Cami's Monster Cookies

I've been a huge fan of monster cookies for a few years now. I used to dislike peanut butter but somehow I started to like it when I was pregnant with Calder. I think this is a good recipe, but honestly I didn't follow the recipe like I should have. I was moving a few days after making it and I thought it would be a good way to get rid of some oatmeal and other things in the cupboards. I ended up not having enough oatmeal so I added more flour. I had fewer M&Ms so I added more chocolate chunks. They turned out great and tasted amazing. I brought them with us to visit family and they've been a hit. I will definitely make these again. Maybe I'll even use the real recipe next time.

Danielle's Monster Cookies

This recipe makes a TON! I baked about a dozen good-sized cookies, and I still have a large tupperware full of dough in the fridge. But it seems like the dough will keep well in the fridge/freezer so this batch will last us awhile.

These are very tasty cookies. I was a little skeptical when I read the recipe, but they came out really well. The texture of the cookie is just like I like it -- a little crispy on the outside (although they didn't really stay crispy) but chewy in the middle. And I love the oats, peanut butter, and chocolate together.

Max thinks these would be better with just M&Ms (replacing the chocolate chips with M&Ms), but I don't really care if it's chocolate chips or M&Ms as long as there's plenty of chocolate! I personally like chocolate chips because I can buy better quality chocolate, but one advantage of the M&Ms is that they don't melt and spread all over.

I baked a few cookies before I chilled the dough because I'm usually not patient enough to wait for dough to be chilled. The non-chilled cookies didn't have as uniform of a shape, but I didn't think there was any noticeable difference between the chilled and un-chilled dough. So if you can't wait, you can definitely get away with baking these before you chill the dough.

With the batches I made with chilled dough, I smashed the cookies down with a spatula about halfway through baking because the cookies were not spreading. I wanted bigger flatter cookies instead of big tall mounded cookies.

Danielle's Peanut Ginger Chicken

This dish is a winner! Max and I both loved it.

We don't have a BBQ, so I decided to cut the chicken into small strips before I marinated it. After marinating it, I put the chicken on skewers and cooked them under the broiler. That worked out really well, and the chicken cooked really quickly.

The marinade was excellent, and the chicken would have been good without the salsa. But the salsa makes this dish so much better. The chicken together with the salsa was really delicious. We used peaches and strawberries for the fruit, and I added avocado because I had some I needed to use up. Also, I used mainly lime juice instead of vinegar because basically, I just can't make salsa without lime juice. I did add a splash of vinegar and I liked the flavor it added.

I think I will definitely be making this again sometime. Probably sooner than later.

Cami's Ginger Chicken

I have various peanut butter-chicken recipes but I think this is my new favorite. I loved the flavor and it was really easy to make. The relish was my favorite part and I may try to incorporate it into other chicken dishes. I served mine with rice which was perfect. I think you could also serve it over pasta.

I didn't really follow the recipe. I forgot to look at the recipe in advance to see how much time I would need and at 5:00 tonight when I decided to make dinner I realized I should have been marinating the meat since yesterday. Oops. So, I ended up just putting all the marinade ingredients in my large skillet and threw in the chicken. I cooked the rice and mixed the relish and we ate. It was awesome. I think it only took me 20 minutes to make dinner. Next time I'll try it like the recipe suggests. I'm sure it will taste just as good if not better. Thanks Amy!

Cami's Peanut Butter Crispy Bars

Sorry, no picture. I forgot to take one when I made them.

I'll be honest. I didn't make these this week. I made them a few months ago. We had some company for dinner and I thought they would be a nice casual dessert. They were just that and nothing more. I felt like these were just peanut butter and chocolate on top of rice krispy treats. I do like rick krispy treats but I'm a purist. I don't like M&Ms or chocolate chips in my treats. I like them plain. So maybe that's why I didn't love these.

Even thought I didn't think they were anything special I had a hard time not eating the whole pan. So I guess they were a success in that regard.

Larisa's Peanut Butter Pie

I've been waiting to make this pie until we had family in town so that I wouldn't end up eating most of it myself! I love peanut butter and chocolate, but even for me this pie was a bit too heavy (not that you'd expect peanut butter and chocolate to be light and refreshing, but this is definitely a doosie). All of our guests enjoyed the pie, but several didn't finish their plates and I still had over half of the pie leftover in the freezer, which 6 missionaries courteously finished off for us. The peanut butter cream itself was smooth and not overly sweet, and both my husband and I think the flavors melded a bit better after a day or two (can flavors meld in the freezer?) Overall this recipe was a success, but for us, only to be enjoyed in small pieces. I perhaps might try this again for a holiday dessert, but its richness definitely calls for a special occasion.

I added 2 tablespoons of cream to the chocolate layer over the crust (thanks for the suggestion Danielle) which worked nicely to soften the layer into more of a ganache. The hot fudge was decadent and delicious, although we had loads of leftover sauce; I probably could have halved the recipe and still had plenty to spare. I will definitely use the hot fudge sauce again to add to other recipes. It's so much better home-made.

A delish evening

We had some friends over for dinner last Sunday and I decided to serve up a delish dinner. I had been meaning to try Larisa's chicken kebobs and the peanut butter pie...and boy, was that a tasty dinner! For the kebobs, I added some brown sugar into the marinade to make it a little bit sweeter and I thought the sweetness of the marinade went really well with the smokey flavor of the bacon (and bacon make everything better...or was that butter? Either way, it was great!). In addition to the red bell peppers and mushrooms, I also skewered on some zucchini since that's my favorite veggie grilled. I realized, though, after they were on the grill, that I had forgotten the pineapple. We love fresh grilled pineapples, so I wanted to do it on these, but just forgot. Must try next time. Anyway, these were fabulous...they will definitely make an encore appearance at our dinner table.


Oh, the peanut butter pie. Loved it! It took me a little while to find the chocolate wafers, but I found them at Treasure Island...$5 for 9 ounces. I didn't want any leftover wafers, so I used all 9 ounces and an extra tablespoon of butter, so that made for a pretty thick crust. Maybe I pressed too hard to make it all fit, but my crust ended up being super hard once it was frozen. Did other people have super hard crusts? I think next time, I will just buy a pre-made chocolate crust to save myself a little time. Or I may try making it with Oreo cookies (as I purchased a box today at Costco). Heeding Danielle's advice, I was going to use the hot fudge on the bottom, but again, I forgot, so I didn't have a chocolate layer, which ended up being fine. Everyone loved it, and it was just tasty, really. In fact, we had some other friends over on Wednesday night for dinner and had it for dessert again that night. I loved that it was all super cold and frozen with the hot fudge on top. But I was kind of happy that we didn't end up eating the entire pie. The picture I took was of the very last piece, which Greg and I shared, although I think I probably ate more of it than he did. I think I'll be making the PB pie again, too. It's just too good not to.

LuAnn's Pie

That's right...this is no longer called PB Pie. It is MY Pie! I love PB and chocolate...and cream cheese and heavy cream are 2 of my favorite ingredients! I loved my THIN slice of this pie (it is sweet and my belly can only handle so much sweet).

Like Danielle and Cami suggested I added 1.5 tbsp. of cream to the chocolate. It was great...2 tbsp. would have been fine. I also increased the crust a bit (I used chocolate Teddy Grahams because that was the only chocolate cookie I could find) because the crust is usually my favorite part of the cake. I thought it was perfect! There is one more piece in the freezer and my mouth is watering.

I took this to a gathering with the Tuckers and Strongs (and one other U of C grad...can't remember his name) who are all out here in D.C. I felt bad that nameless grad was allergic to peanuts. I've also come to learn that Europeans are generally unaccustomed to the flavor of PB. So take note.

This pie will definitely make an appearance at my Thanksgiving dinner this year...if not sooner!

Melanie W.'s Peanut Butter Pie

(sorry for the glare in the picture)

Wow, talk about sinfully delicious!! This reminded of me of the Peanut Butter Mood smoothy from Jamba Juice. I've never had it, but it's supposed to be the most unhealthy smoothy in America. I think this probably even surpases it!! But this was really yummy. I'm also a PB lover, and wish I had thought of topping it with peanut butter cups like Deanna.

I'll start from the bottom up: I loved the cookie crust. I usually buy my crusts, but think it's must better to make a cookie crust. I didn't listen to Danielle's advice and I added the chocolate layer just as instructed. With the frozen pie it made it impossible to cut through the chocolate! I would rather not have any chocolate at all, or do what Deanna did and just use the fudge sauce instead. I used a tad bit less cream cheese than called for because it's all I had, but I don't think it made any difference at all. I loved the creaminess of the PB filling!! Yum. I also used the chocolate sauce, and glad I did. It was divine, though it hardened pretty quickly on the cold pie. I halved the sauce recipe and glad I did because I still have a lot left.

This was a yummy pie, but I don't think I'll be making it any time soon, unless I make it for a large crowd. I could only get through half a piece before feeling sick because it was so rich! And we still have a ton of pie in the freezer. Yummy, but surely not a good one for the waist line!

Deanna's Peanut Butter Pie

Hi, my name is Deanna and I'm a Peanut Butter-oholic. I confess that I eat it straight from the jar by the spoonful. I'll even admit that, when I was in junior high, I would come home from school and stick a wooden spoon in the jar of peanut butter and then stick it in whatever sugary cereal we had (Captain Crunch was a favorite), and just go to town. Now I prefer the more sophisticated, dip the spoon in the peanut butter and then in the chocolate chips. When I was deciding on what recipe to pick for my week, this one was SCREAMING out to me. I just knew this pie was going to be amazing as soon as I had a little taste of the peanut butter filling (prior to adding in the whipped cream). Oh, so dense and scrumptious!

I'd like to thank Danielle for her advice on the bottom chocolate layer. I ended up just making the hot fudge topping and spreading some of that on the crust instead. It was the perfect consistency. I chose to do mine in a spring form pan because I always have difficulty getting these cookie-type crusts out of a pie dish without making a total mess. I threw a bunch of crushed Reese's Peanut Butter Cups on top before freezing and thought this added a little extra texture and flavor. This pie is not hard to make, but look forward to a lot of dirty dishes. I would recommend this to anyone and will definitely bake it again. The result is very pretty and professional looking, like something you would get at a fancy restaurant. Your friends will be impressed.

Cami's Peanut Butter Pie

This was also a huge hit for me! It was relatively quick and very easy. I obviously made a few changes which I loved. Next time I'll stick to the recipe to see how that tastes, but here's what I did.

My husband has been doing the grocery shopping. Bless him. He couldn't find the chocolate wafer cookies so he came home with the vanilla wafers. They worked very well and tasted great. I did add a little cocoa powder to it but not enough to do anything, I don't think. I agree with Danielle that the chocolate between the pie and the crust gets pretty hard. Adding cream is a great idea.

I made the pie part exactly like one should and then I already had some salty caramel sauce that we used for the Sweet & Salty Cake(I love that stuff) in the fridge so I drizzled that over the top. It was divine. Again, next time I'll do a chocolate crust and chocolate sauce but if you're looking for similar but different, try this. It's delicious.

Danielle's Peanut Butter Pie

This pie gets a big two thumbs up from me! YUM!!

Not only is it super tasty, but at an hour and a half, it's the quickest recipe I've tried yet! The recipe was really easy to follow and easily surpassed my expectations.

I only made one change to the recipe as I made it. It called for about 1.5 cups of crushed cookies, but I just smashed up my whole package which turned out to be maybe close to 2.5 cups of crushed cookies. To make up for the extra cookies, I used a whole stick of melted butter.

Also, I would recommend starting out with just a half batch of the hot fudge sauce. I made a half batch figuring I could make more hot fudge later if I needed to (it's super easy to make), but I'm certain the half batch will be plenty for the whole pie.

Oh and one more suggestion. You might want to try adding a little bit of cream to the chocolate that goes between the pie crust and the filling. Once it's chilled, that chocolate layer turns pretty solid and is really hard to cut through with a fork. I ended up shooting crumbs across the table when I broke through the chocolate layer on my first bite. I learned to be more careful after that, but it's still a little precarious trying to cut through the chocolate. So I think a softer chocolate layer is something I'll try next time, maybe something closer to the consistency of the refrigerated hot fudge.

Peanut Butter Pie

For this week, I've chosen the Peanut Butter Pie from the Baked book (p100). I am so excited to be joining this baking group because I LOVE this book and can't wait to try as many recipes in it as possible. It makes me happy to know that there are other Baked fanatics out there :) I have a blog of my own, Occasional Sugar and am very new to the baking/blogging world and very eager to learn all that I can from other experienced bakers/bloggers.

I have an event this Saturday that I will be bringing this pie to for dessert so my post will come later in the week.

When did you start baking / cooking?
I started baking with my mom when I was very young. We'd bake chocolate chip cookies. She would measure out the ingredients and let me throw them in the bowl. Of course, my favorite part was sampling the dough. I remember once in 5th grade, my mom snuck some cookie dough into my packed lunch. My teacher was so appalled that my mom would do such a thing, like she had packed me rat poison or something. My mom and I still laugh about how ridiculous she was.

What is your favorite kitchen tool?
Oh man, I LOVE to buy new gadgets. I call this condition GAS (Gear Acquiring Syndrome). Of course I love my KitchenAid Standing Mixer, but I also get very excited when I think about my Progressive Cherry-It Pitter. Pit four cherries at once with no mess!

Do you have a favorite spice? If so, what is it?
Cardamom. I would love to try more recipes that use it.

What is your favorite book?
The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant

If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?
I would be so happy if I could take some time off and backpack through South America. I'm just dying to see Machu Picchu and Patagonia.

If you had to change your first name right now, what would you change it to?
No change, I like my name :)

Where do you currently live?
Walnut Creek, California

Where are you from?
The same place I currently live.

If you could eat one thing for every meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Dim Sum!!