Monday, September 2, 2013

Homemade peanut butter cups

I'm a sucker for anything peanut butter and chocolate so I had to try homemade Reese's peanut butter cups! This is the 3rd time I've made them. After a little tweaking, I think I've got it down.

Homemade peanut butter cups
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 sugar
1 cup milk chocolate chips
2 Tbls peanut butter
Yields 2 dozen mini muffin and 6 regular size muffins

In a glass bowl, melt the butter and 3/4 cup peanut butter in the microwave on high for 45 seconds. Stir until smooth. Add the graham cracker crumbs and sugar and mix. Line the muffin tins. Fill each about 1/2 way full. Let chill (set) in the refrigerator 15 min.

In a microwave safe bowl, mix the chocolate chips and remaining peanut butter. Melt at 50% power for 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each 30 seconds until smooth and all the chocolate chips are melted. (Mine end up taking 1 1/2 minutes). Pour chocolate over the peanut butter base. Chill for 15 minutes. Serve immediately. If it is warm, store in the refrigerator.




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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Peep and jelly bean center pieces

I actually made these a couple years ago and forgot about them until I was pinning a couple weeks ago!  Lucky me, Hobby Lobby had all their glass vases on sale when I went!!!  I was able to get some great vases I know I'll be able to use over and over again.

For the round fishbowl, I used skittle jelly beans which is why they are darker than the other bowl which I used regular jelly beans with sprinkled robin eggs on top.



Original pin:


Layered jell-o

I volunteered to make a jell-o salad this year.  I found the pin below and thought it looked good.  Who doesn't like sweet condensed milk!  It was easy enough to make.  But I thought it was a little odd to be adding an extra packet of gelatin to the colored layers. I was right, the jell-o was very chewy.  The only thing I can think of is it is needed if you are going to cut out shapes out of the jell-o.  I left mine in a glass 13"x9" dish and served it out of there.  And I covered mine in cool whip.  Overall I liked the flavor of the layers.  Next time I'll not add the extra packet of gelatine and see what happens.  And I couldn't tell what size jell-o box was used.  I started with the 3 oz size and quickly realized I needed to double the amount.  Next time, I'll buy the large packets of jell-o!

And I had some trouble with the white layer.  When you make it, it makes 3 cups.  You only need 1 cup at a time.  So by the time I got to needing the last cup, it had started to set and was chunky.  So I made another batch of the white layer and ended up throwing out 2 cups of it.  I don't know what else to do and how to stop the mixture from starting to set.  

I forgot to take a picture, but wanted to remember what I did if I need to make a jell-o dish again.

For each (I did 3) colored layer:
1 large box jell-o
2 cups hot water
1 packet knorr gelatin (I will not use this next time)

Mix together until smooth.  Pour into a sprayed 13"x 9" glass pan

For the white layer: (makes enough for 3 layers)
1 can sweeten condense milk
3 packets knorr geltin
2 cups hot water

Mix until smooth.  Pour over colored layer.  It helps if you pour the mixture onto a spoon held close to the colored layer as to not cause a hole in the jell-o layer by pouring directly.

Let each layer set completely before adding the next layer.  If not - your jell-o will turn brown.


Original pin:

 

Puzzle egg hunt

I loved this idea when I saw it!  My kids love egg hunts, but I don't want to just have candy filled eggs for them.  I went to the dollar store.  I found a 24 piece puzzle for my almost 3 year old and a 100 piece puzzle for the 8 year old.  I put 1 puzzle piece in each egg for my son and 4 pieces in each for my daughter.  That way my son had 24 eggs and my daughter 25.  And I color separated the eggs. My son had blue, green and orange.  My daughter had pink, purple and yellow.  This way we won't mix up the puzzle pieces.

This seemed like a success!  Even though my brother and I ended up doing 75% of my daughters puzzle (she had no concentration with so many family members around!), it was great and I look forward to doing this again next year!









Original pin:
Source: parents.com via Kristen on Pinterest


Egg plate for the kids

My almost 3 year old liked this much better than my 8 year old!  My 8 year old didn't get enough food - especially the ham!

I ran the plastic eggs thought the top rack of the dishwasher and washed the styrofoam egg cartons thouroly.  I just wanted to make sure there were no raw egg yuckies left in the egg cartons and residue on the plastic eggs.







The original pin:




Carrot flower vase

I saw this and loved it!  I've done lemons before but never thought about carrots...





The original pin:


Bunny Footprints

We were expecting rain, so Riley wrote the bunny a note and drew him a key so he could make it into our house (bunnies can come down fireplaces!).  The Easter Bunny used the key and left evidence he was in our house!  I didn't think the dogs would clean up the flour footprints for me, but that's one less thing I have to do this morning!