Mad about Monday?

It's Monday. I got the afternoon off unexpectedly and my parents are on schedule to get to Iowa about 2 1/2 hours earlier than I thought they were going to! How can I possibly be mad that it is Monday?!! Ahh I'm so excited to be able to spend some quality time with them tonight and enjoy some laughs, cold drinks and good conversations before mass chaos hits on Wednesday and the whole family is together. I love them all, don't get me wrong, but with so many of us it can be hard to get a word in sometimes! I'm thankful to have such a close knit family and for the special times that we get to share with each other! Tomorrow afternoon is going to be my baking extravaganza because I got put in charge of desserts for Thanksgiving and I'm really looking forward to it. I have quite the list of treats to make and it includes caramel apple cheesecake with streusel topping, chocolate cake with peanut butter icing and my famous puppy chow! Yummmy! Can't wait for all the good home cooking and treats this week...thank goodness my metabolism is still on my side!

cinnamon apple cheesecake with streusel topping

fall flavors on a plate. and in a glass.
you know you want it.

Well, if it's not already obvious, we are obsessed with the fall, especially all of the flavors and smells that come with it. So I couldn't resist making this awesome dessert once I saw it floating around on Pinterest. I had never made cheesecake before until this so I was kind of hesitant at first but once I got done making it, I realized it was actually a lot easier to make than I would have thought! My only problem with the recipe was and this was entirely my fault because I got way too excited and ahead of myself to realize the mistake....I made the crust and cooked it in the pie pan BEFORE I realized it needed to be in a 9x13 pan. Of course, the whole "cheesecake bars" thing didn't make sense to me until after the fact. Beginner's mistake! The only thing I did different because of this since in the pie pan it was soooo much thicker, I cooked it for about 20 more minutes and it still turned out amazing! I think this will be my contribution to our family Thanksgiving dinner along with my never fail and always amazing puppy chow! We paired this delicious dessert with an Angry Orchard Cider Beer and it made for an awesome Sunday snack...and probably Monday morning breakfast, minus the beer. Or will I minus the beer?! Who knows! If you have apples you want to use up and feel the itch to whip up something besides apple crisp, I would highly suggest making this because you won't be disappointed!
I followed the recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything blog and it turned out great! Besides having to add extra cook time, I'll mark where I made some changes from what she did! So here's what you'll need:

Crust:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened 

Cheesecake Filling:

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened **I only used 2 1/2 packages**

3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, divided

3 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Apples:

3 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and finely chopped

**I used my food processor to really get chopped up fine and super tiny...I didn't want big apple chunks like apple pie**

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

**I added a few extra pinches of both cinnamon and nutmeg to add extra flavor with the apples**

Streusel Topping:

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup quick cooking oats

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, combine flour and brown sugar. Cut in butter with a pastry blender (or 2 forks) until mixture is crumbly. Press evenly into a 9x13 baking pan sprayed with cooking spray or Pam of some sort. Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 3/4 cup sugar in an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth. Then add eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla. Stir to combine. Pour over warm crust.

In a small bowl, stir together chopped apples, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture.

For the streusel topping:
In a small bowl, combine all ingredients. I like to really combine it by using my clean hands to thoroughly combine the butter into the mixture.

Sprinkle Streusel topping over apples. Bake 40-45 minutes, or until filling is set. Drizzle with caramel topping and let cool. Serve cold and enjoy! Make 16 servings.

All Gone

And just like that, all of the delicious homemade tag alongs are gone! It's safe to say that they were a big hit, one of the best desserts I've ever made on my own from scratch, and it will also be a repeated recipe in the future! Nom nom nommmm I love a good sweet treat! Too bad I can't ever resist the urges of my sweet tooth or kick it to the curb as easily as I did with my habit of drinking pop. As of today, I haven't had a single pop of ANY kind for 67 consecutive days!!!!!! And all of my saggy and baggy pants and shirts are the proof of it....not like I have a lot of weight to be losing any way, but it's amazing how drinking all of those empty calories really affect our bodies. I've been feeling healthier and better about myself without a daily pop and plan to stick with my new habit! Hold the pop, I'll stick with water, tea or milk! 

Homemade Tag Alongs

I found a recipe on Pinterest that I just knew I had to make on my own! It was for homemade tag along Girl Scout cookies!!! Who doesn't love to devour a whole box of Girl Scout cookies in one setting? Oh wait, only I do that? Shoot, you all are missing out because a cookie coma is the best. When talking about Girl Scout cookies, people usually name Thin Mints or Tag Alongs (now renamed to Peanut Butter Patties...lame) as their favorite kind of cookie. And rightfully so because they're both the ones I'd pick but I'd choose the Tag Alongs any day over Thin Mints! Maybe it's because of my obsession with peanut butter and Reese's that they remind me of so much....good thing Jordan is equally obsessed with all things peanut butter and Reese's so I knew this recipe would be a win-win for both of us. This was our cookie project that we made yesterday! I followed the recipe from Baking Bites and tweeked it a little bit here and there....

Cookie Ingredients

1 cup butter (or 2 full sticks)
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk

Filling Ingredients1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp vanilla extract

Coating
12 oz. package of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Makes about 3 dozen

Total time: 2-3 hours

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Mix in flour, baking powder and salt at a low speed, followed by the vanilla and milk. The dough should come together into a soft ball. (This was about the time I was wishing I had a KitchenAid mixer...I'm hoping that we get one for a wedding gift!)

3. Take a tablespoon full of dough and flatten it into a disc about 1/4-inch thick. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough. Cookies will not spread too much, so you can really squeeze them in more than you would for chocolate chip cookies. Or you could roll the dough out and use a cookie cutter but that seemed more time consuming to me...

4. Bake cookies for 11-13 minutes, until bottoms and the edges are lightly browned and cookies are set.

5. While cookies are baking, I made the peanut butter filling. In a small bowl, whisk together peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, salt and vanilla then set aside. 

6. Immediately after removing cookies from the oven, use measuring spoon or a small spoon to make a depression in the center of each cookie

7. Cool for a 10-15 minutes on the baking sheet then I transferred the cookies from the sheet right to the counter since they were on the parchment paper.

8. Once the cookies are cooled, heat up the peanut butter filling in the microwave in 15-20 second intervals until it is really smooth and creamy. It should be easy to work with. Carefully spoon the filling to into the depression on the cookie and across the top of them.

Mmmm! So much peanut butter!
I didn't make them as thin or pretty as the real Tag Alongs
but there's nothing wrong with some extra peanut butter!

9. Chill cookies with filling for 20-30 minutes, or until the peanut butter is firm. (At this point, I stopped and made dinner and then came back to the cookies...)

10. To melt the chocolate, I didn't want to use the microwave because I knew I would have to keep reheating it repeatedly to coat all of the cookies. So I made a make shift double boiler (after burning and ruining an entire bag of chocolate chips first. Good thing I bought 2 just in case!) I filled the pot about 2 inches with water and had the oven set on medium-high heat. Pour the chocolate chips into a heat-resistant bowl that can sit on top of the pot and make a secure seal or as secure as possible to keep the steam in, which is what melts the chocolate.

Some of the steam got out but overall, it had a
tight enough seal to keep the chocolate melted.

11. This part got messy so that's your fair warning! Dip the chilled cookies into the chocolate....there's really no easy/smooth way to do this. I tried it with a spoon, fork and tongs and ultimately, just by carefully using my fingers to hold the cookie and coat it worked the best. Let the excess chocolate drip off then place on parchment paper on baking sheet to cool. Once the baking sheet was full, I put them back in the fridge to chill and harden. 

12. Once they are chilled and hardened, pour yourself a nice big glass of milk and enjoy! And accept all compliments from a very satisfied fiance who 100% approved and also devoured some right away!

Go Cubs Go!
The Perfect Combination!

13. Store in fridge to keep chilled so chocolate coating doesn't melt. I stacked them and used parchment paper between so they didn't get stuck to each other. These were easier to make than I thought they would be and well worth the time! Now we can have Tag Along year round...sell your heart out Girl Scout but don't come knocking around here anymore! Oh who am I kidding, I'll still buy some!