Peanut Butter Kisses

As you probably can imagine, this recipe gets it's name from the lovely combination of a peanut butter cookie topped with a Hersey Kiss.  These are also a simple cookie to put together.  I think the longest most laborious part of these cookies are unwrapping the Hershey kisses to place on the top.  Of course you could also just pipe some chocolate on top, but I like the way the chocolate kiss just melts slightly as they are baking.  These beautiful little cookies are just a nice Christmas twist on your typical peanut butter cookie.

Before baking...sugar coated and a Hershey kiss on top.

 Fresh from the oven.

 This recipe makes enough cookies for one bag of Hershey kisses.

Peanut Butter Kisses

1 cup butter

1 cup peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 bag Hershey Kisses, unwrapped

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Cream together butter, peanut butter, brown sugar and white sugar.  Mix until light and fluffy.  Once creamed add in the eggs, one at a time, vanilla and mix until incorporated.  Finally, mix in flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Refrigerate dough for about 30 minutes.  Remove dough from refrigerator and roll into balls and dip into sugar.  Place them on a cold cookie sheet.  Please a Hershey Kiss in the middle of each cookie and bake for about 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let stand 1-2 minutes to cool before moving to a cookie rack to cool completely.

Salted Nut Rolls

Salted Nut Rolls remind me of my mom.  She was always making these for when one of my cousins came to visit from out of town.  She knew he liked them and as they are so quick and simple, she loved to do this small thing for him.  It also is another of the Christmastime favorites and are a bit like the Salted Nut Bars that Pearson's of St.Paul, MN makes.This is a quick bar to make and it doesn't even require you to turn on an oven, but you do need your stove top.

Salted Nut Rolls

16 oz jar of dry roasted peanuts

3 Tablespoons butter

11 oz. bag peanut butter chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

10 oz. package of mini marshmallows

Grease the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch cake pan.  Pour 1/2 a jar of the dry roasted peanuts into the bottom of the pan.  In a medium saucepan, melt the butter, peanut butter chips and sweetened condensed milk over low hat.  Be careful not to let the mixture boil.  Once everything is melted, remove from the heat and stir in the mini marshmallows.  Spread this mixture carefully over the dry roasted peanuts in the bottom of the pan.  Pour the remaining peanuts over the top and press them in.  Refrigerate briefly (for about 15-20 minutes) and then cut into squares.  Makes one cake pan.

Seven Layer Bars

There are many variations in 7 layer bars, but this is the one my family has been making for as long as I can remember.  There are seven sweet layers piled on top of each other and then baked into caramel bar goodness.  Again this is a relatively simple bar to assemble and bake.  I think the challenge comes into play when trying to wrench the bars out of the pan since the caramel has successfully secured the bars to the edges.  These bars also freeze well, so you can enjoy them for weeks to come if you already have too many sweets in the house for the Christmas season.  You can also vary the ingredients if desired by changing up the nut to a walnut, peanut, hazelnut or almond.  The chips you can change for a peanut butter, cinnamon, or white chocolate chip.  Really, the possibilities for other combinations are endless.  However, in the spirit of Christmas past, this is how my family has made these bars, and to bring back sweet memories this is how I made them again this year.

Seven Layer Bars

1/4 pound butter

1 1/4 cups honey graham crackers, crushed

1 cup coconut, flaked

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup chopped pecans

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Melt the butter in a 9x12 inch pan.  Once melted remove and coat the bottom of the pan.  Pour the graham crackers in making sure to cover the bottom of the pan.  Sprinkle the coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips and pecans over the crust.  Finally, drizzle the sweetened condensed milk over the entire mixture.  Bake for 30 minutes or until everything has come together and the sweetened condensed milk is starting to look caramel colored.  Remove from the oven and let cool completely before cutting and removing the bars.

O'Henry Bars

This is one of my favorites to make and to eat.  The combination of oats, peanut butter and chocolate makes me sign.  This is also a bar which freezes nicely.  I used to eat these only frozen, but sometimes the oatmeal crust would separate from the peanut butter chocolate topping which would cause quite the dilemma...do I eat the chocolate only, but then what to do with the equally delicious crust?  Eat that along side or separately?  Not a terrible dilemma to have of course! 

These bars are many of the ones you can whip up pretty fast, so if they get eaten quickly you don't have anything to fear in just making more!  Plus, the chocolate peanut butter top is hard to resist!

O'Henry Bars

4 cups oatmeal

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 white sugar

1 cup of butter, melted

1 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350F.  Mix melted butter with the 4 cups of oatmeal, brown and white sugar.  Mix until well incorporated and pat into a greased 9x13 inch cake pan.  Bake this layer for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and cool.  While the oatmeal layer is cooling, make the chocolate peanut butter topping.  Melt in a saucepan the chocolate chips and the peanut butter.  Stir continuously so that chocolate does not burn.  As soon as the chocolate chips are almost melted remove from heat and continue stirring until smooth.  Pour this mixture over the oatmeal layer.  Let cool to room temperature.  Once cooled, place in refrigerator for about 30 minutes to set the chocolate in order to be able to cut into pieces.

Christmas is coming....and so are Christmas cookies and bars

Since Christmas is just around the corner, I thought I would take some time this year to bake up some Christmas cookies.  So in my pursuits of Christmas cookie and bar baking, I am going to have a Christmas cookie week of posts.  I will include cookies and bars I have been baking up for years.  These recipes are ones my grandma's, my mom and my aunt would bake and they are the ones I still turn to to remember Christmas past.  Since we don't have family nearby to share our Christmas cookies with, this year I am delivering them to coworkers and students to eat themselves into a lovely sugar coma.  So stay tuned, I am preparing the recipes and photos and soon I will post a bunch! 

Chicken Pot Pie Version 2

I have long been obsessed with a good chicken pot pie.  On this site I offer two...this one I am now writing about and another which I recently published (http://invitedtodinner.blogspot.com/2013/12/chicken-pot-pie.html).  These are two very different pot pies.  This one is not your regular, traditional pot pie.  First, it is topped with a biscuit crust instead of a traditional pastry topping.  Second, the meat portion of this pie is the main ingredient.  It also has a lovely cream sherry sauce which is added to the chicken so the flavor is unbelievable, but again not your traditional sauce.  I will have to make this a few more times to get used to the not your regular pot pie flavor.  Plus, I added a bit too much chicken so the portion was off a bit.  Another great thing about this is the it reheats well and the flavors continue to come together.  The biscuit is also very good and I really like the toasty crunchy bits.  This recipe is adapted from Pam Anderson's Perfect One Dish Dinners.

Chicken Pot Pie
1 cup chicken broth
1 can evaporated milk (you will use 6 oz.)
4 tablespoons butter, unsalted
2 large leeks, chopped as far up as the stalk isn't too firm (mainly the white and light green parts)
1 medium granny smith apple thinly sliced
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon rubbed sage
1/4 cup cream sherry
salt and pepper to taste
fresh parsley

Biscuit Dough
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
4 tablespoon unsalted butter, cold
1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400 F.  Heat chicken broth and evaporated milk for about 3 minutes in the microwave.  Heat 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add leaks and apples and cook until tender.  Remove from heat and set aside in a bowl with the shredded chicken.  Heat additional 2 tablespoons butter in the skillet.  Whisk in flour and sage.  Mix and then add the heated chicken broth and evaporated milk mixture.  Once the sauce thickens, turn off the heat and add the cream sherry and season with salt and pepper.  Stir this mixture and parsley into the chicken and leek mixture.  Adjust seasonings.  Pour mixture into a 9 inch pie plate.

For the biscuits mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cheddar cheese.  Mix in cold butter until small crumbs of butter appear. (I use my fingers.)  Mix buttermilk into dry ingredients until the dough just comes together.  Place biscuit dough over the chicken mixture in the pie plate.  It is sticky so I pulled it out in small bunches.  Bake until the biscuits are golden brown and the filling is bubbling, about 30-40 minutes.  Serve hot.

Serves 4-6

Pork Adobo

I had heard of pork adobo before making this recipe, but I didn't really understand what it was or the flavors involved.  When I was paging through Brought, Borrowed and Stolen by Allegra McEvedy, I found this recipe based on her travels in the Philippines.  Once I saw that it contained pork belly I knew I had to give it a try since pork belly is one of the most delicious things I have been eating recently.  I fell in love with pork belly when I first tried it in Hong Kong.  I didn't realize that fat could have so much flavor and literally melt in your mouth.  That being said I became obsessed with trying it again.  It is not something to eat frequently, but it is absolutely wonderful to eat if cooked well.

This is a very rich dish so a little goes a long way.  Also, because of the high fat content of pork belly, I would ration it out because it will melt in your mouth, but also is difficult on the stomach if you aren't used to eating a lot of fat.

This recipe serves 4 easily, but again because it is rich, serve it with plain rice.  A nice green salad would help balance it out as well.

This is the most delicious pork belly.  Make sure you cut it in small enough pieces to enjoy, but not become overwhelmed.  Also, when you cook it up you want it to be crunchy.

Pork Adobo

2 tablespoons peanut oil

5 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced

10 ounces of pork belly cut into chucks (I recommend 1/2 inch x 1/2 inch x 1 inch)

1 red onion, peeled and sliced (length shouldn't be more than 1.5 inches)

1 red pepper, cut into large bit sized pieces

1.5 inches of ginger, peeled and grated

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 cup white wine vinegar

4 tablespoons light soy sauce

3 bay leaves

about 10 peppercorns

salt 

Heat the peanut oil in a large skillet over a medium high heat.  Put in half the garlic slices, make sure they are covered and remove once they are golden brown.  These will be your garnish, but also balance out the rich flavors.  Blot the garlic on a paper lined plate.

Add the pork belly to the pan and let them cook for about 10 minutes or until golden brown.  Add cut onions, pepper, ginger and the rest of the garlic slices.  Mix it all together, cover, turn down the heat and cook for about 6 more minutes, stirring once or twice, until the peppers and onions are starting to softened.  Add the paprika and mix again.  Pour in the vinegar and soy sauce and about 1 cup of water.  Also add the bay leaf, peppercorns and some salt.  Turn up the heat to bring to a boil.  Turn the heat down again so it is simmering consistently.  Cook for about 50 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the liquid has thickened.  Remove from heat and sprinkle with the fried garlic before serving.