Peanut Butter Bites

This is the second of the two new cookie recipes I tried for cookie exchanges this year. I was particularly attracted to this Peanut Butter Bites recipe because it involves Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (mini). How could you go wrong when Reese's are involved? Yes. This was my theory, and it turns out I was right. The recipe is basically a light peanut butter cookie - I say "light" because it isn't quite as heavy as a regular PB cookie - with half a mini Reese Cup in the middle. Here are some pictures from the making of these gems.

The dough doesn't really spread at all, so I was able to fit quite a few cookies on each cookie sheet. So, you should know that however they look going into the oven is pretty much how they'll look once they're cooked .


Peanut Butter Bites right out of the oven.

I decided to take a picture of one of the cookies cut in half, so you can see what I mean when I say there's a peanut butter cup on the INSIDE :)

DELICIOUS!!!

And the final picture I took was of all the cookies ready to be taken to the cookie exchange. There are actually a little over 3 dozen cookies in the dish even though it doesn't look like very many.

I really liked this recipe because it was super easy to follow, called for ingredients that I had readily available(except for the mini Reese Cups), and incorporated one of my favorite food combinations - peanut butter and chocolate! The cookies were a hit at the party. So, if you want to make these I have only one warning for you: be sure you have an event to take them to otherwise you may gain a few unwanted pounds within a couple days because these cookies are irresistible!!

Mint Crinkles

This year I was invited to 2 cookie exchanges. Until this year I don't think I had ever even HEARD of a cookie exchange, but I was excited nonetheless. For the second party I needed to bring 2 different kinds of cookies, so one of the cookies I chose to make are called Mint Crinkles. You can find the recipe here.  I needed to make 3 dozen of these cookies, so I doubled the recipe.
The very first step in the recipe requires you to melt little mint candies (like those little Andes mints).

These aren't quite melted, but don't they look delicious?

The part about "let the candies cool for 15 minutes" - yea - they mean that. I touched the chocolate after about 8 minutes and nearly burned by finger. I don't suggest you try that at home.
Anyway, here's my dough ready to be chilled for 3 hours.

Being the genius that I am I left my spatula in the dough and I didn't cover the dough with anything while it was in the refrigerator. It turned out fine, but next time I think I'll cover the dough with plastic wrap so the top doesn't dry out.

The first batch of cookies I made the were a little too big - they ended up running into each other. They also didn't "crinkle" as much as they should have because I used too much dough.

Oops!

Luckily, the second batch turned out much better even though they weren't all the same size.

The cookies turned out well and were pretty good. If you like mint flavored things these are definitely the cookies for you!

Curtains - Take One

This past summer I decided I was going to make curtains for every room in the house. I decided I would start with our living room, so I went to the fabric store, chose a pattern, chose some fabric, and came home. At the time I was in the middle of working on my quilt and wanted to hem another set of curtains before I started on this set, so curtain making kind of got put on the back burner for a bit.
Then my mom came up in early October (or was it September?) and helped me pick out lining for the curtains. After she left she asked about how the curtains were coming along every time we talked on the phone - unfortunately, every time we talked (until very recently) I had some reason why I hadn't started them. I finally got around to cutting the main panels a week or two before Thanksgiving. Even just cutting the panels took a good bit of time because I don't have a large workspace. Anyway, I took the panels home over Thanksgiving for a little help from my mom.
The pattern I bought was pretty confusing. They assumed I had a lot more sewing knowledge than I actually have - and I don't feel like I'm a novice. Alas, my mom helped me figure out what I needed to do in order to get these things done.
So, fairly soon after I got home from Thanksgiving I began piecing these suckers together. I sat down one night and began working on the tabs for the top of the curtains. Making those darn tabs is going to take a long time. I completed about 8 tabs in one hour - I still need 24 more :-/
Here are a few pictures of the progress I've made so far...

The first 8 tabs after they'd been cut, sewn, inverted and ironed.

While inverting the tabs I realized I should have left enough thread at each end to tie off the seam, so I had to be careful about holding the seams together. But it turned out ok - now I know to make sure to do that with the rest of the tabs.
I also had to iron the tabs so that the seam was in the center on the back of each tab. Here's what that looked like.

Sorry if the photo is a little dark - the only way I could get the seam to show was by not using a flash.

Anyway, now I have to seam together the main panel with the lining, iron that and then figure out how I want the tabs spaced before I sew them on. Making these curtains is going to take a lot more time than I originally thought it would. I'm fairly certain this will be my first and last set of curtains I ever make.
Since making those 8 tabs I haven't really had time to work any more on the curtains as I've been busy with getting ready for Christmas (a few recipes coming soon!) and getting through some remodeling we're having done on the house (posts about that soon, too!). But, I promised my husband I would make the curtains my priority as soon as the holidays are over - and now I've said it on the internet so I'll have to keep my word.

Organizing and Purging Old Food

Yesterday I woke up in the mood to clean. This was weird for me. I generally have to force myself to clean, but occasionally I just get into a mood where I feel like clutter is taking over my house and I just can't stand it for one more second! So, I started with the basement. We're having the carpet replaced in the basement which means everything has to come out of the basement - minus the couch (hopefully) and the pool table. We're replacing it with tile, so I think it should be possible to work around those.
I diverge.
Anyway, I set to clearing out all the boxes I have stashed down there, but I didn't want to get rid of them all because they're useful for shipping/wrapping things. And let's be honest 'tis the season for wrapping and shipping! So, I organized them a little better and moved them into the storage area under the stairs. I suppose that's where they'll stay until I can find a better place for them.
In the midst of this I realized we had a heaping pile of laundry that needed to be attended to, so I got started on that and was working myself into a frenzy going up and down the stairs finding random things that were out of place then figuring out where they should go. I almost let myself start on the front room, but that's a whole week's worth of sorting in and of itself, so I stuck with the rest of the house - something I could accomplish (for the most part) in one day.
Anyway, since we had just gotten home from Thanksgiving I desperately needed to go grocery shopping (I had let most of our staples run out before we left). So, I eventually took a break from organizing and ran to the store. When I got back and started putting away the food I realized the cabinet was getting full. This was crazy because we JUST had extra cabinets put in a few months ago. There's no way they could already be full! My husband and I don't eat THAT MUCH food. *Sigh* But apparently we ...errr...I BUY that much food and don't eat it... That's when I noticed all the expired food we had in our cabinets.
Since I was already in "purge mode" I started going through all the food in our cabinets and fridge and made a pile of everything that was expired. Sadly, the pile was pretty big. But, we have a lot more space in our cabinets now :)
I was also able to find a few items that are going to expire soon if we don't use them. So, I pulled them from the cabinets and put them on the counter so I can make sure we use them before they expire.
After the purge, I was curious what the oldest expiration date was. The oldest item I found was some ground Cayenne Red Pepper that expired July 28, 2006 . Sadly - that was not the only thing that expired in 2006 in our cabinets :-/
Does anyone else out there have any spectacularly old food sitting around in their kitchen?

Butternut Squash "Fries"

Since we're now fully into fall (it's sometimes hard for me to admit that summer is officially over) and that means we get to enjoy all the yummy flavors of fall. Butternut squash is one of my favorite parts of fall, and I have recently tried to find new ways to cook the squash. I had the idea to make "butternut squash fries" one day when I was reminiscing about how delicious sweet potato fries are - a sweet potato and a butternut squash aren't so different, so I figured I'd give it a shot.
I bought a butternut squash then peeled it and cut it into "fry sized" strips. I then put all the strips in a bowl and seasoned them with a little bit of olive oil, nutmeg, cinnamon and brown sugar. I then cooked them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes.
I served them up with some chicken for dinner and both my husband and I agreed that they were good enough to make again. The "fries" didn't turn out very crispy, so next time I'll either up the oven temperature or maybe I'll actually try frying them.

Sweet Potato Quesedillas

I got this recipe from my sister one Christmas when she gave me her "Casa G Recipes" cookbook. It's a cookbook she and her Jesuit Volunteer roommates made of their favorite recipes from their year serving in San Antonio. There are lots of great recipes in the cookbook. One of those is this Sweet Potato Quesedillas recipe.

Ingredients
1 1/2 C onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 T vegetable oil
4 C grated peeled sweet potato (you don't actually need to do the grating, I'll talk about this later)
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
generous pinch cayenne
1 C grated cheddar
8 tortillas
salsa, sour cream and whatever other "mexican" toppings you like

Recipe
Saute onions and garlic in oil.
Add sweet potatoes, oregano, chili powder, cumin, and cayenne.
Cook covered for about 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Salt and pepper to taste, remove from heat.
Spread 1/2 C filling and 2 T cheese on each tortilla.
Serve immediately or warm in oven.
Serve with "mexican" toppings.

When I (and my sister) cook this I don't bother to grate the sweet potato. That takes some serious effort and time and it makes quite a mess. Instead I just cook the sweet potatoes in the oven. I also just serve it up like a burrito (I'm not exactly sure why it has "quesedilla" in the name).  Here's are a few pictures from when I made this for my husband and I last week.

peeled sweet potatoes with garlic and oil
(my husband doesn't like onion, so I cook mine without)

Sweet potatoes with spices mixed in - ready to be served up!

My sweet potato "quesedilla." I usually have lettuce, tomato and maybe some black beans,
but we were headed out of town the following weekend so I didn't buy any new produce.

My husband didn't even complain that there wasn't any meat in the meal (although he did have some chicken wings after dinner)! Enjoy!

Quiche

A few weeks ago I had a couple friends over for lunch and decided to try my hand at making quiche. It's a dish I have always liked, but never tried to make. So, I went online and found this recipe. Although I didn't follow the recipe exactly, I made sure to keep the key ingredients (butter, eggs, salt, flower, and milk) and changed out the rest. For my friends I put in onion, ham, tomato and cheese (a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella). But, you can put in any combination of ingredients you like. When I cooked the quiche for dinner I put in potatoes, ham and tomatoes the first time and potatoes, ham and spinach the second time.

By the way - for the ham I just went to the deli counter at the grocery store and asked them to cut me 1 slice of ham as thick as they could cut it. One slice turned out to be nearly 1/2 pound. I took that slice and cubed it for the quiche each time, but you could always buy a ham or use of leftover ham or no ham at all (of course).
Also, I decided to serve the quiche with cinnamon rolls each time. We all know how much of a sweet tooth I have and just having quiche for dinner wasn't gonna cut it.

The spinach, ham and potato quiche before it went in the oven.

My favorite part of this recipe is that it doesn't require that you purchase or make a crust. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to turn out at first or if I would like it, but the flower sort of sinks to the bottom and makes a quasi-crust on the bottom of the pan.

This recipe will definitely go in the "rotation" of meals I cook because of how easy it is to make and because I can use random leftovers in it!