Trifle, Truffle, Potatoe, Po-ta-toe

Today's one of my Monday's off (love working for the State) and I'm putting it to good use.  I spent all weekend laying around, reading and "sorta" cleaning up, so its nice for a change to get things done!  I went to Wal-Mart, spent entirely too much money on food, and then came home and cooked two casseroles for friends who've recently had babies.  I went to lunch with my new friend Brett and saw some other friends while we were there.  We spent a while of our lunch debating the world trifle v. truffle.  She suggested what I was making was a "trifle" as a "truffle" is like a Lindor truffle.  Also, my friend Laura Beth reminded me that on Friends, Rachel made a "Trifle" and messed up the recipe and added meat and potatoes and vegetables.  I'm pretty sure mine will be better than that!

And now I'm back at home making a Chocolate Peanut Butter Trifle for a NCAA Football Championship get-together tonight at one of my friends.  Its my trivia friends that are getting together tonight and we are eating chili and I'm bringing a dessert.  Now, at first glance, my trivia group seems pretty normal.  But these are the people who came to my house for a Christmas party and didn't leave till after 1 a.m.-- and the karoke machine make an appearance.  So, honestly, there's no telling about tonight!!! 

I got on Pinterest and found a yummy looking dessert.  I watched Barefoot Contessa while I was making this and I am pretty darn proud of myself. 

First you make fudge brownies like normal.  Two points here:

1.  The recipe calls for peanut butter chips to be added to the batter, but after reading some of the reviews, I decided not to, as a lot of the reviewers said it was a bit too much peanut butter.  Also, this recipe is quite expensive so that saved me like $3.00. 

2.  Yes, there IS a fingerprint in the middle of the brownies.  Some people use fancy cooking tools like toothpicks or forks to check the done-ness of their brownies.  Pshaw, I say-- hands are your best cooking tools. 

Two large vanilla pudding mixes.  Add 4 cups cold milk, stir.  Let it sit for a few minutes and add 4 tsps vanilla extract (I didn't have that much so I used what I had!), and 1 cup peanut butter.  Mix with 1 and a half things of cool whip.  Actually, now that I'm typing this up, I'm realizing I didn't use near that much whip cream.  Oh well.

Cut up two bags of small Reese's Pieces.  

Cut brownies up in small squares.  Add layer to the bottom of a large bowl.  Next a layer of peanut butter cups.  Then layer the peanut butter pudding mix.  And so on and so on.  The recipe suggested that I would be able to do three layers but I only did 2 and a half.  Doesn't really matter-- its going to be so good that following a recipe is unnecessary!!! 

 And what did Parker do?  First she stood underneath me and ate all crumbs that I dropped.  All of that being underfoot made her tired and she decided to nap the rest of the time.  I'm still waiting on her to clean the kitchen up like I asked.