If You Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate

you'll love this recipe that I found over at Kate's blog Framed. She has the most wonderful recipes and she takes beautiful photos of the food she prepares.

The day before Halloween Kate posted a recipe called Halloween Brownies. One of the ingredients is Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. AD, Daughter and G2 are big fans of the peanut buttery chocolate treat so I knew I had to try the recipe.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 13" x 9" pan with aluminum foil making sure it extends over the edges of the pan. GREASE/SPRAY the foil. The reason I put those words in caps is because I initially overlooked those directions. Luckily I did remember just prior to pressing the bottom layer into the pan.

Crush a 16-ounce package of Nutter Butter cookies. I put mine in the food processor.

Melt butter and combine with the cookie crumbs. I let the food processor do that for me too.

Press the crumb mixture into the bottom of the GREASED/SPRAYED pan. Bake for 6-8 minutes. (I went with 8 minutes.)

While crust is baking combine sweetened condensed milk, peanut butter and vanilla together

stirring until smooth.

Chop peanut butter cups and Butterfinger candy bars.

At some point the crust will have baked the 6-8 minutes and you will have removed it from the oven.

Sprinkle chopped candy bars and chocolate chips over crust.

Pour the condensed milk/peanut butter mixture over the chocolate toppings.

I then spread the mixture evenly over the chocolate candies.

Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack. Once the bars are cooled, lift them out of the pan using the overlapping foil as a handle.

Peel the foil down and cut into bars.

Kate's instructions said the recipe makes 28 small or 18 large bars. I cut these into 48 pieces. My family told me that was a good thing because they are very rich.

Halloween Brownies

Kate adapted her recipe from http://www.bakeorbreak.com/

I adapted my bars from Kate's recipe. You can see her recipe and her beautiful photographs here.

1 (16 ounce) package Nutter Butter cookies, crushed into crumbs
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter (I didn't have quite 1/2 cup but everything turned out fine)
1 tablespoon vanilla
7 1/2 ounces peanut butter cups (about 25 miniature cups or 10 snack size cups), coarsely chopped
4 ounces Butterfinger candy bars (about 7 small candy bars), coarsely chopped (Note: I used one 5 ounce chocolate bar with Butterfinger chips in it)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 13"x9" pan with aluminum foil letting the foil extend over the edges of the pan. GREASE/SPRAY foil. Please don't forget the spraying part!

Combine cookie crumbs with melted butter. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan and back 6-8 minutes.

Stir sweetened condensed milk, peanut butter and vanilla together until smooth. Set aside. Sprinkle the chopped candy bars and chocolate chips over crust. Pour condensed milk/peanut butter mixture over the chocolates and spread evenly.

Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool in pan.

Lift bars out of pan, peel back foil and cut into bars.

Prepare to indulge.

New Fangled Gadget

We were in Tulsa a week or so ago. While we were there we went by a restaurant/kitchen supply store that I like to go to.

I love looking at kitchen gadgets, cookware, bakeware, etc and I could spend hours in that store.

While we were there I saw this little thing and was very intrigued. It comes in a variety of colors. And it was under $4.00.

I just had to get one so I could try it out. It works great! I think I might have to make a trip back to the store and buy a few more. What great little stocking stuffers they would make.

Do you know what it is?

Here's another view of it.

It's a -

Spoon/ladle rest that fits on the side of a pot. How cool is that!

What's that in the pot, you ask? I was cooking macaroni to make Landyard Lady's Crockpot Mac and Cheese. I can't wait to serve it up for supper tonight!

Coffee Anyone?

I don't drink coffee or tea. I just never did acquire a taste for either.

Last Sunday afternoon while AD was watching the Nascar race on t.v. I was reading through my list of favorite blogs.

When I came to Ozark Oddments, Leilani's October 31 post invited her readers to tea. She said she has a variety of teas and cups.

Several years ago I received one of those emails that gets forwarded on. This particular one really spoke to me. I filed it away and occasionally when it is brought to mind I take it out and read it over again.

It's about coffee cups but I don't see why you couldn't insert the word tea for coffee.

You may possibly have read it before but I'd like to share it with you again and hope that you enjoy it too.

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university Professor.Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

Offering his guests coffee, the Prof went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups: porcelain, plastic, glass, some plain-looking and some expensive and exquisite, telling them to help themselves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the lecturer said “If you noticed, all the nice-looking, expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the better cups and are eyeing each other’s cups.”

“Now, if Life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life, but the quality of life doesn’t change. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.”

Which do you treasure more - the quality of your coffee, or the quality of your coffee cups?

- Author Unknown

One Fun Time

The Halloween Trunk-or-Treat was so much fun! There was lots of candy for the kids.


The trick-or-treaters loved G1 and G2's race cars. Some of them wanted to sit in them.



This little Spiderman SO wanted to reach the pedals but his spidey legs were just too short!

We also took G1's racing kart. AD only let the littlest ones sit in it because it was sitting up on the stand. One of the little guys particularly loved that kart. He looked at his mom and said, "Mommy, Quarters?" He just knew if he had a quarter to put in somewhere that he could drive that kart. It was SO cute! That's probably the one memory of the night that I'll carry with me for a very long time.

Do you know what happens to you when you eat too much candy? You end up like this lady . . .

Guess who showed up for the trunk-or-treat. Is that Ace Ventura with AD?

Our church's 1st trunk-or-treat went off really well. Yesterday I heard some people already planning for next year.