PB Crave Recipes

Keep entering the PB Crave giveaway HERE!  You can enter the giveaway until midnight on Sunday.

When I received PB Crave, I was so excited to try some new recipes.  PB Crave's flavors are a great way to change up an old peanut butter recipe favorite.  Do you have a go to peanut butter cookie recipe?  Try making it with Razzle Dazzle to make your cookies extra special.  Do you crave smoothies on a hot summer day?  Add CoCo Bananas to your smoothie to give it some extra flavor.

I'm going to share two different recipes that I made using different PB Crave flavors.  The first is Cookie Nookie Rice Krispie Treats.  It's definitely a classic sweet treat with some pumped up flavor.  I brought these to a friend's apartment while watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies and they were a huge hit

Cookie Nookie Rice Krispies:

Ingredients:

3 tbl margarine

4 cups mini marshmallows

3/4 cup Cookie Nookie

6 cups Rice Krispies

Instructions:
1. Lightly grease 9 x 13 pan. Set aside
2. Put Rice Krispies in a large bowl.  Set aside.
3. In a medium pot on low heat, melt margarine and marshmallows. Stir constantly.  Add Cookie Nookie and stir until incorporated.
4. Add mixture to Rice Krispies.  Stir until Rice Krispies are completely coated.
5. Pour and press into pan.
6. Let cool, cut, then enjoy!

CoCo Bananas is my favorite of the peanut butters, so I obviously had to make something with it.  The second recipe is CoCo Bananas Granola Bars.  I decided to try and go a little bit healthier with this one and change up an Elvis Granola Bar recipe that I saw here. 

CoCo Bananas Granola Bars:
Ingredients:
4 cups rolled oats
2 tbl flax seeds (or chia seeds, both add texture)
1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
1/2 cup unsweetened banana chips
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup CoCo Bananas
1/2 cup + 2 tbl honey

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.  Spray 9 x 13 pan and set aside.
2. Combine oats, flax seeds, peanuts, banana chips, and chocolate in a medium bowl.  Set aside.
3. In a medium pot on low heat, melt and combine honey and CoCo Bananas.
4. Add melted peanut butter and honey to bowl.  Stir until combined.
5. Pour and press into pan.
6. Bake for 25 minutes.
7. Let cool, cut, and enjoy!

There are so many other delicious recipes to make with the PB Crave flavors!  Be sure to enter the giveaway HERE for your chance to win all 4 PB Crave flavors.

I'm Back (and Happy Sugar Cookie Day)!

After a week of vacation with my family in Colorado, I'm back! I had an amazing vacation with lots of food, family, outdoor adventures, and fun!  More details to come on that tomorrow.

This past week, temperatures in Chicago have been extremely high, like in the 100s.  Not your typical Chicago weather!  The day after I got back from Colorado, I woke up for my Saturday morning long run.  When I started my run at 6:45, the temperature was already at 85 degrees and humid.  Needless to say, the weather (and my week of vacation) did not make for a good run.  I was hot, tired, and dehydrated from the start.  I could barely finish and had to walk for a little.  I was obviously disappointed in my run.  It's hard not to get discouraged after a bad run. Instead of focusing on how disappointed I was after my run, I tried to refocus on the week ahead and doing better the next week.  It's important to remember that not every run will be your best (and this one was definitely not mine).  Also on those bad runs remember...

and...

Today is National Sugar Cookie Day!  It is also some of my students' last week of summer school.  I wanted to make the students a special treat for finishing summer school, so I used the holiday as inspiration and made Rainbow Pinwheel Cookies.  

How they looked pre-cooked (kind of looks like Play Doh)

I found the recipe here.  This recipe is ridiculously easy, especially because I used pre-made sugar cookie dough.  Let's be honest...the pre-made dough is so good why bother trying to re-create what is already so yummy?!  I loved how the neon food dye looked in the original recipe, but couldn't find it. So sad!  However, I think mine looked just as pretty and I'm sure turned out just as tasty.

Ready for the oven

I was very happy that I read the comments below the recipe.  People had said that after adding the food coloring, the dough became sticky and difficult to handle or roll.  I definitely ran into this problem!  It was a goopy mess and my hands were becoming covered in dough.  To solve the problem, put colored dough into the refrigerate for about 20 minutes before handling it.  This helps the dough harden and makes it easier to work with.

Finished product!

Ricky's verdict: "Looks and tastes great! My kids would love these."  Let's hope the kids in summer school enjoy them too!

Millions of peaches, peaches for me

This weekend rounded out my first week of half marathon training.  On Saturday, I did a 5 mile run along the lakefront.  I woke up early so that I got done with my run before the heat started.  To be honest, I don't really mind waking up early on Saturday because I'm actually up early anyway.  For some reason, I just don't sleep in anymore (far from my college days where the name on my mailbox was "Sleeping Fink").

The weather was gorgeous, barely a cloud in the sky, and so many other people were out running and biking along the trail.  I guess that I was a little too excited about my run because my first mile was over a minute faster than my typical pace.  Thank goodness for the Run Keeper App (see summary in this post incase you missed it before) or else I would have never been able to finish at that pace!  I ended up finishing the run at my goal pace.  Let's hope I keep it up for the rest of training!

As usual, I ended my run at the farmer's market.  There is so much more fruit and vegetables compared to the first week it opened!  I obviously got myself apples and flowers, but two other things caught my eye.  Cherries and peaches!  I was so excited to see they were now in season.  I probably ate half my bag of cherries on my walk home (not sure if this is a benefit or downside of stopping at the farmers market post run).

I had a special recipe in mind for the peaches...brown butter peach crumble bars.  I found the recipe for these bars at How Sweet Eats.  This blog always has incredible recipes and I especially love her desserts.  She always has unique, fun ideas that I would not have thought of.  Not to mention all her her recipes are indulgent and everyone I have attempted to make is absolutely delicious!

The bars did not fail to disappoint!  They were basically like eating a peach cobbler in a bar form (and you can never go wrong with peach cobbler).  The peaches made the bars perfectly juicy.  When you make these, and I say when not if because you would be an idiot not to make them, aim to cook them so that the edges are slightly browned and crispy.  The middle will still be soft, gooey, and amazing!

Just look at that peachy goodness!  Unfortunately, Ricky was not working this weekend to give his seal of approval.  However, I can confirm that these are incredible and you MUST make them ASAP!

"This is awesome!"

After last week's muffin fail, I was on a mission to bake something awesome for this week.  And I did!

Chocolate Banana Bread with Peanut Butter Chips.  It is the perfect flavor combination.  I mean, who can resist chocolate, peanut butter, and banana?  It's like a match made in heaven!

Honestly, I chose this recipe because I had all of the ingredients at home (except for the peanut butter chips).  Usually, when I cook or bake, I try to look at the ingredients I already have and find a recipe that uses those ingredients.  Why go out buying tons of new things when you have perfectly yummy ingredients to use at home!  I had some bananas that were ripe and I hadn't eaten yet (I was over ambitious with my banana buying the other week) and had leftover cocoa powder from the nutella brownies.  The recipe was basically begging me to make it!

I found the recipe on pinterest and made it with a couple alterations.  Here is the original recipe.  The changes I made include:

1. I had 2 mini loaf pans instead of 2 regular sized loaf pans, so I halved the recipe.
2. Instead of sour cream, I used Greek yogurt.  Once again, I did this because I already had Greek yogurt in my fridge.
3. Instead of marshmallow bits, I used peanut butter chips (I did this for no reason other than I was craving peanut butter).

Here is the recipe with my alterations:


Chocolate Banana Bread with Peanut Butter Chips
Ingredients:
6 tbl softened butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large ripe bananas (the riper the sweeter/better)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
peanut butter chips (I don't measure this. Just put in as many as you like.)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Spray mini loaf tins with Pam.
2. Cream sugar and butter in medium bowl.  Mix in egg, Greek yogurt, and vanilla.
3. Mash bananas and add to mixture.
4. Stir in flour, cocoa powder, salt, and peanut butter chips.
5. Pour into and divide between two pans.  Bake for about 40 minutes.
6. Enjoy!

And who could forget...Rikki's verdict?

"Wow Fink! This is awesome!"

Nutella Overload

I had an extremely busy and fun filled weekend!  Friday night started off with a going away party for one of my friends who is moving to Cleveland for the year.  A bunch of girls got together for some dessert and "girl time".  What can be better?

A while ago, I found a recipe for brownie bottom nutella cheesecake squares.  This was the perfect opportunity to make them.  The bottom of the bar is a nutella brownie and the top layer is a nutella cheesecake.  Talk about nutella overload (but in a very good way)!

For the recipe, the brownies are made form scratch.  I'll admit that I rarely make brownies from scratch.  I think brownies from the box are awesome once they are doctored up with some coffee (to bring out the chocolate flavor) and chocolate chips.  However, I made the brownies from scratch and they turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself!

Ricky's verdict: "absolutely delicious".  He even asked for me to bring him any leftovers after the party!

For the recipe click here.

Another fun part of my weekend was going to the farmers market on Saturday morning.  I bought a special produce that I have never bought before.  It's a surprise recipe that I'll share later this week.  I'm going to try out a new recipe with it so be on the look-out!

Summer Treat

I'm back and blogging after a break from the long weekend.  I had an incredible weekend celebrating my friend from college's wedding in DC.  It was a gorgeous wedding and she was a beautiful bride.  It was an amazing weekend celebrating my friends wedding and reuniting with some college friends that I hadn't seen in way too long!

Some of my college friends and I at the wedding.

The gorgeous bride and me

Like I've said before, I love finishing off a meal with something sweet.  With lots of upcoming weddings and bathing suit season, my sweet tooth can sometimes get in the way.  One great low calorie dessert that I love it Jello.  However, plain Jello can get boring.  Growing up, my mom used to mix Jello with Cool Whip.  The Jello and Cool Whip form layers: bottom layer is all Jello, middle layer is Jello and Cool Whip mixed, and top layer is mostly Cool whip.  It's a tasty treat that is great on a warm day when you are craving something sweet.

Jello with Cool Whip

Ingredients:

your favorite Jello flavor

1 container Lite Cool Whip

Instructions:

-Make Jello according to directions.

-Whisk Cool Whip into Jello.

-Divide into 4 cups (or bowls).

-Put in fridge for 4 hours or overnight.

Special Treat for a Special Day

Tomorrow is National Devil's Food Cake Day and more importantly my good friend from grad school's bachelorette party. In grad school, I always brought fun treats for my friends' birthdays and during finals for study snacks.  It was only natural that I make a special treat to bring to my friend's bachelorette party.  I decided to go along with the food of the day theme and use devil's food cake as part of my dessert and made Devil's Food Cake Whoopie Pies.

Cookie 
Ingredients:
1 box Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake
2 large eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil

Instructions:
-Preheat oven to 375.
-Mix ingredients together. Roll into balls.
-Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes.
(I made 3 dozen cookies. I made smaller cookies since I will be making them into sandwiches.)

Icing:
I recently heard about this new product from Duncan Hines called Frosting Creations.

It is a plain, unflavored icing to which you add one of 12 flavor packets to.  You just mix the flavor packet into the icing and it's ready to go! Some of the flavors include chocolate almond, cinnamon roll, and bubble gum.  I used the chocolate marshmallow flavor.

Sandwich
Instructions:
-Ice bottom side of one cookie.
-Place another cookie on top
(easy enough?)

This recipe is as tasty as it is easy!  Ricky's verdict..."Awesome sweet sandwiches"