delicious [graham cracker-peanut butter-chocolate] balls

Sometimes I get the urge to make things. Usually it's with paper and crafty things, but on Sunday, it was with chocolate and delicious things.

This is how it went [in abridged, true to my personality form]:

So you take about one package of graham crackers and smush those up real tiny. I used the plastic bag, wooden spoon method because it's fun to hit things.

Then you add about a cup of peanut butter and mix it on up. You need enough PB to keep everything together, but the mixture should be dry-ish. 

Once everything is good and mixed, roll it into good sized balls, put it on the wax paper and stick it in the freezer for 45 minutes.

Then you take those out of the freezer, and melt the bag of chocolate chips in a separate bowl. I left some out to try and keep for decoration, but they didn't stick, so I ended up melting those too for more chocolate. Just melt the whole bag to save yourself time.

Roll the balls in the melted chocolate by gently tossing them in the bowl, rolling them around with a spoon, and digging them out. The recipe I found suggests rolling them in bits of candy to add flavor, or tiny chocolate chips for decoration, but I didn't have any of that shenanigans.

Throw them on the tray, stick it back in the freezer for another hour, and presto! You've got yourself some delicious, crowd pleasing balls. Enjoy.

you've been struck by the smooth[ie] criminal

I've been obsessed with smoothies lately. Obsessed. Smoothies like this have been floating around the internet for a while now, so I finally decided to make my own version and boy, am I glad I did.

I whip one up for breakfast every morning, [leave the blender in the sink for Ben to deal with], and start my day off healthy. Plus, it's super filling. Usually, I eat breakfast and find myself hungry again an hour or two later, but with this thing, I'm all set until lunch. No more unhealthy office snacking for me.

Ben whines about having to clean our blender so much, but I totally think it's worth it. Especially for how easy it is. Go ahead and make one and let it change your life.

 My usual order of throwing things in the blender goes: ice, soymilk, spinach, banana [broken up in pieces], and then peanut butter. It helps everything blend quicker, in my humble opinion, but in all reality, it doesn't really matter how you do it.

If you wanted to use regular milk instead of soymilk, I'm sure that would work fine too, but I'm just trying to limit my dairy to see if it helps clear up my skin. And as for the spinach, don't be freaked out! I'd never eaten it before, but decided to buy a bag at the market last time and throw it in because I know how good it is for you. It turns the smoothie a little green, depending on how much you put in, but it doesn't change the taste at all. I pinkypromise. I'm the pickiest eater, but I love this smoothie, spinach and all. And just ignore my brown banana. It wasn't mushy, I promise.

Ta da! This is the end result. I was at the end of my bag of spinach, so it's not as green as usual, but still dang delicious. 

I love these things.

roasted tomato & garlic soup

I know that yesterday I said I was going to share my smoothie recipe today, but I changed my mind. I'm a woman, what can ya do? tomatoes are still in season, but they won't be for long, so I decided to share the recipe that Roasted Tomato and Garlic soup I mentioned yesterday. make it while you can!

this soup is delicious, folks. I made it back in August because I had an abundance of tomatoes from the market, but I froze it and have been breaking it out in this cooler weather. Rachael instagrammed it, after finding it in Gourmet magazine [August 2009 issue], and I was all over that recipe. it takes a while to make, but it is so so worth it. perfect for a rainy fall day.

what you need:

- 4 lb tomatoes, halved lengthwise

- 6 cloves of garlic, left unpeeled

- 1 medium onion, finely chopped

- 1/2 tsp dried oregano

- 2 tsp sugar

- 2 tbs butter

- 3 cups of vegetable stock

- 1/2 cup heavy cream

- olive oil

- salt and pepper, to taste

what you do with it:

1) preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2) arrange tomatoes in a large baking dish, cut side up. add garlic cloves to the pan, drizzle the whole shebang with olive oil , and salt and pepper to taste.

3) roast tomatoes and garlic  for 1 hour, then let them cool in the pan. remove the garlic cloves, peel them, then toss them back in.

4) in a large stock pot, melt the butter and then cook onion, oregano, and sugar in it, over medium-low heat, stirring frequently until the onion is softened [when Stephanie made this, she pointed out that you should be careful to not let the onions carmelize, so it should only take about 5-7 minutes].

5) add the tomato, garlic & stock mixture to the pot, juices and all. cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

6) let the soup cool for a bit, then puree in batches in the blender. force it through a sieve into a clean pot [news flash: if you don't have a sieve, it's not the end of the world. I tried forcing my soup through our bacon splatter guard and that didn't work, so I have kinda chunky soup. still delicious].

7) if you're planning on eating the soup right away, add the heavy cream, salt & pepper, and simmer again for 2 or 3 minutes. if you're planning to freeze it, wait to do this step until you're ready to heat it up to eat it.

8) pour that soup into some pretty bowls, get a good loaf of bread to dip in it, and enjoy!

9) get your husband to do the dishes.