Nuts For These...

...Peanut Butter Cookies. I am not a cookie person but Hubby is & he has to eat cookies every night. Makes me mad he stays so thin too.  It used to be HoHo's but that's another story. haha He is a cookie connoisseur and I was surprised he loved these cookies I made today.  For years, I have made my "cake mix cookies" -  Devil's Food Chocolate cookies, not his favorite really, but I will make them because they are quick & easy and it's usually when he is out of store bought cookies, so I throw them together in a hurry. My sons & other people really like them though.  I experimented with other flavors of mixes with the oil & eggs but he never liked them. I never thought of adding peanut butter either.  I stumbled onto this recipe and had to try it since it was my recipe with peanut butter added to it & using a Yellow Mix rather than Devil's Food, which might be good too.  Peanut butter cookies are probably my least favorite cookie, but they were so pretty I had to taste one. I have to say these were pretty good!

1 Yellow Cake Mix

1 C Peanut Butter

1/2 C Oil

2 Eggs

Mix together well.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

Super Simple, Quick & Easy! Aren't they pretty?!

One Potato, Two Potato....

Three potato... MORE!!!   Slice, rinse, rinse, rinse, dry, shallow fry... OH MY!!   I sprinkled one batch with salt & onion powder those were gone in seconds!

Something Sweet & Surprising

Rum Cake with Rum & Tamarind Buttercream Frosting

I was craving something naughty & out of the ordinary. This combination was out of the ordinary for sure and surprisingly good. I used a yellow cake mix & added a tsp of Rum extract. I added a tsp of Rum flavoring, tsp of tamarind paste and red food coloring to a basic butter cream recipe. Don't you ♥ the bohemian cupcake papers I found at Michael's?

A Tasty Sweet Surprise

I made Rhubarb jam for one of my dearest friends whom has been near death this past month or so. By the Grace of God he is on the mend and back at home. His doctor is saying his survival is somewhat of a miracle. He has lost a lot of weight and I am sending a care package to fatten him & his wife up. He loves jelly and eats a lot of it, yet remains thin-no fair. We both share the love of orange marmalade which I made for him last time. He mentioned once that another of his favorites is rhubarb. I had never tasted rhubarb jam. Just the name, "rhubarb" makes it sound unappetizing, kind of like "turnip", which is unappetizing to me. Well to my surprise it's delicious! Now it's one of my favorites too and I will definitely make it again. I was going to surprise him but when I talked to him on the phone, that hot stickysweet delicious jam was burning a hole in my pocket. I'm glad I let it out of the bag. It cheered him up and he has something to look forward to in the mail for the next day or so. It was simple too. Here's how I made it... oops I can't give you the exact amount of rhubarb I used but I would guess that it was about 3 - 3 1/2 cups chopped up, maybe 10 good size stalks. I just grabbed a big handful. It looks like red celery. I chopped it fairly fine but wasn't worrying about keeping it the same size, making sure to get all the juice from the cutting board I put all into a large pot, then covered it with 3 cups of sugar and let it sit for a few hours. I brought to boil on medium heat then added a pinch of ginger & 4 frozen chopped strawberries and boiled hard for 10 minutes, then placed in small mason jars fresh out of the dishwasher. I don't care for syrup, I rarely eat it, so this jam was a freshing change from the ordinary jam we buy and on this Eggo Strawberry Waffle it was so tasty!

A Big Shout Out & Thank you goes to KandiceInWonderland, FaeryMoonGoddess, Brixiana, LoopLoft, RobinMariaPedrero, and SwirlingThoughts for including my art in their wonderful Etsy Treasuries!

Is it just me or is anyone else finding that you have to retype things because you are speaking as though you are Tweeting, breaking your sentences down as though you were talking shorthand? hahaha

A Real Hottie

If you are a regular visitor, family or friend, you know how much I love hot food & salsa! I love Chipotle, a chain of gourmet burrito shops. When I was working, in the corporate cubicle, if I would to able to get out for lunch, my likely destination was usually Chipotle. I can't finish an entire burrito bowl, which is what I normally order, that's because I'm too busy scarfing up the chips & salsa. Now that I work from home, almost a recluse, I hardly ever get to go. Recently my Hubby took me there and boy was it soooo good. This time I paid attention and deconstructed the salsa best I could. I decided I'd give it a try at home. OMgosh. I think I've got it or I've got it just as good or better! I literally made a bucket of it! I'm so addicted. I'll be putting it on everything now! I started by putting a bag of dried Arbol peppers into 3 cups of water. I boiled them for about 15 minutes. I put 20 El Mexicano Tomatillos in the blender with 3 cloves of garlic & 1 C - very loosely packed of Arbol peppers , 1/2 cup of tomatillo liquid and approx 1 tsp salt. I pureed until smooth. It's so easy & so delicious! I'm pretty jazzed that it tastes almost identical to Chipotle's hot salsa. Again, the simplest recipes seem to be the best! Now if only I could figure out Panda Express Gourmet Chinese Food's recipe for eggplant & tofu! ....