Peanut Butter Cookies

It’s happened again.  I think I may be the last person on the planet to discover the 3 ingredient cookie recipes.  I really enjoy a peanut butter cookie.  I love the cross hatching using a fork.  They end up looking timeless, exactly like my mom made them.

My D-I-L said she made these everyday she was in lock down and now I understand why.  I simply cannot believe there are only 3 ingredients.  Gluten-free girl was up today for the first time in 3 months and we were able to share them with her.  She was totally shocked as well.

I think I’m pretty smart on the whole, but I cannot think of these brilliant ideas.  Why oh why didn’t I get the clever gene instead of being so incredibly cute?  I’ve since seen several more 3 ingredient cookies and I will be giving them a try soon, but first I have to get out of the sweet habit if you know what I mean.  At least I’m not going to the grocery store and picking up goodies to go along with these treats.

1 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

Combine all the ingredients with your hand mixer until creamy.

Roll into teaspoon sized balls.  Roll in sugar.  Place on parchment lined cookie sheet.    Press each dough roll down with a fork.

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 15 minutes.  Let cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes before moving to a cooling rack.

 * From the Recipe Box:

I’m old school.  G’s mom taught me to cool cookies on dish towels and brown paper sacks.  Now I usually put a dish towel down and put parchment paper on top.  If you don’t have parchment, wax paper will do nicely.

G did not like the cookie balls rolled in sugar.  He thought they tasted too sugary and grainy.

and remember:  I know everything happens for a reason, but WTF!  Big kiss, Lynn

Impossible Quiche

Can you tell I’ve reached the 70’s in mom’s recipe notebooks?  I think I told you about mom’s love of the small cookbooks sold at the checkout stand at every grocery store.  This one happened to be all Bisquick related recipes.  And my poor mother was cursed with a daughter who had a July birthday and a love of hot foods for her birthday dinner.

It started out, I wanted beef stew every year, but then I discovered quiche.  Num!  I have no idea how I even came to find quiche.  Mom probably made it for one of her dinner parties.  She did love the frou-frou and back then, quiche was really uptown.  The smell of frying bacon and onions is too, too fine.  I did not happen to have Swiss cheese in the refrigerator, but I did have a white cheese combo pack that worked quite well.  Like I say, you use what you have.

  • 12 slices of bacon cooked, drained, and crumbled
  • 1 Cup Swiss cheese shredded (about 4 ounces)
  • 1/3 Cup onion diced
  • 2 Cups milk
  • 1 Cup Bisquick
  • 4 Eggs
  • 1/2 Teaspoon salt
  • 1/8 Teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1/4 Teaspoon nutmeg

Instructions

  1. Preheat your oven to 400 °F.
  2. Lightly grease a 10-inch pie plate.
  3. Sprinkle the crumbled bacon, shredded cheese, and diced onion evenly over the bottom of the pie plate.
  4. Beat the eggs with the salt and pepper, then stir in the milk.
  5. Add in the Bisquick and beat until smooth – it must be smooth to work!
  6. Pour the liquid mix over the ingredients in the pie plate.
  7. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the quiche comes out clean.
  8. Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.
  9. Slice and serve!

 * From the Recipe Box:

This was surprisingly good and amazingly similar to mom’s.  I love quiche.

Both G and I thought it needed a little more seasoning.  Don’t tell the Italian D-I-L, but next time I think I will add the nutmeg just to see if it makes a difference.

I’ve done the Impossible Coconut Pie and next it will be the Impossible Chicken Pot Pie and then I promise I’ll be done.

and remember:  Always remember, you’re unique just like everyone else.  Big kiss, Lynn

Dalgona Coffee

To know me is to know of my deep and abiding love of coffee.  I didn’t marry a coffee man, but he’s living proof you can precipitate change in a person.  He’s as much a coffee freak as I am now.  Whether it’s the Norwegian Hygge or as our youngest called it ” the Minnesota state pastime of coffee and cookies”, we are fans.   If I don’t have coffee, I don’t turn into a jittery mess. I simply enjoy the camaraderie it brings me.

G and I start the day with coffee in bed.  Don’t hate me.  We just find it the perfect transition from night to day.  We’re old farts, so we don’t want to start moving too fast; we could hurt ourselves.  We start the day with regular coffee.  I prefer a dark roast Sumatra, courtesy of my favorite niece.  G does as well, but he puts cream in his.  I know, what a maroon.

Look at me, digressing again.  So, I often try new coffee drinks.  I’ll go with anything from an espresso martini to cold brewed coffee to this new one:  a Dalgona Coffee.  I’d not heard of it before the last month.  I guess it’s famous on Tik Tok.  As you can well imagine, I’m a huge Tik Tok fan…not!

I wasn’t able to try it immediately; I don’t keep a lot of instant coffee on hand.  It is simply not my style and it’s really no faster than my Keurig.  But good old Amazon came through for me again.  I’m such a creature of old commercials, I started humming the Folgers song right away.  Enough already.  This is a most interesting addition to our coffee repertoire.  It’s going to be a fun summertime on the deck beverage.

Combine the following ingredients in a tall metal bowl:

2 tablespoons instant coffee

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoon hot water

Whisk or beat for 3 to 5 minutes.  It will get rich and foamy.

Pour approximately 6 to 8 ounces of milk in a glass.  Add some of the foam on top and spread around.

* From the Recipe Box:

I stirred the foam into the milk a bit.  It’s what Alton recommended.

It was most interesting.  It wasn’t incredible sweet like I was expecting so I sprinkled on a smidge of sugar.

I’ll make it again, but not tomorrow.  G loved it; he’d have it tomorrow!

And next time I’ll add a lot of ice to mine and maybe a sprinkling of grated chocolate or cocoa and a wee dram of Bailey’s.

and remember:  It’s OK if you fall apart sometimes.  Tacos fall apart and we still love them.  Big kiss, Lynn

Tapioca Pudding

I’m a pudding girl.  Oh-oh, we’re back to white food as well.  Both Grandma O and my mom were big pudding makers and tapioca was an all time favorite.  They would make 2 kinds of Tapioca:  minute and bubble.  The best part about the minute is squishing it through your teeth.  You can’t do that with the bubble, but it’s fun to try,

The recipe they used was originally in Betty Crocker’s cookbook.  There’s a recipe on the side of the Minute Tapioca box, but we just never used it.  I’m sure it’s wonderful, but I can’t mess with tradition.  This was not a company dessert; this was just for the family.  In retrospect, I realize mom would whip these desserts up in mere moments and they were my favorites.  It’s what farmer’s wives and daughters did; they fed people, no questions asked.

This pudding is light and fluffy.  It says it serves 6, but that is such a lie.  I eat 2 servings just checking to see if it’s cool enough to eat.  What’s wrong with these people?  You will so enjoy this.  Sometimes we don’t need fancy.  We need comforting, especially now.  I just like a bowl of it.  G loves his with whipped cream; but then what doesn’t he like whipped cream on?  I didn’t get that whipped cream gene.  Give this a try and let me know what you think.

2 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 cups milk

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca

1/4 teaspoon salt

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils.  Remove from heat.  Cool.  Stir In:

1 teaspoon vanilla

Fold in a meringue made with :

2 egg whites

4 tablespoons sugar

Spoon into serving glasses.  Serve with whipped cream.  If desired, fold in fresh or drained canned fruit;  or pour over fruit in serving glass.

 * From the Recipe Box:

Tapioca is the thickening agent mom and Grandma used in Cherry Pie as well.

I made both Grandma’s and the tapioca box recipes today so we could have a side-by-side comparison.  The clear winner was Grandma’s.  G didn’t think he was a tapioca fan, but he was totally impressed.

The fluffy pudding on the left is Grandma’s.

I don’t use fruit in my tapioca.  I want to taste the purity of the pudding.  And, I’ve got to keep it white.  May 17th is Norwegian Constitution Day and I must be ready.

and remember:  This too shall pass.  It might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.  Big kiss, Lynn

Crunchy French Toast

I tried a new recipe today.  I wish I was the kind of cook that could come up with my own recipes from scratch, but no, I’m not that girl.  What I can do is see something and then finagle it a bit until it’s my own.  I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but I’ve been watching a fair amount of television.  We don’t usually watch a lot of TV, but these are interesting times.  What I watch will probably surprise you:  Diners, Drive-ins and Dives; Alton Brown; The Great British Baking Show; all the David Chang shows on Netflix.  David and Alton are my new heroes since I lost Anthony Bourdain.

I seem to have lost my rule about not getting distracted.  Sorry about that.  To get back to the French toast.  Diners, etc., went to 3 different restaurants over the last few weeks where they made variations of French toast stuffed with peanut butter and jam.  That was a sign I was to try making it.  They crushed 3 different cereals:  frosted flakes, Captain Crunch and something I missed.

Since I’m still on lock down, I couldn’t run out and get just anything.  I think if I had any option, I would have gone with the frosted flakes, but corn flakes it was.  They also used a nice firm bread, but I was lacking that as well.  I used a fairly firm wheat bread.  I also would prefer crunchy peanut butter, but I’m the only fan in this house.

4 slices of bread

creamy peanut butter

your favorite jam

3 to 4 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 to 2 tablespoons of sugar

1 to 2 cups corn flakes or frosted flakes

Mix the eggs, sugar and milk.

Make a p,b, and j and sandwich it together.  Dip it in the milk mixture.  Cook it on a low medium.

 * From the Recipe Box:

I will make these again, but I will use frosted flakes or maybe Corn Pops.  I lusted for those when I was a kid.   I don’t know if I will fill them with peanut butter and jam.  I might use cream cheese and jam.  My mom used to love sharp Tillamook cheese with jam on toast.  That’s sounding really interesting.  Or how about an Elvis:  bananas and peanut butter.  The possibilities are endless.

They were heavy and very substantial.  Interesting concept though.

and remember what my Sci-Fi hero Neil Gaiman said:  Fairy takes are more than true:  not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us the dragons can be beaten.  Big kiss, Lynn