Peanut Butter - Kiss Cookies

This cookie's recipe is almost "everywhere"!

When I googled "peanut butter blossom cookies", ONLY 450 THOUSAND sites popped up!!!!!   So, according to the amount of ingredients you have on hand, or the look you like, take your pick from the many recipes others have already posted. For example, check this out (copy/paste this link if necessary):  https://www.google.com/search?q=peanut+butter+blossom+cookies&espv=2&biw=1164&bih=570&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=L4SVVNnWK4KdyASvnYCgAw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAg

The particular recipe I 

chose to make these can be found at: http://americanheritagecooking.com/2014/12/peanut-butter-blossoms/

Because I made these larger than the 

"2 tablespoon-sized" dough balls, I added

almost two minutes to the baking time 

that was suggested in the recipe I used.

As with any recipe, you know your oven

best and you know how you'd like your

cookie to end up--  dryer, or more moist.

Bake according to your oven, your likes!

Caramel Corn*

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 teaspoon SALT
1 cup BUTTER
2 cups BROWN SUGAR
1/2 cup light CORN SYRUP
...
1/2 teaspoon BAKING SODA
...
5 quarts POPPED POPCORN

DIRECTIONS:

Pop corn until you have 5 quarts of popped corn.  Put into a large bowl, and set aside.

1. Put salt, butter, brown sugar, and corn syrup into a heavy-bottomed pot, and stir constantly.  Bring to a boil over MEDIUM heat--  then, continue to boil (a "boil" that can't be stirred down) for only 2 minutes.  While all of this is happening, just keep stirring all the while and make sure nothing is sticking/burning on the bottom of your pan. (Be careful-- this mixture is so very hot!!!)
2.  Remove from heat and stir in the baking soda which will cause it to change color a little and foam up. 
3. After the baking soda is stirred in, pour the very hot mixture over popped popcorn and GENTLY mix --lifting from the bottom and coming up through the kernels until popped kernels are well coated.  (Vigorous mixing would break the fragile kernels up too much.)   
4. Put coated popcorn on a large baking sheet (about 16-inch by 11-inch?) that was ever so LIGHTLY sprayed with non-stick spray.  

Below:  Because I made a double batch, I had two pans...

5.  Bake in a pre-heated 250-degree oven for 1 hour, but you must gently lift/stir it (to sort of separate the "clumps") EVERY 15 minutes.

6.  At the end of 1 hour, remove from the oven; stir for the last time and let the caramel corn cool in the pans. 

7.  When cool, dump into a large bowl and gently break up the largest clusters before putting into whatever kind of containers you choose.

*Recipe from Smurawa's Country Bakery in Pulaski, WI, and you can find them right here: http://www.smurawabakery.com/

Can you imagine ANY small-town bakery selling 20,000 Paczkis on "Fat Tuesday" like they did last year?  Well, check this out:  http://www.smurawabakery.com/paczki-day    (Oh, those "Polish things" are SO GOOD!!!!)

(Caramalized) Browned Butter Krispie Treats

 My new FAVORITE "way" 

for making Krispie Treats...

As of right now, I am all done with making Krispie Treats the "regular way".  I'm all over the taste that comes from making one little change to the original recipe-- that "little change" is letting the butter brown a bit before adding the marshmallows!

Makes:  1  of 9x13" pan, plus 1 of 8x8" pan.  Perfect sized batch for pot luck affairs-- take the 9x13-inch, and keep the 9x9-inch for "future use"--and, I think we all know what THAT "future use" means!   (BUT!,... if you DO only want to make a small batch, use the ingredient number that is printed in blue.)

☺

INGREDIENTS:

• 12 oz. (or 3 sticks) unsalted butter, plus a little extra for greasing the pan. (4 oz. or 1 stick)
• 3 bags of 10.5 oz. mini-marshmallows (1 of 10.5 oz. mini-marshmallows)
• Optional, a dash of vanilla?
• 3/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt-- omit this if you used salted butter.  (1/4 teaspoon salt)
• 18 cups of dry Krispie cereal.  (6 cups dry Krispie cereal)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Butter the pan(s) you plan to use.
2. Measure the cereal into a large bowl right now so that it's ready at the end.
3. In a large pot-- preferably one with a thicker kind of bottom, melt butter over medium-low heat.  It will first melt, then foam, then turn clear golden and finally start to turn brown and smell nutty.  Watch VERY closely-- stirring all the while, and scraping the browned bits from the bottom of the pan as it starts to darken.  This butter can go from "light brown" to burnt in a hurry--  so watch it closely to prevent that from happening.
4. When butter is evenly browned (or turns a nutty color), turn off the heat, remove from burner and quickly stir in the marshmallows to keep the butter from continuing to darken with its own heat. 
5. Turn heat back on to LOW and keep stirring the marshmallows into the butter mixture until all is smoooooooooooooth.
6. Turn off the heat, again. Remove the pot from the stove and stir in the salt.  OPTIONAL:  You could also also add a scant teaspoon of vanilla (1/4 teaspoon) at this point. 
7. Dump this hot mixture over the Krispie cereal and mix well, very gently working the cereal up from the bottom of the bowl and to the top until all is coated.  
8. Scrape this coated cereal mixture into the prepared pan(s) and press down lightly.  If necessary, butter hands to gently press mixture flat. Let cool, and cut into squares or bars.

My interest in making these treats like this started a few months ago. Both my daughter and I were asked to take something to church for a funeral dinner-- me, a casserole; her, some bars.   She made these.   Well, after all was over, she asked me to take her container home with me.  Since there were a few Krispie Treats left in her very large pan, I.................... helped myself.  I immediately concluded they tasted better than any I'd ever made.  I asked her what she did differently.   At first, she couldn't think of anything-- then, she asked, "I wonder if it is because I let the butter brown a little bit before adding the marshmallows?"  YES!, that had to be it.    After that, while checking around on the Internet, I found actual recipes calling for doing that-- yes, letting the butter brown before continuing with the recipe!!!  From now on, I will always be making these  like this!

Banana Blueberry Crumb Muffins*

It's hard to believe we can get to THIS kind of 

"GOODNESS" in just about 25 minutes 

from start to finish!

What a wonderful  "marriage"!   Three very ripe bananas and one cup of fresh blueberries--  oh, how GOOD they end up tasting after meeting up with the other ingredients!!!

Yield:  12 muffins
Prep. time is about 5 minutes
Baking time is 18-20 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 and 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

........

• 3 ripe bananas, mashed (but not into mush)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

.......

• 1 cup fresh blueberries

.......

• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 and 1/2 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2  teaspoons butter, at room temperature

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 365-degrees
2. Line one 12-count muffin tin with papers
3. Ever so lightly, spray liners with non-stick spray.  Set aside.
4. In a med. bowl, combine the 1 and 1/2 cup amount of flour with the baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Whisk together well and set aside.
5. In another med. bowl, combine smashed bananas, sugar, slightly beaten egg, and melted butter.  Stir until well blended.
6. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture, barely stirring-- stir JUST until all is moistened.
7. Spoon muffin batter into muffin papers (a cookie scooper works great for this)
8. Drop the fresh blueberries (equally) on top of the muffin dough in the tins-- I ended up having about six blueberries for each muffin top.
9. Gently press each of the blueberries down into the dough.  They don't have to be totally covered.  (I do it this way so that my stirring doesn't break the blueberries as they could be IF they had been mixed into the dough.)  Set aside.
10. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, 1 and 1/2 tablespoon of flour, and the cinnamon together.
11. Using a fork, cut in the 2 teaspoons softened butter until evenly mixed.
12. Sprinkle the brown sugar/butter mixture evenly over the tops of the muffins.
13. Bake for 18-20 minutes OR until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
14. ENJOY!!!!  

*  This recipe was adapted from the recipe I saw on the blog of  http://realhousemoms.com/ in 2013.  I didn't make any huge changes.  How I did change: Lightly sprayed the paper liners, reduced the sugar a bit, introduced the fresh blueberries to the batter in a different way, reduced the total amount of the final crumb topping, and reduced the oven temperature just a little.