Peanut Butter & Chocolate (or Dessert Overload)

This is one of my favorite flavor combinations and I made two recipes this past weekend that used these flavors.

First I made peanut butter pie for the company we had over on Friday night. Here's the recipe (courtesy of my mom):

PEANUT BUTTER PIE

1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat)
½ c. milk (I used skim)
1 c. powder sugar
½ c. smooth peanut butter
8 oz. Cool Whip (I used light)
Chocolate pie shell

Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Blend in sugar and peanut butter. Slowly add milk. Fold in Cool Whip. Put in prepared crust. Chill in freezer. Remove from freezer about 10-15 minutes before serving.

For mine, I chopped up peanut butter cups and sprinkled them all across the top and then I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips and drizzled that across the top in a crisscross pattern. Everybody said it looked store bought and loved how it tasted, even my hubby who hates cool whip.

The next recipe I made was chocolate cookies with reeses pieces. Hubby was in a wedding a couple weekends ago and at the rehearsal dinner they gave everybody these mini glass jars that held 1 cup of reeses pieces each. I knew if I didn't put them into something that I could share with people, I'd end up eating 2 cups of them (hubby's and mine) myself. I used the chocolate cookie recipe my mom uses at Christmas time, but I had some trouble with the batter. I chilled it in the fridge for about three hours, but they still had a hard time sticking together and the batter was to sticky to roll into balls. Mom...help! They taste yummy, though.

CHOCOLATE COOKIES (with whatever "chip" you want)

½ c. butter
½ c. margarine
1 ½ c sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
2 c. all-purpose flour
2/3 c. cocoa (I used Hershey's special dark)
¾ t. baking soda
½ t. salt
2 cups of peanut butter chips or reeses pieces

Cream butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt; add to creamed mixture. Stir in peanut butter chips. Chill until firm enough to handle. Shape dough into small balls. Place on ungreased baking sheet; flatten slightly with fork. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool.

The same wedding also gave out Hershey kisses as favors at the actual reception so I gathered up all the extra favor boxes that people at our table didn't use and put them into this recipe:

1 box dark chocolate brownie mix & ingredients to make brownies for 9 x 13
12 oz. cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat)
powdered sugar (to taste)
vanilla (about 1 tsp)
milk (just a smidge)
chopped hershey kisses

Make brownies according to directions on box. Pour batter in pan and set aside. Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add powdered sugar and vanilla until it's the desired sweetness. Add a little milk if it's too thick. Stir in chopped hershey kisses. Drop by spoonfuls over brownie batter. Use a knife to swirl the cream cheese mixture and brownie batter together. Bake according to directions on box. I had to add 10 - 15 minutes more to the baking time for mine, but just keep an eye on it. These also were met with rave reviews.