Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pizza

My youngest son loves this!

Thank goodness it is easy to make. I have to confess that the first time I made this, I somehow dropped the pan of hot pizza on the floor and had to remake almost the whole recipe. Major fail, but I am glad I had enough ingredients to make another batch. I am sure anyone that knows me at all would not be surprised as I am a major klutz. Now I need to learn how to drizzle melted chocolate artistically!

Peanut Butter Cheesecake Pizza from Taste of Home- Fancheon Resler

1 tube refrigerated cookie dough or 2 cups of my recipe for sugar cookies

8 ounces of cream cheese, softened

2 eggs

½ cup sugar

1 cup peanut butter chips

1 cup chopped, unsalted peanuts

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 teaspoon of shortening

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Press the cookie dough onto an ungreased 14 inch pizza pan or a jelly roll pan works. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden. Beat the cream cheese and then add the eggs and sugar. Spread over the crust. Sprinkle with the peanuts and peanut chips. Bake another 15-18 minutes until the center is set. Cool 15 minutes. Melt the chocolate chips and the shortening together in the microwave. Drizzle over the pizza. I sometimes buy the chocolate and peanut butter bag of chips and either separate them by flavor or sprinkle half on the pizza and use half for the drizzle. Either way, you get the peanut/chocolate flavor and half opened bags of any flavor of chips are dangerous for me to have sitting around the house. Remember to refrigerate your leftovers.

Best Yet Sugar Cookies

I usually prefer frosted sugar cookies, but these ones are pretty tasty. My Mom got this recipe from someone in the PTA group at my grade school. That means I have been eating and/or making them a good 25 to 30 years! My Mom would alternate red and green sugar to roll them in for Christmas. Don't let the butter and oil in the recipe turn you off. It did freak me out at first and using 3/4 cup of oil works out also.  I think the combination is key to the texture of these cookies. I am sure the cream of tarter has something to do with it to. I have often used this recipe for the sugar cookie dough used for cookie pizzas. I think store bought dough tastes like baking soda.

Best Yet Sugar Cookies
2 sticks of butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup of oil ( I use canola, but vegetable is okay)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons of vanilla
5 cups of flour
2 teaspoons of baking soda
2 teaspoons of cream of tarter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cream the butter and the sugar. Add the eggs, oil, salt and vanilla. Combine the dry ingredients together separately and then add to the wet mixture. Roll into balls and then into sugar. Place on a cookie sheet and flatten each cookie with a glass dipped in sugar. Bake until barely golden around the edges. 8-10 minutes. Makes about 10 dozen, depending on how large you make the cookies.

Couscous Cakes

These may not look like much, but they are one of my husband's favorite things to eat. We saw the recipe on Food network one cold weekend morning. I hardly watch any TV right now, but in the winter months I like to wake up weekend mornings with some of the food shows and DYI on HGTV. Lots of coffee with the occasional shot of Irish Cream or Kahlua are usually in my hand. I think the show was 5 Ingredient Meals but I don't even know if it is still on. I liked it though. I am really not a fan of all of the challenge shows on that station. Show me something I can make myself and my family would like to eat. I don't need to see drama about making some cupcakes. Ugh! I changed the recipe a little to suit us and the kind of things we have in our pantry.

Couscous Cakes Adapted from: ClaireRobinson-foodnetwork

1 ¼ cups water

1 cup of couscous

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

2 large eggs

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon of pepper

2 tablespoons of dried parsley

3 finely chopped green onions

In a medium pan bring the water and some salt to a boil. Add the couscous and oil. Cook for one minute. Turn off the heat and cover for 5 minutes. Stir the couscous to break it up and let if cool about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Beat the eggs together and add them and the rest of the ingredients. Shape into small cakes. I use my measuring cup for a 1/3 of a cup. Fry in about 2-3 tablespoons of olive or canola oil about 6 to 8 minutes on each side. Drain on paper towels and serve. I always double the recipe and it feeds the 4 of us. We like these with Japanese mayonnaise, which is 2 heaping tablespoons of mayo, a squirt of lemon juice and a shot of hot sauce(Sriracha) or we just use spicy BBQ sauce.