Peanut Butter Cup Hot Cocoa

Hi! Just thought I'd pop in and tell you about something so incredibly yummy I can't believe I haven't made it before! I'm taking credit for it even though I just know people must have tried this before. It's so good!

Tablespoon of peanut butter - I just leave it on my metal spoon so I can stir it in
Hot cocoa

Scoop the peanut butter onto your metal spoon. Stir it into your hot cocoa. YUM!

If you have a Keurig or other one cup coffee maker you can just put the peanut butter spoon in the mug and use a hot cocoa k-cup. Let it brew over the spoon and the peanut butter will already be melted when it is done.

Now go try it before it gets too hot out!

Dino's Latest Recipe

While we were making french toast this morning Dino created his own recipe that I think is pretty brilliant!

Here are the ingredients:

1 slice white bread

crunchy peanut butter

5 chocolate chips

Take a bite of the corner of the bread. Spread peanut butter on 1/2 white bread. Smoosh chocolate chips into the peanut butter. Fold the plain side of the bread onto the peanut butter chocolate chip side and VOILA!

Crunchy PB Stuffed French Toast

French toast is my go-to super easy breakfast food. It's so easy to mix it up and make it different each time and we never get tired of it. Plus...when I have to go grocery shopping because we're running low on just about everything I know that bread/eggs/milk/butter will always be there for me. The new favorite at our house is French Toast stuffed with Crunchy Peanut Butter! Here it is for 1 toast. Double it to make 2 or three. (Hey Andrea - how good would this be with Nutella!!???)

1 tablespoon butter
2 pieces white bread
Crunchy peanut butter
1 Egg
3 tablespoons milk or half & half (I usually just eyeball it)
1 tablespoon honey
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon (I eyeball this too. I just add what seems to be like too much and then add a little bit more)
Your favorite toppings

Now put it together. I'll give you the order that Dino and I used this morning but it's pretty flexible.

Put the egg, milk, honey and cinnamon in a dish wide enough to sink a piece of bread.

Turn your stove on medium and melt the butter in a frying pan.

Spread peanut butter on one piece of bread and top with the other piece making a sandwich.

Scramble the egg mixture and dip the peanut butter sandwich in and then flip it over so that both sides are covered.

Toss it in the pan and watch carefully. Turn it over when it turns a nice brown color and brown the other side as well. PS - it will be kind of dark because of the cinnamon.

That's it. Then you can top it with all kinds of things like syrup, butter, berries, whipped cream brown sugar.

We're butter and syrup guys here:

Lulu Cookies

I think we made these up so I don't want to forget the recipe. I obviously liked them because I ate three of them! Argh!


I didn't bake all weekend and I think it started to confuse everyone! So Dino and I whipped these up super fast before the Super Bowl. We don't have a name for them so we're calling them Lulu cookies in honor of the pink rhino on Ni Hao Kai Lan because that is what we were watching when the idea hit us.


They're really easy and take no time at all. Use parchment paper and there's pretty much zero cleanup!

1 bag Betty Crocker Oatmeal Cookie Mix
1/4 cup butter (soft not melted)
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 egg
1 tablespoons water
4 teaspoons Ghirardelli Unsweetened Cocoa
1/2 bag semi sweet chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 375. Line two pans with parchment paper for easy cleanup. Mix all ingredients except chocolate chips until all is blended. Add chocolate chips. Shape into balls - about 1 tablespoon each (made 21 cookies for me). Press down a little bit but leave them chunky. Bake for 12 minutes and remove to cooling rack 2 minutes after they come out of the oven.

Straight up Brownies

Another Brownie Recipe! Can you tell what we like? Mmmmmmmm!



Last night we had a weather advisory so we didn't plan a thing for the weekend. That lack of planning left me intensely stir crazy! So today was play, bake, shop, laundry, bake, eat, clean day. I made some pretty epic brownies today so I think I'll share those. What made them so cool was adding peanut butter cups right before baking but I'll share the Betty Crocker recipe as well. I wish I would have remembered Andrea's recipe on this site because I had all of the ingredients and would not have had to venture out to the store today. But I forgot and so I had to go out and get baking chocolate. I bought Ghirardelli 70% Cacao Extra Bittersweet Baking Chocolate instead of using Unsweetened and then added two tablespoons Ghirardelli cocoa powder to make it super chocolatey!

Here's the recipe: Betty Crocker Ultimate Brownie Recipe

Here's what else: I didn't put nuts in it - we don't eat them in anything at our house so I pretty much always omit them. Instead I chopped up a bunch of (6-7) mini peanut butter cups and sprinkled those on top before I baked. I think marshmallows, m&ms, chopped up caramels, chocolate chips, oreos, coconut or any mixture of them would be awesome too!

Word to the wise - don't count on your non-stick pans for these (I had to throw away a whole pan of mini brownies because of lazy greasing).