Deliciousness...

Well...a busy summer has shifted into a crazy autumn so far.  Does this fall seem especially busy to everyone else too?  The weather has been gorgeous lately, though I haven't had a ton of time to get out and enjoy it.  In addition to getting between 24-40 hours a week at my regular job, I am now driving a friend's kids to school Monday-Friday.  This means getting up at 6, arriving at their home by 7, helping the kids get ready and dropping them off at school/preschool, then getting back home a few minutes after 9.  It's tiring, but the kids are good and I'm glad to help out...AND - I get a car!!  :)  Meet my new buddy:

  

It's a 2004 Mazda3, and I'm having a blast driving my own car around!  My friends bought this for me so I could transport their kids; I'm paying it off by keeping track of the time I watch the kids each week.  By the end of the school year, it'll be entirely mine!  This was definitely the Lord working, as I didn't see any way I'd be able to afford a car for at least another year or two!

Another big part of my life for the last several weeks has been embarking on a low-carb diet with my sister.  It's been about 9 weeks now, and I've lost around 21 pounds - which is SO amazing!  Anyway, this diet allows  nuts, so natural peanut butter has become a life-saver for both of us.  Would you believe that on this diet we can have treats like this?

All you need are brownies (we had ones made with soy flour), whipped cream and peanut butter cookies.  A sliced-up banana is yummy too.  Here's our simple peanut butter cookie recipe:

“One” Peanut-butter Cookies 

1 C sugar (or 1/2 to 3/4 cup Splenda)

1 egg

1 C peanut butter

1 tsp. vanilla 

Mix together and place by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet. 

Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.

This is a super fast, easy and tasty recipe!  It made about 20 cookies with a very small scoop. The cookies are a little crumbly, which makes them perfect for crumbling over the brownies.  I'm sure they'd be great on ice cream too.  Random question...why is it necessary to criss-cross peanut butter cookies with a fork?  Why don't we do this with other kinds of cookies?  I wondered this the two or three times I made these but decided not to balk at the tradition.  Any theories?

To finish up with the recipe, gently heat your brownie in the microwave (or better yet, make fresh ones and get a warm one out of the pan!) and squirt/dollop/glop a generous portion of whipped cream on top.  Then crumble 1-2 peanut butter cookies over the top and enjoy!  

There are, of course, plenty of variations you could try with this...like I said, some banana slices are amazing, and we sometimes slap a little more peanut butter on top of the brownie before adding the whipped cream.  For additional decadence, you could drizzle the entire creation with some hot fudge sauce...but we might be getting a little carried away now.  ;)  

I hope everyone has a fun, peanut-buttery week!