Addicting Peanut Butter Balls

Peanut Butter Balls

Chocolate coated peanut butter balls, these are so addicting I can eat the whole batch by myself.

The Ingredients

1/2 cup               Butter (1 stick)

8 oz                    Powdered sugar (2 Cups), also called confectioners' sugar or icing sugar

1 Teaspoon        Vanilla extract

1 ½ cups            Peanut Butter, Creamy

8-12 oz.             Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Mixing Instructions

Melt the butter, and then stir in powdered sugar and vanilla.  After the sugar, vanilla and butter are thoroughly mixed together, stir in the peanut butter. Chill for 2 or more hours, after well chilled form into about ¾ to 1 inch balls.  Stick a toothpick in each ball, and freeze for another 1 – 2 hours.

After the peanut butter balls are frozen. Melt the chocolate in the microwave.  Do not over heat, melt using short 30 seconds to 15 seconds at a time stirring between each time interval. You could add a teaspoon of canola oil to smooth and thin the chocolate.  Do not over heat.  If you over heat the chocolate it will seize, becoming thick and lumpy.  Moisture, just a drop or two, will also cause the chocolate to seize. 

Coat each ball with the chocolate, by either dipping in the chocolate, or pouring the chocolate over the peanut butter balls.  Re-chill in the freezer or refrigerator.

Enjoy

Clifton & Shirley

Post by Clifton's Cooking Blog.

Meta's Sweet 'n Sour Salad Dressing

  Meta's Sweet and Sour Salad Dressing

This is an old family recipe for a sweet vinegar and oil dressing it has a few herbs for seasoning.  It is quick and simple to make.

photo by KurmanPhotos under Creative Commons Licenses

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/    http://www.flickr.com/photos/kurmanphotos/

This recipe has been passed down from Shirley's Grandmother, Meta Wertke, it goes back at least to the 1930’s.

photo by Chris Tse under Creative Commons Licenses

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/  http://www.flickr.com/photos/asiaticleague/

The Ingredients

Shirley with her Grandmother Meta Wertke circa 1990

1/4         cup sugar

1            teaspoon salt

1            cup olive oil

1            teaspoon grated onion

1/3         cup cider vinegar

1/8         teaspoon black pepper, fresh ground is best

1            teaspoon dry mustard

1            teaspoon chopped fresh parsley

Mixing Instructions

Place all ingredients in a mason jar.

Cover tightly.

Shake well.

Chill several hours.

Shake again just before serving.

Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month, but it won’t be around that long.

Meta Wertke from the 1930’s

Meta holding her Great-grand-son Tyler
Her son Russ in the background. circa 1991

Meta Wertke was born, Meta Buchholz, in Chicago IL in 1899, the daughter of German immigrants.  She loved to cook and bake.  She made everything from scratch, including her salad dressing.  All of her meals were healthy and balanced, whether cooking for a group or just for herself.  She expected you be at the table and ready to eat when the meal was ready, hot food should be served and eaten hot and the same for cold food.

As she neared the end of her life, she continued to make three meals a day for herself and enjoyed every bite. She enjoyed cooking very much and cooked for herself right up until a few days before her death.  Her eye sight was almost gone but she still insisted on cutting up her own chicken and removing the bone from the breast.  She said store bought, cut up chicken did not taste as good as when you did it yourself.
   

Her salad dressing, so simple but loved by everyone who tasted it made its way into many homes over the years. 

Shirley

Meta in background Russ in the front holding Tyler, his
grandson, her great-grand son.

Shirley, Tyler and Meta. circa 1991

Post by Clifton's Cooking Blog.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tender chewy chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with kosher salt to awaken the taste the taste-buds and heighten the chocolate experience.  Add a new dimension to chocolate chip cookies by  lightly sprinkling the cookies with  kosher or course ground sea salt. 

Ingredients 

8 oz.         (2 sticks) butter softened to room temperature 65° to 75°

2 ½ oz.     (3/8 cup) Granulated sugar

7 ½ oz.     (1 1/8 cup) dark brown sugar

2              large eggs room temperature

2              teaspoons vanilla extract

2              teaspoons kosher salt (if table salt only use 1 teaspoon)*

½             teaspoon baking powder

½             teaspoon baking soda

10 oz.       (about 2 ¼ cups) all purpose flour

8 oz.         semi-sweet chocolate either rough chop from bars or chocolate chips.

Bake 350° 14 minutes

Mixing Instructions 

Cream the butter at medium speed. This is all about adding air to the butter which will make a lighter cookie, not a dense hard cookie.  I use a counter top mixer with a whisking beater for all of the mixing except the mixing in of the dry ingredients.   After the butter is well creamed, about 2 minutes add the granulated sugar, continue to mix at medium speed for about another 1 minute.  Add the brown sugar and mix for another 1 ½ minutes.  Add the eggs one at a time thoroughly incorporating each before adding the next scrape the sides and the beater and mix well between and after each egg.

Add vanilla and mix, remove the whisking beater and scrape the sides and the beater. Up until this point there was no concern about over mixing.  Our mixing up until now has been about two things first to add the non-listed ingredient, air, and to allow the sugars to absorb the moisture from the butter, eggs, and the vanilla.  We do not want to over mix once we add the four, otherwise the flour will start to create gluten chains, not good.

 Change the beater, place the bowl beater in the mixer, add the salt, baking powder, and the baking soda, mix for about 30-45 seconds.  Scrape down the sides and the beater add about 1/3 of the flour mix on medium low for 15 to 30 seconds, stop and scrape the beater and the bowl, add another 1/3 of the flour, repeat the mixing scraping then add then balance of the flour and mix until the flour in incorporated.  Scrape beater and the bowl checking to be sure there is no unmixed flour in the bowl.  Add the chocolate chips or chunks and mix well by hand with a spatula or wooden spoon.

 Now for the hardest part waiting, for really good cookies they need to rest at least four hours, one day would be better.

 Heat the oven to 350°.  The temperature of the dough will have huge affect on the cookie at this point.  Cold dough (straight from the refrigerator) will make a thicker cookie and will require a little longer cooking time.  Room temperature dough will flatten out, but could still be soft if it is not cooked to long.  I prefer dough that is cool but not cold.  I have not checked the temperature, but if I were to guess it is somewhere between 55° to 60°.  I go more by feel when I am scooping the dough, than by temperature.  If the dough is easy to scoop little or no resistance (peanut butter soft) it is to warm.  If it is as hard as ice-cream it is to cold.  We should be able to scoop the dough in one dragging motion with the scoop penetrating into the dough firmly, but getting full scoop.  If all that you can do is just scrap the top of the dough and not scoop the dough it is still too cold, let the dough slowly start to soften, it may take an hour or two.  

Bake at 350° for 13-16 minutes on parchment paper.  I cook mine at 350 for 14 minutes.  For a

slightly different cookie lightly sprinkle with course sea salt straight out of the oven.

 

Clifton

Post by Clifton's Cooking Blog.