Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats... with Chocolate

Oh boy. Not healthy. Too easy. Really fast. At least they are perfect to share! There's not too much to say about these. If you like Rice Krispie Treats (and really, who doesn't?) and peanut butter, and chocolate, you'll dig these. Like a crispy peanut butter cup, but cut to your own specific size needs. That's about all you need to know. Make them. Love them. Enjoy treat karma and share them.

The base of this recipe is just straight up Rice Krispie Treats, but I decreased the butter, added peanut butter and on top, added quick melted chocolate that cools to a nice mess-free hardness. It's the same thing I like to do with these zucchini brownies.

Peanut Butter Rice Krispies Treats with Chocolate
Preheat oven to 200 degrees
Butter a 9x13 glass baking dish

6 cups Rice Krispies
40 large marshmallows (about 10oz or 4 cups)
2 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips

Measure out Rice Krispies and set aside in a large bowl. In a pot large enough to hold all of the ingredients, including the Rice Krispies, melt the butter and peanut butter. Add in the marshmallows and melt everything together stirring constantly.

When the marshmallows are nearly melted, add in all of the Rice Krispies and stir gently to combine.

When everything is evenly combined, pour everything into the prepared pan. I like to lightly spray my hands with cooking spray, or rub a little butter into my palms and then press down the cereal mixture to even it out a bit.

Sprinkle about a cup of chocolate chips on top of the cereal in the glass pan. Pop the pan into the warm oven for about 5 minutes. When the chips are soft and starting to melt, take the pan out and spread the chocolate over the top of the Rice Krispies treats. 

Let the treats cool completely and enjoy!!

Things made this time last year...

Charred Artichokes

 

Dijon Vinaigrette Potato Salad

Things made this time two years ago...

Pappardelle with White Truffle Butter

Pizza and Bread Sticks

Coconut Cookies with Chocolate Ganache

I am cookie challenged. I can bake up a storm, and I have a good handle on pie crust, but when it comes to cookies, I can make a disaster out of few good ingredients. These Twix cookies are a good exception to the rule, but when my son needed Valentine's Day treats, my poor husband ended up at the market close to 9pm as I scraped what looked like chocolate brittle off a baking pan. Anywho, these little gems are perfect and SO easy! Crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside. 5 ingredients and 30 minutes and voila - gorgeous little cookies!

Coconut Cookies with Chocolate Ganache - adapted from Donna Hay
Makes 12 cookies and 1/3 cup chocolate ganache
Preheat oven to 350

For the Cookies
1 7oz bag sweetened flake coconut
1/4 cup of sugar
1 egg white

For the Chocolate Ganache
1/3 cup chocolate chips
2 tablespoons heavy cream

In a medium sized bowl, mix all cookie ingredients. The coconut mixture will be loose and seem kind of dry. Roll a tablespoon at a time in your hands until the coconut sticks together. All of a sudden it will seem much more wet. Place the ball on a parchment or silpat covered baking pan and press the ball to flatten it. 

Bake cookies for 15 minutes and then flip carefully. Bake another 3-5 minutes until golden and toasty all over.

While cookies bake, make the Chocolate Ganache. In a small pan, heat 2 tablespoons of heavy cream until steaming, but not quite boiling. Turn off heat and add in chocolate chips. Let the chips sit in the hot cream for at least two minutes and then stir to melt. Let the chocolate cool until warm.

When the cookies have finished cooking, let them cool on the baking pan and dollop on the chocolate. Let the chocolate cool and enjoy!!

A few things about this recipe...
The original recipe calls these cookies macaroons - but I'm not able to make them thin enough sandwich. 
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't! Some slivered almonds on top of the chocolate is amazing. 

Things made this time last year...
Pecan Crusted Salmon - oh my goodness this is good!

 

Bacon and Cheddar Quiche - breakfast, lunch or dinner - awesome!

 

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce

It's a cake! It's a brownie! It's a truffle (the chocolate kind!) It's flourless chocolate cake!! (Please read that in an "It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Super Man!" voice.) This cake is really easy, it does take up a few pans, but the ingredients are minimal, the steps are easy, and the result is delicious and pretty - a great combo, especially as a company worthy dessert. I like this with a super quick raspberry sauce made from frozen (or fresh if it's summer) raspberries and sugar. The sauce looks great and tastes amazing. It's good over ice cream if you happen to run out of cake. 

Flourless Chocolate Cake - I don't know where I got this recipe... it's been years.
Serves 8
Preheat oven to 350

Cake
7 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons)
1 cup sugar, divided
4 eggs, separated
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons butter - 9 1/2 go into the cake, 1/2 tablespoon greases the cake pan
Optional for decoration...
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 tablespoons powdered sugar

First thing to do is prep the cake pan. Spray the cake pan with oil, and then line with a circle of parchment. Generously butter the parchment paper in the pan and set aside.

Next, melt chocolate and butter in a double boiler or in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. Chocolate is easier to melt with butter added to the mix, but don't over heat too quickly or it will turn into this weird drying-glue business and there is not recovering from that. So anyway, heat slowly and stir regularly.

Prep the eggs by separating them - yolks in a large bowl, with 1/2 cup of sugar, vanilla and salt. Whites in a separate bowl and set aside. When chocolate and butter is melted, take it off the heated water bowl to cool a bit and beat eggs and sugar until pale and smooth.

Temper the egg mixture with about a 1/4 cup of melted chocolate and start stirring the mixture together. Quickly stir the chocolate into the egg mixture and set aside.

Next beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Then add 1/2 cup of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.

Fold the egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture. Fold gently to keep the egg whites frothy.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 350 for 40 minutes, checking at 35 minutes. A toothpick or knife inserted in the middle should come out clean.

This cake will be puffy with a crispy shell that will start to fall in on itself as it cools. Press a cutting board over the top of the cake pan to smooth the edges.

When the cake is cool, flip onto a cake plate and dust with a mixture of powdered sugar and cocoa powder. It tastes good, it covers up any glitches and it looks so pretty!

Raspberry Sauce
1 cup raspberries - frozen or fresh
1/3 cup sugar

Simmer raspberries and sugar over low heat until the berries are all broken down and the sugar is melted. Keep simmering until the sauce has thickened to like maple syrup - about 5 minutes. 

With a mesh sieve, strain the sauce, pressing all the raspberry goodness out with a rubber spatula. Or, if you like seeds, keep them. In a pinch, heat a nice pre-made jam over low heat until it's saucy. 

Spoons sauce onto a plate and place the cake on the sauce. YUM!!

I had fun taking pictures of this cake. :)

Things made this time last year...
Creamy Polenta with Sausage and Mushroom Ragu - cold evening, 30 minutes, awesome.

 

Flavored Kale Chips

Chicken and Curry Kebabs and Carrot and Zucchini Fritters

Easy Cinnamon Rolls

This is my favorite cinnamon roll recipe... but it wasn't always. The book I found it in had an error. Like a big error. Like missing 2 cups of flour error. The picture got me though, and I kept making these, tweaking each time and finally landed on the extra two cups of flour. This is Nigella Lawson's recipe. I love her, and her frothy, voluptuous, candlelit show. She's gorgeous. She's British and therefore wonderful. In my humble opinion, she's missing two cups of flour.

 

These really are easy. Start to finish these take less than 2 hours. And they aren't too sweet. They are not frosted. In fact, they are healthy. These are a smart choice. Like I said, I've made these a million times, but this time I thought I'd mix things up to get 3 sorts in one recipe. I added chopped chocolate (WIN) to a third of the dough and chopped apple to another third (needs refining) and left one third OG (AWESOME.)

I'll totally try the apples again, but I will use less chopped apple and will arrange things in the pan more strategically.

Cinnamon Rolls - by Nigella Lawson

Makes 15-20 rolls

Preheat oven to 450 and line a 9x13 baking dish with parchment paper

For the Dough

6 cups all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons instant yeast

1/2 cup butter

1 2/3 cups milk (I used whole milk)

2 eggs

For the Filling

1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 egg, beaten for glaze

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt and yeast. In a measuring cup, melt butter and add milk and whisk in eggs. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture.

Knead dough until smooth and springy, about 7 minutes in a stand mixture fitted with a dough hook. A bit longer if kneading by hand. 

In a warm spot, let dough rest for 25 minutes. (We keep our house pretty cold, so to rise bread, I microwave a hand towel or hot pot holder and let the dough rise sitting on the warmed fabric in the microwave. I do not microwave the dough!)

While the dough rises, mix together the filling. And chop apples and chocolate if using. (I used a cup of chopped apple and a cup of chopped chocolate. I will cut these amounts in half the next time I do this.)

Roll out a small hunk of dough - about 1/6th the total dough and place this in the bottom of the parchment lined pan. This will form the bottom of the rolls so the cinnamon goodness doesn't leak out.

With the rest of the dough roll a VERY large rectangle, about 24 inches by 16 inches and spread the entire thing with the butter and cinnamon mixture. The coverage will be thin, but it's OK.

Spread apples and chocolate along a long line, if using, and roll up from the short side to have three different types of rolls or along the long side to have one type of rolls, each with three flavors. Slice into sections about an inch to an inch and a half wide. Place each roll in the lined baking dish and bush with the beaten egg glaze. Let rolls rest for 15 minutes.

*If making three types of rolls, place the plain ones in the middle and surround them with filled rolls along the edges of the pan. Due to the added moisture and volume of the filling, the chocolate and apple rolls take longer to bake.

Bake at 450 for 20-25 minutes. These will be nicely browned and they will spring out of their rolls and look gorgeous. 

Things made this time last year...

Black Bean and Chorizo Bake - an awesome appetizer! 

 

Spiced Nuts and Bourbon Cocktails

 

Dark Chocolate Pecan Cookies

I love dark chocolate.  I ALWAYS prefer it to milk chocolate.  Not only is it better for you (contains antioxidants) but it has a more complex and rich flavor.  I try and use dark chocolate whenever something calls for milk chocolate.  70% cacao is my favorite but for this recipe I used Ghirardelli 60% semi-sweet dark chocolate chips.  I bet you can’t eat just one of these delicious little chocolate morsels!

I winged it with these cookies.  I love really soft cookies so I like to add a little crunch with nuts.  Pecans are my favorite nut so I chose to use these for this recipe.  Honestly, these were heaven for me – my favorite chocolate and favorite nuts in a cookie?  You can’t go wrong!  Let these cool slightly and then dip them in milk until the soaked portion is just about to fall off.  Yummmm….ummmm….can I make these again???  Now???  They’re delicious.

Dark Chocolate Pecan Cookies

¾ c granulated sugar

¾ c packed brown sugar

1c butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

2 ¼ c all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ c pecan pieces (or more if desired)

½ dark chocolate chips (or more if desired)

Heat oven to 375F.

Gently whisk egg in a small bowl.  In a stand mixer bowl, combine sugars, butter, vanilla and egg. 

Tip: Softening of butter is a very important step in baking cookies (and many other baking recipes).  Butter that’s too cold makes cookies hard and butter that is too melted makes cookies spread too much when cooking.  For best results, let butter stand at room temperature for 30-60 minutes prior to use.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl.  Stir to combine.  Carefully add flour mixture to butter mixture with mixer on low.  Add nuts and chocolate chips.

Drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet using an ice cream scoop. 

Kitchen tool: Use a Size 16 spring-release ice cream scoop.  Scoop dough and run the scoop against the side of the bowl to ensure the same size cookies every time.  The spring allows for easy release of the dough onto the cookie sheet.  This is what mine looks like:

Bake 12-14 minutes or until light brown (center will be soft).  Cool cookie slightly and then place on a wire rack.

Serve with milk!  This recipe made 16 cookies. 

Zucchini Brownies

World War Z. Not to be a spoiler, but it's about zucchinis and how they take over the world. Brad Pitt is amazing, but he's helpless against the zucchini invasion. Basically, it's an epic drama. 

So just like last year, we have a little veggie patch at home, and a little veggie patch in a community garden. You would think that I would know by now, two veggie patches with zucchinis in both means overwhelming zucchini, but when spring is drizzling it's way through the Pacific Northwest zucchinis are somehow optimistic plants to me. I heart them. So I possibly, maybe, could be, over plant them. C'est la vie. I learn to make things like Zucchini Brownies. Awesome. Brad Pitt, THIS is how you save the world.

These DO NOT taste like veggies. They only taste wonderfully of rich chocolate and they are super moist and really delicious.

Zucchini Brownies - adapted from Kitchen Treats
Preheat oven to 350
Grease a 9x13 baking dish

2 cups flour (I split mine 50/50 whole wheat and white flour)
1/2 cup cocoa
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 vegetable oil
2 1/2 grated zucchini
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips (divided)

In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, salt, baking soda and sugar. Mix until everything is combined. Stir in vegetable oil and vanilla. The mixture will look dry and crumbly.

Then mix in the zucchini. Its kind of hard to get this going, and I used my hands a bit, but all of a sudden the zucchini releases all it's water and you finally have brownie batter! Once incorporated, stir in 1 cup of chocolate chips.

Pour mixture into the prepared baking dish and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted towards the middle comes out with just a few crumbs on it.

While still piping hot, and while the oven is still hot, sprinkle the remaining cup of chocolate chips on top of the brownies. Pop the dish back in the oven for 1 minute. 

Remove the brownies from the oven. Spray a rubber spatula with cooking oil and gently spread the chocolate over the brownies. This makes and awesome and chocolate faux frosting. 

Let the brownies cool completely and enjoy!

A few things about this recipe...

Like I said, it doesn't taste veggetably. It's just good!
Since there is no egg in this recipe, if you're a fan of gooey, undercooked brownies, this recipe is for you.
These were almost truffle-like the first day, they were so moist! The second day our house liked them even more!

Made this time last year...
Peach and Raspberry Crisp

Chicken Milanese

Enjoy!!

PS - I have not seen World War Z. I don't think it's really about zucchini.

Chocolate Mug Cake

This is a recipe I kind of wish I didn't know how to make. This is too fast, too easy and too yummy. I learned this recipe when I was a brand new mama, desperate for a treat and trying to get a shower, meal, laundry and my own nap into my tiny gentleman's sporadic nap time. A bit of googling, a few trials and errors and a few more successes, I have a tiny bite of cake ready in less than 2 minutes. Fabulous!

Chocolate Mug Cake - adapted from Budget Bytes
2 tablespoons flour
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt 
1 tablespoon chocolate chips
1 tablespoon full-fat yogurt (or sour cream)
2 tablespoons milk (I use whole milk)
Raspberries and powdered sugar if you're fancy

In your mug, mix together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, salt and chocolate chips. Then mix in yogurt and milk. Stir until the mixture is smooth. Scrape down sides and microwave for 50 seconds. Eat. Marvel at the magic that you just made a tiny cake in 50 seconds. Relax.

A few things about this recipe...
Sprinkle with powdered sugar and a few raspberries if you want. Or top with frosting if you have any hanging around.
It's not too sweet. If you want it sweeter, add another teaspoon of sugar. 
This is only 185 calories. Awesome. 
An excellent twist is to put a dollop of peanut butter in the middle of the batter before microwaving. Awesome. 
You can swap in a tablespoon of coffee for one of the tablespoons of milk. Also awesome.
Since the investment of time and money in this recipe is close to zero, I feel great experimenting with this tiny bit of dessert.

Enjoy!!

Made this time last year... Lettuce Wrap Salad and Chicken with Balsamic Peppers