Tag Archives: Peanut Butter

Week in Review (5/13-5/18)

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What a week!! I gave the blog a new little look in case you haven’t noticed, and I made some yummy food! :)

Sunday I went a little out of the order that I usually do things around here, I posted a special post for Mother’s Day! I love my mom SO much, so I thought she deserved her very own post. I also shared with you guys a yummy recipe for chocolate pound cake, that is super chocolatey and rich :)

Monday

Tuesday I shared with you guys how to make homemade peanut butter! I made dry roasted honey peanut butter, but the recipe is so adaptable that you can make pretty much any kind of peanut butter you can think of. So many possibilities for mix-ins, like oreos or chocolate chips for a sweet twist! I also  had my first playoff game for soccer. As luck would have it, lightning started coming out 5 minutes into the second half and the score was 0-0, so we had to stop the game and wait for a while to see if the lightning would stop. Of course the lightning never stopped, so we decided to make up the rest of the game (35 minutes) the next day and….

Wednesday to continue from Tuesday, we finished the rest of the 35 minutes in our game (after driving 45 minutes just to get TO the game), and we won 3-0! I scored, too!! :) It would have been nice if we could have just done that on Tuesday so we wouldn’t have had to come back to finish the rest of the game, but a win is a win so I was pretty happy that we would continue our playoff journey to Friday’s game against the number 1 team in the state.

Thursday I talked about how to tell when a goldfish is pregnant, you never know when that information will come in handy!!  I also shared with you guys a recipe for taco seasoning. Perfect for adding some flavor to chicken, beef, or oven fries! Another exciting thing that happened Thursday was that my sister came home from Spain!! So nice to finally have her back :)

Friday I had my next playoff game. It was for the regional finals, we ended up losing after a tough game. I’m really proud of our team for the way we put our hearts into that game and left everything on the field. We lost to the number one team in the state and they are ranked 3rd nationally. We lost 3-1 with them scoring their 3rd goal in the last two minutes. It wasn’t ideal that we lost, but if we were to lose to someone, that team and game were an alright way to finish the season. It sure is going to be weird going from playing with and seeing these girls on my team everyday to hardly seeing them at all. I loved our team this year, and am so proud that we accomplished way more than anybody ever expected us to!

Random Fact of the Day: The Hawaiian Islands were originally named the ‘Sandwich Islands’

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Dry Roasted Honey Peanut Butter

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Some people may be thinking, “who in their right mind would make their own peanut butter?!”. Yes, I know the that Skippy sure has a good thing going for themselves. I’m a huge fan…BUT let’s face it, everything tastes better when you have made it. Am I right?!

Another thing about homemade peanut butter is that it is just about the easiest thing to make in the entire world. Two ingredients here. Peanuts and honey. That’s it. One step: Blend in food processor. Seriously, a caveman could make this. My dad, the king of the grill and microwave could make this.

I MADE this! Made peanut butter, weird, yes, just do it. Making your own nut butter is so easy and totally worth it, so get off your booty and make some now!! Perfect on toast, with celery or apples, in cookies, in smoothies, on sandwiches, on a spoon, you name it!

Dry Roasted Honey Peanut Butter

16 oz. dry roasted peanuts (or any other type of peanut to make any type of peanut butter)

3 Tablespoons honey

  1. Blend peanuts and honey in food processor until very smooth and creamy. Store in an airtight container. Keep in fridge and enjoy!

Talk about an easy recipe!!

Random Fact of the Day: The foot is the most common body part bitten by insects.

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White Chocolate Wonderful Ice Cream

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Ever heard of Peanut Butter & Co.?

They’re a pretty popular company that is from New York. They have a TON of amazing flavors of peanut butter that will totally rock your socks off. I had heard about them quite a bit through different food blogs, but it never occurred to me that my local grocery store would actually sell them. Turns out as I was strolling through the nut butter aisle the other day I stumbled across Peanut Butter & Co. peanut butter. I was super psyched and KNEW I had to try it!! I picked up Dark Chocolate Dreams and White Chocolate Wonderful. Of course when I got home I had to take a spoon and try a little giant spoonful of each. Let’s just say it took all the power in my body to restrain myself from double-dipping.

Now I happen to really, REALLY like the combination of peanut butter and white chocolate in cookies, so I figured this combination would be absolutely killer in ice cream. You all have GOT to try this recipe. If you don’t have an ice cream machine, get the heck on that! You will not be sorry. This ice cream alone would make it all worth it. It’s fully loaded with tons of goodies to make every bite as delicious as ever. Do. It.

White Chocolate Wonderful Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 cups milk (any type is good, I always use skim)

1 cup  plus 3 Tablespoons White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter

3/4 cup white sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup white chocolate chocolate chips

1/2 cup mini peanut butter cups (I used the minis from Trader Joe’s)

  1. In bowl, mix White Chocolate Wonderful peanut butter and sugar until thoroughly combined using a whisk. Mix in milk slowly until incorporated. Stir in vanilla and 2 cups of heavy cream. Pour into ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.
  2. Once there is just about 5 minutes left for the ice cream to be in the ice cream maker, mix in mini peanut butter cups and white chocolate chips. When ice cream is done in ice cream maker, pour ice cream in airtight container and finish freezing process in freezer. Enjoy!
Random Fact of the Day: Boeing planes fly 17 million miles daily- approximately the distance of 35 round trips to the moon.
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Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

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Is it still a surprise if you say what the surprise is in the title? Tricky, tricky.

Coming up with a name for these guys was a bit of a challenge for me, but I figured chocolate surprise cupcakes sounded pretty darn good. Who doesn’t like chocolate? Or surprises? If your hand is raised…I shake my head for you in shame.


Anyways, I mentioned a little while ago that I was visiting the Red Hen Bakery. Of course I couldn’t go empty-handed! So I decided to bring along these little gems.

Say hello to Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes.


The idea of these was to come up with a cupcake recipe that could sit out for a period of time without going bad. That eliminated heavy cream from the ingredient list, which is in like so many of my filling recipes for cupcakes….so I had to come up with a new filling.

By the way, since I have started stuffing and filling my cupcakes, there has been no turning back. Cupcakes are definitely not the same to me anymore unstuffed. They’re just..lonely. Empty.

So anyways, I came up with the idea to make a cookie dough filling. An eggless cookie dough filling, of course. Salmonella scares me and I don’t plan on finding out what it’s like to have it.

Well here we go, double chocolate cookie dough stuffed yellow cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream frosting. Or you can just call the surprise cupcakes which I find is a wittle bit easier.

My dad thought he was super witty…his title for them was “Peanut Butter CUPcakes” (emphasizing the CUP). Yes, he’s quite the clever guy. He was very proud!

Double chocolate cookie dough stuffed yellow cupcakes with peanut butter buttercream frosting. Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes. Peanut butter CUPcakes. Whatever you want to call them…you should try them, because this whole cookie dough in a cupcake thing kinda totally, completely, rocks.

Chocolate Surprise Cupcakes

(Makes about 20 cupcakes)

1 box of yellow cake mix, prepared according to box directions (Don’t bake, yet until instructions below say so)

FOR COOKIE DOUGH:

3/4 cups (1 1/2 sticks) butter

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used dark cocoa powder)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup chocolate chips

FOR PEANUT BUTTER BUTTERCREAM:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 cups peanut butter

1/4 cup milk (or heavy cream), as needed

4 cups powdered sugar

  1. Cream butter, white sugar, and brown sugar together in the bowl of a mixer. Stir in vanilla.
  2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add to creamed mixture. Fold in chocolate chips by hand. Scoop dough into balls by the Tablespoonful, place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and freeze in the freezer for at least 2 hours.
  3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare cake batter according to directions on box and scoop into cupcake liners about half-way to 3/4-full. Drop frozen cookie dough balls into the center of each cupcake batter cup. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until tops are covered and they spring back slightly when touched. Edges should be golden.
  4. Let cool in tins for 20 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to finish cooling for an additional 30 minutes.
  5. FOR FROSTING: Cream butter until smooth. Mix in peanut butter. Beat in powdered sugar. Add milk or cream as desired to achieve the ideal consistency. Frost onto cooled cupcakes as desired. Enjoy!

of course I couldn’t just bring some cupcakes, so I brought some cute little Easter/Spring sugar cookies for them (BTW this was before Easter!)

Random Fact of the Day: Rhode Island is the smallest state but has the longest name.

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High Protein Energy Balls

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Ah, the final week of Lent. It’s been hard holding myself back from making yummy cookie doughs and delicious cake batters. The stretchy pants haven’t been out for a while. It’s been…different.

I can not say it’s been absolutely the most horrible time of my life, because, well, I finally went out of my comfort zone. This Lent has brought me to create new meals that don’t involve multiple sticks of butter and cups of sugar.  There have been like…vegetables. And things people eat for real nutrition and meals and stuff. It’s been crazy. Been real. But I’m definitely ready for cupcakes and cookies again.

Anyways, I have had a can of garbanzo beans sitting in the pantry for about a billion years and I finally decided to use that baby up. Making high protein energy balls seemed like the most logical thing to make. Peanut butter. Honey. A few chocolate chips. How can you go wrong?

You can’t! So here you go, some nice little  energy balls to get you through the final days of Lent.

High Protein Energy Balls

(Slightly adapted from Spinach and Sprinkles)

1/2 cup pecans, very finely chopped

15 oz. can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained thoroughly

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup chocolate chips

  1. Line a tray or cookie sheet with parchment paper or wax paper or aluminum foil that will fit into your freezer. Set aside
  2. In a food processor, dump chopped pecans (or if you have not yet chopped them, chop them now), then add in rinsed garbanzo beans. Process until beans are fully broken down.
  3. Add in peanut butter, honey, and vanilla. Process until you have a smooth mixture.
  4. Remove the blade from the processor and stir in the chocolate chips by hand. Roll the mixture into about 25-30 balls and place on prepared tray or cookie sheet. Freeze for at least 20 minutes before eating. Store in fridge when done, in an airtight container. Enjoy! :)

Random Fact of the Day: A restaurant in Houston charges $12,000 to its customers for a 10-course meal that was served on the Titanic with the exact setting too.

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