Peanut-Butter Eggs

I've always loved peanut butter eggs, but I love 'em even more now that I don't have to wait until Easter to buy them, and the fact that you get a whole lot more bang-for-yer-buck with this recipe!

To get started you'll need:

1 cup creamy peanut butter

3/4 cup melted butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1 1/2 cups Graham Cracker (fine) crumbs

3 cups chocolate chips

 Start by putting your peanut butter in a large bowl.

 Mix in your melted butter.

 Add powdered sugar and don't get alarmed if it looks dry, it'll all work out!

 Then mix in your Graham Cracker crumbs.

 Stir together really, really well.

 Using a large serving spoon, shape the mix into an egg.

 Place on a large cookie sheet, covered in waxed paper, and freeze for 30 minutes.

 Meanwhile, start melting your chocolate. Pull out the eggs and dip in the chocolate...

 Place on a wire baking rack and then put in the freezer for 15 minutes.

Take out of freezer, store in airtight container in fridge, and enjoy!!

Ashleigh

Fresh, Frozen Chives?

Fresh, frozen chives? I know what you're thinking... Yuck. That's what I was thinking until I couldn't find any more regular chives in the pantry and decided to go cut the few chives we had left in the herb garden. And you know what? I'd rather use these than the dried stuff any day! 

 Start by cutting you chives off about two inches about the base of the plant, and then sort the out the dead stuff.

 Once they're all cleaned up, gently rinse them with cold water and let them air dry.

Chop them finely.

 And measure a tablespoon into each pocket on an ice cube tray. Fill with water and then freeze.

Once frozen, you can either leave in the tray or place cubes in a bag and keep in the freezer. Now just grab a tablespoon of fresh chives when you need it!

Ashleigh

Sunday Afternoon Drive

Sunday, some of my family and I set out for a Sunday afternoon drive. We figured we'd be gone for a while, but we didn't expect to drive over 115 miles! Being the crazy person I am, I ended up sitting down too fast after standing on the running-board of our truck to take a picture, and I smashed my head into the doorframe. It made quite the thunk and I've still got a big bump on my head... Ugh, where's my Pepsi and Ibuprofen??? 

 



At first, we saw farmers all over cutting milo (having loads of fun with the terraces!) and planting wheat.



And then it started getting more and more desolate the further into the hills we got.



Soon our gravel road turned to little more than an old cowpath. (I think we left some black paint on most of the branches that scraped us.)



One of our cheery adventurers commented that we were basically driving in a pasture, if it wasn't for the fences on either side of us.



I counted at least 3 big balls of barbed wire. I think we need some for the front yard!



Help me!!! I have no cell phone signal!!! 

 

It was sad to see all of the old abandoned pens and such...

I think that this hill would be fun during the winter, after a heavy snow and with a sled.

We weren't sure if would make it through this washout!

See??? There's a REAL road up there!!!

But we weren't done with our drive just yet. We had to go check out some more minimum to no maintence roads in the county.



Have a great day! Ashleigh

Just My Day...

Go, buddy, go!!!

5 Things I Love About October

1. Autumn Colors
This is the time of year that makes one happy to just be outside in the cooler weather, so long as you don't think about the coming months when all is gray, brown, and white. Sad. But I won't go into that. The transition from the summer green (or in our case, brown) to the red, orange, and yellow is beautiful! And it's the perfect time of year to take loads of pictures! (As you can probably tell if you've been following my blog any.)

2. Loads Of Food!
Something about fall just makes people feel like baking more often. Maybe it's the cooler weather or the fact that the guys hang in the kitchen longer after dinner now, than during the summer. I'm not sure, but whatever it is, I love it! The cookies, the cakes, the pies, and, in my case, cheesecakes! They all end up showing up on our kitchen bar sometime during the month of October.

3. Football, Baby!
Okay, yes, I admit that I know very little to nothing about football. And I'm really not that crazy about watching a whole game. Anyone close to me shouldn't be surprised by that revelation. But I do know that it's something that most all of my family will sit down and watch together, and it's nice to have everyone in one place sometimes! And wherever there's football, there's food. Hearty stick-to-your-ribs kinda food. (Have I mentioned that I like food?)

4. Relax Time!
Do you ever feel guilty when you get a new magazine in the mail and you want to go sit and read it, but you know that there's something to do elsewhere and it's calling your name? (That's where mental earplugs come in handy!) That's how I felt throughout the whole summer. So now that it's cool outside and dark by 7 o'clock, I can go relax with some hot cocoa and a stack of books and magazines or a sappy romantic comedy during the evenings. Yay!

5.  The Holidays Are Upon Us!
That feeling where you know that Christmas and Thanksgiving are getting closer, but you don't need to do anything for them, hits me hard during the fall. Except maybe think about gift shopping... But that's purely for fun! If you're kinda crazy like me, then you love shopping and look forward to it all year long! 

Happy October! Ashleigh

Cheesecake Shooters

These babies are so incredibly easy, incredibly quick, incredibly wonderful, in-... you get the point! You can make a "Cherry-Whiskey Topping" (I've added the link for the recipe from the Pioneer Woman), but since I didn't have any whiskey on hand I just made the regular (non-alcoholic!) version. Have fun!

For these little angels, you'll need:

12 (whole) Graham Crackers
2 (8 ounce) Bricks Cream Cheese
1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 can Cherry Pie Filling
Slivered Almonds

 You can use either your knuckles or a rolling pin to crush the Graham crackers in a large plastic bag. If you have any rage, now would be a good time to work it out without hurting anyone!

 Spoon around 2-3 T. into your goblets. If you would like for the crumbs to be a bit moister, just add 2 T. of melted butter to them in the bag.

 Then using a large electric mixer with a whisk attachment, whip together the cream cheese and milk until fluffy like this! It should take 2-3 minutes.

 Spoon it into the goblets on top of the crumbs..

 Then spoon on the cherry pie filling (you can use any pie filling you like!).

 Top with slivered almonds and chill.

 These taste amazing!
And for the whiskey-cherry topping, here's the link: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/07/cherry-cheesecake-shooters/
Enjoy, Ashleigh.

The Pumpkin Patch

The park and Walter's Pumpkin Patch were our stops for today. We had a great time!

 At the Pumpkin Patch, I found a friend right before the wagon ride started. Isn't he cute?

 Halfway through the wagon ride, we made a pit stop at one of the pumpkin fields to pick out our own pumpkins.

 And they let you pick all the seeds you wanted from the fields..

 I just thought this pumpkin was kinda pretty... That's all!

 These slides were a lot of fun. For those of us over 5', you kind of needed to duck your head or you'd be hitting it all the way down!

Goat headed up...

 Thank you for attempting to stick your nose up my camera... 

 "Look! See? No gravity!!!"

 One of the things our guide told us was that because the Pumpkin Patch has to get rid of the leftover pumpkins around the end of October (so they don't reseed and cross-pollinate), they bring in cattle and let them eat the pumpkins in all of their fields. He said that once the cattle know what a pumpkin is, they absolutely love 'em! So that's around 28 acres of pumpkins for dinner!

 Combine turned playground.

Ahh.. The maize. The maize we got lost in... Well, not really, just confused. And did we ever find the finish line? No. We gave up and walked all the way back to the beginning to get out! 

Yay! We. Are. Out!!!

Let's go warm up, shall we?