Peanut Butter Cups

On Saturday, I started off my weekend with not one, but two, interviews. Given that Friday was absolutely a day from hell (a tree fell over in our front yard, patients went to the ICU, and two kids threw giant tantrums), it might have been nice to have a chill weekend, but I wasn't going to get it.
The first was a phone interview of Ariel and I for a parenting book Marc and Amy Vachon are writing on Equally Shared Parenting. I had emailed them several months ago about an article in the New York Times that featured them, and they thought we might have some input because we pretty much split parenting equally - and we are crazy enough to have four kids between 4 and 7. The phone interview was really fun.
My second interview was a sort of job interview...I heard through the grape vine that a local M.D. was looking to hire a Nurse practitioner and I sent him my resume, although I still have at least six months to graduation. His practice is called a micro practice, and he has no employees in order to keep overhead low. This allows him to spend from between 1/2 hour to 2 hours with his patients, and he has a strong holistic base. If he were to decide to hire me, it would check off almost all of my wish list for a job (Women's Health! Holistic medicine! Part time!!) . We met for lunch, and I was expecting a straight forward job interview, but he was on a slightly different wave length...he was calm and thoughtful, and I was rather nervous and yammery. I am going to start doing some observation time with him and he is going to provide me with some holistic training. At some point I think we will decide if the position would be a good fit for both of us. Overall, the interview was pleased, but I am a bit stressed about my first impression.
The rest of the day I barely sat down; I got some Christmas shopping down and took 1/2 the kids to a friends Gladiator birthday party.
When I woke up today, I was rather wrung out and just wanted to sit around. A friend brought over her three kids this morning so she could perform at church. Later on, we met my sister and her kids and grandkids at Charlie Safari. That was definitely an excellent idea; the kids played for a good three hours on the inside jungle gym. By the time we got home I was feeling much better, I even snuck in time to watch a very good Friday Night Lights episode and work on a school project.
As the kids got ready for bed, I realized what my weekend needed to be complete: peanut butter cups. Yumm. Now I can go to bed in peace.


Ingredients
For the base
2 ounces (50 grams) soft dark brown sugar
7 ounces (200 grams) icing sugar
2 ounces (50 grams) butter, softened
7 ounces (200 grams) smooth peanut butter
For the topping:
7 ounces (200 grams) milk chocolate
3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) dark chocolate
Gold buttons and edible gold stars to decorate, or other decorations of your choice
For the base:
Directions
Place all the ingredients for the base in the bowl of a food processor. Blend the mixture until the mixture takes on a sandy texture.
Place 48 gold petit four cases in sets of miniature tart tins or mini-muffin tins (each indent about 1 3/4-inches in diameter). Use 1 teaspoon of the base mixture to fill the bases of the petit four cases. Press the sandy mixture down into the cases as best you can to form a layer at the bottom of each paper case.
Place the milk chocolate and dark chocolate together into a heatproof bowl. Suspend the bowl over a pan of simmering water (the water should not touch the bottom of the bowl). Melt the chocolate gently while stirring. Spoon teaspoonfuls of the melted chocolate onto the top of each of the sandy bases of the petit four cases.
Decorate the tops of the chocolate covered peanut butter cups with either a gold button or gold star in the middle of each and transfer them to the fridge. Let them set in the fridge, for about 30 minutes.
To serve, arrange the chocolate peanut butter cups in their cases on a clean plate.