I found this recipe years ago on this blog. This recipe for cup o' brownie is adapted from Donna Hay's book, "New Food Fast." I have had this recipe saved in a special spot in one of my recipe notebooks for years, with the plan of making this recipe soon, and just got around to it a couple weeks ago.
We had company for dinner, our son, and I wanted to make a little something that I could mix up quick and pop in the oven before we sat down for dinner. I got off easy that evening because dear hubby made a beautiful steak dinner with all the trimmings and all I made was this dessert! And, it very easy and it took minutes to make.
I used 6 ounce ramekins and this recipe made five small cakes. I let them sit for a few minutes and then squirted a blob of whipped cream on top. As you can see from the picture, there wasn't much overflow room. If you had a little extra room in your "cup" a spoonful of vanilla ice cream would be really good too!
I seem to have lots of pictures of food, but not enough time get them posted. I am going to try to catch up with myself before the holidays hit.
I found this recipe last month at Sweet as Sugar Cookies. I made a couple small changes and yum, they were good! I knew I had to make them because they had peanut butter! They mix together in a flash and 25 minutes later, Oh, they were good! I would say they tasted more like peanut butter fudge when they were fresh from the oven. That isn't a bad thing! They were very good! Actually, most of them are still in the freezer. If you enjoy/like/love peanut butter, you will be crazy for these. Make sure you don't over bake them.
It is amazing to me how quickly the seasons change here in the Northwest. The evening temperatures have dipped into the 40's within a week. As I was driving home along my regular route a day ago, I saw the leaves were just starting to turn red, orange and yellow! This past week, the house has been cold in the morning and throughout the day. When dear hubby would come home in the evening, he would comment on how cold the house was and encouraged me to turn on the heat, don't be cold. Well, I decided that I would wear my clothes in "layers" to stay warmer. After all, the thermostat said 66 degrees and in the summer that would feel great, right? I decided that if my doggies could take it, so could I! The day the dogs huddle together, shivering will be the day I turn on the heat! Well, today it happened. I had to turn the heat on! No more cold hands and drippy nose for me!
Buddy and Lucy trying keeping each other warm
When the outside temperatures go down, it's nice to warm the tummy with a warm meal, especially soup, stew and chili. It just doesn't enter my mind to make stew in July or August. A warm meal from a bowl sounded good, so I looked in my pantry and saw that I had 3 types of white beans, a great starting place. Next, I Googled white bean chili and started reading recipes until I found one that sounded the best. I used this recipe from food.com as my starting point and adapted it to suit our taste.
I used more spices because we like our chili spicy and I just can't seem to get enough of the Mexican oregano! I also used the three white beans listed on the recipe because I had them in the pantry. I also added a jar of La Victoria Salsa Verde because I didn't have diced green chilies. It really added a lot of great flavor. I served our chili with grated Monterey Jack cheese sprinkled on top and some cornbread on the side. I planned on freezing half of it for another time, but we enjoyed it so much, we ate it a couple nights until it was gone. Besides, we love leftovers! Most soups, stews and chili's taste better the next day! It's also like having a night off; no dirty pots and pans to clean up and dinner is on the table in less than 10 minutes (with the help of the microwave)!
Our daughter and her family stayed with us for a few days before they moved north, which was very nice for us. It was great having them real close before they moved away. It's a mom/gramma thing! One of her family's weekly excursions is a trip to Starbucks for "coffee" and blueberry scones, so I decided to make some scones that could knock Starbucks socks off!
Let me say they were amazing! We all enjoyed them very much. I had to hide two of them in the cupboard so my son-in-law and dear hubby could enjoy one the next morning. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of them, but the great recipe comes from "The Joy of Baking" blog and you can find the recipe for Blueberry Streusel Scones at this link. You should try them! They are so good! I will definitely make them again. My son-in-law told me they were the best scones he had every eaten, so of course, that made them extra special!
I found myself thinking about those scones several times after they were gone and considered making them again, but I decided it was mainly having our family staying here with us that made me think about them so fondly. Once I realized that, I decided I would wait until they were back for a visit before I make that recipe again. One thing for sure, all that thinking about scones made me decide I had to make a batch of scones. I had several bananas and peanut butter always sounds good, so I decided to make scones with banana, peanut butter and a few chocolate chips!
You can see little white chunks of bananas in the picture. I don't like to mash the bananas too vigorously because I like little bites of banana. I added crunchy peanut butter as the fat, but you can use creamy. As these scones began to develop, I made mental notes of getting the ingredient ratio right because it's all about getting the dough right; not to sloppy wet and not too stiff. Once you have the ingredients mixed together, you don't want to over mix them because that will make them tough as rocks! They turned out even better than I had hoped or expected. They are so easy and very fast to put together. I'm not going to call them super "healthy," but they don't have butter or cream which is a staple in most scones and they are certainly healthier than many others I have made! :-)
When dear hubby came home and saw them on the counter I told him they started out as scones and ended up more like a big cookie, which puts them somewhere between a scone and a big cookie, so I am calling them "skookies."
I put them in the freezer the same day and it has been nice to take one out to enjoy every couple days. They are still very moist and are just as good straight out of the freezer. I have tried very hard to wait until they are completely defrosted before taking a nibble but, alas, I don't think I have managed to do that yet!
