Peanut Butter Fudge

A few weeks ago my grandmother found out I was writing a baking blog and gave me probably about 30 cookbooks. Everything you could ever imagine is in those books, and I've been meaning to do something from them for the past few weeks, but I just got caught up with the pies and Pinterest had such good looking food on it that I got sidetracked. 

But this week I resolved to doing one of the cookbook recipes. I picked a random book, opened it up to the third page, and found what I was going to do. 

They're the ones on the far left.

These were also REALLY simple and I had everything I needed in the house already. 

I originally had a picture I took of the recipe from the cookbook, and was rejoicing because typing out all of the ingredients is my least favorite part.

Somewhere along the lines, though, it got lost.

Sigh.

You'll need;
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/8 tsps salt
1/2 cup chopped peanuts

Preheat your oven to 375.

First thing you'll need to do is get yourself a nice big bowl. Then, acquire some peanut butter. About 3/4 of a cup.

It hurt my heart a little bit to offer up that much peanut butter for this recipe. Peanut butter is my most favorite thing in the whole universe. I think I love peanut butter more than I love my guinea pig (and my guinea pig is dang cute).

 

*sniffle*

Next, get yourself some brown sugar. Put that on top of the peanut butter.

I will admit to wanting to make a sand castle out of that stuff.

Soften some butter, slab it on there.

Now, mix that all up until combined.

Add your eggs and vanilla.

Mix that up nice and good.

Get a separate bowl.

Combine baking powder, flour and salt in said bowl.

This was another instance of  "Is this cookbook messing with me?".

Seriously. 1/8 of a teaspoon of salt. What is the purpose of that salt?! EXPLAIN TO ME.

But I was worried that if I didn't add it the whole thing would either explode or spontaneously com-bust. So I just did it.

Once you mix the dry stuff together, throw it into the peanut butter stuff and mix until well combined.

Next, get yourself a pan (it says a 9 x 13 inch pan, but I never measure), and line it aluminum foil. The foil should cover the edges, too. Spray the foil with cooking spray.

Then, start scooping the mixture into the pan.

.

Note; you'll probably want to use your hands to pat the mixture down to make it even.

Then, get some peanuts.

The recipe called for chopped peanuts. Pfft. Ain't nobody got time fo dat (and yes, I did just use that).

.

Sprinkle "chopped" peanuts onto stuff.

Concentrated face.

Pop it in the oven for 17 minutes at 375 and make sure you're around when it's done.

Or else that happens.

Connor thought it was awesome.

It was gone within 2 days. I call this a success.

Cushaw Pie

Ever since I can remember my grandparents have had a garden. They grow everything, cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, corn, peppers, and a whole bunch of other things!

One of those 'many other things' is called a cushaw. It's kind of like a pumpkin, and kind of like a squash, and ALL southern. My whole family is from Tennessee.

 My grandpa has been subtly asking me to make a cushaw pie ever since they started coming in, and my dad's birthday was a few days ago, too (he loves pie), so I decided to make one!

First of all, you're going to need a cushaw.

This is what it looks like.

You'll also need;

1 unbaked pie shell

2 1/2 cups cooked cushaw (I'll get to that in a minute)

1/4 cup sour cream

2 beaten eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp flour

1/4 tsps salt

1/4 tsps nutmeg

1/4 tsps pumpkin spice

2 tbsp butter

Okay, the first thing you need to do is cook this cushaw you have.

By the way, I have no idea how you're going to get one. I have never walked into the produce section in the store to find a cushaw section.

But anyway, when you get your cushaw you need to first wash it.

 Then, you will want to cut it into four quarters.

 A small piece of advice; cut off the top part near the stem first.

Then scoop out the seeds and cushaw innards.

  

And that thing poking it's head into the trashcan is my dog's snout :/

                                                                                

          Into quarters now.

                                                                                

Spray cooking spray on a oven safe tray (or two), preheat your oven 425 degrees and put the cushaws in there for 25 minutes, or until the outside of the cushaw is soft.

Mine was a little burnt, but that didn't seem to matter much in the final product.

 

Then, take a spoon and start scooping out the inside of the cushaw, but don't get the skin.

You'll need 2 1/2 cups of the stuff.

 

And then, you are supposed to mash it.

Not, really, possible.

I don't have a masher, or a squisher, or a flatener, or whatever they expected me to use.

The best I could come up with is an electric mixer.

 

But that didn't seem to do anything besides spray cushaw everywhere.

 

So then I decided to use a whisk and beat the cushaw.

They didn't do anything either.

 

And THEN I thought an ice cream scooper might do the trick.

 

It didn't.

At this point I had spent 10 minutes on trying to mash this cushaw and I could see that it just wasn't happening.

So I decided to just move on with this whole pie thing and hope for the best.

I added the sour cream. 

The sour cream was actually just supposed to be cream, but we didn't have any. Sour cream is kind of cream, right? Is has the word cream in it. It can't be that far from it. Maybe they're cousins or something.

There. See? Now it's cream.

All mixed up.

Put in the salt, flour, sugar, nutmeg, butter, and pumpkin spice.

The recipe called for something called 'allspice'.

What, in the world, is allspice.

 That doesn't even sound good. That sounds like I took all of the spices from the cabinet and poured them into the pie.

I decided to use pumpkin spice instead.

 

Mix that up nice and good.

 

Get your pie shell.

 

Pour mix into pie shell.

 

Put it into the oven for 10 minutes on 425 and then turn it down to 350 and cook for 50 minutes or more, until you can insert  a toothpick in and it comes out clean. I know mine took way more than an hour, and it was still a little mushy.

 

There it is, all finished up!

 

Like I said, a little mushy, but most of that was due to my inability to cut a pie right.

 

My little brother Connor loved it, though!

 

I also made a pumpkin pie for my dad, which turned out beautifully.

 

It was his 41st birthday.

 

My entire family loved it as well. Some relatives were in from Tennessee and loved it, too! You can't really make a pie ugly, so THIS PIE IS PERFECT!!

If you try this out, tell me how it went in the comments!