Peanut Butter Smooshies

I'll admit, I am not a great cook. My mom was a great cook, but I just never had an interest in cooking and baking. I can cook, I cook daily, my meals are edible, and my family isn't starving, but I don't consider myself a great cook. Some of my dishes turn out great, but I am still not a great cook. Does that make sense? Most of what I make is from scratch or from memory of having learned it long ago and from having made it over and over and over. I suppose you can say I am a dependable cook. I do try new recipes, though not that often, but I am hoping that will change when we renovate the kitchen. I won't have new appliances, but it'll be a fresh new kitchen just the same and maybe I will be inspired to try new recipes more often.

Yesterday was our daughter Jessica's 23rd birthday. Even though our kids are now in their 20s, I still like to do something special for them on their birthdays. Mamas are like that, you know. :) Jess is the dessert maker in the family. I'm not that crazy about sweets for the most part... but I do enjoy something fruity or nutty or gooey once in a while. Both Jess, and her dad, love dessert. My mom loved something sweet after a meal too, so I guess Jess didn't have much of a chance to turn out differently.

Anyway, I could hardly ask Jess to make her own birthday dessert so I chose something I knew that everyone liked, peanut butter cookies. I thought that was too plain for a birthday and I tried to think of something I had on hand to add to them. We live about 30 minutes from town and about 20 minutes from a small grocery store, so it's not like I can run down to the corner market for an ingredient or two ~ especially with today's gas prices! Sorry for rambling... so I happened to think of a recipe I'd seen on a blog for simple buttercream frosting. Seriously, I'd never made homemade frosting before. My mom had made it lots of times, but for me, it was so much easier to pick up a can of frosting at the store right beside the cake mix!


My dessert was a hit last night and when asked what it was called, I came up with Peanut Butter Smooshies. They are very rich and it was all I could do to finish just one. The rest of the family ate two each. Guess they liked them! :)

I'm all for simple, so here's my recipe, with links to the other recipes I used for the main ingredients:

Peanut Butter Smooshies

• Peanut butter cookies (never fail recipe we've used for years from Crisco here)
• Vanilla buttercream frosting (easy-peasy recipe from Shelly at Cookies and Cups here)

Bake cookies according Crisco's fantastic recipe and let cool completely. Hide them while cooling because other family members will smell them and come looking for them. ;)

While cookies are baking and cooling, make buttercream frosting. Again, guard from family members who think it's a dessert all by itself and keep walking by to "just sample".

I didn't add the vanilla or milk that was in the frosting recipe. I wanted pure buttercream taste (no vanilla) and the consistency of the frosting was perfect without the milk, but you can decide when making yours if you need the vanilla or milk.

Put a spoonful of frosting on the flat side of one cookie...

... and SMOOSH a second cookie on top of it. That's it! :)

Really, could it be any easier? Ok, I guess you could buy peanut butter cookies in a package and frosting in a can, but you know it's not going to be the same.

Enjoy!

Take care and God bless,
Lana
~*~