Peanut Butter Chunk Cookies

I was asked to make something for a bake sale that one of the girls from work is doing with her girl scout troop this weekend. The grocery store where I shop is in the middle of a remodel and they moved the candy isle the day I went, and apparently lost the Andes mints along the way so I had to do a quick switch at the last minute. At the moment my second favorite cookie happens to be peanut butter chocolate chunk so that is what they get. These are basically chocolate chip cookies with peanut butter added. I used the toll house chocolate chip cookie recipe with a few changes. I don't particularly like peanut butter cookies but add a little peanut butter to normal chocolate chip cookies and these are amazing. The dough is also quite tasty.

Ingredients:
3/4 c butter
1/2 c peanut butter
3/4 c sugar
1 c brown sugar
2 eggs
1 and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 and 1/4 c flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 c chocolate chunks

I like chocolate chunks better then chocolate chips for this recipe but I don't really have a good reason other then it just makes sense to me, so use whatever you have on had. I also used chunky peanut butter because my sister gets incredibly irate when you use all of her peanut butter on baked goods so I had to use my own jar which happens to be chunky.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Mix the butter, peanut butter, sugar, and brown sugar together until they are light and fluffy.


Add the eggs and vanilla. Now that you've looked at the pictures and the ingredient list your thinking, Loryn I don't think you're so good at this measuring thing. I made a double batch so no I did not lose count and add 4 eggs but thanks for your concern.


In a separate bowl sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in three installments. You may think this is a worthless step and just add all of the ingredients into the first bowl and mix it all together. I used to do this and it did very strange things to my cookies. Bad plan, just wash two bowls it will make for a better day in the end.


Stir the chocolate chunks in and drop little blobs on a cookie sheet in what ever size you like. Mine usually bake for 10 min but my cookies are about medium sized. This week they were a little smaller and baked for closer to 9 and a half mins.


I will admit I did eat a few but most of them made it to work. I can't say if they will make it to the bake sale but I'm going to assume they will.

Update: My cookies did make it to the bake sale and sold out very fast. The kids had raised more then $300 by the time I talked to my friend from work and they were only half way through. The money will go to one of the groups in Ann Arbor bringing food to people in need.

Pasta Salad

This is the pasta salad that I made for the memorial day potluck at work. I know it's a little late but I thought I had already posted it and then surprise, I found the pictures on my sisters camera. But that's cool because this is one of those universally good passing dishes so it's good all year.

Ingredients:
1 cucumber
1 green pepper
1 small can of chopped black olives(2.25 oz)
1 box of rotini pasta
1 bottle of Italian salad dressing

This is what I use. You can change the veggies out for what ever type of veggie that you like. Different peppers would add some color along with a few chopped carrots. I don't like other types of peppers so I go with the boring type. You can buy rotini in normal pasta color or in a multi color box. The day I went to the store they didn't have a multi colored boxes left, to I went with whole grain pasta. For a party I think the colored pasta is more fun but nobody seemed to mind.

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box (or do it the way I do, throw it in and check it every once and awhile until it feels right when you bite a piece, however you do it). Cut the cucumber and green pepper into little chunks. This is pretty much a preference thing so cut them up as big or small as you like.


Let the pasta cool a little and throw the veggies in with the pasta. Mix about half the bottle of Italian dressing into the salad and put it into the fridge until your ready to serve it. Before serving add the rest of the salad dressing. I do it this way because I think the pasta dries out if you add all of the dressing a long time before you serve it, but I have not done serious testing on the theory.

This is a really easy recipe that people always seem to like. My Mom used to make this a lot when I was a kid and I still love it.

Lasagna Roll Ups

A while back Liz told me about some restaurant that came out with a new dish that I would like. I like lasagna and I love manicotti so how can you go wrong rolling lasagna up like manicotti? So today I decided to finally try my hand at Lasagna Rolls. Who needs a recipe, I know how to make lasagna and I'm just going to roll it up, so what's the big deal right... Well it actually was that easy and it was amazing I'm going to have to make this for my parents the next time I'm in Jackson.

Ingredients:

3 Cheese Filling

This is the same cheese ish that I used for the ravioli (it's very versatile stuff).
15 oz ricotta

¼ cup mozzarella cheese

¼ cup parmesian cheese

1 egg

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Other stuff
10 lasagna noodles
1 package Italian sausage (12 oz or closest you can find) I used turkey
2 ½ cups spaghetti sauce (1 jar of the store bought kind)
3 cups mozzarella cheese (minus the ¼ cup for the cheese filling)

Once again I used whole wheat pasta and turkey sausage but it shouldn't make a difference.


Cook the pasta according to the directions. While the pasta is doing it's thing, fry the sausage. You probably still have time, so go ahead and mix all of the ingredients for the cheese filling. So as a side note I noticed something today, I wont eat this because it has raw egg in it but cookie dough I'm fine with, how odd it that.


When everything is ready preheat the oven to 375º . Spread 2 spoonfuls of cheese filling over a noodle sprinkle with sausage and roll up.


Put the rolled up noodles in the pan seam side down. repeat until you run out of noodles. I used a 9x13 pan and had too much space between all of the roll ups. I think I will use a 7x11 pan next time.


When all of the roll ups are done, sprinkle the rest of the mozzarella cheese over the top and cover with tin foil. Bake for 45 min. Remove the tin foil and bake for another 10 min. Another side note the extra 10 min that all of my recipes call for is perfect for the garlic bread, I throw it in the toaster oven at the same time that I pull the tin foil off the lasagna (or whatever I'm making) and they come out at the same time. Do you think it was planned that way?

I really enjoyed these and they were easy to make (ok, not compared to Baked Penne but you can't compare it to something that you assemble by throwing it in a bowl). It did take a few min longer then I thought it would. I didn't really add much time for assembling the roll ups. Don't worry I wasn't late for work or anything it only took a few minutes longer but don't forget to add some time for that.