Reese's Peanut Butter Squares

It's almost Easter...St. Patrick's Day is over and the grocery stores have piled their aisles full of chocolate, chocolate, chocolate. My parents came to Seattle a few days ago to drop my brother off for a visit, and before they left they took me grocery shopping. What more can you ask for! But anyways, they told me to pick out some Easter candy since I wouldn't be home for the holiday and I was overwhelmed. They make EVERYTHING into some form of Easter candy now! They had Easter JellyBeans, Easter Mike & Ike's, Easter Reese's...i guess the traditional chocolate Easter bunny doesn't always cut it now. But nevertheless, my brother picked up the 6 pack of Reese's chocolate eggs. By far my fave. When I was still in elementary school I found a recipe to make Reese's peanut butter squares. They taste exactly the same so if you ever have want to make them i'll give you the recipe.

Spring Break has yet to officially begin, but I've been done my exams since Monday. Last weekend we went to the Seattle Dog Show. I probably enjoyed myself way more than I should have haha. So many dogs to see, I'm never going to pass up a dog show again! My brother came up on Tuesday morning and left Wednesday night so I made sure to fill up the 36 hour period with as much as I could. We went to see the Matt Damon movie, Green Zone. I enjoyed it, wasn't sure what to expect but once I left the theatre I knew I liked it. Went to the Space Needle on Wednesday morning...BEFORE the sun came out! I have bad luck. It was still nice, but it would have been nice to see Mt. Rainier and the Olympics. Then we took a walk past the Fremont Troll, down to GasWorks and then went for lunch at Aqua Verde. It was fun...gotta get him to come back and visit!

Here's the Reese's recipe...

Reese's Peanut Butter Squares

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1 cup butter

12-oz. chocolate chips (milk chocolate)

Combine crumbs, sugar and peanut butter. Mix well. Blend in butter until well combined. Press into 9 x 13 pan. Melt chips in double boiler and spread over peanut butter mixture. Refrigerate until firm. Cut into squares with a warm knife (put it into warm water before you cut with it).

-Anita

Mel's Granola

It's been way too long. Here's a quick recipe that Mel made up last year and I kind of put together on my own after making it a few times. It's good, healthy, and you can make it with whatever you want. Definitely worth a try...

Mel's Granola

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/4-1/2 cup sweetened coconut
• 1/4 cup oat bran
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil (*or applesauce)
• 1/4 cup liquid honey or maple syrup
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• nuts (sliced almonds/chopped walnuts/hazelnuts...)
• 1/4 cup crisp rice cereal
• dried fruit (apricots, raisins, yogurt raisins...)
• chopped chocolate chips

-Heat oven to 350 F. Line baking sheet w/ tin foil or parchment paper.

-In a large bowl toss oats, coconut, oat bran, salt and cinnamon.

-In a medium bowl stir oil/applesauce, honey, brown sugar and vanilla.

-Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients (*use your hands to mix, making fists to clump the ingredients together)

-spread evenly on sheet and bake for 10 min.

-remove from oven and flip with spatula. Sprinkle with sliced almonds. Return to the oven and bake for an additional 5 min.

-Remove from oven, flip and sprinkle with walnuts, hazelnuts and return to oven.

-Bake an additional 5 min and remove.

-Sprinkle w/ dried fruit, crushed cereal and or chocolate chips. Flip and mix them into granola.

-Let cool completely and transfer to an airtight container.

-Anita

Pineapple Delight

This has been a long time coming...my apologies. New Years Resolution: be a better blogger.

School just started yesterday after what felt like an extremely short Christmas break. Nonetheless, I made the most of it and had alot of fun. On Dec. 16th, Ryan and I went to the Radio City Rockettes down at the Paramount. There was alot of talk about the show throughout December, so we decided it would be worth our time to check it out. The Rockettes were awesome, especially during their "Parade of Wooden Soldiers". In between the Rockettes performances, we saw dancing teddy bears and singing Santa's...both of which were kind of strange, but still entertaining. All in all, it was a really fun night and I'm glad we went. Next on my list...The Nutcracker! I'm not sure if I would like it, but I've always wanted to see it since I've been in Seattle.

I went home on the 20th and got to relax a couple days before the big preparation. My mom decided at the beginning of the month that she was going to have 30...yes 30 people over for Christmas dinner. To be quite honest, we were all a little nervous, even my mother. But thank goodness she is one of the most prepared and organized people I know, so I had confidence that she would pull it off with a little help. First on the list, find a bird that can feed a crowd that size. I don't know where, but my parents managed to land a 35 pound turkey! They even needed to buy a new pan to cook it in. The bird defrosted in the bathtub about a day and a half before the big day. My mom made all the desserts a couple days before and put them in the freezer, baking the pies the day before the dinner. One of the many highlights of my mom's dinner was one of her desserts called Pineapple Delight. I'll leave the recipe below, but it's great and easy and should definitely be tried.

The dinner ended up being alot of fun! Here's what the set-up looked like after everyone had sat down...minimal elbow room, but no one seemed to mind.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Pineapple Delight

Crust: 2 cups graham wafer crumbs

1/2 cup melted butter

4 tbsp sugar

dash of cinnamon

Combine all of the ingredients and press into a 9 x 13 ungreased pan. Bake 10 min @ 350 F. Cool completely.

Second Layer: 1/2 cup firm butter

1 1/4 cup icing sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and sugar; add eggs and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. Spread on crumbs. Refrigerate while making next topping.

Third Layer: 1/2 pint whipping cream

1- 14oz. can drained crushed pineapple

1/4 cup sugar

Whip cream and sugar; fold in pineapple. Spread over cake. Freeze.

-Anita

oops i forgot, after you bake it for 25 minutes, put the topping on and bake another 20 minutes

Blackberry Sour Cream Apple Pie

here is it...blackberry sour cream apple pie

-1 cup sour cream

-2/3 cup sugar

-2 tbsp flour

-1/4 tsp salt

-1 tsp vanilla

-1 egg

-peeled and diced tart apples (we usually use granny smith and might mix a little of any other kind in there)...personal preference for the amount. We always change it, usually its about 3 cups

-blackberries

preheat over to 400 degrees. Beat all ingredients folding in apples and berries gently. Bake 25 minutes

You can add a topping consisting of oatmeal, cold butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon and a little bit of flour. Mix it all together cutting in the butter till its crumbly. My mom doesn't like the oatmeal in it and its the closest to the original without oatmeal, but i like it in there.

Thanksgiving from Oregon

So once again it has taken me forever to post, and i'm about two weeks late but my thanksgiving dinner as amazing! My parents have recently moved to Oregon, and it was time to visit to their new house. My brother, sister and even their friends have been to my parents house, but this was my first trek to the southern Oregon coast to the little town, Sixes with Allison.

I've always helped my mom in the kitchen, but i've never taken a huge part in cooking until this year and I now know what my mom has gone through for years and years. We were in the kitchen ALL day: literally. Among my sister, Allison and I, we cooked the entire meal minus the turkey.

Just about everything we used for dinner came from my parents garden or neighboring gardens. Allison and I started off early on the desserts including: pumpkin pie and pecan pie. For the pumpkin pie, we got the pumpkin from a neighbors garden. It was ginormous and for some reason we decided to cook the whole thing. We boiled the pumpkin, and next time I will bake it instead. It retained too much water in the boiling process making the pie a little more soupy than it should have been. The crust however was pretty good. It was just like a graham cracker crust but instead of graham crackers, we used gingersnaps. My brother could eat a whole box of those in one sitting, so that crust was for him. Overall the pumpkin pie was good but nothing note worthy (sorry Paula Dean). I think that that is a problem in cooking sometimes; you set your expectations too high and in the end your not satisfied even if it does taste good. Next was the pecan pie, which was pretty good. I love pecan pie, its so simple but its so good! Eggs, butter, corn syrup, pecans….Adding little bourbon in it did the trick.

Next was the cranberry sauce. Usually you're going to buy this in a can at the store, but I was determined to do as much as I could from scratch. We got our cranberries from the cranberry bog (yes ocean spray commercial status) that is literally 20 feet from the house. Thanks to cooks illustrated (and I think Jake can agree) this was far better than that from a can. It calls for cranberries, water, and sugar and a little simmering time.

Collier, as always, made the mashed potatoes. She used mostly red potatoes from moms garden, and in the end result they had a pink hue. I don't know what she does but they are absolutely amazing. My mom likes to say that she got the "potato gene" in the family. I must say that it is quite the gene to have. I don't think I will ever be able to replicate the taste. She also made one dessert that my family can never go a holiday without having and that is the blackberry sour cream apple pie. I know right upon reading that, a lot of you thought “ugh sour cream”, but trust me when I say it is the best pie I have ever had. We used to go to this little place called Apple Hill where they made them and one day the little pie shop closed down. Ever since then we have been messing with this recipe and I think this year we came across our closest match.

The rest of the meal consisted of steamed asparagus, rolls (which my mom made) salad (with my brothers delicious candied pecans) and of course the turkey.

I'm excited for Christmas and to put some new items on the menu (and keep some old ones). Unfortunately my sister wont be around this Christmas so we wont have her mashed potatoes, and I will have to do my best to match hers. I'm up for the challenge. Wish me luck. I'll be reporting how they turned out.

~Mel

Stuffed Baked Potatoes

I made my way home this past weekend to run the BC Cross-Country Championships, my first race in a while. I ran at Jericho Beach, which is beautiful, I highly recommend taking a walk along the beach if anyone ever takes a trip to the area. Its surrounded by mountains and you can see downtown Vancouver across the water...it always makes me realize why Vancouver is considered one of the most beatiful cities in the world. The race went well, I got 3rd, but there's still alot of work to be done before I get to Nationals in a month.

The entire trip to the race (at least it felt like it), my parents talked about this place they wanted to take me too once I was done. Now that they have sold their business, they finally have the time to go downtown and spend their days exploring new areas. Well I can tell you that all of the fuss about they made was justified...they found this little place called Mr. Kumpir that serves stuffed baked potatoes...with any toppings you can imagine to choose from. As awesome as a stuffed baked potato can be, it was that. They basically take a giant baked potato, scoop out the insides and whip it up with some butter and then top it with any three toppings you want...for $5!!. I got green onion, broccoli and bacon bits and ate the entire thing. I think you should all take a trip to Mr. Kumpir if you get the chance...and if not, try and make your own, its really easy.

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/14/1473463/restaurant/Robson-Street-West-End/Mr-Kumpir-Vancouver

This next part could be a little embarassing, but it happend so I'm going to tell. We walked to the little bakery next door called Beard Pappa's. Can anyone guess?...Cream puffs. They are apparently referred to as the "Cream Puff Kings" so I thought I might as well give it a try. The chain originally started in Osaka, Japan in 1999 and became so popular that its now in Canada and the US. They have vanilla, chocolate and green tea flavored custard injected into the pastry and dusted with powdered sugar. I tried the vanilla. If your a cream puff lover then you will be in heaven.

http://www.muginohousa.com/index.php

This is where it gets embarassing...right next to Beard Pappa's was Big City Cupcakes. My mom loves cupcakes so we stopped...I'm going to blame it on her haha. I got carrot cake with cream cheese frosting...really good.

It was basically the day of overindulgences, but it was Halloween so it doesn't really count in my books. The area that we were walking around is called English Bay, just outside of Stanley Park. There aren't alot of houses in the residential areas, mostly appartments, condos and townhouses. I noticed when we were in Mr. Kumpirs that there were alot of parents walking with their kids dressed in costumes...what I soon realized was that the kids were all trick-or-treating in the stores. All of the stores in the area had their employees dressed up in costumes and had bowls full of candy to hand out to the kids...it was a great idea and not something that I had ever thought about before.

It was a great weekend, nice to go home, see my family and spend some time in the city. Can't wait until I get to go back again and explore some more.

Here's a recipe for stuffed baked potatoes. You can really add your own touches to it, I don't always follow a recipe...its pretty self explanatory, but this will be a good starting point.

Hint: if you want to speed up the process, I always cook the baked potato in the microwave instead of having to wait 45-50 min in the oven. It should be cooked until you can scoop out the insides.

Stuffed Baked Potatoes

4 large baking potatoes

4 tbsp softened butter

3/4 cup sour cream (add until the consistency and taste is right)

garlic salt or regular salt to taste

pepper to taste

1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese

2 green onions

Scrub potatoes and pat dry. Bake in 350 degree oven for 45-50 min or until cooked through and tender (or use microwave). Cut top 1/4 of potato off lengthwise; scoop out pulp into bowl, add butter, sour cream, salt and pepper and mash. Add cheese and green onions; mix again.

Pile potato mixture back into the hollowed shells. Sprinkle with additional cheese and/or paprika if you'd like. Brush shells with olive oil to have a crispy shell. Bake in 425 degree oven for 15 min or until cheese is melted and potatoes are heated through.

Enjoy.

-Anita