Blizzards = Baking

Wintery days in chicago = baking, baking and more baking. Dontcha think? Well for some reason that's all I want to do. Mostly to warm the house up & because who doesn't love homemade baked goods? I don't know anyone that doesn't unless they have had a lobotomy or a rare sugar allergy. My friends and coworkers seem to benefit the most from my baking excursions. I'm pretty popular in the winter. So I am going to share one the super delicious classics, so you can be popular too (:

Peanut Butter Thumbprints (via food.com)

3/4 cup peanut butter

14 ounces sweetened condensed milk

2 cups Bisquick

1 teaspoon vanilla

Approx 40 unwrapped chocolate kisses

1/2 cup white sugar (set aside)

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Cream peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk.
3. Add Bisquick and vanilla.
4. Roll into ping-pong sized balls and roll in sugar.
5. Put on cookie sheet and bake for 6-8 minutes.
6. Directly after removing from oven, press chocolate kiss in middle

Recipes!

So tonight I really wanted to make banana bread (0r cookies) because I have a couple of overripe bananas. I'm trying hard to save money, be green, or maybe I just really want something sweet. I look up banana recipes but they all call for baking soda and I only have powder. I tried hard to see if I can substitute powder for soda and learned several facts about the differences. Fact: baking soda is 4 times stronger than powder, fact: powder has soda in, fact: powder is more a neutralizer and if your recipe has something acidic in it the recipe calls for soda so you should just use soda and not try and replace with powder. Fine. No banana bread.

So I take another look in the cabinets and fridge and I see ingredients. I just know if I combine them together, I can make something, right? Well I located the absolute best website for people like me (and you)! It's AMAZING! recipematcher.com! Enter in your ingredients (it will let you select from a list if you need to be more specific like type of sugar, milk, etc.) and hit enter....VOILA! Recipes that match your ingredients! It also tells you if you the percentage it matches to the ingredients you entered and let's you know if you are still missing an ingredient. I entered in several ingredients. I can really leave no stone unturned.

My ingredients:
Milk - Skim,Flour - Bread,Sugar - White,Sugar - Powdered,Bananas,Peanut Butter,Seasoning - Nutmeg,Seasoning - Cinnamon,Vanilla Extract,Eggs,Pumpkin (Canned)

My recipe will be...

100% match...Flourless Peanut Butter cookies!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 egg

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
2. Combine all ingredients and drop by teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 8 minutes. Let cool. Recipe doesn't make many, so you can double recipe.

Still no recipe using my dead bananas, so I may have to buy the baking soda so I can make banana bread tomorrow.....