Prudent and Practical

December 18, 2009

Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Filed under: food — Tags: food, holidays — K @ 1:31 AM

If you need some ideas for Christmas baking, look no further!  For the next few days, I’ll be posting recipes to help you out!

This recipe is slightly altered from Post Punk Kitchen Blog’s recipe.  Their Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows recipe is wonderful!  I’m not a fan of chocolate cookies, but the peanut butter definitely makes them tasty!  The recipe is originally vegan, but can also be made with cow’s milk – vegan or not, the cookies taste the same.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pillows

Ingredients:

Chocolate dough:

  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
  • 3 tablespoons non-dairy or cow’s milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened dutch processed cocoa powder
  • 2 tablespoons black unsweetened cocoa or more dutch processed unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

chocolate pb cookies ingredients photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Filling:

  • 3/4 cup natural salted peanut butter, crunchy or creamy style
  • 2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar (I accidentally used regular and it still turned out fine)
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons creamer, non-dairy milk, or cow’s milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

peanut butter filling ingredients photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Instructions:

Make the dough: In a large mixing bowl combine oil, sugar, maple syrup, milk, and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Sift in flour, cocoas, baking soda and salt. Mix to form a moist dough.

chocolate dough photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Make the filling: In another mixing bowl beat together peanut butter, confectioner’s sugar, 2 tablespoons milk or creamer, and vanilla extract to form a moist but firm dough. If mix is too dry, stir in remaining tablespoon of milk. If dough is too wet knead in a little extra powdered sugar.

peanut butter filling photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. (Wash hands thoroughly…)

Create the centers/filling of the cookies by rolling the peanut butter mix into 24 balls.

peanut butter ball photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Scoop a generous tablespoon of chocolate dough, flatten into a disc and place a peanut butter ball in the center.

flattened chocolate dough photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

pb filling in chocolate dough photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Fold the sides of the chocolate dough up and around the peanut butter center and roll the chocolate ball into an smooth ball between your palms.

wrap chocolate around filling photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Place on a sheet of waxed paper and repeat with remaining doughs. If desired gently flatten cookies a little, but this is not necessary.

cookie on sheet photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

Place dough balls on lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart and bake for 10 minutes. Remove sheet from oven and let cookies set for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to complete cooling. Store cookies in tightly covered container. If desired warm cookies in a microwave for 10 to 12 seconds before serving.

These taste amazing with a glass of milk!

baked chocolate pb cookie photo 300x225 photo Christmas Baking: Chocolate PB Cookies

December 11, 2009

Christmas Dog Biscuits

Filed under: food — Tags: animals, food, holidays — K @ 2:32 AM

As you know, we make our own dog food, so it only makes sense to make our own dog biscuits.  After making and letting the dogs try out a few different recipes I decided on the following recipe, which the dogs lovingly know as “crunchies”.  The recipe is adapted from Bullwrinkle’s Peanut Butter Puppy Popper recipe and has the fewest ingredients of all the dog biscuit recipes I’ve seen.

To make the treats extra special for Christmas, I added in carob chips, just as you would for chocolate chip cookies.  Although they look like chocolate chips, they aren’t.  They taste like bitter cocoa, but they aren’t poisonous to dogs and they enjoy them.  Carob chips also do not melt on their own very well.  I wanted to make the treats last Christmas but dunk them in melted carob.  I had to add a lot of milk to the chips.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 cups milk
  • 1 cups peanut butter
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • Optional: carob chips

carob chips 300x225 photo Christmas Dog Biscuits

Instructions:

cookie ingredients 300x225 photo Christmas Dog Biscuits

thick cookie dough 300x225 photo Christmas Dog BiscuitsMix everything together – this is easiest with a stand mixer as the dough gets very thick.

cookie dough 300x225 photo Christmas Dog BiscuitsRoll out to 1/4-inch thickness and use a cookie cutter (I used a stocking shape, I’ve also used star, candy cane, and egg shapes)

dog cookies 300x225 photo Christmas Dog BiscuitsBake on a greased pan for 20 minutes at 375 degrees-F (or until lightly brown)

Cool and store in an airtight container.  These also freeze well.

If you’re interested in more recipes you can check out my food and recipes pages.  If you want to know what I’ve been up to this week, visit my front page!

I’m also participating in the following carnivals today!  You can find many more recipes here:

November 26, 2009

World’s Easiest Guacamole Recipe

Filed under: food — Tags: food, gardening — K @ 7:00 PM

A couple years ago I had a really bad experience making homemade salsa.  To make a long story short, it was late, I burned my eyes, burned my hands,  ruined 2 pairs of contacts, and had to wear glasses (which I don’t like) for a month..  I love homemade salsa, but since this incident, I’ve shied away from cutting hot or acidic foods.

Shortly after this incident, avocados and Ro-Tel were on sale.  I don’t know what prompted me to check out the can because I had never used it before.  A typical guacamole recipe contains tomatoes, chilies, cilantro, lime, onions, avocados, and maybe some spices like garlic, salt, and pepper.  Ro-Tel Mexican has all the fix-ins for guacamole except for the avocados… and thus began my recipe experiment!

World’s Easiest Guacamole Recipe

guacamole avocado rotel 300x225 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

2 avocados – peeled and mashed

smash avocado 300x225 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

1 can Ro-Tel Mexican – spoon into mashed avocados, until it tastes right to you.  You can drain the lime/spice juice or add in a little or lot, depending on what you like. Mix it up.

5 minute guacamole 300x225 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

Enjoy!

And now for the experiment part…

How to Grow an Avocado from Seed

Did you know you can take your avocado seed and grow it? Yep!  Mine is currently about one foot tall and starting to get woody at the bottom of the stem.  It’s taken about one year to reach this point, so it will definitely teach your kids about patience, as it did with me.  I truly am an impatient gardener!

Score the seed a couple times

avocado scored seed 300x225 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

Insert 3 toothpicks evenly spaced around the seed

toothpicks avocado seed 300x225 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

There’s a spot on the flatter side of the seed – this needs to face down

avocado this side down 300x225 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

Place the seed spot-side down at the top of a glass filled with water.

avocado seed in water 300x225 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

Let it set.  When the water gets murky, pitch it and get fresh water.  (Or you can use bits of charcoal).  In 2-6weeks, you’ll get a root!  (Mine took about 1 month.)

At this time you can plant it in a pot and let it take off!  When it reaches 1 foot, pinch it back to 6-8 inches.

avocado seedling 225x300 photo Worlds Easiest Guacamole Recipe

If you want more information, be sure to check out the Garden Helper, who is the one who gave me the idea to try this out.

Have you planted any unusual seeds (from food or otherwise)?  Did it grow?

If you’re interested in more recipes you can check out my food and recipes pages.  If you want to know what I’ve been up to this week, visit my front page!

I’m also participating in the following carnivals today!  You can find many more recipes here:

November 25, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

Filed under: food — Tags: food, holidays, meal — K @ 5:25 PM

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Things I’m thankful for:

  • God – for all that He has given me.
  • My husband – who supports me and my adventures.
  • A roof over my head and a husband who has a stable job.
  • My family for being there for me.  My dad especially has spent so much time, energy, and money, helping us out.  He makes the two hour drive to help us haul things and take lawn “trash” to the local compost heap.
  • Creativity – from myself, D, and other bloggers.  How would we get our house redecorated without creativity?  There are so many inspirational people out there.
  • Music – it gets me through the day and makes for some fun moments with D.
  • Independent contracting – the mystery shopping, auditing, merchandising companies I do jobs for, writing this blog, and online auctions.
  • Our 2 dogs and 3 cats for providing countless hours of entertainment (good or bad) and teaching us valuable lessons.

If you’re on here taking a break from cooking the turkey, don’t throw the turkey juice out!  Use it to make delicious and easy homemade gravy.

1 part butter (melt in a pot)

melt butter 300x225 photo Happy Thanksgiving 2009

1 part flour (when butter’s melted, stir in)

flour 300x225 photo Happy Thanksgiving 2009

8 parts turkey broth (when butter/flour gets thick, stir in a small amount of broth until thickened, repeat until all broth is used)

butter flour roux 300x225 photo Happy Thanksgiving 2009

broth 14 pound turkey 300x225 photo Happy Thanksgiving 2009

whole wheat turkey gravy 300x225 photo Happy Thanksgiving 2009

If you need concrete numbers instead of a ratio:

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 2 cups broth (I got about 2.5 cups from a 14 pound turkey)

mashed potatoes gravy 300x225 photo Happy Thanksgiving 2009

November 19, 2009

Ms. Jill’s Olive Chip Dip

Filed under: food — Tags: food, holidays — K @ 11:58 PM

Jill moved in two houses away from my parents when I was in fifth grade.  She has a daughter who I used to babysit and tutor and our families spent a lot of time together doing fun things.  Jill is creative, a go-getter, and an awesome chef!  If I remember right, she used to have her own catering business.

I don’t have a super special story to go with this recipe.  I had finished babysitting for the day and my younger sister came over to play.  Jill pulled out a bowl of chip dip and said, “Try this.  Can you guess the flavor?” :-)   What was it?!  It was so familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it!  “It’s olives!” she said.  During this stage in my life, I was “baking” about every other day, so I ran home to make this recipe myself.  I can’t remember how it ended up on the holiday menu, but it did, and now it’s a Thanksgiving tradition.  My grandpa mistakes it for a salad every year and eats it as-is!

If you’re interested in printing this off, I’ve created a PDF version for you.

Olive chip dip - yum!

Olive chip dip - yum!

Ms. Jill’s Olive Chip Dip

Ingredients:
1 large tub of cream cheese at room temp
5.75 oz. jar green Spanish olives – chop or slice
½ C sour cream
½ C real mayonnaise – do not use Miracle Whip or similar!
½ C chopped pecans
2 tsp olive juice
Directions:
Put cream cheese into bowl and then mix in all other ingredients. It’s useful to use a blender. Refrigerate for a few hours to allow for the blending of flavors.

This recipe goes well with:

  • Crackers – Ritz and Triscuits especially!
  • A slice of bread

If you’re interested in more recipes you can check out my food and recipes pages.  If you want to know what I’ve been up to this week, visit my front page!

I’m also participating in the following carnivals today!  You can find many more recipes here:

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