Old Fashioned Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

If, according to Camelot, the month of May is lusty, it's definitely now the lazy month of June. Finally. The atmosphere is dewy, and humid, and languid. The various spaces around me are dripping with aromas of fresh-cut grass, fuchsia hydrangea - and, thanks to a delicate green rainfall, wet earth (one of my favourite scents in the entire universe). After a never ending winter and chilly spring, it's nice to finally feel a temperature that's aligned with the calender.

peanut butter + cinnamon chocolate chunk cookies

"Here is the scarf
we left years ago like a bookmark,

meaning to return the next day,
having just turned our heads
toward a noise in the bushes,
toward the dinnerbell in the distance,

toward what we knew and did not know
we knew, in the spreading twilight
that returns changed to a changed place." ~ Wyatt Townley, from "Finding the Scarf"

peanut butter and jalapeño cherry jam bars

A few weeks or months ago (time feels so surreal this year) Kristy, of The Wicked Noodle, introduced  me to Shop Sweet Lulu. With eyes as wide as saucers and with legs curled up on the chair (my "nesting" pose), I made my way through every square inch and pixel of Lulu's sweet shop.

Straws, cupcake wrappers, cupcake toppers, milk bottles, tableware...they have everything a baker-blogger could ask for, including twine!

I'm not sure what it is about twine, but I love tying it around Everything lately. I didn't realize the intensity of that love until I edited the photos for these PB & J bars, and last Saturday's cookies; somehow twine made its way into almost every picture.

I tied a long piece of twine around the tail of a toy mouse and pulled it from room to room. Of course my cats remained blasé during my run around the house, which only made me start giggling, which, in turn, led to deadpan stares from the cats; this eventually brought me to a state of rolling around on my back in a fit of laughter.

Twine. Who knew it could be so amusing?

Double Chocolate, Double Peanut Butter Cookies

Can you believe that we've reached the end of August? It seems like I was just complaining about June coming to an end. Time baffles me. Constantly.  I mean, forget the fact that summer flew by like a favourite song (the one you were so excited to find playing, only to discover that it was already half-over). Oh, wait...that's it. That's summer. A song I'm endlessly humming in my head, but never quite tuned into.

Peanut Butter + Nutella Swirl Cookies

Since it's Oscar weekend, I was going to make an elaborate, glamorous dessert; instead, I made cookies. Cookies which didn't even last long enough to see the bright spotlight of the weekend.

Now I'll have to come up with something else for tomorrow night, or just make another batch of cookies. (I'm leaning towards the latter.) At least I gave them their own little red carpet.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes

When I started this blog in 2009, I didn't plan on being drawn into the Cupcakean Nebula. I never had anything against cupcakes, they were just too trendy.

For as accommodating as I am, I can also be quite contrary. I cut my hair super-short after someone said they didn't like girls with super-short hair, If someone says "You're a good mood!", it puts me in a bad mood, despite the fact that I consider myself a realist, I believe in the idea of soul-mates, and I like knee socks with just about everything, including shorts. So when the world became obsessed with cupcakes, my automatic response was to avoid them, at all costs.

Thankfully, that didn't last very long. :D

Kids' Thumbprints

Happy New Year! I hope the first few days of January have been kind. Even though I never make any resolutions, a new year feels like a crisp, fresh sheet of paper sitting beside a typewriter at a desk in a sunlit room. There's a calm, clarity of thought that allows us to write a new story without the burden of a year's worth of worries.

Cloud 9 Cookies

Whenever I'm alone, house sitting for a friend, I end up watching movies that either:

A) Scare me so much that I need to 'sleep' with a light on while listening to NPR, or

B) Make me cry and fill me with a masochistic urge to enhance the mood by listening to the MP3 collection I simply call "depressing songs". (Just so you have an understanding of what this collection consists of, the theme from Love Story and Feist's "The Park" are the first two tracks.)

The other night I watched The Grudge, and An Affair to Remember.

It was quite the manic evening.

On those rare occasions when a hallway light (closet lights makes me think of Poltergeist), the BBC, and music fail to sooth my mind, I know I can always turn to baking...even if it's 2 o'clock in the morning.

And when baking can only take me half-way, I can count on cookies to do the rest of the work; cookies with chocolate and peanut butter, to be exact.

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

How do you enjoy peanut butter cups?  I go through a candy bar the same way I go through life, by picking it apart & analyzing the details. When it comes to one of my favourite indulgences, peanut butter cups, I like to nibble off the fluted edges so all that's left is a soft peanut buttery circle with just a hint of chocolate. It's a messy, drawn-out, tedious process and I don't enjoy the solid chocolate part (but it leaves me feeling as though I've earned that golden circle!).

Apres all the work, I take umbrage with the fact that I'm left with such a tiny reward; hence the insatiable desire for an elaphantine version. 

Jam & Peanut Butter-Nutella Tarts

Let's be honest, when it comes to certain forms of food, sometimes we eat it with unnecessary accessories just to make ourselves feel better. Take, for example, the peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Is the bread truly needed, especially when it merely serves as a 'platform' for the good parts? Left to our own devices, we would just as soon be armed with a spoon + two open jars.

Peanut Butter Mocha-Maple Brownies

When you just want to relax & indulge in something rich and satisfying, I can't think of anything more blithe than a brownie (or three...who's counting?). Especially when the brownie is laced with peanut butter. Dark chocolate + peanut butter are savagely deadly - Bonnie and Clyde of the confectionery world. Lethal, dangerous and undeniably irresistible. I would mar my perfect record and do time for these brownies.

Nutella-Peanut Butter Pillows (revisited)

Since this is peanut butter lover's month, I wanted to take things full circle by returning to an old favourite. When I first started blogging, well over a year ago, this was one of my first recipes.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Moon Pies

Hello, moon pies. Where have you been all my life (better yet, where have I been?) This late-blooming discovery can be traced back to the glorious plaid-uniformed days of grade school. My parent's version of a lunch box 'treat' was usually in the form of sliced carrots, peppers or, if I was lucky, a yogurt.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Peanuttiest Blondies

Happy Peanut Butter Lovers Month! (Is it bad that I know about this?)

These photos might be the last taken with my trusty, little Canon A430 camera. After two years, 200 blog posts, and far too many snaps than I can count, the camera began displaying the dreaded white horizontal lines, and blindly white out-put. Of course I'm in a bit of a panic. For food bloggers, not having a camera is like a musician giving a performance to an empty theater.

Ganache-Filled Peanut Butter + Chocolate Chip Cookies

Stuffed like a healthy string of crab pots, these cookies are ready to be off loaded straight into mouth harbor. And don't even bother to keep count, these are so rich, chewy and decadent, even Greenmitts will feel like they've hit the motherload with only one share. After the long grind of scoop, bake, and spread, you can relax with an ice-cold glass of milk, stare off into the distance, and think about the recipes yet to come.

Salted Peanut Butter Caramel Twix™ Bars

Happy October! ☼ It's either good or terribly annoying that I've just learned how to play with the numeric pad and "Alt" button. Who knew it could do more than add accents and make ♥'s?

Black & White Peanut Butter Brownies

To all the dads out there, and to those who are not longer with us, Happy Father's Day! My dad was French, so when we moved here it took him a while to grasp the concept of having an entire day, aside from his birthday, dedicated to him.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Depravity, thy name is peanut butter.

It's quite difficult to find a recipe for peanut butter cookies. They're as rare as tip-accepting hair stylists and Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Shortbread Bars

These bars remind me of the wealthy, spoiled cousin of peanut butter Twix candy bars. If I were a peanut butter Twix candy bar, I would secretly hate these bars.

Peanut Butter Brownies with Caramel Frosting

Sometimes last minute decisions can actually turn out quite well. Take for example these brownies and disregard all those impulse clothing purchases I made which still hang in the closet with their angry looking tags still hanging from them like monetary albatrosses.