Mississippi Mud Brownies (4 Star)

I can't stop thinking about these brownies. I want to make them every day and eat them all myself. They are fudgy, dense, chewy, and my favorite part is the salty peanut butter on top. Another thing that I like about them is that they are made with cocoa powder, not unsweetened baking squares. It's cheaper that way, easier, and no sacrifice at all in flavor or texture.

I didn't even make them to the full extent of their wickedness because I didn't have marshmallows, pecans, or powdered sugar, but I'm excited for the day that I do. However, they were extremely good with just the chocolate chips and peanut butter.

I was a little unsure about this recipe at first, because it only calls for two tablespoons of cocoa powder in the brownies. I thought that there was no way that was enough but they turned out really good, though they were on the light side of chocolaty. The semi sweet chips added a lot more chocolate. However, if you do want them to have more intense chocolate flavor, then increase the cocoa powder and decrease the flour. I made them once as written in the original recipe and once with more chocolate. Pictured are the more chocolaty ones. I am posting the recipe with my changes.

Mississippi Mud Brownies
adapted from Tasty Kitchen

•1/2 cups All-purpose Flour
•1/3 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
•1/4 teaspoons Salt
•1/2 cups Unsalted Butter, At Room Temperature
•1 cup White Sugar
•1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
•2 whole Large Eggs
•3/4 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
•1/2 cups Crunchy Peanut Butter (Smooth works fine, too. My favorite is Kirkland Signature's organic peanut butter.)
•2 cups Mini Marshmallows
•1/2 cups Chopped And Toasted Pecans
•2 cups Confectioner's Sugar
•1/8 teaspoons Salt
•4 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
•2 Tablespoons Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
•1/4 cups Plus 2 Tablespoons Of Milk
•1/4 teaspoons Pure Vanilla Extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8×8″ square baking pan with parchment paper or foil. If using foil, spray it with cooking spray.

In medium bowl, combine flour, 1/3 cup cocoa powder, and salt. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl, beat together butter, sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Stir dry ingredients into batter. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake in preheated oven for 22-25 minutes.

When brownie layer is done baking, gently spread peanut butter over hot brownie. If you use a peanut butter that is thick, you can add a little oil and microwave until it's a little more runny. With mine, I didn't need to do this. Sprinkle the peanut butter covered brownies with marshmallows. Return to oven to bake for 3 more minutes, or until the marshmallows puff. Remove from oven and sprinkle puffed marshmallows with toasted pecans.

To make frosting, combine confectioners sugar and salt. In small saucepan, melt 4 Tablespoons butter over medium heat. When butter is melted, add the 2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder and 1/4 cup of the milk and heat until the mixture begins to boil. Pour this mixture into confectioners sugar/salt mixture and beat on high speed with an electric mixer until smooth and glossy. If frosting is not pourable at this point, add remaining 2 Tablespoons of milk (I didn’t have to do this). Lastly, beat in 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, then pour evenly over puffed marshmallows and pecans.

Let cool completely in refrigerator for 1-2 hours. Cut into squares and enjoy!



Click here for the original recipe.

Salsa Bean Dip (0 Star)

This is a recipe I came up with myself, and maybe I am a little strange, I don't know. But I like it and it is another healthy way to make veggies more enticing. All it is, is refried beans mixed with salsa. I use my homemade refried beans from this post. If I were to make it with canned refried beans (which I'm not sure I ever would because they just don't taste nearly as good) I would season them with stuff like liquid smoke, garlic powder, onion powder, chipotle powder, maybe some taco seasoning, etc. As far as amounts, I haven't measured, but I'm guessing it's somewhere between a one to one, or three to two ratio, the beans being the greater amount.

Queso Chicken Soup (3 Star)

This soup is one of Brandon's favorites. Most of the rest of us like it, too. It is creamy, cheesy, and chunky, full of vegetables, potatoes, chicken, and black beans.



Queso Chicken Soup
adapted from Picky Palate

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, diced
3 stalks celery, diced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
3 cloves fresh garlic, minced
2 cans of chunk chicken from Costco, undrained (or use 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken breast)
1 Tablespoon ground cumin
1-2 teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1/3 cup flour
4 cups chicken broth
15 oz can black beans, drained
15 oz can diced tomatoes (I always puree mine to appease the picky eaters)
4 Cups diced baking potato
¼ Cup fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
half a jar of Ragu cheese sauce or two cups of shredded cheddar or Monterrey jack

Garnish
Frito's or tortilla chips
cilantro leaves

Heat oil in a 5 qt dutch oven or large pot over medium heat. Saute onion, celery and carrots until softened, about 8-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Stir in garlic and chicken. Cook and stir for 1 minute. Add cumin, salt, pepper, and flour and stir for another minute. Add chicken broth, tomatoes, and potatoes. Cook over medium heat until potatoes are fork tender. Reduce heat to low and stir in cilantro leaves and Ragu cheese sauce or grated cheese. Stir until cheese is melted. Garnish with chips and cilantro leaves, if desired.




Click here for original recipe.

Baked Sweet Potato (0 Star)

I have expressed my love for sweet potatoes on this blog before (and my mock snobbery--it's obvious when I'm joking, right? Right?). This sweet potato love matured and deepened when I lived in Hawaii. It was there that I tried my first baked sweet potato. It was served to me by a family with about ten scrawny kids living in a tiny, humble home. It was a very small half of a sweet potato that had been grown in the family garden. I was blown away by the creamy, bright orange, buttery, sweetness. I devoured it and looked around hoping for more, but it was obvious that my small half was a generous offering.

Another family in Hawaii served me a sweet potato, the likes of which I had never known existed. It was a small, skinny tuber, about the diameter of a medium sized carrot. It had been peeled, boiled, sliced into discs and served with butter. The most amazing thing about it was the gorgeous purple color. The color reminded me of purple gumdrops. Again I was blown away by the buttery sweetness--and the color!



I dream about those Hawaiian sweet potatoes. I have even grown my own sweet potatoes, hoping to replicate them, but the results were worse than yams. (Were they yams? The catalog said "Georgia Jets" and called them sweet potatoes.) If you read this post, you know how I feel about yams.

Then, this week when I went shopping I noticed that the sweet potatoes looked a little different than the typical sweet potatoes that I've seen around here. The skin was a deep purple. Normally the sweet potato skin color is closer to the color of regular baking potatoes. With visions of my Hawaiian sweet potatoes, I immediately snatched up a half dozen or so. Eagerly, I went home and baked one up and took a bite. Ahhh, lovely, lovely sweet potato! It was obviously not the same kind as the ones that I had in Hawaii--the flesh was not purple or bright orange--but it's flavor did come closer than any other sweet potato I've had. (Or at least closer to my memory of them...that was kind of a long time ago, sad to say.) What a creamy, buttery, sweet dream.







If you want to try especially good sweet potatoes, go to Buy Low and get some right now! If you are not familiar with it, Buy Low is right next to Cafe Rio, and close to Olive Garden and Movies 8. And be sure the sign says "sweet potatoes" not "yams"!

To prepare a baked sweet potato, bake the same as you would a regular baked potato and slather with plenty of butter.

Peanut Butter Butterscotch Cookies (4 Star)

Another one of my goals this year is to eat more cookies. Just kidding! But when I do eat cookies, I want them to be really good cookies. These are really good.

I have been on a peanut butter kick, lately. I don't know why, because I've never cared that much about peanut butter before, but now I just love to eat it, straight out of the jar, even. Or with raisins, (now you might get a little worried about me, but it's good!) or a spoonful of peanut butter with a spoonful of jam, or (this is where I can get out of control) with chocolate chips. I have been trying out many different things, lately, because I just can't seem to get enough of the stuff. One thing that I tried is butterscotch chips with peanut butter. Wow! It sort of reminds me of Reese's Pieces, only way, way better. Anyway, this whole long paragraph is just to explain that when I saw this recipe, I knew I was going to love these cookies. I was right!





Click here for the recipe from Picky Palate.