Peanut Butter and Chocolate Canyon Cookies

December 22, 2014 By Devon Leave a Comment

I can’t believe I haven’t posted a recipe for Christmas cookies.

It’s not because I’m against holiday cookies. I love them. My mom and I used to whip up huge batches of dough weeks before Christmas and put them in the freezer. Then in the nights leading up to the big day, we would pull out one type of dough and bake it all up, place them in tins and send them off to friends and family while keeping the biggest one for ourselves.

These aren’t Christmas cookies. My aunt has since taken over the tradition, since I have to fly to our holiday festivities every year now. So I’ve had the luxury of not even having to think about making a single one. I did however make these Canyon Cookies. Remember when I went to Tucson back on Veteran’s Day? Well a couple days before my friend handed me a recipe for peanut butter-loaded oat cookies with no flour and they looked like the perfect opportunity to create a healthier version for hiking fuel. We took them through Bear Canyon with us and we were so happy we had them, we named them: Canyon Cookies.

With tons of oats, creamy peanut butter, added chopped almonds and dark chocolate chips for a burst of flavor these little bites pack a protein and fiber punch keeping you full and energized for a long (or short!) hike. They also make a great snack, especially since they have just half a stick of butter for the whole batch and a quarter cup of pure maple syrup—no sugar. So, I guess you don’t really need a workout for an excuse to chow down on these babies.

We took them on our winter solstice hike yesterday and came back with just crumbs. So whether it’s a healthier Christmas cookie or a hiking snack, I think this is a recipe that will stay in rotation year-round.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Canyon Cookies

Author: Devon O'Brien

Ingredients

¼ cup butter, softened
¼ cup pure maple syrup
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup peanut butter
1½ teaspoons baking powder
3 cups oats
1 cup chopped almonds
1 cup dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Cream the butter and maple syrup. Add the eggs, vanilla and peanut butter and combine until smooth.
Add in the baking powder, oats and almonds, mixing in until combine and then mix or fold in the dark chocolate.
On ungreased or parchment lined baking sheets, drop dough by the tablespoonful. Flatten each mound with a fork.
Bake for 13–15 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool and enjoy!

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PB&J Crispy Treats

August 21, 2014 By Devon 2 Comments

My newsfeed is covered in two things this week: the ALS ice bucket challenge and back to school. This is only the second year ever in my life where I won’t be going back to school, and I love school. OK, maybe I didn’t always love school. High school and middle school didn’t need to be a thing. But elementary school? Awesome. College? Most awesome. Why was college so awesome? Let me tell you:

I went to Iowa State, you know, that one in the #1 Best College Town. Yeah, that one.
Inexpensive access to good sports. I didn’t play, obviously, but I’m a really good tailgater. Really. Good.
Creating your own schedule, therefore three-day weekends for two consecutive years. Fridays are still really hard for me.
Weekdays that are actually just bar specials: Karaoke Night, Taco Tuesday, Pint Night, Mug Night, etc.
Free (kind of) access to a really nice gym with pools, climbing walls, everything else you would ever need to get your sweat on and access to exercise classes that cost a fortune in the real world (don’t worry yoga and kickboxing, I haven’t forgotten about you, I just can’t afford you).
Living within walking/biking distance to a large pool of friends who are always willing to do something even if that something is just napping on the roof.
Napping on the roof. (Or napping in general, just naps, I love naps.)
Complete creative freedom when producing content for classes and student publications. In school your creative career seems like it’s going to be so cool because you pick the subject of each project, then you graduate and you’re much more limited. (Just me? OK.)
Weeklong parties (Hi, VEISHEA. Or rather, RIP, VEISHEA). Nothing says college like washing sushi and French fries down with a beer at 11 a.m. then proceeding to stand in the front yard while hula hooping with a street full of partiers the rest of the day.
Unending opportunities to learn new things and try things you never would have otherwise. There is a club for everything out there and they give you discounted prices on anything you want to try—like skydiving! There is also a class for everything and if you came in with a year of credit like I did, there was time to try a fun one each semester (read: alcohol class, human sexuality, history of rock and roll, all the sports and anything you want to know about how the human mind works. SO COOL.)

Anyway. That life is over now, but I still get nostalgic when fall starts to creep in (not that we have that in Phoenix) and the yellow school buses are back on the roads. I was one of those kids (nerds) who never ate hot lunch. You couldn’t have gotten me to try a crispito for anything, I never new what the appeal was to those grayish looking roll-ups covered in yellow sauce was.

My mom packed my lunch every single day, God bless her. And every single day I ate a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich (the crust preference varied on and off throughout the years). She didn’t use plastic bags like other moms. Instead she wrapped my sandwich in foil. I would unfold it into a little tray and when I was done, I wrapped it all up in a foil ball and then squished down each side into a perfect cube. This went on until high school (and sometimes during high school).

After I was diagnosed with Celiac I had trouble finding a truly good gluten free PB&J. So when the craving hit, I went with a rice cake slathered in my favorite sandwich middles. It does the trick, but then I had an idea better than rice cake bread: rice crispy treat bread. Oh my goodness. These are the best, most addictive, sweet, sugary, can’t-even-imagine-how-bad-this-is-for-me PB&J treat. I’ve already brought them into work three times because we just can’t stop eating them.

PB&J Crispy Treats

Author: If You Give a Girl a Degree

Ingredients

6 cups crisped rice cereal
1 (10 ounce) bag mini marshmallows
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup peanut butter
½ cup powdered sugar
1 (10 ounce) jar jam/preserves

Instructions

Whip the peanut butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy (add more powdered sugar if necessary). Set aside. Note: You could substitute with whipped peanut butter to avoid added sugar (but you're already eating a rice crispy, so are you really concerned about sugar at this point?)
Place half the marshmallows and half the butter in a large microwavable bowl. Microwave for one minute on high, stir. If not fully melted, continue to microwave in 20 second increments.
Once melted, stir in 3 cups of the rice cereal until evenly mixed.
Pour the mixture into a greased 9x9 pan. Press the mixture down to pack it in tight, using parchment paper.
Spread the peanut butter mixture on top to evenly cover. Follow with the jam/preserves.
Place the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour to let the mixture set up so it doesn't squish everywhere when you top it. Note: You can freeze it until solid if you want a very clean look, just make sure to thaw before eating!
Repeat steps two and three with the remaining ingredients. Pour the mixture on top of the peanut butter and jam and pack in tightly by pressing with parchment paper.
Cut and enjoy!

EMOJI CRISPY TREATS

May 15, 2014 By Devon 1 Comment

This little blog of mine has officially lasted one month on the Internet. I’m not saying I have a good following or even many visitors at all, but I’ve stuck with this for a month and I say that’s worth celebrating! But my one month blogiversary isn’t the only thing worth celebrating this past week—last Saturday marked my one-year anniversary as a college graduate.

Exactly one year ago I left my comfortable world as a college student and ventured out into the real world. As I think most graduates will attest to, being just out of college is one of the hardest stages of life we’ve experienced. It’s so different from anything we’ve ever known. You no longer have school as a way to forcefully meet people, you have to apply for entry-level jobs that require three years of experience that you don’t have because you are entering the field and in several cases, once you land the job you have to move far away from everything you’ve ever known and there’s also a lot of paperwork, insurance, savings plans and acronyms that you need to figure out. Someone get me an Excedrin. I guess what I’m saying is, this year has been anything but easy, and even though I know it’s not going to magically get easier, it’s just a good feeling to have that one year of experience and know I’m doing a pretty good job at this real-world thing, even if it doesn’t always feel that way.

A good enough feeling to make a special treat, package it in a special bag only to rip off the special bag and surprise myself with the special treat that I already knew was inside because I made them for myself? Yeah, duh.

OK, but seriously, how cute are these things? Thick, chewy, homemade rice crispy treats on a stick, dipped in melted peanut butter chips and finished with a favorite emoji face piped in chocolate. They’re adorable and delicious.

I’ve had peanut butter rice crispy treats, chocolate-covered rice crispy treats and of course, scotcheroos. But the flavor sensation of the peanut butter chip coating is beyond anything I could have imagined it to be.

Toss these little guys into a mini brown paper bag (I got mine at Michael’s) adorned with a gold-Sharpie rendition of your favorite emoji and tied off with a piece of twine for the perfect food gift. Use them for birthdays, thank yous, congratulations, holidays and even the occasional hey-I-need-you-to-do-me-a-huge-favor gift. Because how is anyone going to say no to you while taking a big, sweet, gooey, peanut buttery bite of such a happy treat?

EMOJI CRISPY TREATS

Author: If You Give a Girl a Degree

Ingredients

1 12 ounce box crisped rice cereal
2 10 ounce bags mini marshmallows
4 tablespoons butter
1 10 ounce bag peanut butter chips
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
¼ cup chocolate chips
Lollipop or popsicle sticks

Instructions

Place one bag of the marshmallows and 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large microwavable bowl. Microwave for one minute on high, stir. If not fully melted, continue to microwave in 20 second increments.
Once melted, stir in half of the rice cereal until evenly mixed.
Pour the mixture into a greased 9x13 pan. Press the mixture down to pack it in tight, using parchment paper.
Repeat steps 1–3. Pour the mixture on top of the first batch and press it in (I like my crispy treats to be very dense, so I leave a stack of cookbooks on it for a little while).
Cut into desired size bars and push either a lollipop or popsicle stick into the top of each one.
Put peanut butter chips and oil in a deep bowl. Microwave for one minute on high, stir. If not fully melted, continue to microwave in 20 second increments.
Dip each bar into the melted peanut butter chips to the halfway point. Place in the fridge to harden.
Once the coating is set, melt the chocolate chips in the microwave for about 30 seconds, then in 10 second increments until fully melted.
Put the melted chocolate into a plastic bag, cut the corner and pipe your favorite faces onto the peanut butter coating of each bar. Place in the fridge to harden.
Once the chocolate is set, put each crispy treat into a clear cellophane or mini brown paper bag decorated to your liking. Tie closed with twine and share the love!

A year ago when I started conceptualizing this blog with my friend Melissa* over at Design Eat Repeat, I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to blog about. I knew food would have to be a large focus, but I didn’t want that to be all I covered. If You Give a Girl a Degree came to life to be a place to talk about every girl issues post grad—food, travel, work life—you name it, I wanted to blog about it. However, in the last month I’ve started slow, posting just once a week (Tuesdays, if you didn’t notice) and just about food, the topic I’m the most comfortable with. But this, my first Thursday post, will hopefully lead the way into posting twice a week from here on out and I want to attempt topics outside of eating. I plan on including many “adventure” posts detailing my travels—what I see, eat, do, eat and eat. I very nervous part of me has other ideas to dabble in, such as DIY, rental decor and budgeting. So for those of you already following along (hi, Dad!) what interests you most? What are you most likely to come to my site for? Would you prefer I keep it to food? Or would you also like to see topics around travel/DIY/decor/budgeting/other work and real-world related things?

I value you’re opinion, so thank you in advance for sharing it with me. Your kindness may even grace you with on of these smiley treats, who knows!

*Melissa deserves a bigger shout out than I can give her. BUT the girl has crazy amounts of talent. She has the most adorable design/baking blog, designed this very site and is even opening up her own print shop (the products of which will pretty much just be wallpaper in my apartment). Check her out!

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