This was told to me by a friend a few years back as we were shopping for PB&J fixings. He reached out for wheat bread, I wagged my finger and said, "No." White bread was what was called for.
He grabbed some Jif, and I put it back. Creamy Skippy, no questions asked.
He didn't even bother getting jelly, but let me peruse the shelf until I found Smucker's Seedless Strawberry Jam. It's how I roll.
And then he told me I was a PB&J snob. I just nodded and smiled. Because I knew it to be true.
So when it was time to make Joy the Baker's peanut butter and jam milkshake and I read the ingredients that said 'natural peanut butter' I shook my head no. Which might be odd, seeing as almost everything else I eat is under the 'natural' category. Ok, so maybe I have given up the white bread. And maybe I used soy ice cream and coconut milk in this shake instead of the dairy stuff. But don't mess with my Skippy. There are some things I don't think I will ever change.
Because I am a peanut butter snob like that...
This is actually two shakes in one. The peanut butter shake (ice cream + milk + peanut butter + a teeny bit of vanilla extract) is layered with the jam shake (ice cream + milk + a bit of jam + fresh fruit blended in). When they are brought together they make the perfect milk shake combo.
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.
Let's talk kale, shall we? I had no idea what this stuff was until I was 25 years old and I spent a summer in Brazil with my future-at-the-time-in-laws. Every once in awhile my mother-in-law would make this dish of a kind of bitter, but very delicious, green stuff. That man of mine loved it. LOVED it. When I asked what it was the answer came back as couve. So then I asked what it was in English, and the answer came back the same, couve. Interesting, I had never heard of couve before...
A few years later, after the wedding bells had rung and the thought of cooking didn't intimidate me so much, I set out to find couve. Lo and behold, it was something so simple to find -- kale. Once we figured out that we could find it here in the States, my husband practically begged and pleaded for me to make things with it, as it is no doubt his favorite vegetable. Sauteed kale with garlic, kale and potato pancakes, chicken and kale casserole... I graciously gave him what he asked for.
I bet he never thought I would turn it into a smoothie, though!
Yes, that's right. This weeks recipe as we are working our way through Joy the Baker's cookbook (which you should totally go buy!) is kale and banana (and other stuff) smoothies. Yes, a little odd, I know... but odd is not always synonymous with "bad", right? Sometimes odd is "just right". In this case, it means the latter.
I had the privilege of watching Joy at the Sunset Magazine Celebration Weekend a few weeks ago, and guess which recipe she shared? This one. Along with two others that I will share with you when the time is right. She made a great suggestion -- peel and freeze bananas to put in smoothies so you don't need ice. Brilliant! Later the night I went home and made this smoothie with soy milk and guess what? Instant healthy goodness. So good you actually don't even realize it is healthy... Actually, it just tasted like you were eating a banana with peanut butter. All you moms out there, here you go -- time to be sneaky ;)
And that lover of kale that I am married to? He liked it so much he even asked me to tell him how to do it so -- get this -- he could make it himself.
WOW.
That must mean it was good ;)
Cost: $1.70 Cost per glass (2): $0.85
PS - In Brazil they call smoothies just as "vitamins" I could never figure out why, but today I put the ingredients into a nutrition counter and holy cow -- this thing is basically equivalent to a multivitamin! 221% of the daily recommended amount of Vitamin A? Tons of other vitamins and minerals represented? NOW I get it. Drink your greens and live long and healthy!
For the past week I have been drinking a banana smoothie for breakfast everyday. I found this great, easy recipe and tried it. A total winner. But this morning when I went to get my banana to throw in the blender I came to a big block in the road: there were no bananas left. This wouldn't have been a problem but I already had all the other ingredients in the blender, ready to be whirred together. So I looked at my fruit basket: oranges, tangerines, limes, and a tomato. Nothing that would go well with milk, peanut butter, oats, and honey. Quite a problem. Until I remembered that I had a special delivery yesterday: a box of pears.
Not only did I get a box of pears from family, I received this beautiful pear ornament from one of my students. I don't think I have had more than three pears in my house -- not "at a time" but ever. I have never really been a pear person, but between that pear h'orderve dish I made up yesterday (I am starting to drool just thinking about it...) and all these pears sitting on my table and hanging on the tree, I guess this was the Christmas that I was destined to become a pear person. So, I grabbed a pear and dropped it in the blender.
Want one? It is simple. Take two tablespoons of oats (like Quaker Oats) and blend them until they become a powder. Add one cup milk, one pear (cut up), one and half tablespoons of peanut butter (I do half Skippy/half healthy junk), and a smidgen of honey. Blend. Enjoy. And share with a friend because it makes two servings.
There we have it, another winning pear recipe. I think I have to blame The Cheesecake Factory for my sudden love of pears. Have you tried their pear/blue cheese/arugula flat bread? Oh.My.Word. To die for. Last time we went I ordered two of them. Yes, two of them. That was it, nothing else. I could only eat one, but I had a great lunch waiting for me the next day. You will probably be seeing my attempt to recreate that sometime soon. After all, I have a lot of pears to get through!
To you and yours, I hope you... well, see for yourself :) (Yes, I am a corn-dog sometimes.)
Yesterday I got a little bored (not that I am complaining -- I like being bored once in awhile, it means I have a moment of nothing to do AKA nothing stressing me out). That October Unprocessed really got to me, I think, because I actually decided to bake. Yes, me who started with the fear of baking decided to bake. But this time I wanted to make something I couldn't make during October Unprocessed: Peanut butter cookies.
How can I explain the joy that is one of the greatest baking inventions known to the human species, specifically those of the americana influence? Sweet, crispy, peanut-buttery. Basically delicious sums it up, right?
RIGHT?
(And I am hearing hearty "Amens!" ring out across the land, from sea to shining sea.)
Well, not everyone likes peanut butter cookies. And one of those "not everyones" is, you guessed it, Mr. Brazil.
This is what I don't get. There is this little peanut candy in Brazil that tastes JUST LIKE peanut butter cookies. JUST LIKE IT. I kid you not, it is basically a peanut butter cookie with a different texture. And I know he likes the cookie texture because he sure is willing to eat other cookies. So I asked him about it --
"But Babe, it tastes just like pacocinha {pako-seen-ya}."
"Like what?"
"You know, pako-seen-ya." (Putting it in phonetic spellings for all of you non-Portuguese speakers...)
He erupted in laughter. "That's so cute! But there is nothing called pako-seen-ya. You mean pacoquinha {poss-oh-keen-ya}."
"Yeah, that, poss-oh-keen-ya. It tastes just like that, right?"
More laughter. No answer to my question, just a "You are so cute!" Just one more time when my brilliant Portuguese language skills get in the way of my communication, even in English.
So, maybe peanut butter cookies are out for him, but I am not giving up on the Brazilian people at large. I am off to see my amiga Dani, and I will let her try. Maybe she will like them, maybe she won't, but it is worth the try.
Besides, I have a LOT left and I can't eat them all, so I better find somebody who likes peanut butter cookies because there is no way I can eat two dozen by myself.
Or maybe I can... hmm...
PS - November is national Peanut Butter Month. Just thought you might like to know. Maybe you too should hop into the kitchen and make some celebratory cookies :)
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
DIRECTIONS:
1 Mix sugars, peanut butter, shortening, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate about 2 hours or until firm.
2 Heat oven to 375ºF.
3 Shape dough into 1 1/4-inch balls. Place about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten in crisscross pattern with fork dipped into sugar.
4 Bake 9 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 5 minutes; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.
Recipe from Betty Crocker, the queen of the cookies.
