Peanut Butter Cream Eggs

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

Sometimes I drop the tasty cheapskate ball. When I do, it's usually about pictures.

This week my sister was here with her four kids. She brought me a gorgeous peanut butter cream egg. Do I have a picture?

No.

Then Wednesday, while I made dinner, she and several of the kids proceeded to make and then decorate approximately 10 million more peanut butter cream eggs. They were so beautiful--an army of spring calorie bombs marching along the table. Did I get a picture of that?

Nope.

So today after my sister left (and I took myself a luxurious couch nap because Bec and I had stayed up till after midnight every single night because we are masochists). Anyway, after that, I scrounged around for a single solitary egg to photograph. My youngest daughter had one that I snagged, and then another daughter came out about to eat hers and I stole it too. That's all we had.

The moral of this story: Make these. They're not hard. They make great gifts, look beautiful in Easter baskets, and are a big crowd favorite. You'll be lucky to have a couple left at the end of the day.

Peanut Butter Cream Eggs
Makes about 30 1 1/2 inch long eggs
Prep time: 30-40 minutes, but there's some wait time while things harden/set.
Cost: $3.05 and if you flavor it with coconut, peanut butter, or chocolate that will add another $.50-1.00
(sugar: .60, butter: .40, chocolate: 2.00, other: .05)

1/3 C butter, significantly softened 
1/2 C peanut butter (crunchy or creamy depending on your preference; you can also use Nutella in place of the peanut butter if you want to go with more chocolate)
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 Tbsp milk (or cream, if you're a stickler about keeping the 'cream' in your butter cream--I used milk and it was very good)
1/2 tsp salt
2-4 C powdered sugar
1 bag (12 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips (or melting chocolate or white chocolate or whatever shivers your timbers)

Soften/Melt butter. Add peanut butter, then vanilla, then milk. Add salt and powdered sugar. Mix by hand. It will turn into a thick mixture. I like mine a little  softer (because dry PB eggs are the worst), but having it a little thicker makes it easier to work with. Just add the powdered sugar bit by bit at the end. You need to be able to roll it into a ball. 

Refrigerate the filling, and then when it's firm, roll it into egg-shaped balls. 



When it is rolled, melt your chocolate in the microwave in 30 second intervals. (Note: If using real chocolate, melt until a few chunks remain and then stir until those are melted. This will keep it from getting that white swirly-old-chocolate the next day.) 

You can use nice chocolate (my preference) or melting chocolates. Melting chocolates do not taste NEARLY as good, but they are delightfully easy to melt; they harden quickly, and they re-melt beautifully, and they don't ever get the white swirly-old-chocolate look. We opted for real chocolate on the overall egg and melting chocolate for the swirly parts. 

When the chocolate is melted, dip the eggs. You can use a slotted spoon, or you can blob and drizzle it in a completely messy, but finger lickin' good kind of way. 



Allow chocolate to harden, then decorate if you wish. If you'd like to give them away, you can put them in little muffin liners or bon bon liners (depending on size). Then put them in a small plastic gift bag. My sister did this and it looked like it had been bought from a store. Ours never quite hit that level. 

Note: I have instructions for other flavors (plain butter cream, chocolate, and coconut) on another post. Feel free to hop on over HERE if you'd like. 

Salmon with Lime Butter

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

Remember how I promised to post something that was NOT chocolate or bread this week. Well, I almost broke that promise because I am a dirty liar. And because I made this little beauty of a cake for a reading I participated in. It wasn't even expensive.

But then I remembered that I am an individual of strong moral character who does not only eat chocolate. In fact, I don't usually eat chocolate cake. (It's just that when I do, it's very good chocolate cake and I always want to share it with you.)

Anyway, I was this close to breaking my promise and becoming a person of low moral character (the horror!).

But then I remembered this salmon with lime butter. It is so beautiful, so decadent-without-breaking-the-bank. And I thought that maybe, maybe you could also still love me if I posted this amazing salmon instead of another chocolate recipe. Try the salmon, and I think you will.

The great thing about salmon is that it's almost indisputably healthy. Low-carbers, low-cal-ers. Natural foodists. A lot of people can get behind it.

It is not the cheapest meat on the market, but I can quite regularly find wild-caught salmon between $4-6/pound. Anymore, that's not so much more than plain, old ground beef.

And if I still haven't convinced you, let me say this: You can get this fish, plus rice, plus roasted broccoli on the table in 20 minutes. And for such a meal that you would drop a good amount of change for at a restaurant (as in close to $100 for 4 people), you will pay a mere $7.00 to feed your family of four ($5--salmon, $.50--2 cups rice, $1.50--1 pound broccoli. I just googled the Walmart prices at grocery.walmart.com so I'm not even making this up). That's $1.75/person.

Salmon with Lime Butter
Adapted from 365 Ways to Cook Chicken
Serves 4
Prep and cook time: 15 minutes
Cost: $5.00
(salmon: 4.00, butter: .50, lime: .50)

1 Tbsp olive oil
4 salmon fillets
6 Tbsp butter
juice from one lime (about 2 Tbsp)
zest if desired
dill and chives for garnish

Heat olive oil in a skillet. Add fillets and cook about 4 minutes on each side. When fish is cooked through and can be easily flaked with a fork, take it off the heat.

Remove the salmon to a plate and keep warm (I usually just put another plate over top of it.) Wipe out pan. (This is necessary. If you leave the drippings from the oil, the butter-lime concoction will separate.) Allow the pan to cool for a minute. If you don't do this as soon as you add the lime juice it will bubble up and evaporate.

Return your pan to the burner on low heat. Add the lime juice. When it begins to bubble, stir in the butter (and zest if using). Raise the heat a bit and stir until the butter runs clear (or nearly so). This takes a couple of minutes. Remove it from the heat. If you let it get much hotter, the butter will separate.

Pour it over the salmon. Garnish with chives and dill and serve.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Chocolate Chunk Chocolate Pie

THE BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE


Is anyone else starting to believe that all my "best of" recipes will revolve around bread and chocolate? Okay, fine; and I promise to rectify that sometime in the near future.

But not today.

Because tomorrow is pi day/pie day. And you should probably make this if you value happiness in any way. 

I just made it with my darling niece this weekend. Happiness abounded.

Below I'll paste the original post. Because I think I'm just hil-a-ri-ous and stuff:

On Sunday night I wanted pie. And chocolate. So I adapted this recipe I found on Pinterest. It said I could eat it warm or cold. I ate it warm. Because I have the patience of not-Job. I probably have more the patience of Nebuchadnezzar or the King Xerxes or someone who was like,, "Interpret my dream or bring me a new wife (or bring me chocolate pie) or I'll kill you all." Yeah, that's more my speed of biblical patience. Anyway, so I ate my pie warm. And it was delicious. Just like any chocolate pie or chocolate chess pie you might have whipped up for yourself.

(See this crust. It's another example of having the patience of not-Job. I had a pie crust in the freezer, so I got it out, let it "thaw" for, like, 10 minutes, then nuked it for a few seconds, then just tried to bully the thing down into pie crust form. It mostly worked, though it was a bit thick, but still honestly completely amazing with this pie.)

And then today I had a bit of pie after lunch--just a bite (or three). And it was amazing. The chocolate chips I'd added to the batter, which I'd assumed had just assimilated when warm were there and bite-able when cold. So you got this intensely chocolate pie with delicious bursts of cold, hard chocolate within. Amazing.

Even better is the fact that this is easy (as pie, ha!) to throw together (15 minutes, tops for the filling--though you do have to cook it and that takes longer than 15 minutes). And that you can make it the level of darkness that you want (though I wouldn't admit going anything sweet/milkier than semi-sweet). I made mine on the darker side while still sweet (55%-60%). You can do whatever you want.

Chocolate Chunk Chocolate Pie
makes 1 9-inch pie
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes
Cost: $2.75 (that's .35/slice for something decadent and amazing)
butter: .35, 1.10, flour: .05, sugar: .10, brown sugar: .20, eggs: .20, crust: .75

Note: There may be a small chance that I forgot to add the flour to this when I made it. Whoopsie. It still turned out. In fact, it was great. I'll try it again soon with flour and see if it's any different than the thing I actually made. You know what they say--there's nothing better than a competent food blogger. I think our takeaway from this is that this pie can be messed up and still be awesome. 

Updated note: I have since made this with and without flour. I like it much better WITHOUT. Oh, it's good with. It's like a brownie pie. But if you leave that flour out, it's just the most amazing thing (and that is what I did the first time I tried it). Because of that, I'm cutting the flour out of the instructions. If you really want to add it, you can. It's 1/2 C of all-purpose flour, but this recipe is more divine without it. 

1/2 C melted butter, hot
3/4 C chocolate chips (whatever level of dark you prefer)
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 C chocolate chips
1 premade pie crust (store bought or recipe here)

Preheat oven to 350.

Put your crust in a 9-inch pie pan.

Melt butter in microwave (in a large-ish bowl, so you can add other ingredients later). Add chocolate chips, and stir. Let them sit and stir. They'll melt and you can mix them with the butter. If they don't, throw it all in the microwave for another 15-20 seconds. Stir until smooth.

Add in white sugar and brown sugar. Stir. It will be grainy.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs and vanilla and whisk. Now whisk that mixture into the chocolate mixture.

Add the 1/2 C of chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes, or until the temperature reaches 180 degrees or so at the center. It will still be wet and you'll be like, "Should I take this out? Will it hold it's shape? Yes, and yes.)

Let cool somewhat; you can eat it warm, but not hot (it won't hold it's shape is you straight up cut it out of the oven, so take a lesson from Job and let it cool just a little, okay?).

You can eat it warm. Or put it in the fridge and eat it with those amazing chocolate chunks. (I want to go eat some more out of my fridge right now. I want to, but I shouldn't, but I want to...)

PRINTABLE RECIPE

One Bowl Oat Muffins

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

You know how often muffins are just cupcakes without the frosting. Which is kind of depressing on all counts. Dieters don't want some bald-headed cupcake wrecking their calories and using up their points. And sweets-devotees don't want a bald cupcake because, well, it's bald.

It doesn't help when those little bald sugar bombs are just kind of meh in flavor and texture anyway.

Well, folks, it's your lucky day because today you get a muffin that contains a mere 1/4 C sugar, plus a couple whole grains. But it doesn't announce that fact by being bland and boring. It has the perfect amount of sweetness, a beautiful texture.

They can be made in larger batches and saved or frozen (assuming you don't live in a house with 6 hungry people).

Not only that, but these babies come up to $.10/muffin (take that bald cupcakes).

And they are infinitely adaptable. You can add chocolate chips and coconut (like I did, which, yes, makes them a little less righteous). But you could also add carrots or blueberries or apples or rhubarb or raspberries (making them even more righteous). You could do dark chocolate and strawberries (walking the delicate line of food virtue and vice). Or you can just eat them plain.

And if all that isn't enough, get this--you just stir these with a spoon in ONE bowl. How delightful is that. I mean, in that way they're like a really good friend who can come over and see you in your sweats and still know you're awesome. Yes, my dears, that friend is what these muffins are.

So take 20 minutes and make them.

One Bowl Oat Muffins
adapted from Simple Bites
makes 12 muffins
prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 10-12 minutes
Cost: $1.20 (without add ins)
milk: .15, oats: .10, brown sugar: .10, butter: .60, flour: .15, other stuff: .05

1 C milk
1 tsp white vinegar
1 C oats (rolled recommended, but quick work too and are better if you've got a child with a texture aversion)
1 egg
1/4 C brown sugar
1/2 C butter, melted (oil works too, but butter is tastier)
1 C plus 2 Tbsp flour (I use mostly white, but sub in 1/4 C of whole wheat)
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
add ins if you choose (we usually go for 1/2 C chocolate chips)

Combine Milk and vinegar (note: If you've got a cup of buttermilk, you can use that in place of the milk and vinegar.) Add oats and let sit for about 5 minutes (with quick oats, you can just give it a quick stir and you're good to go).

Mix in egg. Add brown sugar and melted butter. Mix.

Combine remaining dry ingredients and stir them in just until combined.

Add add ins if using.

Pour into 12 greased or lined muffin tins. Fill 3/4 full. 

Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes (slightly longer if you've added fresh fruit as an add in).

Potential add ins:
raspberries
apples
nuts
dried cranberries
blueberries
rhubarb
coconut
dates
carrots
chocolate chips

If you are interested in some amazing flavor combinations (and specific measurements) instead of my lazy-bum suggestions above, check these out. They are from Simple Bites .

ONE-BOWL OATMEAL MUFFINS: FLAVOR COMBINATIONS

• 1 cup Raspberries, fresh or frozen & ½ cup Dark Chocolate, chunked or chips
• ¾ cup Diced Apple (Granny Smith or Russet) and ½ cup toasted Walnuts, roughly chopped
• ¾ cup Dried Cranberries & ½ cup toasted Pecans, roughly chopped
• ¾ cup White Chocolate, chopped or chips & 1 cup Blueberries, fresh or frozen
• ½ cup toasted unsweetened Coconut & ¾ cup Peanut-Butter Chips
• 1 cup diced Rhubarb, fresh or frozen & ½ teaspoon Green Cardamom, freshly ground
• ¾ cup Dates, pitted and chopped & ½ cup Pistachios
• ¾ cup Golden Raisins & ¾ cup grated Carrot