Frozen Peanut Butter Pie

It’s good to be back! Let me tell you this is the perfect recipe to come back with a BANG! It is seriously one of the best desserts I’ve had. I first made this back in the beginning of February for my boyfriend’s birthday. I'm always trying out new baking recipes but I was so excited to make something special doing what I love, for the person I love.

About Mid-January I began looking for “THE” recipe that would be perfect for his birthday dessert. One thing I knew to look for that would make it the right dessert was peanut butter cups. Mmmm... peanut butter cups, you can’t go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate. Well, you can’t go wrong with chocolate and anything in my opinion. SO THE SEARCH BEGAN!!! I went to trusty ol’ Pinterest (you can follow me here :)) there I found this absolutely wonderful; and delicious recipe that comes together so beautifully (you’ll see later). This Frozen Peanut Butter Pie recipe was “THE” recipe I was looking for.

The texture of this “pie” is more like ice cream cake than pie, and it is so good! I didn’t meet one out of the eleven people who tried it that had anything to say that wasn’t good about this pie. This is one you guys HAVE to try. PLUS, it’s super easy and takes no time to assemble. My kind of dessert. I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as we have!! :) 

Plus when I made this it turned out so beautifully! I was so proud of it, to date this pie is the most beautiful dessert I’ve made! :) 

How gorgeous is that?


Frozen Peanut Butter Pie
(Recipe adapted from Bakers Royale)

24 oreo cookies, processed into fine crumbs
4 TBS butter, melted
3 cups whipped cream, homemade or cool whip
¾ cup creamy peanut butter
½ cup powdered sugar
2 cups crushed peanut butter cups, 1 cup for filling other cup for garnish, I used Reeses Peanut Butter Cups
semisweet chocolate chips if you desire for garnish

1. Oreo Crust:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place oreos into food processor and pulse until the cookies become fine crumbs. In a bowl mix together melted butter and crumbs until well combined. Press crumbs into a springform pan. Bake for 7-10 minutes.

2. Peanut Butter Filling:
Place peanut butter and powdered sugar into small pan over low heat and stir together until combined and peanut butter is melted. Set aside the peanut butter mixture and cool for 5-10 minutes. If using homemade whipped cream prepare now. When peanut butter is cooled enough gently fold it into the whipped cream. When well combined, again gently fold in 1 cup of crushed peanut butter cups. Pour mixture into prepared cooled crust and place in freezer and freeze for 3 hours or overnight. You can garnish this pie anyway you want. I chose to use the other cup of peanut butter cups for decorating the top of it. I also added melted semisweet chocolate.

TIPS:

- I decorated my pie with extra peanut butter cups and semisweet chocolate. As you can see above in the picture I placed the peanut butter cups around the edges and then went over them with the semisweet chocolate. After I wrote his name in chocolate! :) 

- If you do not have a non-stick spring form pan you will need to prepare it. I had a non-stick pan but I still added parchment paper to the bottom of the pan and lightly sprayed the sides just to be cautious. You can also use smaller personal sized ramekins.

- Do not cook the crust for more than 10 minutes. I cooked my crust too long because I had never done an oreo crust before and mine ended up hard, thankfully it was so delicious nobody seemed to mind :)

- To make this even easier you could buy an already prepared oreo pie crust to replace the homemade one. The same goes for the whip cream, I wanted to do homemade whip cream but you could use 3 cups of cool whip as well.

- I always taste things to make sure the finished product is how I want it to be. When I tasted the whipped cream mixture after I added everything it seemed a little sweet which worried me but my gut told me to just put it in the freezer and after when everything was frozen it was PERFECT! Not too sweet at all.

- The original recipe called for unsalted butter, however I didn't have any so I just used salted and it turned out fine.

- If you make your own whip cream don’t forget to add sugar and a touch of vanilla! :) 

Enjoy!!! 

Beautiful Snowflake Decorations

You don't even know how excited I am that it's the holiday season!!! Oh how I love Christmas!!! It is most definitely one of my favorite seasons. The family time I get to spend, that special feeling in the air of warm-hearted-ness, all the yummy smells, baking, decorations, crafting, christmas movies.....ahh.....

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I cannot tell you how pleased with how these Christmas Snowflake Decorations turned out! I was cruising around and Pinterest and became inspired to do a fix up! I still now can’t believe how these turned out! Plus they only cost about $10 for everything! : )

Every year during Christmas time I LOVE going over to my best-friend’s house because her Mom always goes full out with the Christmas decorations. I love walking into their house and Christmas is seen all around. My friend and I always say that Christmas has puked in her house, hehehe. Every year when her Mom completely finishes decorating she texts me and says “It’s official, Christmas has puked in my house”. Ah….Okay getting to the point of the story! : )

Last Christmas while I was at her house, her Mom had all these adorable decorations and I continued to point out all the ones I thought were cute. The next week when I returned to visit she made a trip to the store and picked of multiple decorations for me to take home and decorate my house with! She’s so sweet! One of the best “otha momma’s” I’ve ever had! : ) Out of the many decorations she bought me, there were four specific decorations that I decided to “fix-up”. Four beautiful snowflake decorations. If not for Pinterest sharing all those beautifully creative people’s ideas I may have never come up with this idea!Oh Pinterest how I love you! Hehe.

So let's do this thing!

You will need:

- 4 giant plastic snowflakes (found at my local Dollar Tree)

- 1 can of white spray paint

- 1 can of spray glitter (I bought white and should have bought silver, so I recommend buying the silver if you do this!)

Old newspaper to spray snowflakes on

- If you don’t want to use the spray glitter or want more glitter do what I did and use either tacky glue mixed with a bit of water or Mod Podge and sprinkle the sparkles onto the snowflakes. If it's to cold and gloomy outside I'm sure something white acrylic paint would work just as well! : )

These snowflakes are beautiful without all the extra but I really wanted to take them the extra mile!

When the weather is nice enough, lay out some old newspaper outside to spray paint the snowflakes on. Spray one side and wait until dry, when one side is dry flip it over and spray the other side. Or you an decide after you’ve sprayed one side flip it over the other side before you spray it looks like it’s ice-y. However, I sprayed both sides.

When the second side has dried take the glitter spray and spray the side facing up until you are satisfied with the amount of glitter. Once again flip and repeat with the glitter spray.

Like I said above, I bought the wrong color of glitter spray so even though it was really beautiful but subtle, I plan on hanging these from my ceiling and wanted them to be noticeably sparkle-y. So we continue on!

When everything is dry bring the snowflakes inside and clear a space off on your table! Or, whatever workspace you choose. : ) Lay down enough newspaper to make sure you don’t muck up your table and place the snowflakes on top. On one side paint the surface with Mod Podge or tacky glue mixed with a bit of water. You may have to split the gluing into multiple parts since the snowflakes are large and you want everything to stick as good as the rest. After painting the glue onto the snowflake sprinkle with glitter. I used silver glitter but I think plain white glitter would be really pretty as well. Really any color would be very pretty, and you can use fine glitter or regular glitter. The possibilities are endless!!!! : ) After one side of glitter has dried flip over and do the same to the opposite side. When the snowflake is dry you’re ready to hang it on your wall or as I plan from my ceiling!

 Add glue and glitter....

 All done!!!!

I hope you guys try this out! Let me know how it went for you and what you did! I would love to hear!

  

Merry Christmas and happy crafting!!!

Simple Fried Spaghetti

I love this recipe! It is super simple, relatively cheap and can be made easily. All you need are a few ingredients: spaghetti, water (to boil the noodles), butter (or oil for frying), and seasonings. That’s it!

This recipe is really great for the night after you’ve made spaghetti with red sauce and you have leftover noodles. I don’t know maybe it’s just my family who makes WAY too many noodles, but if you guys are in the same boat as me this is the recipe for you! : ) If you don’t have any leftover noodles, just make some! All it takes is 15 minutes!

So lets begin!

I’m just going to start from the beginning in case you don’t have leftover noodles, if you do then just skip down a bit.

Being with boiling water, add about 2 teaspoons of salt or just salt your water until you feel it’s enough. : ) (I think it makes the noodles taste better.) Fun fact, contrary to old wives tales putting salt in water does not make it boil faster, however it does make the water boil hotter. 

Pot of water, turn to high heat, salt your water and stir.

 When the water reaches a roiling boil (I mean it an actual rolling boil, not simmer.) add the pasta. You can break the noodles in half or cook them whole. Do it however you usually do, I just like options! I cooked my noodles about 9 minutes however I used Linguine noodles in this tutorial but I usually just use normal spaghetti noodles.

Boiling water, breaking pasta, stirring, stirring, stirring, turn down burner to medium high.

After the noodles have finished cooking and you’ve strained them, begin warming a skillet over medium high heat with about a tablespoon of butter or oil. Add enough noodles to fill the pan. Usually I use Mrs. Dash Table Blend and Extra Spicy and some garlic salt. I highly recommend it!! If you can't afford it just add salt and pepper with some garlic powder to taste and toss the pasta in the skillet and fry until the noodles are glossy and a slightly warmer color.

Strain noodles, set skillet on medium high, add butter, fill bottom of pan with noodles, salt and pepper and cook until slightly glossy.

After you have finished, serve and enjoy! I like to eat my fried spaghetti topped with cheese. YUM! 

 Plate your finished pasta.

 Sprinkle some beautiful parmesan cheese over the top!

Viola!!! YUMMM!!!!


Fried Spaghetti

Leftover or new spaghetti noodles,
Mrs. Dash Table Blend & Extra Spicy seasonings
Garlic Salt
TBS. Butter or oil, for "frying" noodles in
Cheese for topping if desired.

Make spaghetti noodles as package directs. Heat pan over medium high heat an add TBS. of butter, add enough noodle's to fill the bottom of the pan (careful not to put too much). Season noodles evenly with garlic salt and Mrs. Dash Table Blend and lightly season with Mrs. Dash Extra Spicy, because it's just what it says. SPICY! When slightly glossy and the noodles are a warmer looking color plate, cover in cheese and enjoy!!

Want a video tutorial? Here is one I made! :)