With the big peanut butter recall of 2009 still in full swing, you aren't hearing much positive news about this family favorite these days. But it's products made from peanut paste -- not often the yummy stuff in the jar -- that appears to be the problem, so those of us who love PB are continuing to consume.

Two local 8-year-olds loved it enough to enter Jif's Most Creative Peanut Butter Sandwich Contest. Alexandra Miller of Franklin and Adam Sprangers of Greenville are in the finals and now it's time to vote!

Alexandra's creation, The Happy Hedgehog, makes use of pretzels, raisins, almonds and more to make a cute -- and yummy -- sandwich.

Adam made the Peanut Butter Burger, which includes chicken, carrots and -- gasp! -- spinach.

Voting ends Friday, Feb. 27, if you want to support the home team kids.

Here's the whole story.

 

This morning on "The Morning Blend" we demonstrated some simple Thanksgiving treat ideas you might want to try as a classroom treat or a way to dress up your Turkey Day table. 

Here are the recipes featured:

Marshmallow Pilgrim Hats

24 striped shortbread cookies

12-ounce package of chocolate chips

24 marshmallows

1 tube of yellow decorator frosting

1)       Set the chocolate-striped cookies stripes down on a wax-paper covered tray, spacing them well apart.

2)       Melt the chocolate chips in a microwave or double boiler

3)       One at a time, stick a toothpick into a marshmallow, dip the marshmallow into the melted chocolate, and center it atop the cookie.

4)       Using a second toothpick to lightly hold down the marshmallow, carefully pull out the first toothpick.

5)       Chill the hats until the chocolate sets, then make a yellow decorators’ frosting buckle on the front of each hat.

Thanksgiving Turkey Cookies

1 roll refrigerated sugar cookies

1 container of chocolate frosting

candy corn

orange decorating frosting

black decorating gel

miniature M&Ms

1)       Bake cookies as directed on the roll. Cool completely.

2)       Spoon chocolate frosting into a small plastic sandwich bag and seal it. Cut a small hole in the bottom corner of the bag. On each cookie, pipe frosting on the outer edge half of the cookie. Arrange candy corn over the frosting as the feathers.

3)       Pipe orange icing onto each cookie for the turkey face and feet. Use orange icing to attach M&Ms to the face for eyes. Use black gel for the centers of the eyes.

Cranberry Bog Gorp

¼ cup butter

¼ cup packed light brown sugar

1 tablespoon maple syrup

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon curry powder

1 ½ cups dried cranberries

1 ½ cups coarsely chopped walnuts

1 ½ cups pretzel nuggets, salted

1)       Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Melt butter, brown sugar and maple syrup in a large pot over medium heat. Stir in cinnamon and curry powder. Add cranberries, walnuts and pretzels and stir to combine.

2)       Spread mixture on a greased jelly roll pan. Bake 15 minutes or until mixture is crunchy and lightly browned.