Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

For Christmas Eve dessert with Jason's parents and brother I made the most delectable pie for dessert. I combined a recipe from the Birthday Girl and The Pioneer Woman to make this pie (used The Pioneer Woman's crust recipe and the Birthday Girl's filling recipe). It was so good! BUT, it is super rich so you don't need to cut big slices!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

Crust:
25 whole Oreos
4 Tablespoons Butter, Melted
Filling:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 (8-ounce) package softened cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 can condensed milk
8 ounces Cool Whip
Preparation:
Crust:
Crush the Oreos until they’re fine crumbs. Pour melted butter over the top and stir with a fork to combine. Press into pie pan and bake at 350 degrees for 5 to 7 minutes, or until set.
Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.
Filling:
Beat the peanut butter, condensed milk, powdered sugar and cream cheese in a mixer until smooth.
Add in the whipped cream and beat until smooth, scraping the sides as needed.
Pour filling into crust, evening out the top with a knife or spatula.
Chill for at least an hour before serving.

Million Dollar Cookies

If you've ever wanted a fantastic, to die for Chocolate Chip cookie recipe this is the recipe for you! It is so good that I could eat these cookies all the time! I recently made them for our neighbors and I hope they were as big of a hit at their houses as they are at ours! The recipe is from my parents next door neighbor, Talitha, and they are really really good. They do have oatmeal in them (a lot of oatmeal) so if you don't like oatmeal I would stay away. But I feel like the oatmeal gives them the perfect taste and besides, I figure, with oatmeal in them, they could almost be considered healthy! :) The cookie batter also gets really thick so I would use a stand mixer if you have one and if not, be prepared for an arm workout! It's a workout just mixing in the chocolate so I can't imagine how much energy it would take to hold a hand mixer to mix the whole batter.

Million Dollar Cookies
Makes 5-6 dozen
1 c butter
1 c sugar
1 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c flour
2 1/2 c oatmeal (instant Quakers)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 12 oz pkg chocolate chips (Hershey)
3 Hershey candy bars (broken)
1 1/2 c chopped nuts (optional)
Cream butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour, oats, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Add chips, candy, and nuts(optional).
Bake 375 degrees for 6-8 minutes.
*I made a little over 4 dozen. I scooped my cookies with the medium sized scoop from Pampered Chef.
*I also don't add nuts. I'm against nuts in sweets! :)

The Pioneer Woman's BBQ Meatballs

This week the recipe that I'm featuring is one of The Pioneer Woman's. If you don't read The Pioneer Woman you should probably start. She is hilarious with the most down to eart, funny tales about life on the ranch in Oklahoma. She is also an amazing cook who comes up with the best recipes! A lot of them have a lot of steps but every one that I've made so far has been so worth it! Ree has a cookbook that has come out that I'm hoping I'm getting for Christmas!


Two weeks ago I got on a cooking kick and made a few recipes, one of which was The Pioneer Woman's BBQ Meatballs which she calls the "ultimate comfort food." I was surprised at the lack of elaborate steps in the recipe but I was glad that Jason was home to help me when we got to the part about dredging the meatballs in flour and then cooking them in oil on the stove. It just helped to have two sets of hands but I'm sure you could do that step by yourself if you were a little more organized about it than I was. Another thing that I loved about this recipe was that I ate the leftovers for lunch the next two days and the meatballs were still fantastic even two days later! I also served these over egg noodles but I'm sure mashed potatoes would be great also.

Go and check out Ree's post for step by step pictures and instructions or to print the recipe to the size that you need for your recipe box. But if you just want the bare bones recipe it is below.

BBQ Meatballs

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 45 Minutes Difficulty: Easy Servings: 6

Ingredients

FOR MEATBALLS
1-½ pound Ground Beef
¾ cups Oats
1 cup Milk
3 Tablespoons Very Finely Minced Onion
1-½ teaspoon Salt
Plenty Of Ground Black Pepper (to Taste)
_____

FOR COOKING MEATBALLS
1 cup All-Purpose Flour (coating For Frozen Meatballs)
Canola Oil
_____
FOR SAUCE
1 cup Ketchup
2 Tablespoons Sugar
3 Tablespoons Vinegar
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire
4 Tablespoons (to 6 Tablespoons) Onion
1 dash(es) Tabasco

Preparation Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all meatball ingredients. Roll into medium-small balls and place on a cookie sheet. Place sheet in freezer for five minutes.
After 5 minutes, remove meatballs from freezer and immediately dredge in unseasoned flour.
Brown meatballs in canola oil until just brown. Place into a baking dish.
Combine all sauce ingredients. Pour over meatballs and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve with egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or crusty French bread.

Shells with Chicken and Mozzarella

I don't remember where I found this recipe so I can't give credit but if you run across it in a recipe search let me know. I made this last week and it was soooo yummy! Jason and I both thoroughly enjoyed it! And it was really easy too!

Shells with Grilled Chicken and Mozzarella
Coarse salt and ground pepper
Vegetable oil, for grates
1 1/2 pounds chicken cutlets (Note: I used two packages of pre-cooked grilled chicken breast and it was great!)
8 ounces medium pasta shells
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
4 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 cup grated Parmesan, plus more for serving
2 tablespoons butter

1.Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil for pasta. Meanwhile, heat grill to medium; lightly oil grates. Season chicken with salt and pepper. Grill until cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Remove from grill, and cut into thin strips, halving if long.
2.Cook pasta until al dente, according to package instructions. Reserve 1 cup pasta water; drain pasta, and return to pot. Add chicken, tomatoes, mozzarella, parsley, Parmesan, and butter. Toss to combine. Add reserved pasta water a little at a time to create a sauce that coats shells (you may not need all the water). Serve with more Parmesan.

It is a lot easier and quicker if you use the pre-cooked chicken. Two packages put plenty of chicken into the mix. The way the cheeses melted and blended with everything else was just so good! I want to go back and remake this recipe already!

Sausage and Potato Soup

Since it's gotten so cold outside I have been wanting any kind of soup that I can find. I keep a recipe folder in my email box and whenever I get an email I tag it for that folder and archive it. So on Sunday I started going through some of those emails to see if I could find something to cook this week that was new and I ran across this recipe from one of my Mom's co-workers. It was good as she gave it but I've tweaked it just a little more to our liking. That's the beauty of simple recipes -- you can change them up to just how you like them and you can be pretty sure that they'll still taste great! And this recipe makes a lot of soup so you might want to half it if there are just two of you.
Sausage and Potato Soup

32 oz bag of frozen diced hash browns (or about 3 lbs of peeled and diced potatoes) (the more potatoes the better)
1 1/2 to 2 lbs sausage browned (can be hot or mild)
2 chopped onions
4 cups of water
4 cups of milk
28 oz of chicken broth
2 cans cream of chicken soup
2 cans cream of celery soup

Mix everything and simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 45 minutes. Serve with cheese -- pepper jack or parmesan go especially well.