Valentine's Day Peanut Butter Cookies

I've been making peanut butter cookies since I was a kid, but today, in honor of Valentine's Day, and because they are my husband's favorite cookie, I decided to make some to hide in his lunch for work. I made my good ol' stand-bye peanut butter cookie recipe, chilled the dough and rolled it out like you would a sugar cookie. I then cut out the cookies using a heart-shaped cookie cutter.

But, just in case you don't have a good peanut butter cookie recipe, here's our favorite.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1/2 cup soft butter
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Mix the butter, peanut butter, sugars, and egg until creamy. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and add to the peanut butter mixture a little at a time until it is all incorporated and mixed together. Chill the dough for about an hour or so. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll into balls the size of a large walnut and place 3 inches apart on a cookie sheet. Flatten with a fork dipped in flour and make a criss-cross design. Bake until set but not hard about 8 to 10 minutes. Makes about 3 dozen.

I'm linking up with Sweets for a Saturday.

Christmas Day and Turtle Cheesecake

Christmas Day was so much fun for this grandma! All of my kids were here.

Jaclyn and Lorelei are new BFFs (Best Friends Forever)

Lydia enjoyed being held by anyone as long as she had her pacifier and someone to cuddle with :)

Our sweet girl

Noah slept through it all

We had lots of good food, too, of course, and this was our dessert Turtle Cheesecake. Turtles are probably my favorite candy so I knew I would love cheesecake made from the same ingredients.
I was right!

I adapted the recipe from the inside of a Philadelphia cream cheese package.

Turtle Cheesecake

2 cups chocolate cookie crumbs

6 tablespoons butter, melted

1-14 oz bag of caramel candies*

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup pecan halves

3 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 eggs

2 squares semi-sweet baking chocolate*

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Double-wrap with aluminum foil a 9- or 10-inch springform pan.

Mix the crumbs and the butter and press into the bottom and 2 inches up side of a 9-inch springform pan. Place the caramels and milk in a small microwavable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 3 minutes or until caramels are completely melted, stirring after each minute. Pour 1/2 of the caramel mixture into the crust. Refrigerate 10 minutes. Set remaining caramel mixture aside for late use.

Beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time until blended. Pour over the caramel mixture in the crust.

**Place your double-wrapped in foil springform pan in a larger pan (such as a roasting pan). Put enough water into the larger pan until the water is halfway up the side of the springform pan.

Place pans in the oven and bake for 1 hour 5 minutes to 1 hour 10 minutes or until center is almost set. Run a knife or spatula around the side of the springform pan to loosen the cake. Remove from the larger pan. Let cool completely and remove the foil and sides of springform pan. Chill in refrigerator at least 4 hours.

Place the pecan halves on the cake in any way desired. With the remaining caramel mixture, drizzle the cake in any decorative way you like. Melt 2 squares of the semi-sweet baking chocolate in a microwavable bowl on HIGH, stirring at least every minute until just until melted. Drizzle over the cake.

*If you don't want to do all the unwrapping of candies and the melting, you could certainly use caramel sauce that is used for ice cream. You could also use a chocolate sauce, too.

**This is how I bake all of my cheesecakes. They come out perfectly just about every time, without cracking.

I'm linking up with Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tuesdays at the Table and Tasty Tuesday.

Christmas Eve Food-It's All About the Appetizers!

Christmas Eve is always a much more casual affair than Christmas Day for us. It's about appetizers mostly and fun food. Our third daughter, Jessica, and our son-in-law, Rich, were here with my husband and I along with our home-from-college daughter, Jaclyn. We had a good time of eating, playing games, and watching a holiday movie.

My daughter, Jessica, made a new recipe called Jalapeno Popper Spread and it is so good and much easier than actually making jalapeno poppers, one of our favorite fun foods. We found that is was good warm and at room temperature. You can serve it with tortilla chips or crackers.

I made a cheeseball, which is nothing more than 8 ounces of cream cheese, softened, blended together with cheese spread (I chose Cheddar this year). I roll it into chopped walnut pieces wrapped in wax paper into a ball and chill until firm. We love this with crackers and it's a recipe that I learned from my mom.

My husband is a sandwich lover so I made my grandma's recipe for BBQ Pork (some people call it pulled pork) sandwiches with coleslaw. Since this is my dear Grandma's recipe I will give it it's own post later. My son-in-law asked me if my daughter (his wife) had the recipe for BBQ pork. I told him I would make sure she did! There's just nothing more affirming to a cook than for someone to ask for the recipe on a dish he or she has made.

Our dessert consisted of all the goodies we had made on our Baking Day, well, whatever was left :)

Our Christmas Baking Day

The preparations for Christmas were a whirlwind of activity for us, as I know it was for all of you, too. The baking, the shopping, the decorating, it's all pretty normal for everyone at this time of year. And, yes, I know that Christmas is past for the year 2010 but I do want to share things that made it special for us this year. I hope your Christmas celebrations were wonderful as well. I've already shared the best Christmas present this year for us-our new grandson.

Something that has become a tradition for us since our first daughter was married five years ago, we have set aside an afternoon before Christmas to do some baking together. It was a little different this year since our oldest daughter wasn't able to be with us. She just had our first grandson and he was in a Chicago hospital with some complications due to his birth, so she was with him. But, everyone else was able to be with us. Lydia joined me in the kitchen for some snuggling.

Lorelei enjoyed sampling all the goodies.

Jaclyn is showing off her artwork.

It was a very good time. We always make Sugar Cookies with icing and sprinkles, which are pretty traditional for lots of people. It's a must with us. My mom always made them, too. Over the years we've added some other recipes that we have learned to expect but we also try new ones, too.

Easy Oreo Truffles-These are incredibly good and just like the title of the recipe very easy. My daughter made them with the mint oreos this year, which takes these candies to whole new level!

Chocolate-Marshmallow Pillows-This was a new recipe for us and they are really delicious with the surprise marshmallow inside.

Pretzel Turtles-These were easy and lots of fun to make, something the kids would have fun helping with.

Paula's Loaded Oatmeal Cookies-These are my youngest daughter's specialty. She got the recipe a couple of years ago from the Food Network website and everybody that tastes these cookies loves them, even people that aren't crazy about oatmeal cookies. They are that good.

White Chocolate Fudge-This fudge is so yummy-I love how the orange flavor comes through, and we found that dried cherries are just as good as the dried cranberries in this recipe. We've been making this for the last 3 or 4 years now.

And last but not least, we always make Chex Party Mix, the only savory treat that we make on our Baking Day. I love the microwave method which doesn't take as long and leaves room in the oven for our other goodies.

I will be sharing more about how we celebrated Christmas 2010 in future posts.

Merry Christmas!

The last week has been incredibly busy with the birth and delayed homecoming of our new grandson, shopping and wrapping of Christmas gifts, as well as the baking and cooking I have been and will be doing in the next day or so. Oh, I'm getting the house ready for company tonight and tomorrow, too. Whew! I should be totally wiped out but I'm very excited about all of my children and grandchildren being together tomorrow for Christmas Day.

I've wanted to do some posting on all the delicious goodies the girls and I have been making but time has gotten away from me, and we have made some really good things! I will be sharing some of the recipes in the next few days and I have totally been eating way too much (Yum!).

I hope each of my readers have a very Merry Christmas and a very Blessed New Year. May your days be merry and bright! And God's blessings on you!

Graphics courtesy of All Posters.