Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pie - yummers!

Tis the season for pie! Well, every season is a season for pie. Since I've not posted a recipe in a while, and because Amber begged threatened asked me nicely for the recipe, making a spectacle of herself on my Facebook page, here it is.

I bought a lot of peanut butter recent (freshly ground from our health food store) and decided to try a new recipe. It's from the Better Homes & Garden New Cook Book, and turned out to be one of the best dessert pies I've had.

Don't judge it by the photo, which doesn't look too great, but, trust me, it is delicious!

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pie
1 pie crust of your choice (the BH&G cookbook suggested their chocolate wafer crust but I used a regular pie crust because that's my favorite)

1 8-oz pkg cream cheese, softened (I used an equivalent amount of mascarpone cheese)
3/4 C peanut butter
1 C powdered sugar
2 T milk
1 t vanilla
1 C whipping cream
2 T powdered sugar
3/4 C mini semisweet chocolate pieces (I used bittersweet chocolate chips)

1.  Prepare crust and set aside. Chill a medium mixing bowl and beaters.

2. For filling in a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and peanut butter until smooth. Add the 1 C powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla; beat until combined.

3. In the chilled mixing bowl, beat whipping cream and the 2 T powdered sugar with the chilled beaters of an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Gently fold about 1/3 of the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture. Fold remaining whipped cream and mini chocolate pieces into peanut butter mixture. Spoon into the crust. If desired, sprinkle with coarsely chopped peanuts. Cover and chill about 2 hours or until set.

Will you try making this? If you = Amber, then, I know the answer is yes. Hah! If you do, let me know how you like it!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

I heart Amber...and I heart food!

Half of you who come here already know Amber - she is one talented lady who seems to have boundless energy and skills. And if you don't already know her, you really must check out her blog: Amber's Ambry. You'll thank me for turning you on to it...probably more so than you'll thank me for sharing cookie recipes with you, but I'll do that too (at the bottom of this post). :)

Amber and her very cute, and equally talented, apparently, boys made the sweetest bird seed ornaments, which I just had to have because I love to spoil our birds. Heh.   Aren't they cute and perfect for the holidays?

I first knew Amber for her soap-making skills, and she never disappoints:

Amber made this incredible hand-balm that is so emollient, it actually speeds the healing of paper-cuts!  I kid you not.  I have empirical evidence!

Because no blog post is complete without the mention of food, and because I don't want you to think that I didn't bake at all during my months off from blogging, here are some pics of FOOD.

These are magnificent Magnolia Bakery chocolate cupcakes. They were one of my best batches yet!

I was making a lot of the no-knead artisan bread for a while.  Here is a slice that became an experiment in seeing how Vegemite (on the left) differed in taste from Marmit (on the right).  Dh and the boys definitely prefer Vegemite.

Because the sweet potatoes kept so well in the utility room over the winter, I was able to make a sweet potato pie:

As a healthier change from Coconut-Cranberry Chews, I made some Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies instead. We definitely preferred the former, even though the latter has heart-healthy oats in it.

So there ya have it...my past 2 months reduced to two blog posts, and missing all the really juicy stuff (that's in my other blog).

I'm now back in full blogging force and am looking forward to reading everyone else's blogs again!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

More on gardening

"Topsoil is an important natural resource that we have been very careless with, and about 70 gigatons of topsoil are lost each year due to inefficient agricultural methods." ~ Michael Wysession, How the Earth Works from The Teaching Company (emphasis mine)

The boys and I watch educational videos if we're at home during the lunchtime. Currently, we're watching How the Earth Works, and I was astounded by the above fact the instructor presented. For many years now, whenever we drove by a sign that said "Topsoil for Sale", dh always shook his head and said, "they're selling their souls." He's so right.

But on to a more cheerful gardening topic, the really nice seed company, Hometown Seeds, that I have on my sidebar, gave me some lovely sample seeds for having their logo on my blog. Click on photo below to see what all the seeds are.Look at the lovely variety of shapes and sizes of all the seeds! Nature creates the best works of art.
A close-up of the very cool lettuce seeds:
But, given how lame my reviews tend to be, which is why I don't have a blog devoted to reviews, I will refer you to the always gorgeous, always readable Amber's Ambry blog for her terrific post on Hometown Seeds.

I can't wait to try out some of these seeds though...or, more correctly, I can't wait for dh to try out some of these seeds!

By the way, our asparagus are poking out!!! :)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

My talented blogging buddies

I love to sing the praises of my very talented blogging friends, in addition to supporting hand-made and indie bizzes. So, here's the song I'm singing today!

With winter approaching and me running low on both Whipped Shea and Crush on You, it was time to knock on Joanna's door (The Soap Bar, Product Body Blog). And that lady doesn't disappoint. I am totally in love with Crush and Whipped Shea, and have been for a while now, although, fussy me, I have to have them scented, but you can get yours "naked".Jo also threw in some extra goodies: the Cocoa Java (top left) and the travel-size Creme Fresh (in Beach House! Oooh, summer, you are so far away, but this will remind me of you until then). And the Whipped Champagne soap is really to die for! Just leave a few bars for me when you go get some yourself!

After swapping with Amber (Amber's Ambry) - my hat for her soaps - I just had to have more! I cannot wait to sink my teeth...uh, my body?...into the Thai Cocunutty Deliciousness...and all her other soapy goodness, which you should check out too! Right now, we're enjoying the heady scent of her Spicy Lime Soap in the shower.And if you're a really lucky, Amber just might have her fabulous new lip balms for sale. I was one of her lucky testers and I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up! The scent I got was blueberry...check out the cute little blueberry that she drew by hand on the container:You know that a product that has received so much love in its creation has to be good. It doesn't become a goopy mess under your fingers and then glides on beautifully on your lips, in a just-perfect layer, not too thin, not too thick. The scent is unmistakably, and delightfully, fresh blueberry. Mmmm! So, what are you waiting for? Head on over to her Etsy store!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Mid-(ahem)-week post - in which Pooh loses his mind and wants to hibernate

...because he has too many things to do, and too little time to do them.

Dang - I'm projecting again. It's actually me, and not Pooh.

Got a whole bunch of random photos to share anyway, but not a whole lot of writing (mercifully for all of you).

Ds#1's gardening pick this year was a purple carrot. They turned out pretty well (see below with a "normal" carrot on the right for color comparison), but I'd advise against growing them as they tend to stain everything, much like beets do. The thing is, there is no good substitute for beets, but there are fine substitutes for purple carrots.
Here are the carrots, roasted up with potatoes, and served with fried chicken:
Dh has always wanted a good hammock so we finally bought one from Gaiam.com. The boys tested it out and pronounced it a great fit.
Lorie (Be Different Act Normal) posted about bandana aprons and I got inspired (because our bandanas had secretly procreated like rabbits in the drawer and we now have a hundred of them). This is my attempt. I wore it today to brown the pot roast. The pot roast was pleased, I could tell.
Have any of you ever tasted paw paw? It's native to Indiana. The animals have always gotten to them before we did, even though we have a good bit of paw paw trees on our property. This year, dh and the boys managed to snag a couple. So, we tried it, and I think it is incredibly foul. Andrew Zimmern (on Bizarre Foods) could not stomach durian. Obviously, he had never eaten paw paw because that would have prepared him for the durian experience. Yes, it is that foul.
On the other end of the gastronomic spectrum has to be this tofu curry that dh makes. It is the current love of my life!
Tofu curry in my bowl...and in my dreams!
These next couple of photos are specially for Sara (Schooling From the Heart). This is the potter's wheel I bought from her before they left for Europe (*sniffle*). Ds#1 has been working on it regularly for a month now. It takes a long time to master, but I'm glad he seems to be enjoying it.
Sara gave us this table that her dh made; it is sturdy and excellent for wedging clay (which is what ds#1 is doing here, before he threw it on the wheel; my photos are out of order).
Ds#2 is taking a short break from ceramics right now, but will start back next week. He's been practicing sketching while ds#1 works on ceramics. I love art days!
And last, but not least, here are the goodies from Amber (Amber's Ambry) that I got for swapping the hat I knitted. Is the package adorable, or what?
Here are the soaps she sent me. I've started using the Blueberry one, and it smells soooo nice! Thanks much for bartering/swapping with me, Amber!
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams