M&M Cookies

I love these cookies. They are so good and simple. They'd make a perfect addition to any holiday spread or goodie basket with holiday M&Ms.

These come from the amazing Katie at Good Things Catered, so you know they are guaranteed to be good. I made mine with semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of the white chocolate in Katie's recipe because Doug's not a huge white chocolate fan and they tasted really well, so it would work with whatever you choose. I think these would be awesome with mint or dark chocolate M&Ms too. These are great cookies to experiment with - so go crazy!

M&M Cookies

From Good Things Catered

2 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons All-purpose Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
12 Tablespoon (1 1/2 sticks) Unsalted Butter, melted & cooled until warm
1 Cup Brown Sugar, packed
1/2 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Large Egg

1 Egg Yolk
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1 Cup M&Ms
1 Cup Chocolate Chips

Adjust oven racks to upper & lower-middle positions & heat oven to 325 degrees.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk dry ingredients together; set aside.
Mix butter & sugars until combined.
Beat in egg, yolk and vanilla until combined.
Add dry ingredients & beat at low speed just until combined.
Stir in M&Ms and chips.
Roll about a 1/2 cup dough into ball.
Bake, reversing cookie sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft & puffy (about 15 minutes for me).
Cool cookies on sheets and place on wire rack to cool.

YWPWT: Hidden Candy Pie

Welcome to my second pie for You Want Pie With That?! This month's theme was Masquerade Pie and Halloween was totally my inspiration here.

This pie looks all nice and sweet and innocent with that lovely whipped cream topping. It looks like any regular cream pie.

But then you cut into it and -yowzers!- there's candy in this pie!

I wanted to come up with a super easy and fun pie to go with Halloween and the tasty treats of my youth - so this pie features M&Ms and half of a Hershey bar. Plus the layer of peanut butter filling (it sandwiches the candy) tastes just like a Reese's cup.

This pie could not be any easier to throw together - in fact I feel a little funny even calling this a recipe. But it's so yummy that no one will care how little effort you put into it!

Hidden Candy Pie

By Me

1 Pie Crust, cooked and cooled (I've yet to find a pie crust I love. Use your favorite or even a store bought - I won't tell).

3 Cups Whipped Cream (I used frozen Cool Whip - thawed of course)

3/4 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter

1 Small Bag of M&Ms

1 Regular Size Hershey Bar

Combine 2 cups of whipped cream and peanut butter until well mixed, spread half of this into the bottom of the baked and cooled pie shell.

Chop up 1/2 to 3/4 of the bag of M&Ms (however much sounds good to you) and place on top of the peanut butter cream. Chop half of the Hershey bar and layer on top of the M&Ms. Cover the candy with the rest of the peanut butter cream.

Top with a layer of plain whipped cream, 1 cup would work but Doug loves whipped cream so I made a really thick layer of it.

Chill for 30 minutes and serve.

TWD: Allspice Crumb Muffins

Ok, first of all I realize that these aren't muffins. I've yet to unpack my muffin pans, so therefore these are now muffin-bars.

These are really good. I actually left the crumb topping off - partly because I read that it melts off but mostly out of laziness. These were really easy to throw together and I was really happy with how moist they turned out to be. I think these are a hit and I'll definitely be trying them in muffin form - as soon as I find my pans!

This recipe was picked by Kayte of Grandma's Kitchen Table - check out her blog for the recipe. And check out what the rest of the TWD bakers thought of this recipe.

Allspice Crumb Muffins from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 16-17.

TWD: Flaky Apple Turnovers

These. Are. Incredible.

Seriously, we loved them. They are so good and really pretty easy to make. They take a few hours because of the dough, and that part requires a few steps, but really they could not be easier.

I really loved the dough of these. It has a really nice, unique taste and was really easy to work with.

The filling of these is a basic apple filling, which is a perfect compliment for the dough.

I will definitely be making these again!

And I have Julie of Someone's in the Kitchen to thank for picking these. Check out her blog for the recipe and check out the TWD site to see how all the bakers handled these awesome treats.

Flaky Apple Turnovers from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 316-317.

Oatmeal Pie - You Want Pie With That? : Vacation Pies

Welcome to my first entry into You Want Pie With That?! YWPWT is a monthly blog event where members make a pie based on a theme picked by the member that was picked as having the best pie from a past month. I first heard about this group from my friend Hornedfroggy at My Baking Heart - aka the same person who got me to join Tuesdays with Dorie. HF told me that YWPWT is a total blast and that I'd love it, and, like always, I listened and joined in - and here we are!

This month's theme was picked by Jen at Piccante Dolce. The theme is Vacation Pies and you were supposed to whip up a pie that reminded you of your favorite vacation or one you wanted to take. Well, at first I was coming up with all kinds of fruity pies in honor of my favorite place ever - Florida. I loved vacationing there growing up and would love to live there - if I wasn't pretty sure I'd melt in about 1.345 days.

But then I started thinking about specific vacation memories from growing up and realized that most of them involved trips to see my grandparents, who used to live in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I tried to think of any pies that really stood out to me from those trips spent walking the golf course looking for lost balls with my grandfather, going to get gallons of the incredible tasting city water with my grandmother, turning into a giant prune from hours spent in the pool at their condo complex, eating big bowls of ice cream every night, and riding around the beautiful mountains with my family in my grandparent's minivan. I had a few ideas, but nothing that really stuck out at me.

So, I decided that if I couldn't come up with a pie that made me think of my own grandparents then one that made me think of my best friend's grandparents was a good substitute. I've known my best friend practically forever; her parent's moved next door to my other set of grandparents when we were pretty young and we used to spend hours playing together in her backyard - usually torturing her brother. I've spent lots of time over the years with her family - and a huge portion of them even came to our wedding (and her grandma made our flower girl's dress). So when she told me about this recipe of her grandma's that her dad loved and always asked for I knew I should give it a try. And when my friend posted the recipe on her blog recently I couldn't help but drool.

This recipe, though I've never had it before, really makes me think of happy, cozy minutes spent visiting my grandparents. It uses simple ingredients that my grandmother would have had, it's a taste my grandfather would have loved, it makes your house take on that sweet, comforting, homey smell, and it makes you think of cool fall days (which was always a great season to visit my grandparents).

So, please enjoy my first entry for You Want Pie With That? A simple, lovely pie passed down in a family that's pretty darn close to my heart and that makes me think back on vacation days spent running around Arkansas with my family.

Oatmeal Pie

Based on a family recipe from my friend Sarah

3/4 Cup Quick Cooking Oats

3/4 Cup Sugar

1 Stick of Butter, melted

2 Eggs, beaten

3/4 Cup Maple or Pancake Syrup

3/4 Cup Pecans

1- 9" Pie Shell, uncooked (store bought or homemade)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare crust.

Mix oats and syrup. Add in melted butter. Add sugar and beaten eggs, mix well. Add in pecans.

Pour into pie shell.

Bake on middle rack of oven for 30 to 45 minutes, or until cooked through.

Great with whipped cream, ice cream (which my grandfather would have loved), or on it's own.

Check out Sarah's blog for the original recipe and to see some optional ideas to tweak this great pie.

PW's Sleepin' In Omelette

I was slightly afraid of this recipe.... and it's all because of the cream cheese. You see, cream cheese and I have a strained relationship. It's one of those foods that I used to be convinced that I hated. I thought it was the devil in creamy white form. Then one day I tried strawberry cream cheese, that got me over the texture - so now I'm just working on accepting it in it's natural form, mainly by using it in recipes. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to just smear it on a bagel and eat it plain ::shudder::

But this recipe seemed like a good place to try cream cheese... although I was a little skeptical. I wasn't sure what it would be like baked and mixed with eggs. And, truth be told, it wasn't bad. I liked the lite sour taste it provided throughout the dish and the texture actually worked really well with the eggs and the bread. I will definitely be more open to this once hated dairy item in the future.

I did make a few changes to this from how the Pioneer Woman does it. For the bread in this I used a bag of wheat dinner rolls that I found on the bakery clearance shelf at Wal-Mart. I could not find onion rolls anywhere and I figured this was a great place to use some already slightly stale rolls. I think they worked really well, although I think the onion rolls would have provided a little extra flavor. I also left out the chives that PW calls for, I don't really care for them. And I cut the butter back to 1 stick, I think it's plenty. And I left out the dash of cayenne because I didn't have any.

We actually ate this in waves. We both had some, and it was delicious, and then a couple hours later had a tiny bit more (we had this on a lazy weekend). And it was so incredibly good a few hours later. But then I had a little more the next day and was not too impressed, it was kind of soggy and lost it's omph. So if you're only making this for two people you might consider halving the recipe.

Sleepin' In Omlette

Adapted From The Pioneer Woman

6 Wheat Rolls

1 Cup Shredded Cheese

1 Stick of Butter

10 Eggs

2 Cups Milk

1/2 Teaspoon Dry Mustard

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

Spray a 9x13 pan. Tear rolls into pieces and place in pan, cover with shredded cheese. Cut or tear cream cheese into small chunks and place in pan. Cut the butter into small chunks and place it in the pan too. Mix everything else together and pour over the items in the pan.

Cover and put it in the fridge over night. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and bake for 25 minutes, covered. Then remove cover, crank oven to 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes.

TWD: Applesauce Spice Bars

I'm back! I missed TWD (and baking) so much! I've got the basics put away in the kitchen and was itching to get back to baking, so these were the perfect things!

This recipe was super simple to throw together and didn't require anything I didn't have. I left these super basic: just the main ingredients and the chopped up apple, I didn't didn't make the glaze for these because 1. I'm not a big glaze/icing fan and 2. I didn't want anything getting into the simple taste of these awesome bars.

And awesome these are! I really like the simple, sweet flavor of these. They hit the spot perfectly and would make an awesome fall treat. I will definitely be making these again.

These bars were picked by Karen of Something Sweet by Karen, check out her blog for the recipe. And make sure to check out how all the TWD members handled this recipe.

Applesauce Spice Bars from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 117-118.