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This week I’ve made it my mission to not turn the oven on at all, and so far, so good. However, Wednesday night was posing a problem since it’s dessert night, and the kids would not let me get away with “just have a popsicle” for one more week.

So I went digging through my food board on Pinterest and followed a few links around until I came across a recipe for No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars.

The thing is, the blog that has these posted didn’t credit where they came from originally, which was AllRecipes (it wasn’t that hard to find, and I knew I’d seen it before). So I’m just going to link to it on AllRecipes and keep my opinions about copying recipes but not crediting to myself 😉

These were really easy to make and I didn’t even have to turn on the stove for any of it. I melted the butter in the microwave, and melted the chocolate and peanut there, too.

I also didn’t bother with the separate layer of peanut butter, mostly because I didn’t read ahead and mixed it all up with the chocolate chips. It didn’t seem to hurt it, though.

It does need to sit for an hour in the fridge so make sure you give yourself time, and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes before trying to cut it.

These aren’t as good as other peanut butter bars I’ve had (they’re kind of texture-less), but they’re great for not having to heat up the kitchen!

No-Bake Peanut Butter Bars
adapted from AllRecipes

1 cup butter, melted
2 cups graham cracker crumbs (I used about 15 sheets)
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

In a medium bowl, mix together the butter or margarine, graham cracker crumbs, confectioners’ sugar, and 1 cup peanut butter until well blended. Press evenly into the bottom of an ungreased 9×13 inch pan.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips with the peanut butter, stirring every 30 seconds until smooth. Spread over the prepared crust. Refrigerate for at least one hour before cutting into squares.

This week’s Tuesdays With Dorie is French Strawberry Cake, hosted by Sophia and Allison.

I’ll be honest, I was a little wary about this one. I was happy because strawberries! But it’s got a lot of steps, some of them fiddly, and though the information with the recipe says that French chefs makes these over and over again to become comfortable with it, this was my first time and I was definitely not comfortable with it.

Case in point: I totally forgot the butter step. I had the two tablespoons of butter melted in a bowl, sitting on the counter waiting for me while I did the rest of the cake. And I completely forgot it. I thought I was doing so well, too.

But aside from it being a bit on the drier side (and to be honest, I’m going to keep using my angel food cake recipe), it was good and no one would have guessed it was missing anything. And as you can see, I didn’t manage to cut the cake into three layers, either. I got the top part off okay, but when I went to saw into the rest of it it just wasn’t having any of that (even though I had frozen it as others had suggested). So I shrugged and said, eh, good enough. I just loaded up the strawberries in one layer and of course that didn’t affect the taste. Oh, and I couldn’t get the strawberries to mash so I just piled them on.

I couldn’t find my couplers for my piping tips (where are they???) so I just squeezed the whipped cream out of a hole clipped in the corner of a plastic baggie to keep things fancy. And I did too many dollops on top and had to improvise with the five strawberries I had set aside.

Also, this was the best whipped cream I’ve ever had and I will now be using it for everything.

And I don’t like the tops of strawberries to still be on top of the strawberries when they’re used for decoration. It looks gross to me, so they had to go.

Otherwise, exactly like the recipe! 🙂

I came across these Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bars on Pinterest when my friend Candi pinned them. I clicked over to the recipe and was happy to discover that I had all the ingredients that I needed, and hey! it was dessert night (which I admittedly hadn’t thought about ahead of time).

I used to like the Quaker granola bars you can buy at the grocery store, but I don’t buy them often because there’s a lot of junk packed into such a small bar, and I usually write it off to just not being worth it.

And though these aren’t health food either, I like them because they’re sweet but there’s not a lot of sugar, and they were nice and easy to make (even though they have to sit for a while, it’s worth it). Older kids could easily make these with minimal help.

Mike and the girls (and me) loved these!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bars
from Farmgirl Gourmet

2 cups crispy rice cereal
2 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup light brown sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons miniature chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Spray a 9×13 inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl add the crispy rice and oats and mix to combine. Set aside.

In a small saucepan add the honey, brown sugar and butter and bring to a simmer. Heat for 3 minutes until it becomes syrupy and remove from heat. Add the vanilla and pour over the rice and oat mixture. Stir well to coat and pour into the prepared baking pan. Lay a piece of parchment over the pan and press the oat mixture down. Sprinkle with the chocolate chips and press down again.

Bake at 200 for 25 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to remain in the oven for 2 hours. Invert onto a cutting board and cut into bars. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.