You're the Peanut Butter to my Jelly

You know those perfect nights? The ones where work ends and everything just falls into place? Nights where you find yourself walking around thinking: "Man, I like my life"? Well last night was one of those nights.

The evening started at 5pm when I dashed out of work eager to get to my 5:30 Pure Barre class. Being my mothers daughter, I had allotted the perfect amount of time to get to my destination (7 minutes) and had grand plans of taking the bus. One quick glance at my watch and an "are you en route" phone call later and I realized I'd be flagging down a little yellow box instead of riding the M11 in bliss.  So, I sauntered over to 10th avenue and whaddya know, I was in luck, a cab with its' light on (a rarity in this charming city of mine)! I immediately climbed in feeling very pleased with myself and excited at the prospect of being on time. Within 2 minutes of shutting the door, I knew I was in trouble. Cabby mcgee immediately started speaking, not to me, in a language I didn't understand and slammed on the gas. Ok I thought, he's just getting going...but no, as each light turned from crimson to green, the pedal to the medal situation intensified. Now, those of you who live in New York know that on the avenues, lights change in succession, sometimes 10 seconds apart sometimes 15, it all depends on the avenue, but ultimately they align so drivers can easily coast along to their destination without having to stop and go at each light. Well, apparently my dreamboat driver missed this memo and each time we got to a light, we screeched to a stop only to accelerate back to full speed 5 seconds later. Luckily I was only going 10 blocks, I was concerned for my life and the lives of others on the road. Check please!

Unharmed, I met up with my PIC (partner in crime, who shall be referred to many times over the course of this blog) and headed to Pure Barre. For those of you who don't know, I've been taking a workout class called Pure Barre for a few months now and I'm fully addicted. I go 4-5 times per week and when I can't make it to a class, it honestly makes me sad, yes sad.. for real, like upset. More on Pure Barre later, I could write a book on that beauty.

After class, which by the way was one of the most intense classes I've taken in a while (thanks Leslie), we hobbled to Citarella to pick up some fresh fish for dinner. Our walk up Broadway was quite uneventful, I ate a bug.  Full of protein we arrived at the fish haven of the UWS (what up Steve...Steve is my fish guy), purchased our goods and away we went. A 2 hour walk home later due to strained muscles, a stop at the ghetto grocery store in which food is thrown onto shelves without rhyme or reason, the purchasing of baking supplies and...voila, we were home. That was easy.

We promptly began dinner prep which included several near death experiences with my favorite cutco knife and a turnip. In the midst of Russian roulette, root vegetable edition, we had a visitor stop by to see our apartment. The number of F bombs dropped in the 20 minutes she was over, marks the most cursing my apartment has seen in the two years I've lived there. That coupled with the high volume of negativity surrounding New York real estate (don't worry lady, I'm not moving in a few months or anything) and I was feeling good.

A few smoke alarms (apparently cooking=fire), burnt limbs, bruised feet and a pile of vegetables later, dinner was done and it was time to get baking.

Last night's project was Peanut Butter Blossoms (peanut butter cookies with a Hershey kiss pressed in the middle- aka heaven). My sous chef was armed with ingredients and ready to go, so we pumped the jams (Whiz Kalifa Pay Phone of course) and got measuring. 3 hours, and a lot of sweat later,  I had 75 cookies rolled, baked, kissed, cooled and ready for the content strategy taste testers. Readers: please note that after baking these cookies I threw out the extra peanut butter because I can't keep it in the house (cue: i'll eat the whole jar) and then, realizing my weakness, went back to the garbage, took out the jar, poured soap in it, and threw it out again. Yes, it's that serious.

So back to the cookies- I made these a few months ago but foolishly didn't save the recipe and had not joined the life changing world of Pinterest yet, so I had to find a new recipe this time around. I scoured the internet and after some comparison settled on one I found on another baking blog, How Sweet It Is. While the result was very good, a peanutty moist cookie with a good crumble, it was VERY hard to mix the flour in and the recipe yielded almost double what it said it would so I think next time, I will try a different variation but hey- to each their own.

Here are some pictures of the cookie baking process to add a little spice to your life:

 PIC snagged a dollop before the baking began

 Hershey kisses unwrapped and ready to go

 A tray of heaven, fresh out of the oven 

The perfect Peanut Butter Blossom

Off to tackle the rest of this Thursday which includes an insane number of meetings, Pure Barre, hopefully a manicure and bed before 2 am...it isn't easy but somebody's gotta do it. Giddy up.