Peanut Butter Chocolate Crispies

Move over, marshmellows...  There's a new Rice Crispy treat in town!

That's right, peanut butter & chocolate.  Looks and feels like Rice Crispy treats, tastes like Lil' Debbie's Nutty Bars.  Heck yes.

What do you need?  Five ingredients: brown sugar, blue agave, puffed rice cereal, peanut butter, and chocolate.

I went all Trader Joe's on this one, as I should have.  They are the ones who supplied me with the recipe after all.  Just another reason to love them.  Which I do... a lot.  Make these and you will love them a little more, too.  And with raw brown sugar, blue agave, and natural peanut butter, this is quite a healthy rice crispy treat.

Sure doesn't taste that way ;)

PEANUT BUTTER CHOCOLATE CRISPIES

Recipe from Trader Joe’s Crisp Rice Cereal

ingredients

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup blue agave                                                       
• 1 cup creamy peanut butter
• 7 cups crisp rice cereal
• ½ cup chocolate chips            *Leave the chocolate chips out to make it vegan

directions

1.      In sauce pan, mix brown sugar and agave.  Bring to an almost boil, stirring constantly, until brown sugar is melted.  Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter.

2.      In large mixing bowl, combine crisp rice cereal with brown sugar mixture.  Stir and add chocolate chips.

3.      Pour into greased 13x8 baking dish.  Press down with waxed paper.  Put in fridge for several hours to cool, or put into freezer for one hour. 

 COST: $5.89           COST PER SERVING (18): $0.33

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Brown Sugar Banana Muffins with Avocado Buttercream

Friends, I have turned a corner.

A baking corner.

I used to be terrified of baking.  TERRIFIED.  But the other day I did it, just for fun.  

No 'Sundays with Joy' recipe to tackle, no friends coming over, nada.  I was just sitting on the couch, about ready to mutter those ugly words of "I'm bored!", and decided to do something about it before that phrase could escape my lips.

Even before I flipped through a cookbook I thought about all of those delicious pictures I have pinned and repinned on Pinterest and decided to just go through, one at a time, until I found one that I had all the ingredients on hand.  After three recipes, I found it:  Brown sugar banana muffins with avocado buttercream from How Sweet It Is.

I know, mine didn't come out as pretty as hers.  It's OK.  I made avocado buttercream!  And it tasted good.  Once I got over the color being on top of a muffin/cupcake (which I must admit, is actually growing on me...) I decided I liked it.  A lot.

And so did my friend Myra.  She told me I had enough and took the rest of them home with her yesterday.  Proof that avocado plus sugar is a good idea.

Bananas & avocados.  Two fruit that stand in solidarity, side by side, yet nobody knew...

For the recipe, please visit How Sweet It is HERE.  And then you can laugh at how ugly my frosting looks compared to hers ;)

*She used sour cream, which I didn't have, so I used buttermilk -- which I also didn't have.  I actually 'made' it by mixing milk with a little bit of vinegar and a tad of melted butter.  As far as I can tell, it worked just fine!
** My batched yielded 12 muffins, so I cut the avocado buttercream recipe in half.

COST: $4.95    Cost per muffin (12): $0.42

Orange Glazed Chicken

A few nights ago I tried a new chicken recipe.  You know, I wasn't so sure it would turn out that great.  OJ concentrate with Worcestershire sauce -- among other odd ingredients -- just seemed a little, I don't know, CRAZY.  But the picture in Everyday Food just looked so good, so I needed to try.

Well...

we had it again tonight.  So, yes, it was good.  Very good.

I just did this recipe straight as the magazine said, except I did not use hot sauce.  Feel free to add it if you want, but trust me, it is good without.  Here -- I even found their video on how to make it to share with you at the end of this post.

ORANGE GLAZED CHICKEN

Recipe from Everyday Food, June 2012

Ingredients

• 8 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1 cup thawed orange juice concentrate
• 1 cup ketchup
• 2 tablespoons light-brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons white-wine vinegar
• 4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 teaspoons hot sauce

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees, with rack in upper third. Season chicken with salt and pepper and arrange, skin side down, on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until deep golden brown and cooked through, 45 to 50 minutes, flipping halfway through.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine 1 teaspoon salt, juice concentrate, ketchup, brown sugar, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and hot sauce. Bring to a simmer and cook until mixture has thickened, 18 to 20 minutes.
3. Heat broiler. Transfer chicken to a large bowl, add glaze, and toss to coat. Drain off fat from sheet. Return chicken to sheet and broil until sauce is bubbling and chicken is dark brown in spots, 1 to 2 minutes.

COST: $12.75    Cost per serving (4): $3.19

PLUS SMALL SALAD & GARLIC BREAD: $3.89 per serving

Bonkers for Bananas: Banana Upside-Down Tart

It's a good time to be friends with me.

Wow, that's a bold statement.  So let me give you the facts and then let you decide.

I don't know what happened to me, but I have been bitten with the baking bug.  Yes, I am working on these banana recipes and all, but it is more than that. 

For example, last Friday I was in the middle of cleaning my house, dust rag in hand.  Suddenly I had a craving for snickerdoodles.  Like I needed them, and I needed them now.  Down went that dust rag and out came the sugar.

Those snickerdoodles were good, but come on, what do we (a little family of two) do with 24 cookies?  I mean, besides get ridiculously fat?  Especially when we are still working through homemade ice cream and there is a banana tart on the way? 

We share them with friends. 

And what do I do with an entire banana tart that I made this morning?

I cut it in half, wrap it up, and share it with another friend.  And it was oh-so-good.

As far as I can see, this baking streak is not ending any time soon.

Like I said, it is a good time to be friends with me.

Want more banana recipes?  Click the button!

Banana Upside-Down Tart

Recipe taken from Everyday Food, March 2012

Prep Time 20 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes, plus chilling

Yield Serves 8

Ingredients

• For the Crust

  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for work surface
  • 1 teaspoon sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
  • 3 to 5 tablespoons ice water

• For the Filling

  • 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter
  • 2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup dark rum, brandy, or bourbon
  • 5 firm-ripe medium bananas, thinly sliced

Directions

1. Make the crust: In a food processor, pulse flour, sugar, and salt. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining. Sprinkle with 3 tablespoons ice water. Pulse until dough is crumbly but holds together when squeezed (if necessary, add up to 2 tablespoons ice water); do not overmix. Form dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, 1 hour (or overnight).
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make the filling: In a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, melt butter and brown sugar over medium-high, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbling, 3 minutes. Remove from heat and add rum, swirling to combine. Arrange banana slices in an even layer over sauce.
3. On a floured work surface, roll dough into a 12-inch round. Place on top of bananas and fold overhang inward. Bake until crust is golden and mixture is bubbling around edge, 45 to 50 minutes. Invert onto a serving plate and serve warm.

Cook's Note

Top It Off
Instead of trimming away excess dough, fold it over to make a sturdier base for the tart. Besides, who doesn't love more crust? Serving whipped cream alongside is not essential -- but it is wonderful.

Cost: $5.75                   Cost Per Serving (8) $0.72 

Brown Sugar + Carrots = Yum

I have never been a fan of carrots.  They were always either too crisp (and hard to bite) or too mushy (and tasted like cardboard).  So for a good part of my life I avoided them.  That is, until my grandma made me carrots one night.  Oh man, suddenly carrots had a place in my life... until I forgot about that recipe and moved on.  But a year or two ago I stumbled across the same recipe in my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.  I whipped that little dish up and it was a hit.  Paulo loved it, I was reminded of how good carrots can be, and this vegetable I once avoided was given a prominent place in our lives. 

As you can see, there are three simple ingredients.  Rather unusual ingredients for a vegetable dish, to be sure, but the right ones.

Here is how it goes --

Chop 3-4 carrots.
Boil for 5-6 minutes (long enough to soften, short enough to not make it too mushy).  Drain.
In the bottom of the pot, over medium-low heat, add 1T of butter and 1T of brown sugar.  Stir until melted together.  Add carrots and a dash of salt, another dash of pepper. 
Cook for 1-2 minutes. 
Enjoy!  (Trust me, you will!)

PS - I like carrots raw now, too.  But I still always have the fear of breaking my teeth when I bite into them.  (Can that actually happen?)

COST: $0.90            COST PER SERVING (4): less than a quarter