Peanut Butter Chocolate No Bake Dessert

I'm not even sure what do call this dessert but it is delicious!  I also love that it was no bake- perfect for a hot summer day and you're looking for something sweet to eat.  Unfortunately someone dug into it before I did, attempted to make it look like they didn't, and put it back in the fridge.  But, I guess a good thing about this picture is that you can see the layers of the dessert.

Ingredients

• 1 package of Oreos, or any other kind of cream-filled sandwich cookies
• 2 tbs of softened butter
• 1 package (8 oz) of cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1-1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 16 oz of frozen whipped topping
• 15-20 mini peanut butter cups
• 1 cup milk
• 1 small package of instant chocolate pudding mix 

Procedure

Crush about 20 cookies and toss together with the softened butter.  Press into a 9x9 dish (mine was slightly larger) to form a sort of 'crust'.  In a separate large bowl, beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, and 1 cup of the confectioners sugar until smooth.  Fold in half of the whipped topping and spread over the crust.  Chop up the mini peanut butter cups and sprinkle over top of the peanut butter and cream cheese layer.

In another large bowl, beat milk, pudding mix, and the rest of the confectioners sugar on low for 2 minutes.  Let stand for 2 minutes and fold in the remaining whipped topping.  Spread over the mini peanut butter cups.  Crush the rest of the cookies and sprinkle on top- if you have any left over peanut butter cups sprinkle those as well.  Cover and chill for at least 3 hours before you dig in!  Also, as if this dessert couldn't get any better, it tasted even better the following night.  There's just one thing that I would change next time I make it would be the amount of peanut butter.  It was just a littlleeee too thick and I think the peanut butter was to blame.  Other than that, enjoy!!

Link to original recipe here

Mustard Roasted Salmon with Zucchini Chips

So, here's the first official food post:

I was craving salmon the other night, which is strange because I'm not much of a fish eater.  But nonetheless, I gave into my craving and searched for different salmon recipes.  I found a couple, but there was only one that used simple ingredients and still looked good.

So I went out and bought a pound wild Alaskan salmon and this was the result:

I also apologize for the picture, I realize it's not the best photo.  The salmon also broke when I took it out of the pan, I was quite upset.

But to make up for my terrible picture taking skills (which I promise will get better) here was how I made it:

Ingredients

• 1 lb of salmon (I guess you could use whatever salmon you'd like- I got wild Alaskan)
• about 2 tbs of mustard (I used a smooth Dijon)
• about 2 tbs of maple syrup (real maple syrup that is)
• about one clove of garlic (I used the already finely chopped one in the jar)
• 1/2 freshly squeezed lemon juice
• salt and pepper

Preparations

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  I lined my baking sheet with aluminum foil, which may have aided in the process of breaking my salmon, next time I'll grease it with a bit of olive oil.  Season the salmon with salt and pepper and pop it in the oven for 10 minutes.

While the salmon is cooking combine the mustard, maple syrup, garlic, and lemon juice and mix well.  After the ten minutes are up, put the mixture on the salmon and continue to bake for another 10 minutes.  The original recipe called for only 5 minutes, but I took user's comments seriously and used the extra 5 minutes in the oven.

Besides maybe salting the salmon a little too much, I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.  I didn't actually use a measuring spoon for the ingredients, just a soup spoon.  But regardless, it had a nice tangy-sweet flavor and was cooked perfectly.  If I hadn't done the extra five minutes it would have been entirely too wet and anymore would most likely have dried it out.

The side dish I made to go along with it (in addition to brown rice) were these very yummy zucchini chips.  I love zucchini anyway it's cooked, but these just looked too good to be true, so obviously I had to try it.

Ingredients

• 2 medium sized zucchini, sliced (apparently they're called 'green squash' in the supermarkert- I had no idea)
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs (I just used plain)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup whole wheat flour 
• 1 cup milk

Preparation

Since my oven was already heated to 400 degrees, I just kept it at that (I even had them in there while the salmon was cooking).  I lined another baking sheet with aluminum foil, which turned out to be another lesson of having to grease beforehand.

Anyway, so after washing and slicing the zucchini, mix together the milk and flour in a large bowl (I actually thought this was too much and ended up throwing most of it away- next time I'll cut them down) and mix the breadcrumbs and cheese together in a separate bowl.  Dredge the slices of zucchini through the flour and milk mixture then coat them evenly in the breadcrumb and cheese mixture.  Place them on the baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes.  The chips are supposed to be turned over halfway through baking, but I couldn't since they were sticking, although they still turned out browned and crispy.


So, that's what I made for dinner and overall I was pretty happy with all of it.  Here are the links to the original recipes if you're interested:

Zucchini Chips
Mustard Roasted Salmon

Can't believe I'm actually doing this...

I've been thinking about making a food blog for a while, but for some reason I never got around to it until now! Perhaps the fact that it's summer and I'm currently unemployed is the reason.

I find a lot of recipes by either browsing the internet or watching the food network, some I am more eager to try than others.  But, eventually I'll get to them all and maybe with enough experience I'll start to make up some of my own!

I must also say that I enjoy doing other little crafty things, so occasionally when I complete various crafts, I'll be posting pictures of those as well.  I know the title of my blog doesn't exactly include that, but I'm not the most creative in that sense... in fact, I didn't even come up with the title! Credit goes to the lovely Kayla who also unintentionally gave me the push I needed to start this thing.  You can find her at Curly Cookin'.