Peanut Butter Cup Fudge

I love making fudge with sweetened condensed milk, and have made several varieties over the past few years. One of the first flavours I tried was Reese's Fudge and I wanted to make it again, but I kept forgetting to pick up Reese's peanut butter cups. At some point I got the bright idea that I could make the peanut butter cups instead of buying them and that is exactly what I did. My sister-in-law has an awesome peanut butter cup recipe and I used it to make peanut butter patties for this recipe. I worked out the difference, and I saved over $3 in peanut butter cups by just making the patties at home. Win!

For the Peanut Butter Patties:
1/3 cup peanut butter
2 tbs + 2 tsp brown sugar
1 tbs margarine
1/3 cup icing sugar

Mix all ingredients together and roll into balls (makes approx. 25 balls). Chill them in the fridge for 3 hours. Remove from fridge and slightly flatten to form patties.

For the Fudge:
3 cups milk chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk (300 ml)
1 cup chopped peanuts
1 tsp vanilla
25 homemade peanut butter patties

Add chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk to saucepan over medium heat.

Heat until melted together. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Pour about a 1/4 of the mixture into a prepared 8x8 baking dish. Ensure the bottom is completely covered.

Place peanut butter patties onto the already poured fudge. Then cover them with the rest of the chocolate mixture.

Top with chopped peanuts, pressing gently to adhere to chocolate. Chill in the refrigerator. I always chill my fudge overnight for best results.

Once chilled, cut fudge into pieces for eating and sharing. This one is pretty great for both!

Grandma's Yarn Stash

On a recent visit to my Grandma's she gave me a giant bag of yarn. A life long knitter, she told me she hasn't been knitting much lately, and the one project she has on the needles (a blanket) has been on them for over a year. She says she eventually wants to complete the blanket, but after that, she doesn't think she will start many more projects.

Grandma kept her yarn stash is a storage closet and she let me know that some of it had been there "a long time." Because of this, the yarn smelled like a mixture between Grandma's perfume (a good smell), and storage (a kind of stale smell). Anything I knitted from the yarn could be laundered, but I was sure I would get a headache if I knitted with it.

So I did some research and decided to air the yarn out. It would have been a little easier to air them out in the summer (less cold, anyway!) but the air was super fresh and there was a good breeze blowing all through the yarn. I did fall on my ass at one point while I out there (I'm clumsy), but it was totally worth it, and the snow was pretty soft to land in. The yarn stayed outside for about four hours and they smell way better now.

Swiss Chalet Family Pak #FoodPicFriday

We don't eat a lot of take out in our house, so when we do it is a real treat. One of our favourite meals (and deals) is the Swiss Chalet Family Pak. Over the years it has gone up in price (I think it was $25.99 when we first started ordering it - now it's $27.99), but still a great deal for Swiss. For that price you get a whole chicken (quartered), four sides, four rolls, and a giant chalet sauce (the reason I order Swiss Chalet in the first place).

This is enough food for four, but could also serve three, and sometimes only two. When John and I order it just for us, I order a garden salad as one of the sides, save a quarter of the chicken, and have a chicken salad for lunch the next day. Yum.

Our Swiss is located in a Harvey's so we don't get the authentic Chalet fries, but I have to say the Harvey's fries are pretty good too.

100% in Fun, If Not in Score

My favourite video games are the Lego series of video games, as I'm the type of gamer who loves smashing stuff, collecting stuff, and playing through an action/adventure. I also love cute characters. Over the past few weeks I played Lego Marvel Superheroes, which was a lot of fun and reminded me that I really enjoy superheroes. I never read comics as a kid, but I have seen a lot of superhero movies and this game introduced me to a lot of characters I had never heard of before. So if they ever do make the Deadpool movie, I have a better idea of who he is now. Playing through these Marvel characters also encouraged me to get caught up with the X-Men movies, which were pretty good.

My only complaint with Lego Marvel Superheroes, was the controls for flying characters (and some of the driving controls, also). In non-timed events I could fly well enough to do what needed to be done, but there were a number of flying races that I just could not complete. The last day I played this game, I spent over an hour racing Silver Surfer, re-trying over and over, and I showed absolutely no signs of improvement. As I didn't want to spend countless hours attempting (and failing) the remaining flying races (there were seven races left to complete) I decided to call it a day on the game. I had a lot of fun with the 99.2% of the game I did complete, and didn't want to ruin my experience with hours of feeling frustrated just to get the other 0.08%.

So I didn't quite get 100%, but I did pretty damn good and had a fun filled time along the way.

Character tokens: 114/115. Missing: Silver Surfer (unlocked after beating him in a flying race and completing two additional missions at his command)

Gold Bricks: 241/250. Missing: Nine bricks.

• Two of the bricks are earned with Silver Surfer (beating him in a flying race and completing a mission for him)
• Six of the bricks are earned by completing timed flying races throughout New York:
• Race on top of X Mansion
• Race on top of a gas station
• Race at the Dockyards
• Race in the sky above the water by the Dockyards
• Race between and around two buildings
• Race just off the helicarrier
• One brick earned from a long and tedious remote control car timed race (I spent way too long trying to get this one. I had real difficulty with the driving controls in some places.) 

This was my first time playing a Lego game on the Xbox 360, so I also unlocked most of the Xbox achievements too (44/45). The missing achievement was get 100% in the game.

Previous Lego Video Game Posts
On A Lego Kick
Lego Batman 100%
Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 100%
Lego Indiana Jones 100% and Lego Harry Potter Years 5-7 100%
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes 100%
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean 100% and Lego Lord of the Rings 100%
Lego Video Gaming 

Blogging in 2015

April 2015 will mark my 5th anniversary of blogging on My Adorable Small Town Life. Holy shitsnacks!

Over the years I have posted regularly on the blog (2013), irregularly (2012), and a mixture between regularly and irregularly (2014).

My goal this year is to have a blog up at least Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Three days a week instead of five will help me be more consistent, and at that rate I will still total around 150 posts by year's end (a good number, I think).

My preferred way to blog is to write my posts in advance and schedule them, which is what I will continue to do this year. The odd time I'll write the same day I post, but mostly I'll stick to scheduling.

There is also a shiny new "Subscribe By Email" button in the right hand side bar of the blog (just above my Twitter feed). So if you want posts to go strait to your inbox, feel free to subscribe. On post days, the emails are sent out around 7:00am (EST).

Happy Blogging in 2015!