So there’s a guy at my gym who comes almost every day in full hunting camouflage and I can’t help but wonder, who is he hiding from? I totally get the wearing camouflage while hunting thing, you don’t want the deer or whatever to see you. But who don’t you want see you at the gym? Is it me? Because it is not working. Though I do love when he wears the whole outfit plus the NRA hat. Hot.
Speaking of hiding. I feel like I have been living in a cave as of late. My Google reader is busting out. My email is piling up…big time. I would love to say that some crazy wonderful things were happening, but they are not. It’s just somehow my life got set on fast forward right now and I can’t ever seem to get the things I need to get done.
I originally was just making peanut butter cookies for the hubby. But I discovered that I didn’t have enough peanut butter (so odd, we are never out). So I ended up making more of a sugar cookie with a hint of peanut butter. My husband liked them all the same.
Today I went to Costco to buy more Jif. And you know what? Those (insert really bad swear word here) aren’t carrying Jif Peanut Butter anymore. Oh the horror. They are now carrying Skippy. THEN when I complain about it the woman says, they are all the same, just eat the Skippy. Oh. No. She. Didn’t. I went into great detail about what Jif was better. Sadly it fell on deaf ears. So I had to buy it full price at the store. Boo.
To add more peanut butter flavor to these I made a Nutter Flutter filling of basically just peanut butter and marshmallow. Made them extra yummy though. And to make things even more yummy I made a Peanut Butter Drinking Chocolate to go along with it.
I’m hoping to come out of hiding by the weekend…if not, I guess I will have to go buy some camouflage to wear.

Brown Sugar Peanut Butter Nutter Fluffer Sandwich Cookies

Brown Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup cold unsalted butter, diced
¾  cup granulated sugar
1 ½  cups lightly packed dark brown sugar
2/3 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds removed, pod discarded
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream butter and sugars in a mixer on high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl often.
Beat for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add the eggs and vanilla beans, then add the peanut butter and mix well.
Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix on low speed until all the ingredients are incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix just until the dough is smooth.
Using a small ice cream scoop(or a tablespoon) form the dough into ½ inch balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Flatten cookies with a fork. Bake just until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Let cookies cool about 5 minutes and transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Adapted from Caprial’s Desserts by Caprial Pence

Nutter Fluffer Filling

¾ cup marshmallow crème
¾ cup peanut butter
2 TBSP milk

Heat marshmallow crème over low heat in a small saucepan. Remove from heat and add peanut butter and milk. Whisk until fully incorporated. Let cool.
Pipe into center of cookie and place another cookie on top to form a sandwich.

Peanut Butter Drinking Chocolate

Hot Chocolate Base:
1 cup cream
¼ cup milk
2 TBSP corn syrup
1 pound dark chocolate (Valrhona is what was used)
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds rendered, pod discarded (or ½ tsp vanilla extract)

Peanut Butter Milk
1/3 cup smooth peanut butter (I of course used Jif!)
1 quart whole milk
1/3 cup granulated sugar

In a small saucepan, bring cream, milk, and corn syrup to a boil.
Once the mixture has boiled, chill it over an ice bath. Strain cream into a large bowl and then return the strained cream mixture to a saucepan and bring it to a boil again.
Pour the hot cream over chocolate in thirds, mixing well before adding more. Add the vanilla beans to the mixture and allow to cool.

For peanut butter milk:
In a medium saucepan, bring the milk to a boil with the sugar.  Remove off heat and whisk in peanut butter. Allow to cool.

To assemble and serve:
For one cup, steam 2 heaping TBSP of the chocolate base with 1 ½ cups peanut butter milk with an espresso machine, or heat them together in a small saucepan. Serve immediately.

Adapted from Pastry Chef Karen DeMasco of Craft, Craftbar and ¢â¬ËœWichcraft ¢â¬â€œ New York, NY

So for the longest time I was always a natural light girl for food photography. But the reality is that I just don’t live in a region that gets much light in the Winter and it was becoming a drag. Plus I keep such odd hours, often baking at one or two in the morning. I don’t want to wait around until the next day to shoot, and sometimes I can’t wait depending what it is.
I had seen a great review over at Steamy Kitchen about Lowel EGO lights. I decided to put those on my Christmas list. Santa was nice and brought them to me. I must say they have changed my life. It’s so wonderful to know that I can bake whenever I want because I can shoot whenever I want.
I got into a discussion on a food photography thread about using the lights. Most people were opposed to using any lights of any sorts. Said it made a huge difference and didn’t look right.
So as a experiment I took pictures of my tarts using both natural light and my EGO lights and if you would like to play along, go ahead and guess which pictures are in natural light and which are in artificial light.
My root canal went really well. I love pill sedation much better than IV I have learned. Plus my Endodontist kicks butt. I still am eating soft foods and so I thought I would make myself a nice treat of mousse. Whenever I want a mousse recipe I always skim through Helen’s site, she is the mousse queen to me. Not a bad thing to be the queen of if you ask me. Anyway, this isn’t really a mousse, it’s a diplomat cream which is basically pastry cream with whipped cream added to it. I liked her use of raspberry jam and dragged out a jar of my mom’s homemade jam. Yum.
For presentation reasons I went ahead and made some tart shells. Top them with raspberries and you have some really lovely tarts.

Raspberry Jam Mousse Tart

Vanilla Bean Tart Shell (recipe follows)
Raspberry Jam Diplomat Cream Mousse (recipe follows)
pint of raspberries

Vanilla Bean Pastry Tart Shell
Makes 1 (10 ½-inch) tart shell

1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean, cut in half and all bean scraped out (no vanilla beans? Use 1 tsp vanilla extract)
½ cup unsalted butter, cut into cubes and chilled
½ cup plus 2 TBSP powdered sugar
2 egg yolks
Using a food processor, combine the flour and salt and pulse to mix. Add butter and pulse until mixture resembles coarse bread crumbs.
Add sugar, vanilla beans,  and egg yolks and pulse again, just until the mixture comes together and pulls aways from the sides of the bowl.
Transfer dough to a sheet of plastic wrap. Form into a disc ans wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 1 hours or overnight.
Prepare fluted tart pan by buttering pan, getting both the bottom and sides of the pan.
Roll pastry out on a lightly floured surface into a circle. Fit dough into prepared tart pan, pressing evenly over the bottom and up the sides. Line tart shell with parchment paper and fill with dried beans or pie weights.
Bake tart shell for 20 minutes (at 350F), or until edges are very light brown. Remove parchment paper and weights.
Bake tart shell for 5-10 minutes more, or until lightly golden throughout.. Cool on a rack before filling.

Adapted from Taste of the South February/March 2009

Raspberry Jam Diplomat Cream Mousse

1 ½ tsp gelatin
1 TBSP cold water
1 cup whole milk
1/2 vanilla bean, split lengthwise and scraped (throw the seeds in the pot with the milk)
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
¼  cup sugar
2 TBSP cornstarch
1/3 cup raspberry jam
1 cup heavy cream

In a small bowl, sprinkle the gelatin over the water and let stand until you prepare the cream.
In a medium bowl, whisk the sugar, egg and egg yolk together, add the cornstarch mixing until you get a smooth paste. Set aside.
Meanwhile in a saucepan combine the milk and vanilla bean on medium heat until boiling. Remove from heat and add slowly to egg mixture, whisking constantly to prevent curdling, (pour through a strainer if this happens). Remove vanilla bean.
Place the egg mixture back into a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly.
Add the jam, cook another 30 seconds and remove from the heat. Immediately add in the gelatin and stir until completely dissolved. Place a piece of plastic wrap on the surface of the cream so that it does not develop a skin as it cools to room temperature.
Whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form and gently fold it into the pastry cream. Pipe or spoon the mousse immediately in the prepared tart shells. If you have any leftover, spoon into dessert dishes or glasses for quick snack.

Source: Tartelette, the mousse queen

When I moved to Washington state I was so excited at all the produce that was available. Arizona really has very little. Citrus and chili peppers. So imagine my surprise when I got an email asking me if I wanted a sample of pecans…from Arizona! That was something I needed to try. Up to this point I had only ever gotten my pecans from the south.
The Green Valley Pecans are smaller than my ones I get from Georgia, but seem to have more oil in them. So when they are toasted they had super pecan flavor, it was great. Which is why the recipe I chose to showcase them is so great, it calls for toasting the nuts. I wish I had known they were in Arizona when I lived there!
And did you know that pecans have been found to lower cholesterol? I did not. So the good news is, these Chocolate Pecan Diamonds are actually good for you. The original recipe called for cashews and semisweet chocolate, but I was making it for the milk chocolate and pecan lover of the family for his lunches. Be sure to use good chocolate for these as it will make a difference.
This might be the only post of the week. The dreaded Root Canal is on Wednesday and I figure I might be out of commission for a few days, I know Wednesday for sure. With the type of sedation medication I am going to be pretty out of it. I plan on unplugging the computer to avoid any unnecessary on line purchases.

Chocolate Pecan Diamonds

Pecan Dough

5 TBSP cold unsalted butter, cut into ½ -TBSP pieces, plus 1 TBSP melted to coat pan
1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup powdered sugar
2 large egg  yolks
½ cup unsalted pecans, toasted, and coarsely chopped

Pecan Filling

12 TBSP unsalted butter, cut into 1-TBSP pieces
2 cups dark brown sugar
¾ cup heavy cream
2/3 cup light corn syrup
4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, cut into ¼-ounce pieces
2 cups unsalted pecans, toasted, and coarsely chopped
2 cups milk chocolate chips
10 ounces milk chocolate baking chocolate (I like Lenotre), coarsely chopped

To make the dough:
Preheat oven to 325F.
Coat a 9-x-13-inch pan with the melted butter.
Sift together flour and sugar and place in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment.
Add the cold butter one piece at a time while mixing on low, until mealy in texture, about 2 minutes. Add egg yolks and mix on low until the dough forms around the paddle, about 30 seconds.
Add the pecans and mix on low for 30 seconds.
Remove dough from the mixer and place it in prepared pan. Use hands to flatten the dough uniformly to cover the bottom of the baking pan.
Bake on the center rack of oven for 15 minutes.
Remove from oven and set aside, leave the oven on.

To make the filling:

Bring butter, brown sugar, cream, and corn syrup to a boil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the brown sugar. Boil for 3 minutes, until thickened, stirring constantly with a whisk.
Remove from heat. Add the unsweetened chocolate and stir until the chocolate has melted.
Fold in the milk chocolate chips and pecans.
Pour filling onto baked dough. Using a spatula, spread evenly.
Bake on center rack for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees half way through.
Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle the 10 ounces of milk chocolate over the surface.
Place pan back in oven for 3 minutes.
Remove the pan from oven, and use a spatula to smooth the chocolate. I choose to make a marbled effect since the chocolates were different shades of brown.
Cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, then place in refrigerator for an hour.

To serve:
Remove from refrigerator. Turn the pan over onto a clean, dry, cutting surface, then turn the contents chocolate side up.
Using a sharp serrated knife, cut away 1/4-inch of the edge from the two narrower ends, then divide widthwise into 4 strips. Diagonally trim a 1/2-inch piece from each end of each strip, then cut the strip diagonally 3 times to form 4 uniformly sized diamonds form each strip.
The diamonds may be served immediately or kept at room temperature for 30 minutes. Best served at room temperature.
Keep in a tightly sealed plastic container in the refrigerator for several days.

Adapted from I’m Dreaming of a Chocolate Christmas by Marcel Desaulniers

 I love Food Bloggers. They are people unlike any other on the Web, I truly believe this. My husband is often in awe when I get something in the mail and he gives me the “what did you buy?” look. And I have to tell him nothing, a Food Blogger just sent me a treat. He is blown away by this. His world of the Internet and mine are very different. I mean this month alone I have gotten a ton of feel better cards, a couple of books to have to read when I sit and get my allergy shots, and Hello Kitty stickers (which totally made me smile, and still make me smile when I think of them).
And for as much as I love Food Bloggers there is one thing I hate. I hate that the ones I have such good connections with live NO where near me (with a few exceptions, there are a couple great Seattle area ones that I get to meet up with from time to time). And I don’t have the money to go to visit any of them.
I have this vision of my own version of Wisteria Lane, but my neighborhood is filled with Food Bloggers and none of the drama. Well, maybe just a little drama, a girl needs to gossip a little, eh? A nice myriad of bakers and cookers all coming together on one street. Ah, that would so be nice.
I often will be done emailing someone and think to myself, oh how I wish I could just have them come over later for tea and cookies. Ah, if only in a perfect world.
Since I have been trying to be nice to my husband as of late by making more things he liked, I thought I would make him something using his all time favorite peanut butter. The original recipe calls for blackberry jam but my husband will only eat grape jelly (I know, I know). This was pretty simple until I got to the grating of the frozen dough. As I state in the recipe, using a cheese grater while on pain medication doesn’t mix. No worries, no blood was lost.
My husband wishes they were more soft, I tried to explain that they were shortbread and therefore not meant to be soft. See, this is why I need Food Bloggers living next door to me.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Shortbread Wedges

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
½  cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
¼  cup creamy (smooth) natural peanut butter (I used Jif, screw natural )
½  cup sugar
Large pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ¼  cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup grape jelly (you could use any jam or jelly)

Spray bottom of 9-inch-diameter springform pan with nonstick spray. Beat butter and peanut butter in large bowl until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add sugar and salt and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Add flour; beat on low speed just until blended.
Transfer 1/3 cup dough to work surface. Shape into 1/2-inch-thick disk, place on plate, and freeze until hard, about 1 hour. Press remaining dough evenly over bottom of prepared pan. Spread jam over dough in pan, leaving 1/3-inch plain border. Refrigerate while dough disk freezes.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Using large holes of box grater, grate frozen dough evenly over jam (if you are on a pain medication like me I highly suggest you just break it up into little pieces…drugs and grating don’t mix kids). Bake shortbread until dough edge is deep golden and grated dough on top looks dry and baked through, about 50 minutes (mine only took 40). Cool shortbread completely in pan.
Release pan sides. Cut shortbread into wedges. Store airtight at room temperature.

Adapted from Bon Appetit January 2009