Cooking... eh?

This would be easier if I, you know, followed recipes. Which I would! It's not a 'I'm-too-good-for-recipes-oh-ain't-I-special' thing (though sometimes I do think I'm pretty special). It's more of a 'I-never-have-what-the-recipe-is-asking-for' thing. And with not having a car. Anyhoo.

Apparently today's post is also brought to you by sentence fragments. Moving on.

Tiger Butter tarts!
I love tiger butter. Kipper and I use to buy it all the time from Purdys. I can't remember who or where I got the recipe from but it's easy to make. You just melt white chocolate, stir in peanut butter, lay out on a pan, and drizzle melted dark chocolate over top. Voila. People LOVE it. My grandfather never sends emails but he sent me one telling me how much he enjoys tiger butter. Woo!

My first desire was to make tiger butter cookies, which I hope to still. This relates back to a sugar crazed weekend in PG where Jim and I made a batch of cookies he saw on a TV show. They were mint cookies wrapped in sugar cookie dough (the roll out stuff you buy from the frozen section) which we then frosted. Jenn looked on with much scorn in her eyes. So I wanted to get the frozen sugar douch and layer white chocolate and peanut butter, fold them up, then frost them with dark chocolate, but of course, Safeway is a bastard and had no sugar cookie dough. So I got all this instead:

Mini tart shells
White baking chocolate
Dark baking chocolate
Peanut butter (smooth)
Margerine (already at home)

Preheat oven to 375 and cook tarts for ~2/3 of the time. For these tarts it was like 10 minutes or so? Tart tart tart.
Add peanut butter and melted white chocolate to tarts. Burn finger significantly on bowl.
Swirl.
Bake for the rest of the recommended tart time. About another 5 or so minutes for these guys.
Melt chocolate and add spoonful of margarine. This makes the chocolate really weird and you may have to microwave it some more. If you are one of those fancy people who have a double boiler ~whatever.
See how the chocolate on top is all clumpy?
Goodness I'm trying to find a way of saying the next step without being dirty. I originally wrote 'bang the tarts'. But it's true! I took each one and.... banged it on the counter... oh god... how did this go so wrong?
Moving along! Today I also made my own version of a stew/chili/soup with apples as a base. I had dinner at my sisters the other day and her husband made a chili with fruit as a base. Now, he actually knows how to cook so I'm not thinking this will be anything like that but still, worth a try.

Mmmmm.... I started off with apples and mushrooms
Then added everything from my cupboard. Yams, kidney beans, black beans, tomatoes, corn(freezer)... it's simmering right now. I'll let you know.

And while waiting for that I've been eating the most AWESOME banana bread in the world. It is soooo good. I want more and I've already eaten a fourth of it at least. I kinda like days where I realize both the bananas and the apples are going.

Now I think I may go run out for wine because don't you *need* wine with chili/soup/stew?