all watched over by machines of loving grace

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

Ingredients:
big bag of those individually wrapped little peanut butter cups
1 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg

First, peel all your little bitty peanut butter cups. You need more than three dozen. If you don't have enough, you will have to find suitable substitutions. Put them in a bowl somewhere.

Next, mix together your three ingredients. You will need either a heavy-duty mixer or a large bowl and a sturdy spoon.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Roll your peanut butter dough into little balls and place them on your cookie sheets. make indentations in the top of each ball with a finger or thumb.

Bake each panful for 9 to 10 minutes. Immediately after removing the cookies from the oven, press a peanut butter cup into the impression on each cookie. Then de-pan the cookies. Warning: Candy may slide around a little.

Oh, and also my father made some pies:

Coconut & chocolate custard pies.

This is my spinach quiche with ground beef added. It was inspired by something my stepmother did with broccoli.

It's delicious!

Ingredients:



3 ounces cream cheese
1/3 cup half & half
3 jumbo eggs
1 10-ounce package frozen chopped spinach
1/2 cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
bunch green onions (scallions)
2 tablespoons butter
salt
white pepper
pre-baked pie crust*

Equipment:

I forgot stuff in the photo.
colander
cutting board
knife
large bowl or measuring cup (a bowl with a spout is nice too)
measuring cup
large frying pan
lid for large frying pan
butter knife
fork
spoon for stirring
spatula (rubber scraper)
stove

Pre-prep:
The night before, put the spinach in your colander and set it in your dish drainer. You could put it on paper towels on your counter, but I tried that last night and ran through eight paper towels. So just clear your dishes out of that mother and leave the colander in there.

The morning of the day you are planning to make the quiche, unwrap the cream cheese and put it in your mixing bowl or giant measuring cup. This is for softening purposes.

Or you can forget until the last minute like I did. If the cream cheese isn't soft enough, you can try nuking it on half power for 20 seconds. If you have a microwave that only does high, 5 seconds is all I'd recommend.

Okay, you're ready to cook. Wash your scallions and cut off the hairy ends and the limp parts of the green ends. Some may be more limp than others. That's okay, it's why we're using the whole bunch.

Put the butter in the frying pan and melt it. Turn off the heat. Chop the onions and dump them into the frying pan with the butter. Once all the onions are in there, turn the heat back on to medium and stir them around for about two minutes.

Turn the heat down to low and add the spinach clump. Break the clump up with your stirring spoon and put the lid on your pan. Cook the spinach and onions like this for about five minutes. Lift the lid once in a while and stir things around.

At the end of the five minutes, turn off the heat and let the spinach and onions cool for at least 20 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 425 F.
Mash the cream cheese around in the bowl with your fork.

Mix in the half and half, a little at a time. Like a tablespoonful, then another, until it's all incorporated.

Now mix in your eggs, one at a time. You don't have to pick out the white bits, but you do have to be careful with the shells. Nothing ruins a slice of quiche quite like biting into a piece of eggshell. By now, you should have this:

Okay, now mix the cooked spinach and onions, grated cheese, and a little pepper and salt into the stuff in the mixing bowl. Be sure to check that you've added everything.

Transfer the mixture to the pie crust with the help of your rubber spatula. Use the spatula to even out the mixture in the pie crust:

Bake the quiche for 25 minutes. If you try to take it out and the filling wobbles, give it another five minutes. This is what it looks like straight out of the oven:


Let your quiche cool for at least 10 minutes. Then eat it!


*This is my father's gluten-free pie crust, and all I know about it is that it requires two kinds of rice flour, butter, and a Kitchen-Aid mixer. You can use your own recipe, buy a crust, or use this recipe, only don't soften the butter and instead of refrigerating it, bake it at 475 F for 15 minutes.

I made a pie and a cat toy:

I don't understand this pose: