Thanksgiving Recap

First of all...I have to apologize for some of the really poor quality pictures. My cameras were on strike this last week and were refusing to cooperate with me.

Whatever.

My Thanksgiving started out with picking up my beautiful niece from the airport! YAY! So exciting. :-)

We ran some errands, had lunch and came home to start the prep work.

We decided to make a pumpkin cheesecake instead of the traditional pumpkin pie. (Please don't shoot me, but I'm not really a pumpkin pie fan.)

I put Shanelle to work making the cheesecake. She and I have always played in the kitchen together. She takes after the rest of the family, her mom included, and is a great cook!

Ready for the oven!

Thursday morning brought the arrival of my brother and the process of getting the food ready for the day. I had done a bunch of prep work with Shanelle the day before, and used my triple crock pot to make cranberry sauce in and to hold the mashed potatoes warm all day. I made the mashed potatoes in the morning and they were still nice and hot later in the afternoon. I didn't have to rush around with the potatoes at the end. I liked that and will definitely do that again next year.

Everything went well food-wise. I did turn off the oven when I pulled the turkey out and then couldn't figure out what was taking the green bean casserole so long to heat up...but that was easily rectified.

I didn't go overboard on the food. There were only four of us so I didn't feel like I needed to feed an army.

Much of the day looked like this as we watched football and played Draw Something on our phones with each other.

Dinner looked like this:

We also decided to take some pictures. That turned out to be hilarious because Chris was not cooperating, my cameras hate me, and we are silly people. Here are some of the outtakes:

Oh my.

The rest of the weekend was very mellow. Shanelle had only ever seen the first Twilight movie, so we spent most of the rest of the weekend lounging around, watching Twilight movies. We didn't do any Black Friday shopping.

We did snuggle with the kitties, though.

 Roscoe got some whipped cream on his nose.

Uncle Chris was being silly...AGAIN!

I really wish that last picture wasn't fuzzy...cuz it is a great picture of my beautiful girl.

Thanksgiving is over, and I am back to frantically working to get my homework done, clean my house and get ready for the end of the school year. It was so great to see my Shanelle and my brother for the holiday.

Sweet Tooth

I have a crazy sweet tooth. It really sucks. It sucks because I can gain weight like no body's business...and sugar just packs it on. But I love cookies and ice cream, especially. LOVE them. Love. love.

Anyway...Tonight I wanted some chocolate chip cookies, but I don't have any chocolate chips (on purpose...for just this reason!) but, after digging around in my "baking box" I came up with an alternate solution.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies.

Yes.

So I whipped up a batch and as I am mixing it all up and feeling guilty about making cookies I don't need to eat I remembered one of my great ideas of the past!

Freeze the dough.

GENIUS!

Here's what I did: I made up the dough.

 Then I made one full sheet of cookies and baked them.

Then I got out a sheet of parchment paper.

I dumped the remaining dough onto the parchment paper.

Then, using the parchment paper so I didn't get my hands icky, I made a dough log.

The dough log got cut in half (there was a lot of dough)...

...and placed into a zip-top freezer bag, labeled and stuck in the freezer.
 

Now my pigging out on cookies is limited to the one cooked batch, but if I want to make a couple of cookies later I can just cut slices off the frozen dough log and bake them. Portion control!



Yummy.





Pinterest = Dangerous!

I did not need another thing to suck time out of my life. Seriously! I am busy with school and life. I do not have time for Pinterest. But, I caved recently and joined up (you can find me under Corrie Beebe). One of the reasons was because I found some cool recipes on Pinterest. I am a sucker for good recipes.

This recipe could not be more simple and delicious and it totally falls within the 10% of my eating plan, which is why I scheduled to make it last weekend when the girls were here. One, we all love a good treat and two, there would be four of us to eat them up rather than just two of us.

I do apologize for the ridiculously bad pictures. Between me just basically being a crappy photographer and the lighting and reflective surfaces in my kitchen things just didn't work out. But you really don't need the pictures to understand the deliciousness factor.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
Prepared Brownie Mix

oh my.

Uhm..YUM!

Put cookie dough in the bottom of muffin cups.

Top cookie dough with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

Add prepared brownie mix to fill muffin cups.

If you happen to have Reese's Pieces add those, too, just for good measure.

We did one row before baking, one row after 15 minutes and left one row plain.

Add ice cream and enjoy!

Brownie peanut butter cup chocolate chip cupcakes...heavenly!

As you can see these were terrible. Riight!

Oh Pinterest...what have you done to me?! These were amazing. Jennifer and Chris thought they were better the next day. Jennifer liked hers cold. I liked mine warm and gooey. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until desired degree of doneness (gooey or less gooey).

A couple things I would do differently: one I would either use two squares of chocolate chip cookie dough or I wouldn't press the cookie dough down like I did. Honestly, the cookie dough gets completely lost and what I tasted was brownie and peanut butter cup. Another thing would be to either use my silicone muffin cups or to lightly spray the muffin pan with non-stick spray. The tops of the brownie had a tendency to come off while I was removing them from the pan. They didn't really "stick" but I think the muffin cups or a little spray would have helped that problem.

Next time I might just skip the cookie dough and do brownie/pb cup/brownie.

Do you Pinterest? Have you ever actually made or done anything you have pinned? I mostly pin funny sayings.

5, 6 or 7-Layer Bars, Your Choice

AKA...my once a year cookies. I *only* make these at Christmas time.

I may have mentioned here or there that I have no self control when it comes to cookies. That is true, and well-known. But, I especially have no self control when it comes to these cookies, or bars if you prefer.

They are decadent.

Rich.

Sweet.

Gooey (if you eat them when they are still slightly warm, and why wouldn't you, especially if you have no self control when it comes to cookies?)

Delicious.

I make them only once a year so as to do as little damage to my physique as possible.

5, 6 or 7-Layer Bars

Here's what ya need!

1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2-1 cup shredded coconut
6-8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate morsels
6-8 ounces butterscotch morsels
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1/4-1 cup chopped nuts (your choice or a mixture)

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Melt butter in 13 x 9 baking dish, ensuring to coat entire bottom of dish evenly.

3. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs (run them through the food processor and you will have crumbs in a minute!) over top of melted butter. Smooth evenly over bottom of dish and press into butter
slightly.

4. Sprinkle semi-sweet chocolate morsels over the top of graham cracker base.

5. *optional* add sweetened, shredded coconut (I add it to half of my pan only)

6. Sprinkle butterscotch morsels.

7. Press down slightly.

8. Add sweetened condensed milk over top of mixture, pouring as evenly as possible over the entire pan.

9. *optional* top with chopped nuts, one type or a mixture of several. (Use your food processor to make quick work of the nut chopping, but don't pulverize them, you still want some chunks.) I put nuts on about half of my pan.

Mix of peanuts, cashews, hazelnuts, almonds and pistachio's.

10. Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes or until the nuts (if using) are slightly toasted and browning, and the sweetened condensed milk is nice and toasty golden brown.

Remove from oven and let cool (as much as you can stand to wait).

I have found the easiest way to cut these is with a good thin metal spatula. If you wait to cut them until they are completely cooled, they can be a bit difficult. Cool them well, but don't leave them overnight.

 These are VERY rich, so small pieces go a long way. I usually cut them into small, two-bite pieces.

I have been making these (only at Christmastime) since I was a child. I don't know where the original recipe came from, but I know there are many versions and varieties out there. As always, experiment! I don't like coconut and nuts, but other people do, which is why I make the batch half-n-half this way. I'm sure these would be incredibly delicious with peanut butter morsels instead of butterscotch, if butterscotch isn't your thing.

These make a beautiful, tasty gift (that is a great way to get them out of your house so you don't eat them all in one day!).

If you try these out, they take all of about 10 minutes to prep, and 30 minutes to cook. Let me know if you love them!