Peanut Butter Fingers - Guest Post by My Mom (with help from Jamie and Everly)

Greetings!  Dana, Jamie, and I volunteered to do a guest post for Jenni, allowing her a little extra time to finish up her packing in preparation for her move.   Dana, Evie, and I would bake while Jamie would do the photographing.   As always, what appeared to be and should have been a simple task emerged into an all-afternoon project!  Not to mention, Dana was 200+ miles away in New Jersey by the time we realized we needed to get cookin’!  Her short visit of 24 hours allowed no time for us to bake one of our all-time favorite desserts.  So, unfortunately she was not here to lick the bowl or (fortunately) wonder why it took Jamie and me 4+1/2 hours to bake and then photograph a recipe we’ve been making for almost five decades.

With that being said, as you all know ‘chocolate’ is a fervent addiction in our family.  Add peanut butter to the mix and we become delirious! This recipe is a delectable mix of the two that my mom found over 50 years ago from the Better Homes and Gardens magazine in 1962. It was the official Pillsbury winning bake-off recipe, in which we so appreciate her cutting out of the magazine on that warm summer day! We have been baking and eating and baking and eating it ever since – right on down to the fourth generation, being my mom’s great grandchildren.  The recipe is called “Peanut Butter Fingers.”  They are heavenly and they are rich.  In other words – be careful.  My sister and I used to make ourselves sick when we baked these because we always managed to overindulge … =)


Peanut Butter Fingers
Cream together:
    ½ c. melted margarine
    ½ c. granulated sugar
    ½ c. packed brown sugar
Blend in:
    1 unbeaten egg
    1/3 c. peanut butter
    ¼ tsp. salt
    ½ tsp. baking soda
    ½ tsp. vanilla
Stir in:
    1 c. flour
    1 c. quick cooking rolled oats
Spread in 9x13 greased pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Remove from oven and sprinkle with 1 c. of chocolate bits.  Let stand for 5 minutes.
Combine:
    ½ c. confectioners sugar
    ¼ c. peanut butter
    2-4 Tbsp. milk
Mix well.
Spread melted chocolate bits evenly. Drizzle with peanut butter mixture and spread over top of chocolate.  Cool; cut into bars.

ENJOY!

They are using a bowl that was Everly Penniman's great great grandmother's (whom she was named after).  Evie looks thrilled. =)

Heidi (and Jamie and Everly)

P.S. - This is Jenni now - I have to say if you only ever try one recipe from our blog this would be the one you should try - they are absolutely divine and you can eat a whole pan yourself...which I suppose isn't really a good thing! =)

How We Updated Our Dining Room Chairs

Last week when I got tired of packing I decided to take a little break and do some painting. This will be the fourth place that Jon and I will have lived since we got married. Before each of our previous  moves I painted and recovered furniture and made pillows and did as much work ahead of time as I could, so that when we moved in I would have a head start on each room. This move I hoped to do that as well, but I quickly discovered that with two helpers just packing alone was going to be quite an accomplishment to have done in time! So, I gave up on my grand plans of stripping and repainting multiple dressers and other furniture pieces and making new bedding for Lillie and Lola's new room and just went with the two easiest projects on my list  - quickly repainting the porch chairs and then sprucing up the two french chairs in our dining room. 

Now, if you are wondering why I would bother to redo the french chairs let me show you. About a month or two ago we decided to let Lola start sitting in a chair without her highchair in the set. When we removed the high chair seat part from the french chair we discovered lots of things had been dripping down through her seat and all these lovely stains greeted us:

The first thing I did was remove the seat. This one actually doesn't have any screws so you just pull it out. It does take a good bit of wiggling though seeing how it fits in there very tightly. Our new house is quite dark so I am planning on really lightening it up as soon as we move in by painting all of the walls and trimwork. I am going to do lots of white and grays and so am trying to get away from some of creams and browns we have now. On some of our pieces this won't be possible but I'd like to lighten up as many as I am able to. For these chairs as well as the dining chairs on our porch I painted over the creamy color with Dove White by Benjamin Moore. (I also plan on waxing it but haven't gotten to that yet and at this point probably won't until we are settled in our new place.)

Fortunately they didn't take too long to paint and just took two light coats. I am planning on distressed the white a little bit but haven't gotten to that yet.

Next up was recovering the seat. Although I do like the fabric (and would use it in a bedroom) it wasn't what I had in mind for the seat. I was looking for something more muted with a lighter gray. Unfortunately though I decided to do this last minute so didn't have time to order any fabric online and just ended up running to both of the fabric stores we have here in town and this was the best option I could find that had gray and white in it.

I have changed these cushions out quite a bit. I think this was the fifth or sixth different time I've recovered them. It such an easy and inexpensive way to switch things up and because it's easy I don't have to stress too much if we have a major spill.  You just lay the fabric down with the backside up and then center the seat on top of it upside down.

Then I trim around the fabric leaving enough space to fold it over the sides of the chair and allow at least an inch or two to be stapled.

And then I start stapling.

I kind of fold it like this as I got around the corners. As long as you pull it nice and tight it won't be noticeable at all when the seat is back in place.

And there you have it! Now they look clean and fresh and ready for our new house.

 

And here they are back in their place at the table:

And if you are wondering why those shots are so cropped - well, because the rest of our house looks like this:

At the end of this week this will be someone else's house and we will be loading up the moving truck - ahhh!

Burlap 1776 Pillows

Hello everyone! I hope you all have had a wonderful week. It's been pretty busy here - just six more days until there is a new owner to our home. Ahhh! And along with all the craziness that comes along with moving Lola's been sick and we had a pretty bad storm that knocked our power out for quite a while. I had to use my phone as a flashlight to UNPACK some of my boxes to find some candles and flashlights. Oh well - at least it was much better happening this week than it would have been next week! Anyway, I have a few posts ready for next week including a guest post from my mom and sister and a little peek into my plans for Lillie and Lola's new room (it's going to be much different than my usual taste!) and hopefully a tutorial on recovering a dining room chair (I took photos of it step-by-step, just not sure if I will have time to write it up or not) and a couple of other things if I can finish typing them up. 

Today I wanted to share with you this year's version of our 1776 pillow that is now available in our shop. We will not be having the colors that we had last year but are offering the design on this burlap. The print is very slightly weathered looking to look more natural on the burlap. Thank you Jamie for taking these pictures for us!

We also have the Star Spangled Banner download  and also prints available:

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!