April 14, 2013

pb&j for the people.

Why do I do this to myself?


Why do I bake things that I know only I will consume for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? And snack. And snack #2. And snack at 3am on Saturday night. And also why do I continually swallow the stickers that come on apples?  Which just now happened for like the fourth time this week.

A coworker of mine brought a bar like this into work the other day and I flipped because why in the hell haven't I thought of that before? Pb&j's are my JAM, literally. I immediately asked google how to make these and found a recipe that combines the perfect ratio of peanut butter: jam. While looking, I was really enjoying the comments I came across about how easy it is to get kids to eat these bars and how they were a hit at my son's daycare! Well, obviously they were a hit. They are made of butter and sugar. Did you serve them with mountain dew as well?

Ah, I know. I have no idea how hard it is to take care of children and get them to consume nutritious food, let alone any food at all sometimes. But until I do have kids I am going to continue living in a dreamland where I believe I will only serve them fresh, local vegetables in their BPA-free glass food containers that never go anywhere near the microwave. They will also eat organic carrot sticks instead of French fries and will fold the laundry for me with their little baby hands and won't ever have snot running out of their nose. What?

On the real though, plastic tupperware really isn't chill. Whenever I heat something up I can taste the plastic that has leached into my food, which scares me but apparently not enough to get me to stop using shitty food containers. Kind of like how my doctor tells me to I shouldn't drink vodka and redbull because my heart is going to explode and how if I don't stop taking Advil on an empty stomach I'm going to thoroughly destroy my stomach lining <--- two things that continue to happen on the reg. One of which is a product of the other and therefore can't be controlled.

Back to the issue at hand. And really, they are an issue because you are looking at a dense, peanut butter base, sweet strawberry jam, and crumbles of peanut butter with salted peanuts on top. You're welcome and I'm sorry.


Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars

Ingredients
2 sticks butter, softened
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups jam (I used strawberry...grape would also be bomb)
1 cup peanuts


Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.

Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and peanut butter until combined, about 2 minutes. Whisk together dry ingredients, adding to the butter mixture until just combined. Add vanilla.

Transfer two-thirds of the mixture into the baking dish, spreading evenly. Top with jam and spread to coat peanut butter mixture. Crumble remaining peanut butter mix on top. Sprinkle peanuts on top.

Bake until golden brown, about 45 minutes. Allow to cool for a few hours before cutting.