Recipe Recitations

I have a collection of recipes that I keep in an old shortbread tin.  And by recipes I mean fragments of paper with ingredients scrawled across them.  Most of these recipes have no title on them and it's only by reading through the ingredients and amount thereof that I can discern what I once created.

Some of these recipes were written down while on the phone with my Mom or other culinary genii, so haste can account for the brevity of words contained on a page.  Some were snagged from the internet as I gleaned info and partial recipes.  Generally I change things as I go and if I don't have an ingredient that day or don't feel like it, it doesn't get written down.  None of these papers has instructions.  Often they have symbols that group ingredients to inform me that these go together before being mixed with everything else.  And if I can't find a temperature scribbled anywhere I assume we're going with 375F/180C.

My favorites are the ones that have other information on them, like this one for plum cake that also has the hymns for the week on it and on the back is a recipe for tartar sauce.

There are also a few recipes in here that people have written out for me.  It's fantastic to find those.

I should really type these up or at least print them out properly in a pretty little book.  Perhaps I will.

At any rate, I'm currently delving through this tin to find a recipe that was requested.  If you are allergic to nuts, kindly stop reading and please don't lick the screen.  I don't want you to get hurt.

Without further ado, I present to you a highly requested recipe which is incredibly easy and therefore quite dangerous to one's pant size.

Peanut Butter Balls
Mix:  1 cup peanut butter (I prefer crunchy)
         1 cup icing sugar (aka confectioners or powdered), and
         1 tbsp butter
Add: 1 cup of crushed wafers* (chocolate or vanilla)
Roll into small balls.
Dip in melted chocolate.
Leave on wax paper to solidify.  Probably not a bad plan to refrigerate.

*You can substitute rice krispies/rice bubbles or other hard crushed cookies/biscuits.

And while we're on the topic of easy and peanut butter, I ate a delightful little cookie once at a coffee shop and upon inspection, realized it was super easy.  It went something like this:

Take two round crackers (ritz or similar), smear a delightful amount of peanut butter on the one and place the other on top of said peanut butter.  Dip halfway into melted white chocolate.  This should cover the top and bottom of the cookie.  Allow to set.  Dip other side into melted milk chocolate.  Enjoy and gain weight by just reading the recipe.  I know I have, but that might have more to do with the fact that I was eating as I typed it.  And no, it wasn't cookies but a healthy granola bar.

But it might be cookies soon.