How could anyone resist these?

I found the original recipe at allrecipes.com, but made a few minor changes to make the recipe a little more to my taste.  Here’s my version:

Abbie’s Fudge Puddles

1 cup softened butter
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar*
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla**
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Preheat to 325.

Mix butter, peanut butter, and sugars until creamy.  Mix in eggs and vanilla.  In a separate, smaller bowl, mix your flour, baking soda and salt.  And to peanut butter mixture.  Once you’ve got your dough mixed well, roll into 1 inch balls and place in greased mini-muffin pans.  Bake for 14-16 minutes or until golden brown.

Immediately press center of cookies with melon baller ( I use a round teaspoon) and then let cookies cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan.  Any less time and they’ll be too soft to transfer in one piece and any longer, they might get too hard and stick/break.

For fabulous fudge filling:

1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips***
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla.

You can use a double boiler to melt this, but I just put them in a Pyrex bowl and microwave them for 1 minute.  Stir, then microwave in 20 second increments until nice and smooth.  Spoon into cookies and allow a few minutes to set.

*I love using dark brown sugar for a richer taste.
** I keep the huge bottles of clear Mexican vanilla on hand. I prefer the clear, because with the Mexican clear, you still get the amazing flavor, but it doesn’t affect the color of my icing when I decorate cakes.
*** I prefer semi-sweet to the sweeter milk chocolate, but do whatever appeals to you.

Another highlight of my day was giving my dear, sweet baby girl a suppository. It’s such fun, in fact, that I actually sense your jealousy as you’re reading this! She has been terribly constipated and in a lot of pain. I had high hopes for big-time suppository results, but as of yet, we’re both very disappointed. Wish her luck and painless poo.

I added some more clips to the products page and oh man, are they cute! I think Elliott will have to have one of each! Scroll down to the last four to see my most recent handiwork.

I’ve developed a small mental list of things I’d like to do to make our potentially awesome back yard closer to awesome. There I go with my mental lists again. I’m not exactly a whiz at landscaping. In fact, I do believe my thumb is black rather than green. Hey, at least I can set to work on the weeds for starters. We KNOW we want those dead.

Now, because it’s a glorious day outside, I’m going to head to the kitchen to make some scrumptious hamburger patties while Shayne gets the grill going. When I season my meat, I throw in a sprinkle of garlic powder and onion powder, some worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Pretty basic, but between my seasoning and Shayne’s mad grill skills, we always get rave reviews. So, next time you’re passing through, give us a heads’ up and we’ll throw one on the grill for ya!

Have a great week!

I’ve decided to share this glorious thing with you today and let you know how I do it. I’m sure there are a billion and 3 ways to do it, but here’s my way.

Things you’ll need:

2 Eggs
1/3 cup milk
2 cups flour
paprika
salt & pepper
3/4 cup Louisiana hot pepper sauce
3 Tblsp Butter
1 tsp vinegar
oil
about 3 chicken breasts cut into strips

Please keep in mind my measurements are very approximate….I don’t ever measure on recipes like this.

Pour oil into skillet until it’s about 1/2 deep or so. Set the burner to medium heat and let the oil get hot while you prepare your strips.

Put milk and eggs into a small bowl and mix with fork.

I like to put my flour and seasonings in a pie plate. Dump in a heap of flour and sprinkle in seasonings to taste. I don’t add tons because I have to keep a few strips out for the kids without sauce, and I want theirs to be pretty mild. Mix ‘em up.

Take your breast strips and roll each one in the flour mixture, then in the milk mixture….and back into the flour mixture. Gotta make sure they’ve got a nice coating on them.

By now your oil should be hot enough, so throw in your strips and let them brown on one side. Flip them once and let the other side brown. (See that one dark one?? What the heck? He got a little anxious and had to get brown a little too fast. And it wasn’t because he was the first one in and my oil was too hot. It wasn’t.)

While the chicken is frying, put your pepper sauce, butter and vinegar in a microwavable bowl. Zap it until the butter melts and then mix it up. Just smelling it will give you heartburn. Mmmhmmm.

When your chicken is cooked, drain it on a paper toweled plate. Pull out some for the kiddos and then dump the rest in a big Ziploc bag. Dump in your prepared sauce, too. Zip it up really tightly and shake it until your strips are good and coated.

Dump into a dish (Choose one that makes your food look plentiful, though. I did not.) Eat up and let me know what you think!

Well, it was one of those days. I really should have gone grocery shopping a day or two before that, but hadn’t, so supplies were running low. I grabbed the only things that even made sense together and came up with my Chicken Roll-ups. They have become a huge hit with my family….and many of my friends’ families! Let me know what you think!

1 can chicken breast
1 can cream of chicken
1 can cream of mushroom
1 can chopped green chilis
garlic powder to taste
chopped onion or onion powder to taste
about 1/2 cup milk
1 can Grands biscuits
shredded cheese

In a skillet, mix chicken, the soups, peppers, garlic, onion, milk and a handful or two of cheese. Heat until soups have thinned some, but not to the point of melting the cheese completely. (don’t you love how specific my directions are…)

While that cools a bit, roll your biscuits flat with a rolling pin. Plop a big spoonful of chicken mixture in the middle of each biscuit and roll them up burrito style. Place them seam-side down in a casserole dish and cover them with remaining mixture. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Keep in mind when you read my recipes that Shayne can’t cope with onions….so anytime you see ‘onion powder’ please add chopped onion if your family can cope. I dream of chopped onion……