Picky Palate's Peanut Butter Butterscotch Cookies

See my little stinker stealing a cookie off my plate while I was taking a picture?  Jonah makes me laugh.  We all really enjoyed these cookies, Aaron included, which surprised me because he isn't a fan of butterscotch.  He said that these are like the filling in a Butterfinger bar, and he's right.  They are really delicious, and were a big hit around here.  Here's where you can find this recipe, and I followed the recipe exactly, making these 137 calories each for 44 cookies.  Owen gave this a perfect 10, Noah and I gave them a 9, and Aaron gave them an 8.

The Recipe Girl's Brownie Butterscotch Trifle

My dad, Aaron, Owen and I gave this a 9, Noah gave it a perfect 10, and my mother gave this a 7.  I used my favorite brownie recipe, and then followed the instructions from The Recipe Girl's cookbook about adding butterscotch ice cream topping to the whipped cream.  You then layer the brownies, whipped cream, more butterscotch topping, and salted nuts a few times, until you run out.  Easy peasy, and super delicious.  I don't have any calories unfortunately, but we really enjoyed this one.

The Perfect Scoop's Butterscotch Pecan Ice Cream

So this was a calorie bomb treat, but it was sooo worth it!  The boys picked this Butterscotch Pecan Ice Cream from The Perfect Scoop cookbook, and it was great.  We had it in a sundae, per the author's suggestion, with blondies and hot fudge, and the ice cream with the sundae was fabulous.  The ice cream is a custard base, with brown sugar for the butterscotch, and buttered pecans added in, and I added a little brown sugar to the buttered pecans to give it a little sweeter flavor.  I'll just feature the ice cream, and the other elements you can make on your own, or mix things up.  Each serving, about .5 cup of ice cream, is 293 calories, and we gave this a perfect 10, it is so delicious.  I'll be using decimals rather than fractions today, and maybe for a while, because somehow our keyboard was changed to a Spanish keyboard, and I can't find the slashes.  Somehow my baby is smarter than me, sigh...

5 T salted butter
.75 c packed brown sugar
.5 t salt
2 c heavy cream
.75 c whole milk
6 large egg yolks
.5 t vanilla
1 recipe buttered pecans

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, then stir in the brown sugar and salt until well moistened.  Whisk in 1 cup of the cream and the milk, and keep warm.
Pour the remaining cream into a large bowl and place a fine mesh sieve over the top.
Whisk together the egg yolks, then temper the yolks.  Return the mixture to the pan, and cook, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens.  Pour the custard through the sieve, and mix in with the cream.  Then add in the vanilla.  Cool, and churn and freeze in your ice cream maker.  At the end, fold in the buttered pecans.  Freeze before serving.

Buttered Pecans

1.5 T butter
1.5 c pecan halves
.25 t coarse salt
1 T brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 350.
Melt the butter in a skillet, remove it from the heat, and stir in the pecans, brown sugar, and salt.  Bake for 12 minutes in the oven and cool completely.

Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies

I found the recipe for these yummy cookie bars on tastykitchen.com, and here is the link.  These are tasty, easy to make, and my family really enjoyed them.  We actually made them for Aaron's work potluck, and so I don't know how everyone else liked them, but Aaron gave them an 8, and the rest of us gave them a 9.  This recipe made 24 cookies, and each cookie was 225 calories.  I followed this recipe exactly, so easy peasy :).

2 cups All-purpose Flour
1 Tablespoon Pumpkin Pie Spice
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
¾ teaspoons Salt
2 sticks Unsalted Butter, Room Temperature
1-¼ cup Granulated Sugar
1 whole Large Egg
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 cup Pumpkin Puree
1 cup White Chocolate Chips
1 cup Butterscotch Chips

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a 9×13-inch baking dish with foil (make sure there is extra foil hanging off at both ends – you’ll use this to pull the finished product out of the pan). In a medium bowl, combine the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. Stir together and set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined. Mix in the pumpkin puree. With the mixer on low speed add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated. Fold in the white chocolate and butterscotch chips with a rubber spatula.
Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake until the edges begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs, about 35-40 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely before cutting.
To serve, lift the cake from the pan using the foil and transfer to a cutting board. Peel off the foil and using a sharp knife, cut into 24 squares.  

Oatmeal Butterscotch Caramel Cookies

Our cookie of the week is Oatmeal Butterscotch Caramel Cookies.  These were really good!  I used homemade caramel sauce which I had leftover, and these turned out great!  We all liked them, Owen gave them an 8, Noah and I gave them a 9, and Aaron gave them a 7, but again, they aren't chocolate chip so that's a good score for him.  I made 48 cookies, which is one dozen more than the recipe said, so the calories were 128/cookie.  I like that these have oatmeal in them, I love any kind of oatmeal cookie, and these didn't disappoint.
Tomorrow we're having some muffins.

Chicken with Herbs, Bacon and Peas, PW's Caesar Salad, and Butterscotch Tarts

We had a Father's Day lunch today for my dad, and it was fun to try new things. We tried the Pioneer Woman's spicy caesaar salad, I made croutons from left over hamburger buns and butter rather than the ones called for in the recipe, and we used our garden lettuce. We all really enjoyed the salad, it was flavorful and delicious, and also full of calories. For 6 servings, the salad was 429/serving. Wow! We gave the salad between an 8 and a 9.  Anyway, we had a crockpot chicken meal as well, one I tried from this cookbook.  We had chicken with pancetta, herbs and peas.  I always forget in the flurry of activity surrounding serving dinner time to reseason my crockpot food.  This chicken was moist and tender, real fall off the bone kind of food, but because I didn't reseason it, it was bland.  Sigh...  We've tried this meal before and it was very tasty, just this time not as much.  The chicken was a 7 because of how bland it was, and the calories varied based on the cut of meat, but my peas and chicken thigh were 220/serving.  Now on to dessert!

I tried this recipe for Father's Day for my dad, but I didn't want to use a traditional pie crust, so I made a graham cracker crust, added in the filling, and then topped with my own whipped cream.  So the filling recipe is the only part of the recipe I used.  I also only managed to get 4 little pies out of the filling, not 12.  The pies were 307/pie, and they were really good.  I give them an 8.  Since I had made enough crust for 12 pies, I needed to fill them up with something, so I made a quick no-bake cheesecake to serve.  8 oz cream cheese, 1/2 a bowl of cool whip, and 1/2 c sugar all mixed together until smooth.  They were 266/serving.  Easy and yummy!  Another 8.  Tomorrow we're having some breakfast food from Our Best Bites cookbook to make Daddy breakfast in bed for Father's Day.  We're also having the pork tacos we had a few weeks ago since Aaron enjoyed them so much.