Soft Peanut Butter Cookies-Delux Style!

So the fact that I made these cookies is a big deal. You see, I am married to a man who DESPISES peanut butter. like literal hate I think. The smell, the taste, the appearance…all make him sick. Funny thing is that peanut butter is my absolute FAVORITE thing. (except during pregnancy I cannot eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…something about the peanut butter on bread. Weird. haha) But, anything else peanut butter is fair game and makes me happy. I have always wanted to make peanut butter cookies and due to the large amounts of Christmas spirit in our home my husband agreed to let me! I decided that if I was going to make them I was going to go all out and add reeses peanut butter cups as well :) That is why they are “delux” style.

Here is what you need:

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup softened butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour

18 Reeses mini peanut butter cups (or more depending on how many chunks you want in your cookies)

First cream together the butter, sugar, and brown sugar.

Next, add the peanut butter.

Then add the eggs one at a time. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and vanilla.

Chop up your reeses peanut butter cups into tiny pieces.
Add to the dough.

Freeze the dough for 30 minutes.

Roll dough into 1 inch balls. Smash with forks or a potato masher or a spoon with a pattern to make your cookies look pretty. (I just chose a random spoon)

Bake at 350 for 10 minutes and then remove. Let them sit on the baking sheet until they are cool.

Eat with a nice glass of milk!

Tips From Kj:

If you like your peanut butter cookies crunchy than you can just bake them a little bit longer! I like them to be soft…but I guess I will forgive you if you are a crunchy fan :)

I think these would be yummy with reeses pieces too.

I have realized it is good to make cookies when you are pregnant. It gives you the willpower to not eat the dough. Then you have room for more cookies after!

Make your loving husband (who as you remember hates peanut butter) some chicken nuggets after the cookies are done to help him forgive you for the smelly house :)

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Chicken Alfredo with Zucchini and Mushrooms

Happy Christmas break! I guess probably not for everyone but for me it is and I plan to take full advantage! Normally Sunday night is full of stress and worry trying to plan my next week at school, when really I would like it to be filled with baking culinary masterpieces. Lucky me for the next 2 weeks I have nothing to do but what I want and one of those things is to bake and cook my little heart out!

Lucky you if you don’t like washing dishes this uses 1 pan for boiling noodles and then the same pan for cooking everything else! 2 pans…easy peasy to clean up :)

Ingredients:
Mushrooms
Zucchini
Chicken Breast
Milk
Butter
Flour
Garlic Cloves
Noodles
Garlic Mrs. Dash
Seasoning Salt
Cooking Wine or Chicken Broth

First: Start some water boiling and boil your noodles!

Next, you will cook everything in this order:
Vegetables
Chicken
White Sauce

First for the vegetables. You will need to chop up 2 zucchinis and 3 cups worth of mushrooms.
In a large skillet pan melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Then add the zucchini and mushrooms.

Sprinkle with a bunch of Garlic Mrs. Dash and season salt. (don’t skimp!)
Put on medium heat and cover for about 10 minutes (stirring occasionally) until the zucchini is soft.

Remove Vegetables from pan leaving as many of the juices as you can. Chop the chicken into pieces and add to the pan along with a little bit of cooking wine. (or chicken broth but just like 2 tablespoons)

Cook through on Medium high heat and remove from pan. Again leaving juices (don’t clean your pan yet!)

Melt 2 more tablespoons of butter and add 3 tablespoons of flour one at a time whisking to make a paste.

Add 3 cloves of garlic minced or shredded to the paste and stir around for a minute over medium heat.

Then add 2 cups of milk (I used 2% because it is what I drink now that I am preggo!) Bring to a boil and whisk over medium high heat until all the flour chunks are gone.

Add all of the vegetables and chicken back to the sauce (get every single ounce of sauce out of the bowls they were in and dump that in too) Sprinkle some parsley , salt, and a little more garlic Mrs. Dash over the top and stir it all together.

Somewhere during this process take your noodles out and drain them! Then mix some butter in so they don’t stick together. Put your noodles on the plate and add the sauce mixture on top. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top of that and enjoy!

Tips from KJ:
Don’t let your husband make this. If you make it you can sneak bites of mushrooms while you are cooking everything else and he will never know.

Be careful because if you sneak too many mushrooms they will be gone before you can mix them into the white sauce. Then you will be sad when you eat your pasta(Really those mushrooms are so good!)

You can use cream or whatever else you want for the sauce but I like milk especially 2% it is so creamy.

Add any veggies you want to this! Other squash, broccoli, peppers etc.

This would be good too on actual fettuccini noodles…I just like linguini better.

My secret favorite spice to use is Garlic Mrs. Dash. I love it, I use it a lot when I need a quick garlic flavor. It is better than garlic salt or powder I think. My husband laughs at me because of my love for it…it is that strong.

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White Chicken Chili/Big Announcement!

My mom makes the best White Chicken Chili in all of Utah! :) haha okay so I might be a little biased because she raised me and all but I promise you that it is REALLY GOOD.

Since I am letting you all down with my recipe posts here is a post that has her recipe for White Chicken Chili. It is at the very bottom so scroll down to see it. (but I recommend reading her blog post too...she just started it and it is pretty funny)

White Chicken Chili

Also for another announcment..if there are any of you that read my cooking blog but not my other blog:

WE'RE HAVING A BABY! Our little child will arrive in May of 2012 and we'll know in a couple weeks if it is a little Mark or a little Kjersti. For more on this new development check out our family blog:

K&M Helberg

Sadly because of this I also probably will get even worse at posting cooking recipes for a while. Today I thought up a great dinner...and as I baked it decided that I'd rather eat beets than the dinner I was cooking. haha My husband liked it though so that is good! Pin It

Hubby Homemaking #2 Artichokes

We have been dying to have artichokes for weeks, months….longer maybe? They were on sale at Maceys and we jumped on that! I came home one day and Mark was making them…his own recipe!

Here you go:

2 artichokes
2 Lemons
1 stick butter
salt to taste
1 tablespoon parmesan cheese
Pot of water

First Chop off the top part of the artichoke with a knife (just the pokey parts) Chop off all the pokey parts on the sides of the artichokes with scissors. Boil artichokes for about 1 hour with the lemons in the water.

Remove from water. To see if they are ready grab a leaf in the middle. If it pulls out effortlessly they are ready!

Cut other lemon in half

Melt your butter…mix with lemon and parmesan cheese

Pour mixture into a bowl. To eat peel off leaves and dip in butter mixture. (add salt as desired) Then you scrape off the inside of the leaf with your teeth  

Once you get to the purple leaves pull them off and discard.

You’ll be left with weird looking furry things…I think it looks like a sea creature

Scrape them off very gently with a spoon…but be careful! You don’t want to lose any of the precious heart underneath…

Furrys are gone now for the good stuff!

Chop off the stem

Cut into pieces and drop in lemon butter.

Be in heaven.

I had never eaten an artichoke until I met my husband. I will never be the same..if I ever had a “last meal” an artichoke would be present.

Tips from Kj:

1. Don’t let the artichoke intimidate you! Conquer it! You will be glad you did.
2. You can also place them in 1/2 inch water in a glass dish and cover with saran wrap. Steam in microwave for about 20 minutes…just do the leaf test to see if they are ready.
3. Make sure that you eat your heart separately from your husband’s heart. Or he will try to take all of your big pieces! haha

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Easy Thumbprint Cookies

I’m fulfilling my goal! Finally a post. :)

These cookies are so easy and really yummy! You only need 6 ingredients! Mark loves the Pepperidge farm Verona Strawberry Shortbread cookies. They are kinda expensive so he doesn’t get them very often. I finally started making these cookies as a replacement for them. He seems to like them just as much! Plus these ones have frosting which is an added bonus ;)

Pre-heat oven to 350

Ingredients:

1 Cup Butter at room temperature
2 Cups Flour
2/3 Cup Sugar
1 Tsp Vanilla

Jam-Any Flavor

Frosting-Any kind you like.

In a mixing bowl combine your flour, sugar, butter, and vanilla.

Mix until it makes a dough.

Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and place on a cookie sheet. (the dough does not really change size while baking so you can put these pretty close together)

Use your thumbs to make thumb print’s in the cookies.

Put your jam in a ziplock bag.

Then cut off the corner…

Squeeze the jam from the bag into the thumbprints on the cookies.

They are ready to bake! Put them in the oven for about 15-18 minutes until they are just golden brown. (The longer you cook them the more crunchy they will be. If you want a softer cookie don’t bake them as long)

Take your frosting and make “Pretty Designs” on the cookies. Then eat them! :D

Tips from KJ:

You can put ANYTHING in the middle of these. Peanut butter, chocolate, lemon custard, any flavor of jam you can imagine….and the list goes on and on. Just get creative! I normally only do Jam because that is what Mark loves and normally when I bake the treats are for his lunches.

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