Lofthouse-Style Peanut Butter Chip Cookies with Peanut Butter Frosting

You guys, Thanksgiving is already over! How did this happen? When did it get to be the end of the year already? Insane in the membrane!

Although it's crazy that it's already the holiday season, one thing that I always look forward to during Christmas is making lots of holiday cookies. Usually I get to make some with my mom when I go up to Portland for Christmas, and hopefully that will be the case again this year.

Now these cookies aren't ones that we make. But they reminded me very much of the Peanut Butter Balls that are a huge family tradition. We've been making those since I was a kid, and there's no stopping us. Not in making them, and not in eating them. Because whoa, you have to hide those suckers from my brothers if you want any to last through the actual holiday. Otherwise, you'll open up the container and what do you know, they're all mysteriously gone.

Not so mysteriously.

But just what about these cookies reminds me so much of those? It's not just the fact that they both have peanut butter, oh no. The frosting on these cookies is actually very similar to the base of the peanut butter balls! So you're talking a full-on lofthouse-ish cookie (you know the ones, from the grocery store, that are ultra soft and cakey? Yes, those ones!) PLUS a peanut butter ball-ish combo on top?! Holy cow.

These cookies aren't quite as cakey as the Lofthouse originals, you'll find. They're a bit more dense, more cookie than cake. I also slowed down some of the peanut butter chips than the original recipe calls for. It was a bit too many for my taste. I like to actually enjoy mostly cookie with bits of chips rather than it be a chip explosion, if you will. But you can go crazy with the chips if you want, that's totally up to you.

I also reduced the amount of powdered sugar in the frosting. Because, well. Ahem. There may or may NOT have been an incident involving expired cream going into the original frosting mixture. Which turned out to be okay, I suppose, apart from the smell, because it really felt like too much sugar to me. So, there you go. Blessing in curdled cream disguise!

Sorry, no one needs that image in their heads. Take this one instead...

Lofthouse-Style Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients

• FOR THE COOKIES:
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour
• 2 teaspoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch salt
• 1 cup Reese's Peanut Butter Chips
• FOR THE FROSTING:
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (don't use natural, you will regret it)
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• pinch salt (optional)
• splash milk or cream, to desired consistency
• chocolate sprinkles (optional)

Cooking Directions

1. Start with your cookies. Cream together your egg, butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla for about five minutes on medium-high speed, until light and fluffy.
2. Scrape down the sides of your bowl and add in the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low speed for about a minute until just incorporated. Don't overmix that baby.
3. Add the peanut butter chips. I usually do this mixing by hand, but you can still use your mixer on low if that's how you roll. Dough will be kinda sticky.
4. Form two tablespoon sized mounds, and place those on a large plate. Flatten them a bit and cover that with plastic wrap so you can refrigerate it. You'll want to do that for at least three hours, but you can always go longer.
5. Once they're thoroughly cooled out, preheat your oven to 350F. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper and place your cookie mounds on the sheet, spaced about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges have set. The middles may be slightly underdone, but that's okay. Let them sit on the baking sheet for another five minutes to continue cooking, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Now, for the frosting. Beat together your peanut butter and butter on medium-high for about three minutes until light and fluffy. Slowly add in your sugar and salt and mix until it comes together all frosting-like. You may need to add a splash or so of cream or milk to get to a good frosting-like consistency.
7. Add a dollop to each cookie and spread 'er around, garnishing with sprinkles after, if you so desire.

(Adapted from Averie Cooks)

In Photos:

 Beat together your egg, sugars, vanilla and butter for about five minutes until light and fluffy.

Then beat in your flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt for another minute until just incorporated. No overmixing here!

Mix in your peanut butter chips.

Get yourself some cookie mounds on a plate. Try not to gobble the dough right up. Flatten those down a little, then cover with plastic wrap and put that in the fridge for at least three hours.

After at least three hours, preheat your oven to 350F. Get your cookies ready on a parchment-lined sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes.

While those are baking, make your frosting. Beat together your peanut butter and butter for a few minutes.

Then add in your powdered sugar, salt and cream/milk.

Out of the oven. They won't be super browned, and you don't want them to be. Let those babies cool. First on the baking sheet for five minutes, then on a wire rack.

Then frost 'em up! Sprinkle time! Eat 'em time!

Mmmmm....

Supernatural 9x08 "Rock and a Hard Place"

Re-virginize? Sure!

This season has been pretty good so far, but you know what? I think maybe this was my favorite episode in a while. While the past episodes have been good, there has been somewhat of a lack of witty banter, but this one made up for it. Gotta give props to the writer, Jenny Klein! As you may remember, I did an interview with her back when she was the writer's assistant for the show. Way to go on her first solo episode!

Anyway, let's get down to business here. Some people have gone missing near Sioux Falls, which happens to be Sheriff Jody Mills' territory. When one of the missing persons is kidnapped by someone who can lift a truck with their bare hands, she figures that she probably should call in the big guns, so Sam and Dean head on out to check out what's what.

It turns out, all of the victims thus far have belonged to the same church. Not only that, they have all belonged to a specific subset of the church, a chastity group that agrees to a vow of abstinence. In order to get closer to figuring out what's taken the missing people, Sam and Dean sign agreements to re-virginize themselves and vow to stop with the sexing, which is a pretty hilarious concept for a guy like Dean.

Be careful or Jody will smack you in the face too.

They attend their first meeting of the club, led by a hottie named Suzy that Dean can't take his eyes off of (and he delivers a hilarious monologue that gets all the pent up ladies hot and bothered). Sam finds out that the girl who went missing at the top of the hour, Honor, was not so honorable in her chastity vow. In fact, she broke it! And Jody finds out some of the other snatchees were similarly not upstanding. So whatever is taking these people in big blue balls of light is not taking virgins, but rather people who are breaking their virginity vows!

Which is bad news for Dean, because he has escorted Suzy home in hopes that he's going to get some. At first it doesn't look so good, but then he finds some rather not inconspicuous casa erotica videos featuring dearest Suzy on the cover looking decidedly not church-y. It turns out, she used to a porn star, and one Dean recalls fondly. Oh yeah, you know they're getting it on. Especially when Dean keeps ignoring Sam's attempts to call him and tell him to, you know, not sleep with the girl and break that vow he just agreed to.

No one can resist that Dean charm.

Because, yes, that's a big deal to the baddie of the week, who Jodi manages to find on the interwebs as Vesta, a roman goddess who basically signs up virgins and then kills them if they break their vows, but first imprisons them, I guess. Because Honor and the others are all down in a hole, and Dean and Suzy soon get thrown down in with them.

Luckily, Dean has an extra cell phone sewn into his jacket that ole Vestie didn't take, so he is able to get a garbled call out to Sam, who hears a train in the background, which leads him and Jody to the farm where they're being kept prisoner underground.

Vesta, who it turns out was the woman who gave the boys a tour and had them sign their vows earlier in the episode, throws Sam about, then gets into some verbal and physical fisticuffs with Jody, who, despite getting stabbed, saves the day and kills the goddess. But not before said goddess tries to do her zappy thing on Sam, only to tell him he's all broken and beat up inside and barely alive. Uh ohs...!

In the end, Jody heads off while Sam laments to Dean that maybe he's sick for good and that's just the way things are. Dean wants to tell him the truth about the angel hitching a ride inside of him, but Zeke hijacks Sam and tells him he's not ready... yet. Not until next week's midseason finale, I wager, when it looks to be angels galore up in here!

Oh, and if any of you are fans of the show Grimm, you should check out my giveaway! It closes this Friday!

Random Thoughts:

- They use their real names at the church chastity thing? I thought that was a little bit weird as they always seem to use aliases for pretty much everything.

- It was great to see Jody again and be reassured once and for all that she did not actually die after her ill-fated date with Crowley. Yay Jody! Keep surviving!

- Loved the in-joke about how most all of Sam's lady lovers end up dead.

- I don't always like the more one-off type episodes, but I really enjoyed this one. What about you guys?

Quotes:

Dean: I didn't peg you for church-y.
Jody Yeah, you know, choking on the ladies' room floor 'cause of witchcraft, that makes a higher power seem relevant.

Bonnie: Well, I'll be a squirrel in a skirt.

Tammy: Sex is a racket and God's ball is in your court.

Sam: Every woman I've ever had... relations with... it hasn't ended well.
Dean: He ain't lyin'.

Dean: Always the adios.

Jody: Dragons? Those are a thing?
Sam: Yeah. Too many things are things.

Tammy: What the fudge, lady!
Jody: Wipe your nose, dear.

Jody: Don't get the door for me or anything.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Review of Grimm - Aunt Marie's Book of Lore + a Giveaway!

Okay Grimmsters, I've got something for you today that should get you pumped. Titan Books were nice enough to send me a review copy of their new book - Grimm - Aunt Marie's Book of Lore. A must-have for any true Grimm fan!

Yeah, you know that book that Nick looks through occasionally when he has some Wesen he's never encountered before? This is basically a version of that, but in handy glossy-page form. The book explores some of the monsters, weapons and potions featured on the show, with detailed pictures and descriptions. I've got some sample pages below to give you an idea of a couple of them.

Fitting the show's background, many of the entries are in other languages, with some translations "sticky-noted" on in English. Throughout the pages there are little bits of viscera and bugs to make it look like the book has been through the ringer. Most of the descriptions are accompanied by hand-drawn pictures as well as photos from the show itself. There are also some pages devoted specifically to weapons and potions for those who are in to that. I think my favorite thing was one page that had a hole "burned" in it, and you could see through to the next page, and it actually had stuff in the hole from the next page to make it seem like an actual hole. Cool detail.

Some of your favorite Wesen get detailed, including the Blutbad and the Hexenbiest. Overall, it's a fun book that isn't your typical companion piece, but rather feels more like something coming direct from the world itself, which is always cool. You'll probably enjoy it if you're a fan of the show, and especially if you like the lore behind it all.

The only thing I would say is that you kind of wish it was upholstered in actual leather, and that it's sometimes hard to read the pages because they are meant to look sort of realistic. I suppose maybe that would be a plus for some people, but I found myself kind of glossing over some things that looked too cramped and hard to read.

Nonetheless, a fun book that will surely delight any Grimmster out there. I must admit, I have a special place in my viewing heart for this show, because it's filmed in Portland, my hometown. Most episodes I can see some place and go, I know that! I know where that is! And I get all excited and nostalgic and slightly homesick and wish I could somehow work on it up there.

HOW TO ENTER TO WIN!

There are three ways for you to enter, which means three separate entries to win. So, the more of these things you do, the more likely your chance to win!

1. Leave a comment here on this post. Maybe say who your favorite character on the show is for fun. Or what your favorite episode has been. Whatever you want!

2. Like my page on Facebook and leave a comment on there that you're entering to win the book.

3. Follow me on Twitter and RT this tweet.

The giveaway will close on Friday, November 29, at 11:59pm PST. 

Winner Announced: HERE.

Supernatural 9x07 "Bad Boys"

Movember Josh Brolin?

You know, I probably would've loved tonight's episode a few seasons ago. Maybe more than a few. But it felt weird to have a flashback to a different young Dean... again. There have been so many young Deans and only a couple young Sams. And this young Dean is a bit hard to reconcile with the one from After School Special.

Honestly, this felt like something I could've read in a fanfic story. There are so many of those that deal with the WeeChesters that are stories that could've technically happened but were never mentioned in the show, and this really seemed like one of those to me. Not that it was bad or anything, just kind of odd.

Anyway, on to the recap. An old dude gets killed by a rogue tractor in a barn, and Dean gets a call about it, because this barn just happens to be on the property of Sonny's Home for Boys, where Dean just happened to spend two months back when he was sixteen, which he just happened to never have told Sam about despite their many hours together in the Impala. Okay!

Teen Dean looking a lot like young River Phoenix.

The brothers come to check out what's going on, and think it's a pretty open and shut case. There was some murder back in the day that the old dude was involved in, yada yada, they go burn some bones. But no, oh no, it is not yet over, no sir! Because that is only 18 minutes into the episode, puh-lease. Anyway, the warden lady ends up getting murdered in much more gruesome way, in my opinion, suffocated to death in the bath with the shower curtain.

Meanwhile, we get some flashback story. You see, Dean ended up at Sonny's Home for Boys when he was sixteen because he was looking after Sam, who was hungry, but they didn't have any food, and they didn't have any money, because Dean lost a hand of cards or something. So he went to steal some food and got caught. John was pissed because he lost the money, so decided to let him stay and sent Sam off to Bobby's in the meantime. So, young Dean actually starts to enjoy his time there. He meets a pretty lass and has what we presume to be his first kiss. His grades are up. He's even on the wrestling team. And he's wondering if maybe the hunting life isn't what he wants after all, which is pretty much the antithesis of everything Dean we've ever seen. Dean's going to take his young lady friend, Robin, to the school dance, but of course that's when Papa Winchester shows up, so he cannot, alas. Sonny says he'll fight for him to stay, but of course Dean sees little Sam there in the car, and no way would he ever leave him to grow up without him around. See ya, Robin!

Dean could never leave little Sam, no sir.

Back in the present, Dean runs into Robin again, who's still living there in town. She pretends to not remember him, but of course she is lying, because this is Dean Winchester here, you don't forget him. She manages to get herself into some mortal danger along the way, so gets to see what really took Dean from taking her to that dance so many moons ago.

Well, just what are we talking about? I've barely spoken of the case of the week, because honestly it's a bit boring. I'm sure it's some lesson about whatever, but yawn. Basically, this little kid Timmy has his dead mom's ghost attached to him, going around killing anyone she views as a threat. She's going to do the same thing to Sam and Dean, so Dean tells Timmy he has to tell her that he's okay and she can let go and move on. This works a charm, actually, and burny-face magee turns back into her regular pretty self in a nice bit of digital wizardry and poofs into wherever it is good dead people go now that Heaven is closed. Hmm. Is Heaven closed in that way, or just closed to angels? Food for thought!

There's also the patented Impala end of episode brother chat, which we haven't seen much of in a while. I remember when they were having those nearly every episode. Basically there was some kind of lesson about doing what you have to for people you love, a la the angel possession. Only it seemed like Dean should've been learning that maybe he should've let Sam go for once. Yeah, right.

Random Thoughts:

- Whoa, scenes from the early seasons in the previously! So young!

- One thing that always bothers me with casting young people is when their eyes are completely different colors. I always, always notice. I get that it's supposed to be more about their acting and whatever, but it always bothers me. That being said, Dylan Everett was actually probably the best young Dean we've had.

- Why didn't the old dude just step to his right when the big tractor was coming for him? He had plenty of room, which we see when Dean is in there later. It never makes sense when people just back up and don't step to the side.

- I was actually surprised they went there with the kid getting his arm chopped in the lawnmower. I was thinking to myself, no way are they going to do that, but they totally did.

- I actually like the idea of more flashback episodes, but I don't know that they particularly work when they don't have both Sam and Dean together. I figure it's a casting thing since everyone loved Colin Ford so much as Sam and he's too old now, but this is the story of Sam and Dean, and they were particularly close-knit as kids. Anyway.

Quotes:

Dean: And everybody's okay with heading out to the Catskills...
Sam: I'm everybody.

Robin: So this is the family business.
Dean: Told you it was boring.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Ricotta Rice Pie

As you may have noticed, I like to bake. Um, duh! Half of this blog is baking, fool! But for some reason, I have baked nary a pie for this blog. Maybe some Pecan Pie Muffins, some Pumpkin Pie Cake, even some Pumpkin Pie Bars, but never straight up actual pie. One may wonder why this is the case, and one may come to find out that pies intimidate me for some reason.

Not just for some reason, let's be honest. It's the crust. The crust is the intimidating part of pies, right? I mean, making the filling, pretty easy. But having to have frozen butter or shortening and cutting it into flour and rolling it out and just being generally a finicky bastard, the crust turns me off from wanting to make a dang pie.

But I made a dang pie. And it's a most interesting pie at that. Not your typical pumpkin or pecan or apple, but rather a rice pie. A rice pie?! Who knew such things existed! In doing some very quick interwebs research, I guess it's a traditional Italian Easter pie. The more you know!

But it does exist, and it's actually a pretty good pie. The rice isn't a huge component here. It's more of a creamy pie with a slight cheesecake-y feel, but not overly so. It's got a bit of a lemon flair that actually works for me. Most of the time I don't like lemon, but I think it actually made the pie taste better here.

Now you're wondering, though, about the crust, right? I worked around the need for rolling and whatnot by making a no-roll pie crust that you just push in with your fingers. While it certainly is a serviceable crust when you don't want to go through the hassle of making something more complicated, I wouldn't call it the most drop dead amazing crust I've ever had. Still, it was good. And fairly easy, which is always a plus in my book.

If you want to try out a new pie, get down with the rice pie. You'll be surprised you like it as much as you do!

Ricotta Rice Pie
Author: Jen @ Fresh From The…
Servings: 8 Pieces
Prep time: 00:20 

Cook time: 01:00
Total time: 01:20

An interesting pie that isn’t super sweet, using ricotta to make an almost custard-like filling.

Ingredients:

For the Crust:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
• 4 Tablespoons frozen butter, grated with a cheese grater
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 Tablespoon cream cheese, room temperature
• 2 Tablespoons cold milk
For the Filling:

• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 3/4 cups ricotta cheese
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup cooked white rice
• 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar. Add in the grated frozen butter and the cream cheese. With your fingers, work them into the flour mixture, breaking them up until they're well-incorporated. The butter doesn't have to be all evenly sized. It should come together in a sandy kind of texture.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk and oil. Add to the flour/butter mixture and, with a fork, combine until all of the flour mixture has been introduced to the liquid. It won't form into a ball, just a bit shaggy. Dump that into your 9-inch pie plate and, with your fingers, press the dough onto the bottom and up the sides. Try to get it even. Depending on the depth of your pie plate, you may have some dough left over.
3. Place the prepared crust in the freezer and preheat oven to 350°F.
4. Crack the eggs into a large bowl and beat until combined. Beat in the sugar, then stir in the ricotta, lemon juice and rind until well blended. Add in the cream and stir until smooth and creamy. Fold in the rice, then stir in the cinnamon. Pour the filling into the pie crust.
5. Place in the oven and bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, and the top is browned. This should take 45-60 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack before you serve it.

Filling via Sweety Pies Cookbook, Crust via Joy the Baker

In Photos:

Make the crust! Whisk together your dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, salt, sugar.

Mix in your frozen grated butter and your cream cheese with your hands. You'll be like wait, this doesn't look like crust.

That's 'cause it needs some milk and oil still.

Ah-ha! This looks more like dough. Again, it won't be a ball, but that's fine.

Press that into your nine-inch pie pan. I had some left over. This was also a pretty thick crust. I suspect my pie plate was not super deep. Stick that in the fridge while you preheat your oven to 350F and make your filling.

Now for the filling. Beat together three large eggs.

Beat in your sugar.

And pretend I took photos of the intervening steps - the ricotta cheese, the lemon and lemon rind. The cream and rice and cinnamon, floating so serenely on top.

Pour that into your prepared crust. I had some leftover because my crust was super thick, so I made some little ramekins with the extra.

 Bake for 45-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and you have a browned top.

Let that cool completely on a wire rack before you slice into it.

Slice in and enjoy. As you can see, my crust is pretty thick. Yours will probably not be as thick, though I do enjoy the crust as much as the filling, so I didn't mind.

Supernatural 9x06 "Heaven Can't Wait"

Oh my goodness, guess what! Sam was not in mortal danger for an entire episode for the first time this season! There was no sign of Zeke, other than Dean not wanting Cas to hang around Sam long enough to possibly realize something is up with him.

"Steve" contributing to modern society.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Kevin has returned to the bunker with some translations of the spell that sent the angels to Earth. However, he was only able to translate them into some ancient, dead, language that no one speaks anymore. When it comes time to put in the research hours, Dean is especially happy to get a call from Castiel, who is holing up in Idaho working at a gas-n-sip as probably the most efficient sales associate ever. There have been mysterious deaths, so Dean decides to take on the case while Kevin and Sam work on the translations.

See, people have been apparently spontaneously exploding, though of course we know it must be some kind of angel wizardry because we see one of the people go kabluey in the opener thanks to an angel hand to the forehead. Only this time it blasts pink spray everywhere. That's a new one. The only thing that seems to be connecting these deaths is that all of the victims seem to have some sort of depression.

Dean's not an idiot, though, so he figures that if Cas knew about this stuff going down, then he's probably nearby. How he finds him at the particular gas-n-sip he's working at, I don't know, but then Dean's a hunter who specializes in such things, so...? But if Dean can find him that easily, he doesn't seem that well hidden. ANYway, Dean finds him and Cas basically is like ummm I'm just living my human life and that's fine and btw my boss asked me out on a date tonight so leave me alone. But Dean is having none of that and convinces him to go along on the case for at least a little bit, in case he knows anything helpful.

The unlikely trio?

Meanwhile, back in the bunker, Sam and Kevin have figured out that there is one person there who happens to know a lot of languages. That's right, our dear friend Crowley, still locked up. He is less than enthused at the idea of helping them, and only agrees to do so if he gets a phone call to Hell. Though they are anxious about such a call, eventually they agree, and Kevin supplies him with some blood. Again, begs the question, if Sam has supplied the blood, would Crowley have detected the angelic nature of it? A bit convenient that he insisted on Kevin's. Hmm.

Basically, he calls up Abaddon, only to find out that her new regime in Hell equals cashing in on all of his deals early, which Crowley is not exactly thrilled about. She is not one to be fearful of any of his bluster, so he's basically screwed for now since it doesn't seem like any demons are particularly on the hunt for him. He translates the spell stuff, only to find out that there is no way to reverse it. No getting the angels back in to Heaven. That is, if he's telling the truth.

Let's be honest, this one is just for hotness factor.

Back in Idaho, Dean and Cas find the remains of another victim, and Cas recognizes the pink spray. It's the work of a particular type of angel that used to take the souls of those mortally wounded in battle in Heaven. Only now the angel is on Earth and can't distinguish, so it just killing anyone who feels particularly depressed. Sure.

Dean goes to find the angel, only first he has to drop Cas off for his big date. Sadly, though, it turns out it wasn't a date after all. Rather, his boss was asking him to babysit while she goes on a date with someone else. While she's gone, of course, the bad angel killer shows up. He was able to find Cas due to his epic amounts of man pain about being human and not able to help his angel brethren anymore. Things do not look so good for Cas, but Dean figures out the angel is there and shows up just in time. Though he gets knocked down, he does throw an angel blade to Cas just in time to kill the Ephram dude.

In the end, Dean drops Cas back off at the gas-n-sip. Cas is wondering what he can do to help the angels, but Dean, having heard from Sam, knows there's no way to get them back to Heaven, so rather than tell Cas that bit of news, just says they'll take care of it and he can keep on his merry human way. Oh Dean, always with the lies.

Meanwhile, back at the bunker, Sam notices a missing needle and finds Crowley plunging more of Kevin's blood into himself. As we may remember, the human blood makes Crowley feel more human feelings, so basically he's wanting to feel them more by doing it to himself. Interesting...

Random Thoughts:

- I totally thought when Sam was in the bathroom by himself cleaning that blood off that he was going to have some moment where he was like, something is not right here. Not about the blood, but about himself. Not quite yet, I guess!

- Do we really think there's no way to get the angels back to Heaven? There must be, just not by reversing the spell.

- Will Castiel ever get his grace back? It's actually kind of nice to see him doing the human thing. And honestly I don't miss the trenchcoat, though I'm sure others are in a tizzy.

- It was really sad when Cas was realizing that he wasn't there for a date but rather to babysit. Poor guy can't catch a break.

- What happens if Crowley keeps injecting himself? Does he become fully human, or just remembers more human emotions, or...? I do like the development that he's interested in doing it to himself, shows that it wasn't something that wore off, but rather had a lasting effect.

Quotes:

High School Girl: Why can't he dump me on Facebook like a normal person?

Dean: My dates usually end when I run out of singles.

Dean: Listen to me, always open the door for her, okay? Ask a lot of questions, they like that. And uh, and if she says she's happy to go Dutch, she's lying. Go get 'em tiger.

Crowley: I keep my agreements.

Previous Episode -- Next Episode

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

It's fall, which means it's pretty much the season of the pumpkin recipes. While I have been making my super awesome delicious Pumpkin Coffee Cake a lot, I realized I hadn't even posted any new pumpkin recipes on here yet this year. The horror! Yeah, let's remedy that.

The thing about pumpkin cookies in any form is that they always are pretty fluffy. It must be something to do with the consistency of the pumpkin puree because my other Soft Pumpkin Cookies come out the same way. And it's not a bad thing at all, no siree bob, just perhaps different than a "regular" cookie. Nothing wrong with that.

This recipe combines the classic pumpkin cookie with another holiday classic - the snickerdoodle. I'm not the biggest snickerdoodle fan myself (what does snickerdoodle even mean?!), but since the spices of both work so well together, it's no wonder a Pumpkin Snickerdoodle is just the ticket for a warm and cuddly holiday cookie.

What are some of your favorite pumpkin recipes for this time of year? Do you have any especial favorites that I should try out? Definitely let me know in the comments if you do! 

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Ingredients

• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 large egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• SUGAR COATING:
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• Dash allspice

Cooking Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Set aside for now. In a large bowl (a la your standing mixer), beat together the butter and sugars until well combined. Then, beat in the pumpkin. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and beat some more. Finally, beat in the dry ingredients until combined, but don't over mix that stuff. Cover the dough and refrigerate for at least an hour until firm.
2. When your hour is up, preheat the oven to 350F.
3. Line your baking sheet(s) with parchment paper. In a small bowl, mix together the sugar coating ingredients. Scoop the dough in about 2 1/2 tablespoon size amounts, roll into balls, and roll those balls in your sugar coating. Place that on the baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches of space in between cookies. Then, either take a drinking glass with a flat bottom, moisten with water, dip in the sugar coating, and press down on each of the cookies, OR you can press with your hands and sprinkle some extra sugar coating on top.
4. Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, removing when the centers of the cookies have set. Let cool on the pan for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

(Recipe via A Bitchin' Kitchen)

In a separate bowl, you should have mixed together your dry ingredients. Just pretend there's a picture of that. Then you're going to beat your butter and sugars together like above.

Mix in your pumpkin, then your egg and vanilla.

And then your dry ingredients. This dough will be very thick. Cover that up and stick it in the fridge for an hour.

When your hour is up, preheat the oven to 350F and mix up your sugar coating. This is twice as much as you will have, because I only ended up using about half as much as the recipe called for. No need for all that extra sugar.

Roll your dough in balls, roll around in the sugar stuff, and place on parchment-lined baking sheets.

Flatten out the tops - you can either do this with a moistened glass also covered in sugar, or with your fingers and then add some extra sugar stuff on top.

 They will come out looking like so. Let them rest on the sheet for another five minutes.

Mmmm

Some of them I went back and pressed the tops in the sugar coating again after they had cooled a little bit. You can see those here in the foreground. Just a little extra sugary goodness!