Wednesday, November 26, 2014

In the Kitchen: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie

{I actually took these pictures last year and meant to write a blog post, but I never got around to it.}

I am not huge fan of cream pies or really anything besides a fruit pie. I mean this generally, just because whenever someone has made some sort of cream/chocolate/custard pie it is often made with a Jello mix, which I am not a fan of. I do believe cream type pies can be really delicious, and I have made some--but I still usually prefer apple, blackberry, pumpkin or any other fruit one to a cream one. However, this pie is the exception. 

My mom makes this pie often and she adapted it from a family recipe. 

This pie starts off with an Oreo crust. The actual recipe calls for chocolate graham crackers, but I modified it and found it better. I did not actually use Oreos, but used Trader Joe's Jo-Jo's, which I think taste better anyways.

This pie is made up of two peanut butter layers separated by a thinner chocolate layer. Do not be cheap with ingredients! Buy quality chocolate! At the very least, use Ghirardelli's  60% cacao chocolate chips.

This recipe is simple and well, not something I would really look at and think, "Oh, I should make that!"---But---it really is a delicious pie. I am really picky when it comes to pies and crust and what people put on their blogs as recipes. If the blogger does not make their own crust (i.e. store bought), do not trust them, if they use a mix of any kind, do not trust them, if they make pies using exorbitant amounts of candy, do not trust them. Basically, it really bothers me that when I go to find a recipe somewhere on the internet, I find a lot of supposedly "food" blogs that basically just are telling you how to combine store-bought items. Not cooking. Not baking. It is just a lot of preservatives, etc. and it always tastes better to make it from scratch. Granted, I did not make my own chocolate wafers to grind up for the crust--but I did try to find a better, slightly healthier substitute over Oreos. Sorry about the rant. It could have been much longer.


The recipe is as follows:
Crust:
2 cups crushed Jo-Jo's/Oreos (including the cream filling)
2 tbsp melted butter

Mix together and then press into a pie dish, going all the way up the sides. Bake at 350 for 5-10 minutes, should be fragrant. Let cool.

Pie Filling:
1 cup creamy peanut butter (use an all natural one, without the added sugar and palm oil--you really don't need more sugar!) 
8 oz, cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
8 oz already whipped cream (about 1/2 cup un-whipped cream)

Mix all of the above ingredients with a mixer, except the whipped cream. Once everything is well mixed and smooth, fold the whipped cream into the peanut butter mixture. Set filling aside.

Chocolate layer:
6-8 oz dark chocolate

Melt over a double boiler over low heat.

To assemble:

Spread half of the peanut butter filling into the pie dish. Pour all of the chocolate over the peanut butter filling and spread out evenly. Spread the rest of the peanut butter filling evenly on top. Chill in the refrigerator until set. 

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The Weekly Photo

I know, I know. You already saw these photos! But, finding out our baby's gender was the biggest thing that happened last week. Also, The Weekly Photo was started as a challenge to help me take more pictures and the photo chosen for the week was to be the picture that most accurately described our past week, or showed a big event, etc. Thus, these two same photos are on here again. 
Baby girl's profile.

Me, at 18 1/2 weeks.
It is Thanksgiving this week! As most people know, obviously.  I love Thanksgiving and we are again doing it at our house. I actually really enjoy making the Thanksgiving feast. Enjoy your Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 20, 2014

We're Having….

...a girl!

We had the ultrasound on Tuesday and it was a lot of fun because an ultrasound tech was teaching an intern, so we we able to have a super long ultrasound. It was wonderful to see our baby girl move around, cross her legs, touch her face, stretch out, etc. It was also very relieving to see that she was healthy and everything was normal. 

Cute little profile!

She is definitely a girl! Tyler knew even before I did and before the tech said anything, when they passed over this area before checking gender.
Foot!

Crossed legs.

If you feel like watching 6 minutes of the ultrasound, here it is:


We did not have any preference on gender, but are very happy to be having a girl. It certainly makes it easier, since we already have girl stuff! Elanor is very excited to have a little sister and she will be such a great big sister. I love having a sister and my sister and I are really close (I wish she lived right next to me!), so I really hope Elanor and this new little girl have that as well.

Here I am at 18 1/2 weeks. 

Everyone keeps telling me that I look huge and must be carrying twins, but my doctor assured me that I am normal, and any second or subsequent pregnancies are usually bigger at first, but the same over the whole course of pregnancy. Plus, I have only gained 8 pounds and they want me to have gained 10 by 20 weeks, so I am right on track. Also, the baby is exactly right on for size, so not big or small, just right.

I keep meaning to write more pregnancy posts, so that I keep better track of this pregnancy than I did the first. So hopefully, I can write more of these!

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

The Weekly Photo

Siblings! (minus Ian, who is on a mission in Iowa.)
We went home for the weekend for my youngest brother, Erik's farewell party. He is leaving on a mission for our church tomorrow! He starts off at the MTC (missionary training center) to learn the language, learn how to teach, etc. and then he heads off to Sweden in January! 

It was wonderful to be back and spend time with family and especially, Erik, as we won't see him for two years!

Monday, November 10, 2014

The Weekly Photo

Elanor is so excited we finally finished all of the letters!
We have been working on learning all of the letters since last year, and we did take a break during the summer, but it took awhile! However, we finished last week and hopefully, we will be moving on to bigger and better things like reading soon!

Monday, November 3, 2014

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Halloween

We had a really fun Halloween this year. In fact, Elanor declared that it was the best Halloween ever. We had themed costumes this year, we (Becky and I) had an awesome homemade doughnut and cider stand in our front yard and we had a lot of good friends around.

Our little Alice.
I made this costume and it was the first time I put a zipper in!


I was the White Rabbit and Tyler was the Mad Hatter. I made or put together all of our costume pieces. I even made Tyler's hat!

I did not get any great pictures of our doughnut stand, and this is just taken with my phone.
This is also with my phone, but here we have a dinosaur, Robin, Batman, Alice, a fireman, and a little piggy! 
Trick-or-treat!
Here are our pumpkins this year! I did the owl and Tyler's is Batman and he also did Piglet for Elanor.
 I hope everyone had a fun and happy Halloween!