THE CHEESER

Its simple. Its understated. It may or may not be laced with crack. But you know what? Sometimes the best things are.

Misleadingly elegant portrayal of the cheeser.

Ingredients:

-- Pillsbury crescent rolls (the dough, still stuck together, uncooked)

-- 8oz block of cream cheeze (the full fat kind. Seriously you can't use reduced fat. I know I struggled with it too. You'll be okay)

-- Wheat Thins (these can be reduced fat. in fact they should be cause you're about to eat a block of cream cheese you fatty)

Prepare yourself to be loved. Seriously.

Roll out the crescent rolls on a baking sheet. Put the block of cream cheese in the center of the dough lengthwise. Press down on it with your fingers to make it a bit wider (wider = more cheeser in your future). Take the left and right sides of the dough and cover the cream cheese, meeting in the middle. You should have about 2-3 extra inches of dough at the other 2 ends, make that neat and fold it on top. So you have a little cheeser present.

Bake at 350 til it looks like a cheeser. I don't know exactly how else to say it, but it take like 12-15ish. The dough should be cooked (the top will be the last part to fully cook, so watch that), but it should still be soft. You don't want to cook the dough til its flaky the way crescent rolls are supposed to be though cause then they'll separate AND LIFE WILL BE AWFUL FOR YOU.

Immediately transfer to a plate using 2 spatulas, put Wheat Thins on either side. The cheeser will be eaten by hand, using the Wheat Thins.  Now be careful, cause this next part is tricky. Cautiously approach living room and place cheeser on coffee table, pull back hands immediately or you WILL get bitten.

The cheeser does things to people. Messy things.

But it is beautiful. I swear. And it makes life good.

Photos © Beegs & Sugarloaf

boredinmaine FLOURLESS PUMPKIN MUFFINS

What on Earth does one do with canned pumpkin left over from the world's greatest pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, no flour, and an insatiable desire to make muffins? An excellent question. In short, one recognizes one's useless supply of oatmeal and decides to get cray cray. Cause what the hell else are you doing?

 Ingredients:
3/4 cup pumpkin (...ish. Whatever is leftover from cookies)
1 cup sugar (...ish. Whatever is leftover from boredom-induced Maine baking frenzy)
1 egg
1/4 cup oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup instant oatmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (does anyone seriously measure salt?)
nutmeg (just shake it. Settle down, it'll all work out fine. people baked before they invented the teaspoon. i think.)
cinnamon (see above)
dregs of flour left at bottom of bag. (fine I guess they aren't technically flourless)

Dump pumpkin, white sugar, egg, and oil in small bowl. Mix. Put oatmeal, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, spices, and a little flour in big bowl. Also mix. Add wet stuff to dry stuff. Mix again. Add a little milk if it doesn't look like muffin batter. If it looks too wet, go with more oatmeal. Always more oatmeal. Again, I really can't recommend the spices too highly. They're lovely.

Fill muffins tins with batter (mine made 6 muffins). Bake 6 minutes on 350 degrees. Take out, top half of them with oatmeal (half of your friends like crunchy stuff on their muffin and half don't. Its science.) Put back in for 8ish minutes, depending your oven's level of ghetto and how fast it turns stuff into edible food.

Nom nom made up pumpkin oatmeal muffins.