up a new silicon baking sheet and wanted to try it.
2. Kevin gave me a jar of chunky peanut butter (I always buy smooth) and he insisted it was better.
3. I was having a kind of blue day, and well coookies make everything better.

So here they are:

Super Easy Chunky Peanut Butter Cookies

Prep Time 5-10 min
Baking Time 13 min
Makes 35 small cookies.

In a large bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup chunky peanut butter.

Add in 1/3 cup granulated sugar and 1/4 cup brown sugar, mix.

Add in one large egg and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Mix.

Add 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. At this point you can continue to mix with you mixer, or as I inevitably need to do with cookie dough, flour up your clean hands and get right in there.

The dough should be able to come together in a ball, then you're ready to portion it out. I shaped my cookies into about toonie sized circles, and spaced them evenly on my baking tray. They will spread a little when they bake, but not too much.

And into the oven (preheated to 350') they go, for 13 minutes. When you take them out you can just slide the silicone sheet with the cookies off the baking tray and onto the table to cool.

Throw the cooled cookies into a tin, and deliver them to your boyfriend who is stressing over CaRMS applications, and enjoy!

Verdict on the silicone baking sheet, nice alternative to parchment paper, prevented burning of the bottoms of the cookies, pain in the arse to clean in the sink. (Nothing sticks but the buttery cookies left little oily circles behind).

Verdict on the chunky peanut butter? If it's all you have, go ahead and use it. The effect is similar to adding chopped peanuts to a regular recipe. I'm not a fan tho, and will stick to smooth in the future!

Happy Friday!

Thanksgiving Dinner in 4 Hours

It's Thanksgiving Weekend here in Canada, and Kevin and I celebrated with a break in our very busy schedules by roasting up a chicken along with all the good side dishes you could want. Like I said tho, very busy (I was in the lab all day today, and all morning yesterday and Saturday, but such is grad school), so I blocked off one afternoon to do an entire Thanks giving dinner for the two of us.

Here's how:

Shopping list:

-1 whole (fresh not frozen) chicken
-1 acorn squash
-2 large potatoes
-2 sweet potatoes
-1 bunch of celery
-1 onion
-1 pack fresh cranberries
-5 mushrooms
-2 boxes of stove top stuffing
-1 packet of instant turkey gravy
-1 can cranberry sauce
-2 heads of garlic
-1 bunch of asparagus
-pack of fresh baked dinner rolls
-1 bottle of red wine
-1 pecan pie
-1 tub of hagen das

Timeline:

2:00 Preheat oven to 350', cut acorn squash in half and scoop out seeds/pulp

2:20 Bake squash face down, mean while cut the tops of one head of garlic, drizzle with olive oil, wrap in tin foil and put in oven

 2:50 Take Squash out, flip over, put 1tbsp brown sugar and 1tbsp butter into each half, put back into oven

3:00 Remove garlic from oven, spoon cloves out into bowl and mash with fork, add 1/2 softened butter, and chicken seasoning herbs, mash together (this is your chicken rub).

 

 

 3:10 Spoon the rub into space between chicken skin and breast, and rub liberally over outside of chicken. Place half an onion and some cloves of garlic into the chicken body cavity. Put four celery stalks on the bottom of your roasting pan, and some more garlic cloves. Add 1 cup of water and sit chicken on top of the celery.

 3:20 Remove squash from oven, and turn oven up to 375'. Once squash has cooled, scoop out from shell into bowl (along with buttery goodness from center of squash) and mash together with a fork.

 3:30 Put your chicken into the oven, cover with a tin foil tent.

 3:50 Peel your potatoes

 At this point things got busy, and I forgot to take any more picture of the process.


4:10 Put a large pot of salted water on to boil. Chop your potatoes into medium sized chunks.
4:20 Add potatoes to boiling water.
4:30 check on your chicken, add more liquid if needed.
4:35 Chop one half onion, remainder of celery and mushrooms
4:50 Drain potatoes, add 1/3 cup of butter, 1/2 cup milk, 2tbsp minced garlic and 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, mash together, transfer into serving pan, and garnish top with Parmesan cheese
5:10 remove chicken from oven, pour juices into a sauce pan for gravy
5:20 Spread asparagus onto to baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, garlic and parmesan, put asparagus and potatoes in the oven
5:30 Saute celery, onions and mushrooms in a large pot until soft, on second burner, heat chicken juices and adding enough water to bring volume up to 1 cup, stir in gravy packet when boiling
5:40 add cranberries and 2 cups water, cover (they will splatter when they burst), remove asparagus and potatoes from oven
5:50 stir in stove top stuffing, remove from heat and let sit covered for 5 minutes, fluff with fork and serve
6:00 Serve everything to the table, sit down and enjoy

So there you have it, an entire thanksgiving dinner in 4 hours, in one tiny apartment kitchen. You could adapt the timeline to accommodate a turkey (if it's a smaller one), but the chicken done this way was great (especially for just the two of us). After dinner we packed up lunches for the next three days each, because really the best part about a turkey dinner is the leftovers.

What did you cook up this weekend? Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

20sb Cooking Challenge: Pumpkin all the things!!!

So I have a confession to make.

I don't really care for pumpkin. Or Pumpkin Pie, or Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Or PSL.

So of course Jenna's video from a week or so ago cracked me up (language/NSFW!).



But the 20something blogger cooking challenge this month was to cook something savory with pumpkin.

So here are my Pumpkin Ricotta Ravioli with Maple Butter Walnut Sauce. (we had to keep it to 10 ingredients or less).

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
3 eggs (used in 3 places)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup parmesean cheese
1/4 tsp nutmeg
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 crushed walnuts

Step 1: the Pasta

Put 1 cup of flour, 1 egg and 1tbsp of olive oil into a bowl.

Kneed it together with your hands until it just holds. Dryer is better. And if it's still lumpy, that's ok, it'll come together when you roll it out.

Cut dough into four pieces and get your pasta machine out.

 Roll the past out into sheets on the thinnest setting.  And set aside, covered.

Step 2: The filling.

In a bowl mix 1 cup of canned pumpkin puree with one egg, 1 half cup of drained ricotta cheese (drier is better), 1/4 tsp of nutmeg and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese. Mix together until smooth.

Get ready to assemble. You can do it without the ravioli mold, but definitely invest in one (for like 10 bucks) because it saves so much time. You'll need the egg white from the 3rd egg as well.

You can read my post over here all about making ravioli,. Each one gets about 1 tsp of filling.

Throw them on a plate while you get the water boiling. They can go directly into bioling water, and take about 4 minutes to cook (they should be floating easily).

Step 3: The Sauce!

That's right, start with a heaping chunk of butter. 4tbsp, in a pan on medium heat. You can make the sauce while you bring the water to a boil and cook the ravs.

Add in a quarter cup of maple syrup and a half cup of crushed walnuts. Cook on medium, stirring frequently until the sauce turns a nice brown.

Multi task like a champ, and when everything is good to go you can serve them up one of two ways.
 

First option. Toss drained ravs with some of the sauce and serve, for maple buttery goodness.

Option two: throw the drained ravs right into the pan with the still cooking sauce and let them crispy fry in the butter sauce. Then serve.

There you have it, basically autumn on a plate. Enjoy!

Lunch, Italian Style, and a recipe for Panino

When ever I find myself missing home, and family, the best way to feel better is to eat something that reminds me of home. In this case, fresh baked Italian Panino (bread rolls) some hard salami, cheese (of any variety) and wine. Depending on the mood, I'll eat the bread with Balsamic Vinegar, or just like my Nana used to provide for me when ever I was hungry for a snack, I'll microwave the bread and throw a little margarine on it! Yum!

I've been working towards making bread the way my nana does, which is no easy task when I'm half way across the country, and I'm pretty sure there is no recipe, just he innate knowledge of how much flour to use for just about anything. Also the batches she makes are way to large for my tiny oven. Here's my best attempt yet, which made 8 rolls.

Into my bread maker, I add, in the following order: 

2 cups warm water

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp olive oil

4 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp dry active yeast

Then throw on the dough cycle, which takes about an hour and a half to run. I always help it out with a spatula for the first minute, to make sure there is the right balance between dry and wet (adding more water or flour as needed). Here in Calgary, I find I always need to add more water, so if you have the pleasure of living somewhere less dry, 2 cups might be too much for you.

Once it's done, turn the risen dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and beat some of the air out of it. Then cut it into eight equal parts, and shape them into rolls. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise for another 30 or so minutes (or until they've doubled in size). Then slice the tops with a knife if you want... I'm not sure that this step was necessary, might not do it next time. Now at this point you could egg wash the rolls... but I'm pretty sure Nana doesn't do that, so right into the oven (pre-heated to 375') they go.

Bake for 30 minutes and then pull them out and slide them off your baking try so they can cool. Resist the temptation to eat them right away...I promise you you'll burn your mouth on hot bread. Instead pour a glass of wine and enjoy the fact that your whole apartment smells like wonderful bread baking.

Low Cal High Fiber Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Squares

I'm taking a cake decorating class at Micheals, and for this week's lesson we were asked to bring in rice crispy treats. However, I wanted rice crispy treats that I felt good about eating, so here's a recipe for

Low Cal High Fibre Chocolate Peanut Butter Crispy Squares

In a bowl, mix:

2 Cups brown rice crispies (240cals)
60 grams (or two single serving packets) of Quakers Quick Oats (240cals)
1 Cup of All Bran Buds (70cals)
1/4 Cup of mini chocolate chips (100cals)

In a sauce pan, on low heat, mix:

6 tbsp Kraft Light Peanut Butter (480cals)
4 tbsp Honey (240cals)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract (12cals)

Stirring as it melts, when smooth remove from heat and pour over the dry ingredients. Make sure to get it all out of the pan using a spatula. Then mix thoroughly. Line medium sized baking dish with tin foil, pour in mix and press flat. Refrigerate for 30min to an hour before cutting into squares.

Makes 12 squares, each at 115 calories, and they taste great, fill you up and pack a tonne of fiber!

Cake Decorating at Michaels Lesson 3

 Tonight I had my third lesson at Michaels in decorating cakes, we mainly focused on making flowers and boarders.

 Zig-zag and ribbon boarders.

 Green leaves and grass.

 Scrapping off the used icing and mixing it together for some large flowers.

 Large flowers with the extra large flower tip!

And complex flowers, daisies and sunflowers.

So putting some of my skills together I decorated these Healthy Rice Crispy Squares with some pretty flowers.

You can find the recipe by clicking here for these 115 calorie (no icing of course), high fiber, chocolate peanut butter squares. squares.

Week 1- cupcakes
Week 2- layer cake
Week 3 - decorate with flowers
Week 4 - ???

Cake Decorating at Michaels Lesson 2

So I think it's time to quit grad school and open up a bakery. I mean last week's cupcakes turned out pretty awesome, and this week was even better I think.

Week two of Michaels level 1 cake decorating class (using all Wilton products of course) required that we bake, fill, ice and decorate a layer cake. I'm still calorie counting this month (which means I wouldn't be eating my cake) so I went with a box cake mix, chocolate fudge. For the filling I simply mixed a can of chocolate icing with half a jar of strawberry jam. And I used the Wiltons icing that you can buy in the big jug at Micheals.

We gel transferred an image onto our cakes, and then went to town with the decorating.

My cousin's baby, Penelope, is turning one next month, and so I decided to make her a pre-birthday cake with a cute little owl (since she has a thing for owls).

I was seriously impressed with how the cake turned out, and Kevin informed me that despite being made from a box, it was quite delicious.

So what do you think? Should I decorate cakes for a living?

Week 1- cupcakes
Week 2- layer cake
Week 3 - decorate with flowers
Week 4 - ???

Cake Decorating at Micheals Lesson 1

This afternoon, my friend Melissa and I attended our first cake decorating class at Michaels (an arts an crafts store). The class cost $20 to register, then about $40-$50 spent in buying Wilton's cake decorating equipment. And it runs for 2 hours a week for 4 weeks.

Tonight we brought in 6 cupcakes a piece and learned the basics.

First up we learned how to mix colours and fill icing bags, I went with a neon pink and a blue green swirl.

We then used a star tip to, well, make stars, do a star fill and make little swirls.

 We practised piping the icing with even pressure over long lines, then made some cute little loops.
 

Next up we pulled out the big tip to make roses and swirl cupcake toppers.

Finally we went to town and iced our 6 cupcakes each (mine are on the left). Too bad I am watching what I eat, so I can't enjoy any of these bad boys. I'm guessing my lab will be happy about that, since that is where they are going to end up! Next weeks lesson we ice and decorate a full cake!

So maybe the class is really just a great way to push Wilton products and sales. And maybe apart from us everyone else in the room was under the age of 18. But it was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to improve my skills.

Week 1- cupcakes
Week 2- layer cake
Week 3 - decorate with flowers
Week 4 - ???