Earlier this year, the hubby and I decided to buy a house. After a lot of trial & tribulation, we put an offer on a short sale in March. If you aren’t big into real estate, let me tell you: short sales are kind of a pain. Mostly in that it takes roughly foreeeeeeever to seal the deal. Anyway, since we put an offer on the house, we’ve been under threat of moving. Not terribly imminently, just enough to make us realize just how much crap there is in the house right now. So we’ve slowly been going through our stuff to try to lighten the load, rediscovering all the crap we have & don’t need, things like that. But my hoarder tendencies aren’t just for camping gear and supplies for craft projects I never even start, it extends to the kitchen as well. I don’t need an intervention, you’re not going to see me on TV any time soon, but we’ll just say my cupboards are never bare. Nor is my freezer. And condiments? I got plenty. So I’ve been trying to cook/bake my way through the backlog of good we have, to make things a liiiiittle bit easier when we finally close on the house and get to move. And then I can fill it with a bunch of FRESH stuff-I-don’t-need.

So, along comes the Secret Recipe Club. This month, I was assigned the lovely Cooking Whims, and while at first I was very tempted to do one of her many lovely, healthy-or-healthyish foods she has (the sweet potato mac & cheese looks wonderful), I took another look at the pantry, and saw how very, very many different baking chips I have in a corner, and decided to do a take on her Peanut Butter Blondies: Pantry-Clearing Peanut Butter Blondies.

Pantry-Clearing Peanut Butter Blondies (Adapted from Cooking Whims)

Ingredients:

• 1½ cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1½ cups light brown sugar, packed
• 2 eggs
• 4 tsp vanilla
• ½ cup nut butter (peanut, almond, nutella, whatever, smooth or crunchy)
• 1½ cup baking chips (chocolate, butterscotch, peanut butter, candy bits like M&Ms, etc)

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 13 x 9 inch pan with foil, allowing excess foil to hang over edges. Spray foil with cooking spray.
2. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. In a separate large bowl, whisk together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla and whisk until well incorporated. Whisk in the nut butter. Then gradually add the flour mixture and stir until just incorporated. Fold in the baking chips/candy/whatever.
3. Pour batter into the baking pan and smooth out. Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of the pan comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Cool completely on wire rack, then remove with the overhanging foil and cut into bars.