Girl HATES peanut butter. She had an allergic reaction to it as a toddler and was told not to eat it for so many years that, even when she outgrew the allergy (it’s rare to outgrow an allergy, folks, so don’t give your kid something that they’ve been previously allergic to without a doctor’s supervision; we tried it in the allergist’s office, Epi-Pen at the ready…six years after the initial reaction,) she was still a bit leery of it and never developed a taste for it. It’s only in the past few years that she’ll tolerate other nuts, but she does now LOVE pecans and will eat almond or cashew butter. Peanuts, however, are still a powerful “NO.” At least she no longer has to be segregated at the “peanut-free” lunch table, which is a very good thing.
Anyway…Girl was away at a sleepover last night, so I decided to make this pie for Hubby and Boy, who are MAJOR peanut butter lovers. I made it a few weeks ago to take to a friend who has been sick, and it looked wonderful during assembly, but I didn’t get to taste any of it, so I figured a do-over was overdue. (Ha! I crack myself up!)
The pie is fabulous (recipe here) and rich. The vanilla pudding layer is VERY flavorful and the bananas stay surprisingly fresh after a short orange juice bath. The peanut butter layer is just a little salty and tangy. Mmmm…very nice.
The pie isn’t difficult or terribly time-consuming to make, but it has to be made in stages and requires chilling time in between the steps, so it definitely can’t be made at the last minute. In fact, if you’re planning to make it tonight, you should start the prep by at least noon, because it requires a total of 4 hours of chilling (plus some cooking/baking time.) If you don’t start early, you’ll be eating dessert at 11 pm.
Worth the effort, though. Hubby liked enough that he went back for seconds before bedtime. Enjoy!
Hint: 6 ounces of Nilla Wafers = 46 wafers, for anyone that might not have a kitchen scale.
Month: October 2009
Pioneer Woman’s Simple Scrumptious Caesar Salad
Wow. Really, just wow. This salad (recipe here) is awesome. Make it NOW; just trust me.
I added some grape tomatoes, because I love them, even though they’re not “officially” a part of Caesar salad. Seriously, this salad is just SO good. I’m craving it right now, just looking at the photo.
Barefoot Contessa Pecan Squares
I saw Ina making these treats (recipe here) on a recent episode of her show and was very intrigued. They looked like little pecan pie squares, in a portable form. They were easy to make and were VERY tasty. You must have a very large pan to bake them in (I used a half-sheet pan,) and they make a TON of squares. I found them to be so rich that Ina’s suggested serving size was too large, so I cut them smaller and was able to get over twice as many servings out of the pan. I gave some away to friends who were taking Girl to their lakehouse over Labor Day weekend (a snack for the road trip,) and some to my parents. Hubby, Boy and I ate some over a period of a couple of days and I still have quite a few of them in my freezer. So, I guess I wouldn’t plan on making these again unless it was for an “occasion,” because the recipe makes SO many that one family wouldn’t be able to eat them all (at least not without hurting themselves!) before they got totally sick of them. They are delicious, though, and would be the perfect thing to bring to a family reunion, potluck, bake sale, etc…where you know that you’ll need to feed a crowd.
Instead of dipping one side of each square in chocolate, I just lightly drizzled melted chocolate over the whole pan. Mmmmm…rave reviews from all that we shared them with.
Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
I was looking for something to make for the kids to eat after school to give them energy before heading off to after-school extra-curricular activities (it seems like the kids are always STARVING when I pick them up from school!) These (recipe here) cookies from Cooking Light magazine were easy, yummy, healthy, and made with things that everyone already has on hand.
Alton Brown’s Vanilla-Poached Pears
These (recipe here) were so delicious and easy. The really wonderful thing is that they can be prepared in advance, so they’d be wonderful for a dinner party. I served them with ice cream, because I wasn’t sure how my crew would take to them, on their own. They definitely liked them with the ice cream, but we had some of the leftovers, plain, for breakfast the next morning and they were also, quite well-received. Instead of serving the entire pear, you could also cut the pear into slices for a different presentation, with smaller portion sizes.
Oatmeal-Buttermilk Pancakes
This recipe is another that I originally read about in a magazine recipe-request column. It appeared in Bon Appetit’s RSVP column MANY years ago. I cut the recipe out because it was from a restaurant (Tres Joli Bakery Cafe) in Oakton, VA, which was just a few miles from where we lived at the time. Unfortunately, Tres Joli closed (or has evolved into a catering-only business, I believe) before I got a chance to eat there, but I finally got around to trying these pancakes recently and they were delicious. Light and crusty and lacy and hearty… One thing that I dislike about pancakes for breakfast is that they fill you up and weigh you down for a little while, but are made of such simple (quickly processed by your body) carbohydrates that they really don’t stick you very long. If you have blood-sugar issues, as I do (I’m borderline hypoglycemic,) then you will appreciate the oatmeal in these pancakes, because they’ll give you a little more complex carbs so you won’t have that “crash and burn” feeling after a few hours.
Cornmeal Waffles
When I read a column in Gourmet magazine that mentioned these waffles from Brown Sugar Kitchen in California as “the best I’ve encountered in over 80 years of dining,” I knew that I had to try them. The reader that wrote the letter said that they’re so light that they almost float off the plate.
We did, in fact, love these, but they didn’t rise up quite as much as I expected them to. I think that I determined the problem to be faulty yeast (not past its expiration date, but close to,) rather than a problem with the recipe.
They were flavorful and crusty and delicious, though, and I will be eager to try them again soon, now that I’ve acquired some fresh yeast.
Gourmet magazine doesn’t have the specific article online that I read (one where readers can write in to request their favorite restaurant recipes and the mag will track them down,) but here are two articles that I found about the waffles (the second one has the recipe):
Gourmet review of BSK
Carmen Cooks: recipe
Spicy Chicken Chili and Cornbread
When time allows, my whole family sits down on Sunday afternoons to look through cooking magazines and cookbooks and recent printouts to plan our menus for the week. We look at our schedule for the week to see what we’ve got to do on any given night. We consider if it’s a day when the kids have lots of after-school activities (so I will be driving and hence, not home to cook,) or if we need a recipe that can be made ahead. We consider who will be home that night and choose recipes based upon their preferences (for example, Girl *hates* seafood and peanut butter, but Girl will be at a sleepover tonight, so we’ll be having Salmon with Lentils, because Boy *loves* seafood and Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie, because Boy *loves* peanut butter.)
Recently, as we were having one of our planning sessions, Boy picked this recipe out and *begged* for me to make it. It was easy and quite yummy. Hubby loved it, too, because he LOVES chicken thighs and much prefers them over breasts. Girl got canned vegetarian chili, which was fine, to eat with her cornbread.
I can’t remember which cornbread recipe that I used, but I really wish that I could, because it turned out beautifully! I think that it might have been this one from Allrecipes.com. You could use any cornbread recipe that you like, but I know that this one had buttermilk in it. If anyone has a recipe that they really like, please share!
To Die For Blueberry Muffins
We recently had our niece and two nephews over to spend the night with Boy and Girl. I asked the kids what they would like for breakfast in the morning and niece suggested blueberry muffins. She sweetly said that she was sure that any I would make would be fabulous. Ruh-roh! That’s when I realized that I really didn’t have a “go to” blueberry muffin recipe…so I went searching. When I found this one on AllRecipes, I hoped the muffins would live up to their name. Luckily for me (and all 5 of the little morning cousins!,) they did. They were wonderful! I used frozen blueberries, because I had them on hand and the muffins were fine; just toss them in directly out of the bag – no need to even thaw them.
This photo doesn’t really do them justice, but they were VERY tasty and the crumbly topping was divine. Be sure to have a glass of cold milk or juice (or hot cup of coffee) ready to go with them!
Steakhouse Birthday Dinner for a Carnivore
Boy LOVES meat…just about any kind, so when we celebrated his 12th birthday recently, only a nice hunk of red meat would do. So, we made him some beautiful ribeyes, mashed garlic Yukon Gold potatoes and The Pioneer Woman’s easy and delicious creamed spinach. I made him a lemon birthday cake with raspberry frosting for dessert. He was VERY happy.