Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Pinterest for Dinner!

Uploaded from the Photobucket iPhone AppI could not think of anything for dinner tonight in my normal repertoire of recipes, so I went over to my Yum pinterest board and looked at the various things I've been collecting.

I had the ingredients for Pizza Cupcakes.  Everyone but my 13 year old liked them.  Even the toddler had seconds, which is a feat in itself.  For this one, since I read the original blogger's pizza dough was still raw in the middle, I decided to just use the picture as an inspiration and made my own recipe.  It's at the end of the post.

Then, I was still in a baking state of mind, so I finally whipped up the Reese's Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies for a late night stack.  Can I just say...OH MY GOD!  My girls and I had just had a taste test and I swear that is the best tasting cookie I've ever had.  Melt in your mouth, peanut buttery deliciousness!!  For this one I used the exact recipe, except I flipped the chocolate chip and Reese's Pieces amounts because I only had 1/2 cup of Reese's Pieces.  I also did not have a whoopie pie pan, so I just put scoops onto a cookie sheet.  One thing I liked better was not smooshing the dough down.  My first batch I did not, and I liked how they came out better.  The insides were all melty and gooey, while the smooshed ones were less gooey. 

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Seriously...you gotta make those cookies.  You will think you have died and gone to heaven.  And, they are so rich, you really can only eat just one (with a tall glass of milk).

And now for the pizza recipe....



Pizza Cupcakes

2 rolls of Pillsbury pizza dough
1 jar of Ragu Robusto Garlic sauce
8 oz pkg of finely shredded mozzarella cheese
1 pkg of Hormel Pepperoni minis
1 pkg of Hormel beef crumbles pizza topping
chopped onions
olive oil
garlic powder
garlic salt

Yields 14 pizza cupcakes (in a normal cupcake pan, not jumbo)

Preheat oven to 425.  Mix 3 tbs olive oil with a teaspoon of garlic powder.  Coat each cupcake tin with olive oil/garlic mix.  Open the pizza dough rolls, but keep the dough in a roll.  Cut it into 7 slices (like when cutting dough for cinnamon rolls).  Take a slice, knead it out into a circle, then stuff into cupcake opening making sure to push sides of dough up along sides of cupcake.  Then, place a spoonful of sauce on each cupcake.  Next, add a big pinch of cheese.  We like ours cheesy, so I piled the cheese above the cupcake.  Next, add your toppings.  We used mini pepperonis, onions, and beef topping.   Because we are garlic lovers in this house, add a tiny pinch of garlic salt to the top of each. 

Bake for 13 minutes until golden brown and cheese is bubbly.

If you are baking in a jumbo cupcake pan, bake for 16-7 minutes, until golden brown and cheese is bubbly.

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Enjoy!!

Sunday, September 09, 2012

Review: 11/22/63


11/22/63
11/22/63 by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is a story about time travel. Al Templeton's diner just so happens to have a little time travel rabbit hole to 1958 in the pantry of his diner. After playing around with it for years, he has decided the only way to fix the world as it is now, is to prevent Oswald from assassinating Kennedy.

Unfortunately, every time you return from the rabbit hole, it's exactly 2 minutes after you left your time, and if you go back to the past again, it completely resets to exactly where you entered before. He tried to do it himself, but was stricken with lung cancer and had to come back to prepare someone else for the job before his death. He selects Jake Epping, a high school English teacher and a regular customer at his little diner. Somehow Jake is convinced to do the job.

Wow...I just don't know what to say. Have you ever enjoyed a book so much you just sigh when you finish it because you don't know how the next book you read will ever measure up to it? That's how it felt when I was done. I loved this book. I've always enjoyed Stephen King, but I think this one is by far my favorite. I always love stories about time travel, and it brings complexities about it you never think about, not to mention the problem with the reset every time you go through the rabbit hole. The romance was sweet and wonderful. The last 200-300 pages, I literally was reading all night long. I could not put the book down wondering if he was going to stop Oswald and what the future would be like if he did succeed. As a diehard romantic, I have to say that the endings does tug at your heartstrings.



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