TechyDad

I’m a big fan of mousse, but I don’t often get the chance to make it. When I saw this recipe, I knew I’d have to make it. First, we gather our ingredients, all three of them.

That’s heavy cream, milk and Mighty Maple Peanut Butter. If you don’t have maple peanut butter, you could always add some maple syrup to the mix. First, put the milk and maple syrup peanut butter into a blender and blend them together.

Next, pour the egg whites into a bowl and beat them with an electric mixer until they form stiff peaks.

Now, fold in peanut butter-milk mixture.

Refrigerate the mixture for a few hours (or overnight), scoop into a bowl and enjoy.

The Verdict:

NHL and B didn’t like this one. I think they might be used to chocolate mousses and so were thrown by the maple flavor. I definitely think that the taste was improved by adding some mini-chocolate chips. Perhaps next time I’ll try making this with the Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter.

Disclaimer: Peanut Butter & Co sent me the jars of peanut butter to try. The opinions about the peanut butter and the dishes I make with them are my own, though, and have in no way been influenced by Peanut Butter & Co.

I’ll admit right off the bat that I’m not a big white chocolate fan. I’m more of a dark chocolate person, myself. Still, how can you resist a peanut butter called White Chocolate Wonderful?

I found a recipe online for Flourless White Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies and then went to work gathering my ingredients.

That’s brown sugar, white chocolate peanut butter, baking soda, vanilla, white chocolate peanut butter chips and egg whites. First, we combine the peanut butter, brown sugar, baking soda and vanilla.

Now, in a second bowl, lightly beat the egg whites. (Bad, egg whites!)

Pour the beaten egg whites into the first bowl and mix it all together.

Fold in the white chocolate chips.

Now, scoop onto a baking sheet and cook at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes.

When they come out, do NOT try to move them. The cookies will be way too soft. Instead, let them cool for about 5 minutes on the baking sheet before moving them to a cooling rack. Or do like I did and let them cool for 5 minutes on the tray and then remove the aluminum foil – cookies and all – to let them cool for another 5 minutes. You’ll be rewarded with delicious white chocolate peanut butter cookies.

The verdict? Well, these were good, but to be honest, I have another peanut butter cookie recipe that I like more. I guess I like that one more due to the greater peanut butter taste. Still, this white chocolate peanut butter’s good stuff!

Disclaimer: Peanut Butter & Co sent me the jars of peanut butter to try. The opinions about the peanut butter and the dishes I make with them are my own, though, and have in no way been influenced by Peanut Butter & Co.

As you might have guessed, I like peanut butter. I also like chocolate. Especially, Dark Chocolate. So how couldn’t I love this?

DARK CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER!!!!

Excuse me while I clean up this drool puddle. Ok, much better. I keep thinking I should find a proper recipe to make this into but then I think that’d be a waste of Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter. (Cleans up more drool.) Especially when there’s a quick and easy recipe that I love making this into.

First, let’s gather our ingredients. All three of them.

For the record, that’s dark chocolate peanut butter, marshmallow fluff and graham crackers. Now place two halves of a graham cracker down

Open up your dark chocolate peanut butter.

(Oh dear, more drool to clean up.)

Now spread some dark chocolate peanut butter on one half. Spread some marshmallow fluff on the other half.

Next, comes a highly technical procedure which I call “squishing them together.”

Doesn’t that look good? Don’t you want to try a bite?

Sorry, this one’s mine. Get your own!!! (Insert Cookie Monster sounds as I devour my creation.)

Disclaimer: Peanut Butter & Co sent me the jars of peanut butter to try. The opinions about the peanut butter and the dishes I make with them are my own, though, and have in no way been influenced by Peanut Butter & Co.

There are some things that just seem to go together and things that don’t go together at all. Once in awhile, you might be lucky to discover two things which, by all rights, shouldn’t go together, but do. It was in this hope that I opened the Peanut Butter and Company cookbook to the Peanut Butter Grilled Cheese (aka the PBGC) recipe. I’m always game for food experimentation, though, especially when using my family as dinner-guinea-pigs, so I plunged ahead.

The first step was to gather the ingredients: Bread, cheese, and butter.

Of course, I needed the star ingredient: Crunch Time, chunky peanut butter.

This sandwich is a cousin of the Veggie Elvis and so shares some similarities. First, you spread the butter on one side of the bread.

Then, you spread the peanut butter on the other side.

At this point, the Veggie Elvis and PBGC part company. Where the Veggie Elvis added banana and veggie bacon, the PBGC adds sliced American cheese.

Now, just close the sandwich and cook on each side for a few minutes so the cheese can melt.

Finally, put the sandwich on a plate, cut in half (to see the melty PB-Cheesy goodness inside) and enjoy.

This was better than I thought it would be, but perhaps not as good as it could be. The peanut butter flavor overpowered the cheese flavor a tad too much for my taste. Perhaps next time, I’ll try a cheese with a stronger flavor. Maybe a sharp chedder would give the peanut butter a run for its money.

By my parents’ house, there is a Greek restaurant. I used to order from them all the time. They would even recognize me, not by my voice, but by my phoned in order of “Spanikopita, side of rice pilaf and side of chickpeas to go” as I drove home from work. I’ve tried (and failed) to find spanikopita as good by me. Of course, any trip to my parents comes with two conditions, the first of which is that we eat at the Greek restaurant. (The second is stopping by Trader Joe’s.)

Despite my love of their spanikopita (aka spinach pie), there’s another dish that I’d love the recipe for more. Their chickpeas. When you sit down for dinner, they’ll place a bowl of these in front of you with some pita bread. My taste buds are watering just thinking of them. The chickpeas are marinated with chopped up onions in oil. My best guess is that it is olive oil with some mystery mixture of spices. (And now my nose just kicked in as I remembered their scent.) I would eat these chickpeas every day if I had the chance.

Every time I go, I tell myself that I should ask for the recipe so I can try to duplicate this dish. Every time, I either chicken out or ask so meekly that it is all too easy for them to decline.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever asked a restaurant for the recipe to a dish that you loved? Were you ever successful if obtaining it?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #44

As I stated last week, I’m trying to make at least one dish with each of Peanut Butter & Co‘s peanut butters. Last week was Bee’s Knees and this week it’s The Heat Is On.

Now, I like spicy food, but this peanut butter just seemed too spicy for my taste. Straight up, that is. When mixed into a dish, it gives just the right level of spiciness and PB-flavor. What makes it spicy, you ask? Well, look at the ingredients (from the Peanut Butter & Co website):

Yes, that combination of ingredients will certainly light a fire on your tastebuds… a delicious fire!

Read more…

A couple of weeks ago, I was contacted by Peanut Butter & Co. They wanted me to try some of their peanut butter flavors. When the box arrived at the door, I was amazed to see these inside.

That’s eight different types of peanut butter! Now, I’m already familiar with Peanut Butter & Co. I’ve had a few of their peanut butters and love them. I own their cookbook. And while I’ve never been to their store in New York City, I hope to go during BlogHer. (Anyone up for a PB-lunch break/meetup during BlogHer?) I decided that I was going to use each of their peanut butters in its own dish and write a Cooking With TechyDad segment on my creations.

Read more…

As you might have guessed from my frequent Cooking With TechyDad posts, I love to cook. I’m also a fan of Alton Brown (the God of Cooking Geeks) and have often drooled at some of the gadgets he employs. One of these is a laser thermometer. If he wants to see how hot something is, he doesn’t use no stinkin’ stick thermometer. He whips out his laser and shines it on the object. In a split second, a digital display tells him just how hot it is.

When I heard that RedEnvelope was offering Dad Bloggers (via Dad-Blogs.com) a chance to review some items from their Father’s Day Gifts collection, I was intrigued. When I saw the infrared laser BBQ thermometer on the list, I knew I had to review it.

Read more…

Dear NHL,

Tonight, I made burgers using peanut butter as the special ingredient. (More on that in a later post.) I figured that a burger would go over great and you were excited about it. I don’t cook meat that often due to the high prices of Kosher meat, so a meat meal at home is a rare treat. (Our last one was probably over a month ago.) When the burger was served to you, you suddenly changed your mind. You didn’t want to eat it and screamed and shouted. Amoung your tear-filled rationalizations as to why you couldn’t eat the burger was that you liked milk. This confused us so we asked what that had to do with anything. You told us that cows give milk and you love milk so you couldn’t eat something that came from a cow that was killed. You insisted that you didn’t eat meat.

Now, if this were due to some epiphany regarding cruelty to animals or something, I might have ended the conversation there and respected your decision. However, your mother and I sensed that your anti-beef stance was less about animal rights and more about simply not wanting what was on your plate. We asked you about chicken nuggets. After all, you love eating those and they’re made of meat. Your answer was that you didn’t like chickens and so were fine eating them.

Your mother and I looked at each other and though we didn’t burst out laughing right there, we were laughing on the inside. We’re quite sure that you’ve invented a new form of vegetarianism. I’ve dubbed it Selective Vegetarianism. You eat or don’t eat meat depending on how much you like the kind of animal it comes from. Fond of cows? No beef for you. Can’t stand chickens or turkeys? Poultry is fine on the plate.

In the end, you very reluctantly ate a few more bites of burger before having some yogurt and watermelon. We also think we know why you rejected the burger and it had nothing to do with the beef. The recipe called for onion and the texture of that probably threw you. Next time, I’ll make the burgers without onion… and maybe I’ll use turkey so we don’t trigger any selective vegetarianism again!

While we were at Disney Social Media Moms, we were included in a dinner along with 400 volunteers. At the time, we thought that the food that we ate was part of a Robert Irvine/Dinner Impossible challenge. Sadly, it turned out not to be the case. The volunteers got Irvine’s food and we “just” got Disney food. I say “just” because the food was exceptional (as is par for the course at Disney). In fact, having seen what Robert Irvine created, I’m happier with what we were served. Still, it would have been cool to have been part of a Dinner Impossible challenge.

One dessert in particular stood out. It was a warm brownie torte that tasted like it was uncooked warm brownie batter (and I mean that in the best possible way). Here’s a photo, although Disney Food Blog has a better one.

We had gotten a couple plates of these and when the boys (who by this point in the night were exhausted) refused it, I ate the second plate. For some reason, my chocolate-brownie-lust overpowered my brain and I only realized too late that I had eaten B’s plate! I vowed to recreate the dish as soon as I saw how it was made on Dinner Impossible. Of course, once the episode aired, it became apparent that this dish wasn’t part of the show. I’m on my own now in recreating it, though I have a few ideas.

My Aloha Friday question for this week is: Have you ever recreated a dish you’ve eaten out somewhere? If so, how successful were you? If you haven’t, is there a particular dish that you’d love to be able to recreate?

Oh, and if anyone has any pointers for recreating this, I’d be happy to hear them.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #41