Peanut Butter Shortbread

I was given an opportunity by Mom Central and Food Lion to participate in a bake off blog tour.

I thought about what I wanted to present and instead of going with a family favorite I went with something new:

Peanut Butter Shortbread

The recipe is easy but delicious!

You can put these together in about 20 minutes.  Which makes them perfect for throwing together for a teacher's gift, or maybe for a holiday pot luck.

Ingredients

6 oz unbleached all purpose flour
2 oz sugar
4 oz smooth peanut butter
2 oz Earth Balance (or butter if you prefer)

Soften the peanut butter and Earth Balance in a bowl and add in your flour and sugar.

Stir until combined and then press into an 8x8 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes.

Allow them to cool completely and then top with melted semi-sweet chocolate.

I used 2 semi sweet baking squares melted in the microwave to top these treats.

Allow the chocolate to cool before cutting into squares.

Do you have a recipe that your family loves?

Food Lion is hosting a baking contest through November 28th.  Entries can be submitted here.

You can enter recipes into four categories:  Appetizer, Main Dish, Side item, and Dessert.  Twelve lucky grand prize winners will receive a $500 Food Lion gift card....that is a lot of food for the holiday time!

So get baking and submit your entries today!!!

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour for Mom Central Consulting on behalf of Food Lion. I received a promotional item to facilitate my shopping experience and review

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Scrummy Snack and a Winner

I religiously read Bit of the Good Stuff written by the very talented Sharon.

She lives on the other side of the pond, England, and beyond the content of her blog I love some of the words she uses...like scrummy.

So today I've included scrummy in my title because seriously it is a fantastically descriptive word.

My snack is simple yet built of my own desire.

I have read a few places about coconut peanut butter, and I thought "That sounds good."

I can't find the product here so I combined my two favorite items and made my own:

I toasted up some bread and smeared it on

The warm toast helps make the concoction melty and drippy (both techinical terms)

For a little added sweetness because I was needing it (my kids were stressing me out) I added some chocolate chips.

Oh the ooey goodness...please do yourself a favor and give this a try, I promise you will not be disappointed.

Plus while you are eating your sandwich head over to Bit of the Good Stuff and see what Sharon has going on.

What sort of snacks do you enjoy eating when you need something a little special?

Also the winner of the Crunchmaster Crackers giveaway is Tory.  Congratulations Tory Crunchmaster will be sending you a case of their delicious crackers.

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Inside Out Peanut Butter Cups

I know that is a super long title for what you will find is a super easy recipe.

At my house "treats" are welcome everyday all day.  For my daughter she would love it if I would allow her to have a treat first thing in the morning before she has had a decent breakfast.

To be fair the term treat has a very broad definition at my house.  It could range from granola to Larabar to the cookies and cake.  In this case the treat that I made was Inside Out Peanut Butter Cups in ball form.

Ingredients

1/2-3/4 C peanut butter
2/3 C powdered sugar
6 Tbsp Enjoy Life Mega Chunks

I started out with 1/2 of peanut butter (I prefer smooth but I am sure chunky would just add more texture to the ball) and added my powdered sugar.  As I started to mix the two I found that more peanut butter was needed and added an additional 2 Tbsp.  It was just enough to make the mixutre moist, but not sticky.

Next I poured in my Enjoy Life Mega Chunks. 

Ok I need a quick sidebar here.  For those of you who haven't seen these or haven't sampled these OMG they are delicious.

They look a little different in color then a traditional chocolate chip, but the flavor is immense and the size, well lets just say in this case that size does matter.

Once rolled up I got 12 out of this mixture (I am sure if you like small balls you could make more, but again size matters and I like them big).

I put these to my official taste tester panel

A thumbs up from both boys.  Unfortunately these didn't last long, but that's ok they are so easy to whip up that I can easily make more.

The flavor honestly is just like a certain name branded peanut butter cup...at least so says my husband the Reese's cup connoisseur.

“Mmmm, you’ll find tasty recipes like these in the HostelBookers.com Backpacker Recipe Guide.”

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Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread

That is a mouthful to say and when you try this bread you will want to get a mouthful.

I have been thinking about banana bread a lot, as it is a popular snack/breakfast/after lunch/after dinner/anytime snack at my house.

I make mine healthier, at least from my perspective, by making it vegan (recipe here).

However I thought there has to be a better...sort of dessert version that I could put together.

I love chocolate (more then just about anything) and the combination with peanut butter is often quite heavenly (yes we are still talking about food).  So I continued with this line of thought and decided I could eat those two things with bananas and have an excuse to have chocolate for breakfast.

Welcome the birth of Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Bread.

How do you make this deliciousness?  It is stupendously easy.

Ingredients

3 medium bananas
1 C unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 C cocoa
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 flax egg
1/4 C peanut butter melted
3/4 C sugar
1/4 C chocolate chips
1/4 C peanut butter chips

For starters get your flax egg prepared by combining 1 Tbsp ground flax meal and 3 Tbsp water. Whisk the ingredients together and allow to thicken.

In a separate bowl place your bananas, flour, cocoa, baking soda, melted peanut butter, and sugar.  Smoosh (yes that is a technical term) everything together with a potato masher.  I find the potato masher is a quick and easy tool to use so that you can combine everything in one bowl (less mess and less to clean up later).

Add your flax egg and continue to smoosh until all ingredients are combined. 

Stir in your chocolate and peanut butter chips. 

Pour mixture into greased bread pan and cook at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes.

Allow to cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before you try removing it (less chance of breakage)

And voila c'est magnifique (French for perfection).

Cut a slice and eat it plain as I did.  Look at all of the yummy melted peanut butter and the gooey chocolate chips.

If you want to kick up the peanut butter factor a notch you can top this with a slather of peanut butter for ultimate enjoyment (plus extra protein).

Be sure to enter my first ever giveaway here.  You have the chance to win this beautiful necklace from Ecolissa, a fair trade item, made by the women of Uganda who are part of Project Have Hope.

Get the Ingredients for My Recipe from Swanson Health Products:

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Hidden Inspiration

Yesterday my children we craving something sweet, and I am ashamed to say I only had chocolate chips on hand (yeah I know they are delicious, but not quite what the kiddos wanted).

So mulling things over in my head and trying to figure out what I wanted to make my husband says "Hey peanut butter banana cookies."  I thought maybe he was having a stroke, but no he was just reading the side of the banana bag.

Sidebar:  For purposes of saving money when I can I LOVE to purchase the big bags of "ripe" bananas from the produce section.  As luck would have it Lowes had organic bananas for $0.39 a lb (for $2.00 I got two of these large bags, one of which is currently in my freezer).

This is the side of the bag:

In case you can't read it here are the ingredients:

1 1/2 C all purpose unbleached flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 small banana (1/2 C)
1/3 C firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 C Earth Balance (softened)
1/4 C Organic smooth peanut butter (you can use crunchy...but I didn't have any handy)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

* for egg substitutes you can use a flax egg (directions here) or you can also take a tablespoon of silken tofu, whipped by hand.

Add all of the ingredients to a bowl

Mix these together, you can use a hand mixer if you like, I prefer a potato masher.

Once combined form into 1 inch balls by hand and place on baking sheet (covered in parchment paper or greased with cooking spray)

Take a fork and dips the tines in granulated sugar and make a lattice pattern on top of each cookie to flatten them out

Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees

These are not overly peanut buttery cookies.  I may have to play with the ratio of peanut butter in the future and possibly throw in some of those chocolate chips that I always have around.
For now though this is tasty and healthy little snack for anyone ages 1-100 (can't give peanut butter to children under 1).

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