Month: October 2016

Desserts · Holiday Fare · Uncategorized

Peanut Butter Blondie

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IMG_3251.JPGIn Cooking With Paula Deen’s Thanksgiving magazine, I read over this recipe and just finished taking it out of the oven. Could not wait for it to cool to taste, so my mouth has a burn spot, but it was worth it.  So perfect for those Fallish nights when you are thinking to yourself, “what would taste good that is simple, easy and just perfect to scoop in a bowl with ice cream or whipped cream so I can watch a Hallmark movie while munching.?”

Well, here it is, the perfect Hallmark Movie Munchie….

Makes 4 servings, 3 for you and 1 for who you are watching the movie with…

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 large egg, room temp

2 teas vanilla

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 teas kosher salt

1/2 cup peanut butter, melted

Ice cream or whipped cream and chopped peanuts if desired, but I used crunchy peanut butter since I didn’t have any extra peanuts laying around the house today.

Preheat oven to 350. Spray 4 (4″ cast-iron skillets with baking spray and flour. (I used the butter wrapper to grease the skillet and used one 6″ cast iron skillet instead of the 4)

In a medium size bowl, beat butter and brown sugar with a mixer on medium speed until fluffy, 2-3 minutes. (I didn’t use the mixer because my beaters were in the dish washer and I’m lazy and didn’t want to get them out and wash them) So I stirred until butter and sugar were very well mixed. Add the egg and vanilla and beat like crazy, or until they are well incorporated into the butter sugar mixture.

In a small bowl, whisk together the salt and flour (once again, I skipped this step and sprinkled salt over the butter mixture and then added the cup of flour and just stirred until there were no more lumps in the batter. (You would think that all this stirring would burn a calorie or two, and maybe it did, but since I will probably devour the entire skillet, the calorie I burned won’t take me down a size.

When you have poured the batter into the skillet or skillets, melt the peanut butter and spread it over the batter.

Bake on lowest oven rack until golden brown and set, about 25 minutes. Because I made mine in the one skillet, I had to bake mine about 33 minutes. I also added chocolate chips (about 1/4 cup) and then drizzled some chocolate frosting that I had left over from  a cake yesterday. So there it is, the best little skillet blondie and just in time for all the Christmas movies which I cannot wait for them to begin. Happy Fall Y’all!

Desserts · Holiday Fare · Uncategorized

Pumpkin Trifle

Chocolate Castles

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to a luncheon at a friends house who made this most delicious trifle in individual little trifle dishes. She said that it was fine if I shared it. Thanks Teresa, the food was awesome as was all the laughter.

1 (14 oz) box of gingerbread mix (or 2 if doubling for large trifle bowl)

Small package of instant vanilla pudding (made according to directions on box)

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin pie filling (or the 30 oz can for doubling)

1/2 teas pumpkin pie spice (1 teas for doubling)

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar (1/2 for doubling)

1 (12 oz, but you won’t use all of the 12 oz) container Cool Whip (the 12 oz should still be plenty if doubling)

Directions (See above amounts if you are wanting to use large punch bowl or trifle bowl, but for 8 individual trifle dishes, the smaller amounts will be fine)

Bake the gingerbread according to directions on the box and then cool completely. Meanwhile prepare the pudding according to directions.  Stir the pumpkin pie filling, pumpkin pie spice and the sugar into the prepared pudding.

Cut gingerbread in small squares and place a couple in the bottom of the individual trifle dishes.  (If using trifle bowl or punch bowl, cover the bottom of the bowl with some of the gingerbread squares.

Spread some of the pumpkin mixture over the gingerbread. Then spread a layer of the Cool Whip over pumpkin mixture. Repeat layers as necessary, ending with a sprinkle of the gingerbread crumbs on top. Seal with Press and Seal or Cling Wrap and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Best if made the day before or at least 6-8 hours before serving.

Trifle can be layered in a punch bowl if you do not have a trifle dish.

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Peter Pumpkin Not Allowed in Walmart

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No matter the city, no matter the State, Peter Pumpkin strikes again! Can’t take Com anywhere! This hasnow happened at Costco here in AZ!

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Today was the last straw. I will never EVER ask Randy if he wants to go with me to Walmart, much less on a weekend.  I have noticed that he is always a little to excited when I ask him if he would like to go, after all, what husband wants to go to Walmart with his wife.  Today I found out why. As I usually do, he pushes the cart while I dash around from aisle to aisle picking up items that come to mind. On one such trip back to the cart to throw in my grocery items because my arms were full, I cannot seem to find Mr. Congeniality.  Because I was carrying around more items than I should be, I am desperately looking for him to unload all the stuff. There in the produce aisle, he is pushing the cart and when he gets it going…

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Breads · Salads · Uncategorized

Arabic Fattoush Salad (AKA..Arabic Skinnyoush Salad)

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Im sorry but I don’t want to infer that any recipe that I post is associated with the word: Fat. So in my mind, if I think the wonderful salad will make me skinny, it just naturally tastes better. This salad wowed Peter Pumpkin and myself. The flavor was a little like tabouli (I just eat it, I don’t learn how to spell it) but the salad itself made both of us decide to head back to the store today to buy more parsley so we can make it again tomorrow. IT’s THAT GOOD! A new friend of mine, Debbie, which lives down the street picked up this recipe at the grocery store and gave me a copy. She and I had been to lunch at a Afghanistan restaurant and started talking about how much we loved Middle Eastern food so she brought this to me a few days later. I did alter it just a bit as I was in a hurry when I was in the grocery store and thought I was picking up Pita Chips, when in fact, they were Pasta Chips, which I didn’t even realize until I was cleaning up last night. They were a great substitute if you cannot find Pita chips or do not want to make your own, (which the recipe called me to do). AND….I had some left over marinated mozzarella balls so I threw those in also. Great addition. Will always add those. OK, so here is the recipe as it came to me: Im including also pictures of the Pasta Chips so you will know what to look for if you decide to use them, plus a picture of the marinated mozzarella balls…

Ingredients

1 tables vegetable oil for frying

2 small (4 inch) pita breads, torn into pieces

1 large English cucumber, finely diced

3 cups halved, grape tomatoes

1/2 red onion, finely diced

3/4 cup chopped Italian parsley

3/4 cup chopped fresh mint

2 tables EVOO, or to taste

1 tables fresh lemon juice, or to taste

1 clove garlic, crushed or more if desired

kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

crumbled feta cheese *and I added about 1 cup of marinated mozzarella balls, cut in 1/3’s

Plus I added some fresh basil but recipe didn’t call for it

Directions

Heat veggie oil in a large skillet over med-high heat. Place pita pieces into the skillet without crowding and fry in batches until golden brown, draining on paper towel. Combine cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, parsley, mint, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl. Gently toss to combine. Add your friend pita chips or purchased pasta cups right before serving. Adjust seasonings to your liking.

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Dumpster Diving Days Delayed

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Im so thankful for computers, chocolate and Castle reruns as I won’t be sticking my head out the door for a few days. After yesterday, it will be awhile before I show my face out in our neighborhood. Let me start at the beginning. Our community has a garage sale every year. It was so exciting to think that we could get rid of all the “treasures” that we don’t have room for since moving here in May. I had already begun to imagine the new chairs, lamps and Christmas decor which I would be able to buy after making a fortune on Saturday from selling all the goodies. On Friday morning, I ran to a store here to look and pick out new chairs that I just knew would be in my future after closing up the garage sale yesterday. That way, all I would have to do yesterday afternoon is walk in the store and point and say, “I’ll take that and that and oh yes, I have to have that cute little table decoration. And please box up all those wonderful lamps which I just cannot live without”. Because I get a little (ok, maybe more than a little) impulsive sometimes, I did come home Friday with the back end of our crossover  loaded with a new chest of draw4rs and a small buffet because what if,”there had been a huge crowd showing up at the store and bought them out of these two precious chests, (at least that was my reasoning when unloading them out of the back with Randy standing there just shaking his head.) and I would have had to settle for something that was just not “perfect” for our new house. Heaven  forbid! ok, back to Friday night preparing for Saturday morning garage sale…I unloaded the new “just had  to have pieces” and Randy says that he will take the big boxes to the dumpster which is located in the back of our neighborhood. He takes off on the golf cart and I proceed to bring in the newfound treasures. When he comes back a few minutes later, he walks in the house and says, “well, I am officially my dad now, I just picked up something that was sitting beside the dumpster because I thought you might like them; come outside.”. So I did. There sitting beside the golf cart were 3 lanterns which hold candles that add charm and sophistication to the American home. I said, “you mean to tell me that someone just left these at the dumpster? I’m so proud of you for bringing them home. I will just paint them black and set them up on the porch and buy new candles for them.”

To celebrate our new obtained Dumpster Decor, we decided to celebrate and go get a. Pizza so my energy would be spent on taking the rest of our stuff outside for the sale, which would start at 7 a.m.

When we were pulling back into the driveway with pizza in hand, I had had time to think that maybe  painting the lanterns would be a lot of trouble. So I told Randy that instead of painting them, I would just sell them in the garage sale. After all, If I could get $5/ea that would allow me to run to Hobby Lobby and get one gigantic black lantern. So, I marked them with little yellow stickers and set them out to be oohed and Ahhed over, just knowing that they would be the first thing to go. Sure enough, a neighbor stopped by at 7:30 and said, “oh that would look great on my porch, I will buy one. So after taking her money, I turned to Randy and smiled, being ever so confident that I had made the right decision.  About an hour later, a sweet new friend and her husband stopped by to see if we had anything they could not live without. Teresa lives the next street over and we have already become quite good friends. For those of you who know Carol Loper, Teresa is the Carol of Arizona.

Teresa looks over at the lanterns and says, I just saw one that looks just like those on Judy’s front porch. I said, yes, she stopped by earlier and bought one. She then looks at her husband and says, “those look just like the ones you took to the dumpster yesterday” at which time, she looks at me and says, “I had better go home to check and see if anything is missing from my house since you were at my house the other day.”.  By this time, we were laughing so hard we were both crying.  Randy looked at me and said, “I told you that out of 800 houses here, expect the person that threw these away to see them here at our house being sold.”.  Well, between the laughing and the embarrassment, it was just too much. She texted me and told me that she was not going to hang this sin over my head forever but she was certainly going to get some mileage out of it. I had to promise her that I will support her grandson’s first 2 years of college if she would keep quiet. Apparently that wasn’t enough, because she texted me this morning and said that they told everyone at the patio party last night. AND encouraged all our new friends to not ever let me house sit for them, as they might come home and find an empty house with me selling all their worldly possessions in a garage sale.

My dumpster diving days are now behind me and the new adventure of not stooping lower than garage sale finds is ahead.  I assured Teresa that I would at least tithe from the money I profited from the sale of her lantern. Maybe I need to give a little more than 10% to get me out of this one.

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Bobblehead & Golf Carts

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Taking the little grand boys to the Dollar Store the other day to let them go wild with $5, I happened upon a scarecrow that I decided I just could not live without. You know the ones, which are solar powered, just made for the dashboard of the car! Well, Sammy Scarecrow came home with me and was enjoying his new home on Dovey’s dashboard,(yes, I even name my cars) when Randy suggested that we go to Sonic and Lowes. Upon getting settled in the car and quickly noticing this precious new addition to our car, he glared over at me and said, “what is this and what is it doing in the car?” Sensing some hostility, I sweetly smiled and answered, “that is Sammy Scarecrow and this is his new home for the next 4 weeks. Isn’t he just the cutest? His head bobbles back and forth when the sun hits the pumpkin he is sitting on.” To make a point, the whole time we drove the car that day, Randy would bob his head up and down, back and forth and ask me if I thought that was cute.

Why do men hate having cute little seasonal decorations on cars? I told him that he should be glad I didn’t order a giant pumpkin decal that would cover the whole back windshield. He suggested that maybe Sammy would be happier riding on the dashboard of the golf cart. Which brings me to a story of one reason we love living here. Two nights ago, I rode our golf cart to Bunco here in our neighborhood. When I arrived at my destination, there were about 5 golf carts, 3 bikes and one car. After a great night of bunco (and I won the door prize of a cute little pumpkin plate, which I will find a place among my pumpkin decorations) we were all loading into our carts when one of the ladies suggested we have a golf cart race down the street. What fun and where else can you have golf cart races than in a neighborhood such as this? Here we were, about 9 p.m., ladies racing down the middle of the street, headed home. It was such fun. Then last evening, I was riding around here after dropping Randy off at bocce ball, once again in the golf cart, when I ran into a friend of mine riding her bicycle. I pulled the cart over to the side of the road and we visited there on the street for about 30 minutes, when another 2 friends came by on bikes. They had heard that I baked all the time and ask if I had any cookies ready to hand out. I told them that, actually I had made oatmeal raisin coolies and had a butter cake in the freezer. They hopped back on their bikes and said, we will meet you at your house. Speeding (well, going 18 mph) the golf cart back home, I ended up giving out bags of cookies to new friends last night and one of the Kentucky Butter Cakes. After they left, I rode up with Oliver to pick Randy up for Bocce Ball and ended up visiting with two ladies who were there watching their husbands. What a beautiful evening and what a glorious blessing to be a part of a community where people love to visit. Both ladies invited me over to their homes, telling me to “stop by anytime, as they love people just coming over.” I didn’t know places like this still existed. This is exactly what we have been wanting and we are so blessed to be living in a place where we have friends living right down the street and are continuing to find folks which share so much of the same interests.

Thursday a new friend which goes to our church and lives behind us is having a luncheon for new ladies who just moved in. Pinch me, surely I must be dreaming. Yes, we do feel so blessed and feel like our prayers have been answered in ways even greater than we imagined. Sammy has a new home on the golf cart and bobbles like crazy when we are racing and Randy has his car back, free from Halloween decorations. Will wait until the day after Thanksgiving to show Randy the Reindeer antlers and red nose I just ordered for Dovey.

FYI the recipe for the oatmeal cookies are on the blog under “The Best Oatmeal Cookies”, just type that in the search bar and the recipe will pop up.Bobb

Daily Thoughts · Uncategorized

Shooting Stars

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Last night Randy and I went outside about 10:30 to walk Oliver before calling it a night. As we were walking, I was glancing at my phone to look up something on Google to get information about something we had been talking about. As I finished reading the article, I stopped walking and turned to look at Randy to be sure he had just heard what I had said, when he didn’t respond to me answering his question. As I stood there in the middle of the street (trust me, where we live, you never have to worry about having a car come down the street after 10 as everyone here is tucked away in their little houses as we live in an over 55 community) all of a sudden I was shocked to see a shooting star past right over us. It thrilled me to see this rare sight, as I had not seen one in probably over 30 years. All of a sudden it dawned on me that had I been still looking at my phone, which is a constant habit, I would have missed this beautiful sight. It made me think of how many other “shooting stars” had I missed when I had my eyes glued to my phone or a TV.

A dear BFF of mine had given me a book a few years ago called One Thousand Gifts. This new season of my life has allowed me to sit and begin reading it. It is so easy to sit and read a action packed book, but a book which is full of words which makes you stop and think and sometimes convicts you, well, I tend to not pick those types of books up so fast. But as this new journey of ours has slowed us down a bit, I knew that this was a book which I should be reading and taking to heart. The author made a list of 1000 things she is thankful for. After reading her story, I began to think about how many times a day do I truly stop and thank God for blessings, both large and small. Two weeks ago, Randy and I stopped to talk to a new friend at our church. How we began to talk about saying thanks for blessings, I truly do not know, but Rick ended up telling us that years ago a friend of his told him something that had stayed with him all these years and it was this:

“What if we woke up and only had the things around us which we had remembered to give thanks to God for? What would we have around us?”

BAM! It made me really stop and think about what had I been remembering to give thanks for? After remembering the story in the Bible about the 10 lepers which Jesus healed and only one of them coming back to thank Jesus, I began to pray that I would be like the one leper which came back. That I wouldn’t get caught up in the routine of each day, just going through the motions but would recognize that each day God gives me is an opportunity for Him to use me. The shooting star last night made me also think about how much I must miss having my eyes glued to a phone or a TV.

In this season when we are constantly being reminded that we are entering a season of “giving thanks”, it is my prayer that my eyes will be open to other “shooting stars” that pass by me and then to remember to give God thanks for all the times and ways He has blessed me. That this will not just be another year of bowing my head on Thanksgiving day to thank Him for “all the great things He hath done”!

Heavenly Father, thank you for all the “shooting stars” which you allow to pass over my life. May I ever be mindful of your faithfulness and your mercy. Bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me, bless Your Holy Name.

Psa 57:9-11″I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your stedfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth.”

Breads · Cakes · Desserts · Holiday Fare · Uncategorized

Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Muffins

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These will be called Cupcakes in our house, as I am so not a muffin person, but would eat these no matter what they are called. If they are not served and waiting for us at the Wedding Feast in Heaven, I don’t know what would be….they are heavenly! I ate one with butter melted all over it, as soon as I could put the pot holder down and get a napkin out. Honestly, they are just so good. Perfect for breakfast with butter and jam. For lunch, I would just eat one, just plain, while I am making sandwiches. Then for dessert at night, I think I will frost them with a little buttercream frosting. That makes them the perfect little muffin, snack, dessert for the Fall Season! Every day I scan FaceBook for new recipes and this one caught my attention. Then my daughter saw it on FB and tagged me saying that she wished I would make them. So here they are folks, I think you’re gonna like this.

Ingredients (this made 21 muffins for me, but maybe you could get about 23 if you didn’t fill the cups as full as I did)

1 3/4 cup flour

1 tables (yes tables not teaspoon) pumpkin pie spice

1 teas baking soda

1/2 teas salt

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin (pure pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie mix that has added sugar and spices already in it)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs, room temp

1/2 cup oil (vegetable)

1 tables vanilla (there it is again, not teas)

Cream Cheese Filling

8 oz softened cream cheese

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup sugar

2 teas vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Place paper liners in cupcake pan. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt and pumpkin spice. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine sugars and pumpkin and whisk together until there are no lumps. Add the eggs and oil and vanilla. Whisk until batter is smooth and combined. Add flour mixture slowly, whisking until no more lumps are there and batter is mixed thoroughly.

In a medium bowl, with electric mixer cream together the cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth.

Using a large cookie scoop or measuring cup, fill each cupcake liner 2/3 full with the pumpkin mixture. Then place about 1 1/2 -2 teas of cream cheese mixture on top. Swirl with a toothpick into pumpkin batter.

Bake 18-20 minutes or until muffin tests done. Let cool (I didn’t do this, as I just couldn’t wait. I slapped on a dab of butter and grabbed my glass of tea and gobbled it upI