Recipe Review: Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars

First of all, let me just start this post off by saying that this are the most gooey delicious cookies I've ever made. Probably even better than these. And, what makes them so great? Besides being amazing, of course... They are the so simple to make! Two ingredients. Yes, you read that right, two ingredients!

I found this recipe on Pinterest one night, and knew I just had to try it. This recipe is from Averie at Averie Cooks has instantly become a favorite around here.

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I'm not going to go into details about how to make these delicious cookies, but you can check out Averie's step-by-step here. Just trust me when I say that you'll never need to know another cookie recipe again! People will seriously beg you to make these for your next get-together. And, you can keep the fact that they are so easy to make as your little secret. I promise I won't tell!

Oh, and by the way, we used regular cookie dough instead of gluten free, and they came out fine. Here's what ours looked like:

Not as good as Averie's picture, but don't let that fool you! They were still the best cookies to have come out of my kitchen oven - hands down!

I've made these cookie bars twice now, and both times they've turned out great. The hardest part? Waiting for the cookies to cool so that you can cut into them. But, if I'm being honest, we only wait maybe 5 minutes. We don't mind if the cookie is still ooey gooey and falling apart. Just means we grab a bowl, add a couple scoops of ice cream, and eat it all with a spoon. Yum!

I bet you're craving cookies now, huh? What's your favorite type of cookie? Normally I'm a sugar cookie kinda girl, but I think these may have officially converted me to the world of chocolate chips and peanut butter.

Recipe Review: Cinnamon French Toast Bake

Every year, I promise my AP students that I'll provide breakfast for them the morning of their AP exam. It was something that my AP English did for me and my classmates my senior year, and its something that I wanted to pass on to my students. Although my English teacher took us out to a restaurant the morning of our AP exam, I don't have that kind of money (not to mention there isn't a place large enough, or open that early in the morning, where I live now). So I bring breakfast to them.

Normally, the breakfast consists of donuts, fruit, granola bars, juice, and water. But this year, I had twice as many mouths to feed than I did in previous years. So, I was on the hunt for something that could be made on a larger scale, but still relatively cheap.

I found this recipe:

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Cinnamon rolls? Icing? French toast? Syrup? Perfect!

I made a total of 4 casseroles the morning of the AP exam. It was pretty simple and straightforward. The only thing I left out of the original recipe was the nuts. I pre-mixed the eggs, vanilla, cream, and cinnamon the night before to save time in the morning. Then, it was just a matter of cutting up the cinnamon rolls and assembling everything.

The kids loved it! Even in their sleepy, just-rolled-out-of-bed state, they had nothing but positive things to say about the casseroles.

I still provided bananas and apples for those students who were "carb conscious," as well as milk, juice, and water bottles. Overall, we only ate 3 out of the 4 casseroles. That was enough for each of the 70 students (yes, 70!) to have one helping. When I realized there wasn't enough for everyone to have seconds, I reserved the last casserole and shared it with the teachers in my building & department. 

This is definitely a recipe I'll use again! I think this might become my AP exam day tradition with my students. If you're looking for something sweet and filling, you will definitely want to try out this recipe.

Reese's Peanut Butter Cookies

I'm not one who normally watches the Food Network, but I've fallen in love with this show called The Pioneer Woman. Maybe you've heard of it? Or maybe you've read her blog? Anyways, what I love about her recipes are that they require common ingredients, are simple to follow, and are really tasty!

The other day I was watching her show and she made these tiny little peanut butter cookies with Reese cups plopped on top of them. I knew my chocolate and peanut butter loving husband would drool over them. The only problem? I didn't own a mini muffin pan which was required for the cookies. Then, miraculously, I was gifted two pans for Christmas. (Hmm.... I wonder if the gifter had an ulterior  motive?) And since the recipe only required 2 ingredients, it was easy to add them to our shopping list and wouldn't break the bank - especially when I picked up the chocolates in the 50% off Christmas section.

I'm not going to go into how to make the cookies (you can head over to Ree's blog for the recipe), but I still wanted to share photos of making them.

That's a lot of wrappers!

The photos were taken when I made the second batch. I think the first batch turned out much better, although I'm not sure what I did different. The second batch didn't come out as soft as the first - maybe I left them in too long? I may have cut the slices too thin too, which effects the puffiness of the cookies. 

Softness and puffiness aside, they were still delicious! We made this batch to take to our friends house to watch the Fiesta Bowl (Go Knights!!) and made an extra batch to leave with them for a certain someone's birthday (my friend's husband is as much a peanut butter and chocolate lover as my husband!). It was a big hit! Definitely think this is going to become a go-to recipe.

Have you tried any new recipes out lately? Did you find them through Pinterest (where I typically find mine) or on TV? I love finding new recipes to test out!

Recipe Resolution: Spaghetti and Breadcrumbs

I mentioned in the last installment of RR that I had made two new dishes in one night. So I'm finally back with the second dish that was made that night. 

THE RECIPE

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The original recipe is called Linguine with Garlicky Breadcrumbs, and you can find that recipe here. But the inspiration photo used whole wheat spaghetti, so I decided to go with that. We also made some slight changes to the recipe, but I'll divulge those details as we go through the process of making the pasta.

THE PROCESS

Step one: Gather your ingredients and start boiling the water. Follow the directions on the package of noodles for the right cooking time.

(please ignore the obnoxious hard water stains on the side of the pot...)

Step two: While the pasta is cooking, mix all of the other ingredients (minus the breadcrumbs) into a little bowl. Since we didn't have garlic cloves, I just used a little bit of garlic powder. And, instead of parsley, I used some Italian seasoning we had in the spice cabinet.

Step three: Once the pasta is done cooking, drain it. Pour the pasta into whatever dish you're going to serve it in. Then, pour the "sauce" onto the pasta and toss. Lastly, add the breadcrumbs and toss the pasta a little more. Now, you're ready to serve. We enjoyed our pasta with our pepperoni stuffed chicken.

MY THOUGHTS

This has seriously been the easiest recipe I've done to date for this little resolution of mine. And the flavor was amazing! We substituted pre-made lemon-pepper breadcrumbs rather than making our own breadcrumbs from stale bread; skipping this step made the whole process that much easier. And the combination of the breadcrumbs and the lemon juice was perfect. But, I think the next time we do this recipe, we'll try it with regular breadcrumbs (still pre-made of course) and see how they come out; mainly to see if it works with other types of breadcrumbs. 

THE HUBBY'S THOUGHTS

Considering both the chicken and pasta had the same lemon-pepper breadcrumbs on them, eating them in the same dinner made the lemon-pepper a little overwhelming. However, I think if it were served on its own, it'd be pretty good. The breadcrumbs gave the pasta an oddly nice little bit of a crunch.

Overall, I think we were both pleasantly surprised by how well the entire meal came out. Both recipes are ones that we'd make up again. I'm seriously dying to make up this pasta recipe - so quick, simple, easy, and full of flavor! What sorts of sauces/dressings do you add to your pasta to change things up? Is there a particular kind of pasta you stick with?

Recipe Resolution: Pepperoni Stuffed Chicken

I'm back with the April installment of Recipe Resolution. Yes, I know I'm a day late. But, I did manage to make two new dishes in one night, which will count not only for April, but May as well. One thing at a time though.

THE RECIPE

This time around, we tried another recipe that involved mozzarella and pepperonis (read more about our first round here).

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Doesn't that look delicious?! When I showed this recipe to the hubby, he got excited. And, surprisingly, we had most of the ingredients on hand already - just needed to pick up some more pepperoni (turkey pepperoni this time at the recommendation of the source) and mozzarella.

THE PROCESS

Step one: Start preheating your oven. Gather your ingredients. We decided to use boxed bread crumbs that we had in our pantry instead of making our own from day old bread.

Step two: Wash and trim your chicken breasts. I decided to follow the directions of the original recipe and cut each breast into two pieces. I found that it was a little tougher to create the little pocket for the mozzarella and pepperonis with the thinner pieces, but it all worked out pretty well. We each ended up eating one of the four pieces, and the hubby took the leftovers to work for lunch the last two days.

Step three: Stuff the pepperoni and mozzarella into each of the pieces of chicken.

Step four: Then, create your dipping stations. First the flour, then the egg wash (with a tiny bit of water), and lastly the bread crumbs. Be prepared to get your hands dirty!

Step five: Arrange the prepared chicken on the prepared baking sheet. We baked them for about 25 minutes. At that point, the chicken was fully cooked, but we felt like the bread crumbs needed a little bit more color on them, so we turned on the broiler on high while leaving the chicken on the middle rack. We did that for a couple minutes under close monitoring (broiling tends to burn things quickly in this household), and then pulled them out when we felt they were crispy enough.

Step six: Enjoy!

MY THOUGHTS
I actually think this recipe will become one of our favorites. It was super simple to make. Maybe 10 minutes of actual prep time? The flavor combinations were amazing! Something to note: our packaged breadcrumbs were lemon-pepper flavored. Although I loved the breadcrumbs themselves, I felt they were a little overpowering. I think next time we'll get simple breadcrumbs, or maybe garlic flavored. But overall, I'm giving this recipe two thumbs up!

THE HUBBY'S THOUGHTS
This stuff is good. Like the wife said, I think trying it with Italian breadcrumbs might be a better route next time.


Who would have thought to stuff chicken with cheese and more meat? Oh wait, there's this little thing called Chicken Cordon Bleu... But I'm telling you, this is much better and a whole lot simpler. What are your favorite chicken recipes? Any go-to-favorites? I'm already looking for our next new recipe for June.

Recipe Resolution Meets Challenge: Pizza Style Grilled Cheese

Welcome to all of the first time visitors who are here thanks to the Pinterest Challenge!

I'm really excited that I managed to kill two birds with one stone. How so? Well, not only did I test out a recipe from Pinterest for the Pinterest Challenge, but it also qualifies as one of my Recipe Resolutions. Some might call this cheating. I call it working smarter!

If you remember, one of my New Years Resolutions was to learn how to cook more things. Not only that, but to taste everything I make - which is a difficult thing for a picky eater like me. So each month, I've decided to make one new recipe (you can see my first two recipes here and here) that sounds good to both me and the hubby.

THE RECIPE

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I gave you a teaser last week, but here's the details. I pinned this image a while ago. You can find the original recipe at Forkful of Comfort.

THE PROCESS

Step One: Gather your ingredients. We decided to use some of our left over shredded Parmesan cheese from our roasted potatoes.

Step two: Start heating your panini press (or pan on the stove). While that's heating up, start buttering the slices of bread.

We noticed once we got cooking that we needed to turn the heat up a little bit more. That, and the hubby had it set to "griddle" instead of "grill."

Step three: Create your sandwich. Our layers were mozzarella cheese, Italian seasoning, pepperoni, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese. Once we tested one sandwich, the hubby came up with the idea to add some of the seasoning to the buttered sides of the bread.

You might want to make sure you have extras on hand for anyone who wants to snack...

Step four: Place your sandwich on the panini press and wait for the cheese to become melted and gooey.

Step five: Enjoy!

MY THOUGHTS

First of all, our sandwiches came out a lot more wimpy looking compared to the inspiration pictures... Maybe it's because our panini press smushed them down more?

If I'm going to be honest, I wasn't a fan. In theory, this sounded amazing. But once it was actually created, it didn't have as much flavor as I had anticipated. I think it has to do with the mozzarella cheese. Mozzarella is, in my opinion, a pretty bland cheese. It's great on pizza, but I think that's because the oven helps to crisp it, whereas it doesn't get that when laying between two slices of bread.

Also, I only put one layer of pepperoni on my sandwich, which didn't give a lot of flavor. But when the hubby layered more on his, it created a greasy mess (you can see the grease from his sandwich in the photo above).

I should also mention that the original recipe suggests that you dip the sandwich in pizza sauce. We opted not to do that because neither one of us are big fans of marinara sauce. Maybe that helps add flavor?

So, would I do it again? Probably. Why? Because the hubby really liked changing things up. I think next time I'll just use plain American cheese instead of the mozzarella. On the positive, it's cheaper that way! Also, we talked about using a different kind of butter to make the sandwiches. Our local Winn Dixie has this garlic bread spread that you use to make your own garlic bread at home. We think it might add a lot more flavor to the grilled cheese.

THE HUBBY'S THOUGHTS

The sandwich was good. Especially when we added the Italian seasoning to the bread - added more flavoring. Would really like to figure out ways to add more flavor overall to the sandwich. Oh, and 3 pepperonis is way too much! And don't forget to double check the settings on the panini press before you start.

So there you have it folks! One more recipe down. Only 9 more to go! Any recommendations to make this sandwich more flavorful? What sort of things do you like to add to your grilled cheese.

I'm linking this recipe up to the Pinterest Challenge: Winter Edition which is being hosted by these four lovely ladies.

They went above and beyond with their projects! Katie brought out her artistic side with a watercolor octopus. Sherry tested her love-hate relationship with sewing to make a bean bag for her Bean. Erin constructed an amazing mason jar chandelier. And, last but certainly not least, Cassie tried her hand at making faux antlers.

Also, at the bottom of each of their posts are a TON of links to other amazing Pinterest Challenge projects and creations.

You can find all of my Pinterest boards here. Leave a link to your Pinterest account or your challenge project below - I'd love to check it out!

Up for the Challenge!

IT'S BACK!! Can you tell I'm excited?! Yep, it's time for another edition of the Pinterest Challenge, dreamed up by the lovely Katie Bower (who by the way just announced she's going to be a mommy - again! Congrats!) nearly a year ago. Why? To inspire all of us pinners to get out from in front of our computer screens and actually start to do something with all of the inspiration that we find online.

In the fall edition of the Pinterest Challenge, I created my Solar Lights (minus the solar) which seemed to be a big hit. It's still one of the most read posts on this little blog. 

I searched and searched through my Pinterest boards looking for some DIY inspiration. But I didn't really see anything that jumped out at me this time around.

But, I did find a new recipe that I want to try. And according to Sherry (who is one of the hosts of the challenge), food creations are acceptable challenge entries. I say that like there's some sort of prize in all of this... 

So after looking over a couple of recipes with the hubby, he thought this one looked like the yummiest of the bunch:

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So, I'll be back Wednesday with all of the details and photos of the cooking process. I'm excited to try a new twist on an old favorite!

Anyone else joining in on the challenge fun? I can't wait to see all of the amazing projects that are going to be shared next week! Especially because it'll mean more things to pin for inspiration later! Wait...isn't that counterproductive to this whole challenge??? Oh well, and the vicious cycle continues!

A big thanks to the ladies who are hosting the Winter Edition of the Pinterest Challenge. Sherry, Katie, Erin, and Cassie! Can't wait to see what you guys come up with!!

Recipe Resolution: Parmesan Roasted Potatoes

I'm back with the second installment of Recipe Resolution. This little idea all started back around the first of the year when I made a resolution to try one new recipe a month. Why? So I could learn to make things that my hubby likes to eat that I don't. And it gives me the chance to try some new things.

While I was cruising through my Pinterest boards for pulled pork recipes for my first recipe resolution, I saw a bunch of potato recipes also pinned. I figured while the pork was in the slow cooker, I could keep myself busy and also cook up some potatoes.

THE RECIPE

So I found this pin featuring Parmesan Roasted Potatoes from Chicho's Kitchen. You can find the list of ingredients and recipe here.

THE PROCESS

Step One: Gather your ingredients. I typically won't mention this step, but I did want to mention that I misunderstood the original recipe. When it said "parmesan cheese" my mind went to actual shredded cheese. Now, I realize it probably meant the parmesan cheese from the green bottle.

Step two: Mix the cheese and spices into a bowl. I added salt & pepper to the recipe at this stage. Also, I mixed them all probably an hour before I ended up using them and just placed the covered bowl back in the fridge.

Step three: Cut the potatoes into bite size chunks. Because I wasn't a fan of how the potatoes were looking, I also opted to peel the potatoes first.

Step four: Drizzle potatoes with oil. Then combine with the cheese/spice mixture. Spread out on a baking sheet. This is the point where I realized that the cheese was probably wrong. The cheese/spice mixture wasn't sticking to the potatoes very well.

Step five:  Place in oven. After allotted time, pull out and serve hot.

MY THOUGHTS

I'll be honest, when I started to spread out the potatoes onto the baking sheet, I thought I had ruined it. And the worse part was that I knew our friends were coming over within the hour and expecting dinner. I was seriously about to throw in the towel and talk the hubby into ordering pizza on what was probably the busiest pizza night of the year (Super Bowl). But the hubby talked me into waiting it out. 

My biggest complaint was the amount of cheese that had overcooked on the baking sheet. Whatever was still attached to the potatoes themselves tasted fine. But it was annoying that there was that much wasted cheese that just burned during the cooking process.

Overall taste? Not bad. I typically have to dip my potatoes in ketchup or ranch when I eat them, but these I was able to eat without any type of sauce. They wasn't any one overpowering flavor that jumped out at me. All the flavors mixed really well. 

Would I do it again? Yes, but I would definitely try it with the other type of parmesan cheese. Obviously it would cut down on the amount of burnt cheese left on the baking sheet. But I also think it would create more of a crust. And I think I'll try it with the little golden potatoes (yukon golds, right?). I've done roasted potatoes with them before, and I didn't have to peel them.

THE HUBBY'S THOUGHTS

The only thing that I thought was kinda weird about the potatoes is that they came out really red. Too much paprika? The photos on the original recipe site weren't nearly as red as ours turned out. But overall they tasted good. Can't wait to try it with the other parmesan, and maybe a little less paprika.

So there you have it. Recipe #2 down. I have to say that I'm getting excited about the search for the next recipe. Who knows - maybe I'll get around to recipe #3 before the month is over. Then again, with how much is on my plate right now, I'm doubting that. But we'll see.

Anyone else a fan of roasted potatoes? Or maybe you fail to read/understand directions and make mistakes along the way? Luckily my mistake didn't turn into a disaster.