Tatziki Sauce and Hummus

Tzatziki Sauce

8oz (1 cup) Plain or Greek yougurt
8oz (1 cup) Sour Cream
2 Cucumbers peeled, seeded and diced
2 tablespoons Olive Oil
1/2 Lemon, juiced
Salt and Pepper to taste
4 tablesoon fresh Dill or 2 tablespoon dried Dill
3 cloves of Garlic

-After peeling, seeding and dicing the cucumbers place them in a strainer and salt them to remove excess moisture. After 30 minutes they should be fine.
-In a food proccesser combine all ingrediants and puree until a sauce is formed.

Ease: 1
Taste: 10

On a scale of one to five this easily gets a 10 for taste. You will be searching your cupboards for things to eat this sauce with. It works great as a salad dressing, or dip. My suggestions include Gyros, pita chips, bbq chicken, spinach salad, bell peppers, pineapple, or rosmay & olive oil Triscuts.

Hummus:
1 can Garbonzo beans (a.k.a. chickpeas)
1/4 cup Olive oil
2 cloves Garlic
1/2 Lemon, juiced
Salt, pepper, paprika and chili powder to taste

-Drain garbanzo beans.
-In a food proccessor combine and puree garbanzo beans and garlic untill a paste forms.
-Slowly drizzle the olive oil and lemon in until smooth.
-Season to taste.

Ease:1
Taste:5

This is another one of those recipies where you just can't find enough things to eat it on/ with. Plus there are so many things you can add to spice it up, like roasted red pepper, cilantro, tomato and more!

Chocolate Banana Muffins

Ingredients:
3 or 4 over ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
3/4 bag chocolate chips

Directions:
This can all be mixed by hand with a spoon, no need to bust out the mixers.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
-Mash the bananas, do not puree as you want some nice chunks.
-Melt the butter, along with a handfull of chocolate chips then stir into the bananas.
-Add in sugar, egg, vanilla and salt. Mix well.
-Stir in flour 1/2 cup at a time, be sure to stir as you add so the flour is mixed in well. The dough will be thick, but easy to work with.
-Add in chocolate chips and give it a few more stirs.
- Spoon mix into a well greased muffin tin and bake for 30 minutes.
-Let cool on a clean towel upside down for at least 20 minutes. Makes a great breakfast or even desert.

Yeilds: 1 dozen

Ease: 2
Taste: 5

I love these muffins! I tried them for the first time today and they are amazing. Moist and the perfect blend of chocolate and banana. For the bananas use ones that are close to being spolied, they have the best flavor and are easy to mash, and even better if they have been frozen then thawed.

Hope you enjoy.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients (in the order you add them):

1cup (2 sticks) of butter (unsalted would be best)
1/2 cup pressed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup pressed light brown sugar
4-5 tablespoons peanut butter (chunky is great, but smooth works fine)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon maple syrup (butter flavored syrup works well also, doing half and half is great)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 bag chocolate chips (no more or the cookies are hard to form)

Directions:
-Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
-Cream together butter and both the light and brown sugar, add peanut butter, vanilla and maple syrup and blend until smooth.
-Once smooth add in salt and baking soda while still mixing. Sift in flour 1/4 cup at a time blending it in as you go along, it takes longer but makes a nicer cookie.
-When all the flour is in stir in chocolate chips by hand.
-Grease a baking sheet and roll out your cookies onto it. Be sure to flatten them as they don't really spread.
-Bake for 9 minutes.
-Cookies will be a light brown color and soft to the touch. They may not look done but they are.
-Let them cool for at least 10 minutes, then enjoy with a cold glass of milk.

Yields: approx 2 dozen cookies depending on how big you make them.

Ease: 2
Taste: 4.5

As you may have noticed, there is no white or "regular" sugar in this recipe. The original recipe had sugar in it, but I forgot it the first time and the cookies were fine. When I made it the second time I added the sugar but it made them too sweet for my liking. If you like your cookies a little sweeter simply add 3/4 cup sugar in with the butter and brown sugar for creaming.

Hope you enjoy!

There's Peanut Butter on my Screen: The Start of a Blog

Cooking is my passion, baking and brewing as well.

I was baking cookies at my mom's today when I got the inspiration for this blog. I had my laptop on a counter near me for music and the recipe I was using. While blending everything I manage to get peanut butter on my screen. I cleaned it off quickly and went back to baking.

While waiting for the cookies to bake I searched for a few more recipes I could try and realized that instead of searching all over the Internet to find something tasty then bookmarking it, I should just compile recipes I think are interesting into one spot.

Thus the blog.

I'm going to test recipes, and rate them on two different levels, Simplicity of the directions and Taste of the finished product. I'll rate on a scale of 1-5, 1 being easy 5 being difficult and 1 being just alright and 5 being amazing for taste.

Hope you enjoy.