Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars

Whew!  What a couple weeks it has been.  I spent a week in Kansas.  Had a great time hanging with some friends I dearly miss—my Reality Sistas and seeing lots of other friends, too.  Thanks for letting me go, Kev!

Then the day after I got home, after lots of cleaning!, we had company staying with us all this week.  It was really fun.  But I’m tired. 

Thanks to the Berghouts for coming from Kansas to help Kevin get the fish tank up and running.  We are really excited to have it!  Great to see you guys!

So fun to have my niece and her husband and two cute boys here with us, too! (That’s right, I’m a great aunt, who knew—have been for a long time now.) ;)  Thanks for coming, Saharra!  I stink—and only took a few pictures.  Look at this cute little guy---Gunner is about six months old and crawling already.  It was fun to have a little guy in our house (and to give him to his mom when he’d cry. hehe) Chip (our mini Aussie puppy) sure liked him!  Probably because he could run up and lick all over him and Gunner didn’t (couldn’t) do anything to stop him.  (No, Gunner is not really drinking out of a cup, just loved gnawing it.)

It was fun to have Zane, Gunner’s 7 year old brother here, too.  I didn’t take this one—Saharra does photography.  Here’s Zane.  I’d put one of her pictures of herself and her husband on here, too, but then she’d be annoyed with me. ;)  (So this photo is courtesy of Saharra.)

The boys had a blast!

Saharra even managed to take some pictures of Scottie (in other words—he let her).  He purposely missed school pictures this year.  Great photos, Sahare!

So again, it was fun to have company here.  I enjoyed making food that was enjoyed by people (instead of for my boys who generally don’t like anything).  One day last week I made some Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Bars that Amanda at Amanda's Cookin' recently posted.  Besides these turning out perfect and tasting great, these could not have been more simple.  They made for a great treat while our company was here this past week.  You can get the recipe on the link at Amanda’s blog.  My only change to the recipe was in place of the 3/4 cup butter, I used Bestlife Buttery Baking Sticks.  I have used these in a couple of recipes now and really like it.  This alternative to butter has no partially hydrogenated oil, no trans fats and 50% less saturated fat than butter.  Give it a try sometime.  I found it available at Walmart.

Lining the baking pan with foil makes it so easy to remove the bars and slice them on a cutting board.  I always do that for any kind of bars or brownies.  These baked for 22 minutes and cooled for a couple hours.  They slice perfectly.  The peanut butter added to the bar cookie is great and makes for a great texture to these and what could be better than peanut butter and chocolate.  Give them a try.  Everyone here loved them and I’m sure I’ll be making them again!  Thanks, Amanda!