When you have an abundance of zucchini, you make a lot of bread. This batch is lemon zucchini bread. I am amazed when my recipe actually turns out to look like the picture I was working from.
This is the Lemon Zucchini Bread recipe I used. I am always looking for new ways to used zucchini rather than the traditional bread because of the abundance that two small zucchini vines provide. Here is one my favorites.
While here in the north woods, I often have time to explore Pinterest more than I do at home. Today while browsing around I came across this great Fall recipe that not only looked Fallish, sounded tasty and was easy all in one. You can find the original post here. Lil’ Luna is one of my favorite blogs that I visit often, so it was very fun when a Pinterest pin took me somewhere familiar. The recipe takes rice krispies, peanuts, candy corn, marshmallows, white chocolate chips and a bit of peanut butter.
There is just something about corn candy that always gets me in the mood for Fall. And then you add the peanuts with that bit of salt, total heaven. You have got to try this recipe.
White Chocolate Candy Corn Kripies
By Lil’ Luna
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-- Re-post --
Because this is one of my favorite recipes and I am always searching for it, I thought I would re-post it again. I have made it many times since the original post it is always a big hit.
For the first time, I tried gilled pizza. My friend Sheri, has been grilling pizza for a while and our family has had the pleasure of experiencing it. Sheri is a grill expert so trying this grilled pizza thing was a little out of my league, but this recipe is so easy that I thought I could make it work. I figured the recipe called for a prebaked pizza crust how hard could this be. Here is the recipe, but I think next time I will try making my own crust. I love homemade pizza crust. It turned out super great!
Grilled Chicken Pizza
2 tablespoons butter
3 cups thinly sliced sweet onions
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
2 oz cream cheese
1 package 12 inch prebaked pizza crust
1/3 cup Alfredo pasta sauce
1 cup shredded cook chicken breast
2 roma tomatoes, sliced
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
1. In a 10 inch skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Cook onions and sugar in butter 20 to 25 minutes, stirring frequently, until deep golden brown and caramelized; stir in thyme.
2. Heat gas or charcoal grill. Spread cream cheese evenly over pizza crust. Top with Alfredo sauce, shredded chicken, onions, basil leaves, and tomatoes. Place on grill over medium-low heat. Cover grill; cook for 8 to 10 minutes.
Door to Door Organics delivers to my house every other week. It just might be one of the highlights of my day when that door bell rings and I find a box like this on my step.
To have fresh produce delivered right to my front porch is not only convenient, but makes me feel a bit special. Now, my husband, would laugh at this, just because I am paying for this service/“special” feeling does not really make me special. But I’m going with it. Delivery of fresh produce to my front porch makes me special.
Having fresh produce in our house, helps motivate me to create new, healthy, and creative meals. I have found one of the benefits of being an empty nester, is that there is no pressure in making meals within a certain time frame and for a crowd. This allows me to be a bit more creative and take more time to enjoy the process of cooking. Door to Door Organics is like I have a famers market delivered right to my home. If you have never tired this service, you should check them out. We have started with the Bitty Mixed box every other week, but can change our deliver options at any time. You too can be “special” and have fresh produce delivered to your door.
Recently a Pampered Chef consultant, friend of mine gave me a catalog when I told her there were some things that I needed. Really, the need started when Jeff made chili for a work luncheon and had a bit of trouble using the worn out can opener. He was very frustrated because he could not get the cans open. Being the great wife that I am, I decided to update a couple of worn out kitchen gadgets, one being the can opener. This is the one that I ordered. Anyway, on the front of the catalog there was a picture of this Caramel Apple Skillet Cake. Again, being the great wife that I am (Jeff loves apple desserts) I decided to try this one out. Boy doggies, this was a great surprise. Not only was it easy to make, but it is so much better than I expected. I particularly like it when a recipe tastes good, but also looks good as well. This cake does not disappoint. It turned out so pretty with no extra effort involved.
This will definitely be on our table this Thanksgiving. This cake truly gives you the pleasure of a caramel apple without the sticky hands and face. You have got to try this one. Caramel Apple Skillet Cake
I am participating in the following link ups: Somewhat Simple, Fireflies and Jellybeans,Gluesticks, Beyond the Pikcet Fence, Momnivore's Dilemma, The Shabby Chic Cottage,Blooming Designs, Bubble Nature Creations, Liz Marie, Addicted 2 Decorating, Hof ouse of Hepworths, Stuff and Nonsense, Finding Fabulous, The Shabby Nest, Truly Lovely,Simply Sweet Home, Bubbly Nature Creations, The Answer is Chocolate, Sassy Sites, I Gotta Create, The CSI Project, Sisters of the Wild West, Boogieboard Cottage, It So Very Cheri, DIY Showoff, Natasha In Oz, I Should Be Mopping the Floor, Between Naps on the Porch, Skip to My Lou, Todays Creative Blog, Coastal Charm, Ladybug Blessings,Domestically Speaking, The Thrifty Home, Blue Cricket Design, Fabric Bows and More,My Girlish Whimms, Seven Thirty Three, Sew Much Ado, Someday Crafts, Lil Luna,Mama Hens Coop, {Primp}, Vintage Gwen, Frugally Sustainable, Tidy Mom,Pinkapotmus, Between Naps on the Porch, Etcetorize, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Sew Can Do,My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia, Mod Vintage Life, My Romatic Home, Making The World Cuter, Knick of Time, Slice of Suburbia, At the Picket Fence, French Countrty Cottage, Shabby Art Boutique, Rooted in Thyme, The Charm of Home, 504 Main, A Little Knick Knack, Five Days...Five Ways, Faith, Trust, and a Little Pixie dust, Freckled Laundry, Answer is Chocolate, Chic on a Shoestring, Knick of Time,The Ivy Cottage, Elizabeth & Co., The Winthrop Chronicles, The Dedicated House
Our family is always on the look out for recipes that are fun to make and good to eat when we go on our camping adventures. Several years ago we found the Grilled Peanut Butter Banana Boats. These are a great change from your typical Smores that is a camping staple. This time we were ready to try something that we could do for breakfast and Lindsey found this bake your muffins in an orange rind. These are very easy and worked out way better than I anticipated.
First you want to remove the oranges from the rind. Which actually gives you plenty of oranges to eat or to make your fresh squeezed orange juice.
We chose a muffin mix that only requires adding water to cut down on added ingredients, but if you are hard core and want to mix up some homemade batter, more power to you. But I really like camping to be fun and try to bring things along that are easy so that I can enjoy our camping adventure with everyone else. So adding water to a mix is what I do. These Betty Crocker mixes are great and come in several different flavors.
Fill your orange rinds about 3/4 of the way full.
Then you want to cover the orange halves with foil wrapping them tightly and keeping the foil flat over the top, poking holes in the top of the foil. This will help know when your muffins are done.
Then place your foil wrapped muffins on hot coals or fire. We have a small barbecue that we use while camping for cooking and it worked great.
You will know when your muffins are done when the batter starts to come up through the holes and starts to turn golden brown.
These were very fun and everyone on our trip loved them. Not only do you get a great muffin but they have a little orange flavor added to them making for a perfect camping breakfast muffin.
One tip that I will do next time, is to spray your foil with cooking spray to keep the top from sticking to the foil. Other than that, they turned our super and will be added to our camping adventures recipes.
This Summer our small group name is “Summer Grillin’, Chillin’, and Spiritual Fillin’”. Summertime makes us all think of shorts and flip flops, barbeques and ice cream. This group pairs those summertime things with a laid back study and discussion of the previous Sundays sermon. We will spend time together sharing what our time in worship on Sunday morning meant to us and how we can apply it to our lives in the coming week. This group will give us all a great opportunity to get to know one another as well as meet new folks. We kicked off our group this past Monday, if you missed it, your are not too late to join us any time through out the Summer. Just go here and sign up. We love to have you be a part of the fun.
Because we had the first meeting at our house it gave me a chance to create a Summer Party. I love any opportunity to throw a party, so the planning began.
Wal-Mart has some fabulous bright colored plastic serving pieces in their seasonal aisle and I snatched them right up.
The matching table cloth helped bring the whole theme together.
Using my digital scrapbooking software, Scrapbook Max, I was able to make labels and signs for everything at the party.
For dessert I made dipped ice cream sandwiches. I used melted almond bark, dipping half of the ice cream sandwich and then topped them off with a couple of shakes of sprinkles. Making the ice cream sandwiches all dressed up for the party. Tip: The wrappers are waxed paper, parchment paper would not stay closed with double stick tape.
You can never go wrong with the old stand by of home made chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, I know the sign is misspelled. Luckily, my smart hubby caught the error and I was able to fix the sign before the party, just not before the photo shoot.
There were plenty of cool drinks for everyone.
To keep the kiddos entertained while the older folks got to know one another we had bubbles for all. I love these giant bubble wands and the huge bubbles they create. Our fist meeting was a great success and I look forward to our "Grillin', Chillin', and Spritiual Fillin' group this summer.
I am articipating in the the following link ups: Somewhat Simple, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Gluesticks, Beyond the Pikcet Fence, Momnivore's Dilemma, The Shabby Chic Cottage, Blooming Designs, Bubble Nature Creations, Liz Marie, Addicted 2 Decorating, House of Hepworths, Stuff and Nonsense, Finding Fabulous, The Shabby Nest, Truly Lovely, Simply Sweet Home, Bubbly Nature Creations, The Answer is Chocolate, Sassy Sites, I Gotta Create, The CSI Project, Sisters of the Wild West, Boogieboard Cottage, It So Very Cheri, DIY Showoff, Natasha In Oz, I Should Be Mopping the Floor, Between Naps on the Porch, Skip to My Lou, Todays Creative Blog, Coastal Charm, Ladybug Blessings, Domestically Speaking, The Thrifty Home, Blue Cricket Design, Fabric Bows and More, My Girlish Whimms, Seven Thirty Three, Sew Much Ado, Someday Crafts, Lil Luna, Mama Hens Coop, {Primp}, Vintage Gwen, Frugally Sustainable, Tidy Mom, Pinkapotmus, Between Naps on the Porch
Jeff and I have been on a health craze lately. It all started earlier this year when our church challenged us to do a Daniel Fast for a week. We found some great recipes that we really like and decided to just try and eat a bit more healthy. Then in February my sister Janet introduced us to My Fitness Pal. My Fitness Pal is an app for your phone that helps you keep track of your caloric intake as well as exercise. As my brother-in-law puts, it is all a mathematical equation. If you want to loose weight you take in less calories and if you exercise, you get some free calories for the day. Easy, peasy, right? No food is off limits as long as you record it and the app automatically calculates how many calories you have left in order to reach your goal. If you want more calories for the day, you had better get out there and get some exercise. Here is one of the great recipes we have found:
Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato Salsa Wraps
2 large tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 tablespoon chopped fresh jalapeno peppers
1 tablespoon lime juice
8 slices turkey bacon
1/4 cup light mayonnaise
4 10” whole wheat tortillas
2 cups fresh baby spinach
1. For salsa: In a bowl, combine tomatoes, read onion, cilantro, and peppers. Stir in lime juice and set aside.
2. Cook the bacon according to the package. Drain well and cut into large pieces
3. To assemble wraps, spread tortillas with mayonnaise, top with spinach. Using a slotted spoon, spoon salsa over spinch and top with bacon. Roll up the tortillas and cut each in half.
We added some avocado, and you can really add just about anything according to taste. But if you keep with the recipe, you have a serving for only 227 calories. It is fabulous, fresh and makes for great healthy meal.
Oh, my heck! I have known for a long time that I really, really, really, like espresso. Well, actually, I like the espresso that is in the “2 pump, sugar free vanilla, breve latte, extra hot” that I have been ordering from my local Starbucks for a long time. My habit has become somewhat of an expensive one, but I can stop any time, really I can. So I decided to cut cost on my beloved lattes. I figured I would purchase my own espresso machine. I did my research for the best one that I could buy for the cash I had available (Kohl’s Cash after the holidays). I had around $100 of Kohl’s Cash to spend, but also knew if I just waited long enough the espresso machine that I was wanting would go on sale and I would have enough to purchase it without any additional out-of-pocket money. Bingo, espresso machine on sale for just a smidgen more than my Kohl's Cash would cover. I brought my new purchase home and I have become even more of an espresso fan. Now, my order has a double shot of espresso in it. If one is good, two has to be better, right? I do believe a problem is brewing, because this week my thoughts went to, “If two is better, three has to be the bomb.” Wow, I really do {heart} espresso.
Once again, I am posting about a great idea that I found on Pinterest. I know it is very simple, but the results are more than I expected. Because I like to add a little something extra to my holiday parties and gatherings, I thought what a great idea to make these peppermint stir sticks that you can use in any hot holiday drink. In my pursuit to make these fancy stir sticks, I came up with a couple of hints on how to go about this project. First of all, I cut the hooks off of my candy canes with a sharp knife. I did this at an angle which made for a great point to stick into the marshmallows.
At this point my stir sticks would stand up but once I dipped them in the white chocolate and coated them with the sprinkles they kept tipping over. Big problem, I wanted them to be even all the way around and not lopsided. So I came up with the idea of poking a hole in the bottom of a styrofoam cup and turing the cup upside down to poke the candy cane through to help support the sticks while they dried. Wala! Perfect candy cane stir stick drying holder.
One more little tip. In the pictures on Pinterest where I saw these stir sticks, all of the sprinkles were white. I looked everywhere for a jar of small white sprinkles but could not find any, so I went with the festive red, green and white. Well, good reason for the all white. When you put the stir sticks in a hot drink the colors melt off and your first couple of stirs are a mix of red and green, which if you ever mix red and green together you know they make a weird brownsih color. That soon melts away and you are back to wonderful peppermint stir stick fun.
Come on over for a hot holiday drink at my house and you will get one of these candy cane stir sticks to help keep you drink all mixed up.
I am participating in the following link ups: Between Naps on the Porch, The DIY Showoff,Boogiboard Cottage, Its So Very Cheri, Sew Chatty, Dittle Dattle, Sew Can Do, Keeping It Simple, Skip to My Lou, Coastal Charm, Ladybug Blessings, Today's Creative Blog,Sugar and Dots, My Girlish Whims, The Thrifty Home, Blue Cricket Design, Sew Woodsy, The Tablescaper, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Making the World Cuter,Itsy Bitsy Paper, So Much Ado, One Tough Mother, Sweet Peas and Bumblebees, Handy Man, Crafting Woman, Women Who Do It All, Seven Thrity-three, Someday Crafts, Tea Rose Home. Lil' Luna, Momma Hen Scoop, Sugar and Dots, {Primp}, Sommewhat Simple, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Tales From Bloggeritaville, Gluesticks, Momnivore's Dilemma, Beyond the Picket Fence, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Simply Sweet Home,Truly Lovely, Finding Fabulous, The Shabby Nest, Someday Crafts, Passionately Artistic, Goodbye city, Hello suburbs, Handy Man, Crafty Woman, Make it Great Monday,Vintage Gwen, Sew Country Chick, 5 Minutes Just for Me
Pinterest has become one of the first places I search when I am in need of an idea to make something either as a craft, recipe, or home decor. So when the opportunity came to make some treats for a ministry at church for the holidays, Pinterest was my "go to" place. When I spotted these cute little candy dane hearts I knew that they would be the treat that I would donate. Jeff happened to be with me when I was in my search of the small, mini, candy canes and could not figure out why I needed five boxes of 60. I had promised 60 treats, but I wanted two hearts in each little treat bag. So four boxes right? I knew that there would be some broken ones too so that's why I purchased the extra box. Jeff was like, "what is it you are doing with all those candy canes?" I patiently (because that's just the kind of gal that I am, wink, wink) explained to him the candy cane heart concept. He was very sceptical that this little project was going to work out. Being the engineer type, I suppose he wanted me to try a prototype before purchasing all of the supplies and then find out it just was not going to work out. This engineery way of thinking is just not the way that I roll.
Truly the hardest part of the whole project is getting the candy canes out of their little cellophane wrappers. I then laid them in the shape of hearts on a cookie sheet covered in foil.
I melted chocolate almond bark in the microwave in a large mug and spooned the chocolate into each little heart. I only melted a little bit at a time because it is very easy to over heat the chocolate in large quantities, don't ask why I know this, because the waste of supplies is not well taken by the process engineer that I know and love, Jeff. So this is just knowledge that I acquired with no record of how, ha, ha.
Using the broken candy canes, I chopped them up and sprinkled them on top. This is super easy and the finished product is so cute.
I love it when I find a project that turns out like I had it in my head. Pinterest is just the place to get the inspiration for just about anything.
I am participating in the following link ups: Between Naps on the Porch, The DIY Showoff,Boogiboard Cottage, Its So Very Cheri, Sew Chatty, Dittle Dattle, Sew Can Do, Keeping It Simple, Skip to My Lou, Coastal Charm, Ladybug Blessings, Today's Creative Blog,Sugar and Dots, My Girlish Whims, The Thrifty Home, Blue Cricket Design, Sew Woodsy, The Tablescaper, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Making the World Cuter,Itsy Bitsy Paper, So Much Ado, One Tough Mother, Sweet Peas and Bumblebees, Handy Man, Crafting Woman, Women Who Do It All, Seven Thrity-three, Someday Crafts, Tea Rose Home. Lil' Luna, Momma Hen Scoop, Sugar and Dots, {Primp}, Sommewhat Simple, Fireflies and Jellybeans, Tales From Bloggeritaville, Gluesticks, Momnivore's Dilemma, Beyond the Picket Fence, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Simply Sweet Home,Truly Lovely, Finding Fabulous, The Shabby Nest, Someday Crafts, Passionately Artistic, Goodbye city, Hello suburbs, Handy Man, Crafty Woman, Make it Great Monday,Vintage Gwen, Sew Country Chick, 5 Minutes Just for Me
These are the best cookies ever. While I was looking at Pinterest the other day I found this great cookie recipe. Beings as chocolate chip cookies are my all time favorite cookies and Snickers are my favorite candy bar, how could I go wrong. What I like best about Pinterest is that it is all pictures until you want the info. You just simply click on the picture and it takes you to the website responsible for the "pin". My clicking took me to Bakers Royale where I found this scrumptious recipe as well as great pictures of step by step instructions. One thing that was new to me in the recipe is browning butter. Wow, I love butter anyway, but cook it a bit and it is simply heavenly and you really do taste the difference in the finished product. Go on over and check out more of Bakers Royale recipes. Naomi the author of the site rocks when in comes to baking let alone the photos she takes. This is the picture of her cookies.
Here is the picture of my cookies. There is just something about style when it comes to taking food pictures that I just don't have. Besides, I did not do the optional sprinkling crumbled up Snickers on top of my cookies either. And who has a dishcloth that is that clean anyway, really? This site has become a "go-to" when I get the itch to bake something up.
Funfetti cookies have become my family's favorite. Not only are they easy to make, all you do is use a Funfetti cake mix, add 1/3 cup of oil, and two eggs, but they are good, good, good. At first all I did was frost the top and add sprinkles and then I got to thinking if one Funfetti cookie at a time is good, two at a time has got to be fabulous. The idea of Funfetti sandwich cookies was born. Since this new inspiration, I make two batches at a time in order to make sandwiches. I frost the wrong side of one cookie and then place another on top, smooshing slightly so the frosting oozes out and lastly roll in sprinkles. These are so good and there are Funfetti cakes mixes for every holiday. That means Funfetti cookies all year long, yeah!
Here are couple of need to know tips. If you use two cake mixes, you will use all of two cans of frosting. I put the frosting in an icing bag and use a huge tip making for a much faster frosting process. You will use a whole jar of sprinkles as well. You may as well buy two jars because you would hate to run out, at least that what I always do and you can never have too many sprinkles, right?
See, don't these cookies just make you happy whatever the season. I am already keeping my eyes out for the Christmas Funfetti cake mixes to come out in the grocery stores soon. Yes, I will buy several so if the store nearest you is out, I just may have been there before you :o)
On Monday mornings for years now I have attended a women's bible study. I look forward to spending time with like minded women in order to grow in our faith together. Women getting together in the morning would not be any fun unless we shared treats as well as some great coffee. This week was my turn to bring something to share in the treat department so I decided to bring my Creme Brulee French Toast. I found this recipe on allrecipes.com some time ago and it has become one of our family favorites. This is a great recipe that you prepare the night before and then just stick it in the oven in the morning. Needless to say, this is a recipe that we often have on Christmas morning, or other holidays when little preparation in the morning is what a gal needs. Several of the gals asked me to post the recipe on my blog so here it is:
Creme Burlee French Toast
1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons corn syrup
French bread slices to fill the bottom of baking dish
5 eggs
1 1/2 cups half & half
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon brandy-based orange liqueur (Grand Marnier)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Mix in brown sugar and corn syrup, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Pour into a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.
2. Arrange bread in the baking dis in a single layer. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, half & half, vanilla, orange brandy and salt. Pour over the bread. Cover and chill at least 8 hours or overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove the dish from the refrigerator, and bring to room tempature.
4. Bake uncovered 35 to 40 minutes, until puffy and lightly browned.
I found this great Autumn Brittle recipe on line and could not wait to try it out. Beings as my Mom is a big peanut brittle fan I thought she would enjoy trying a new recipe with me when we were up at her house. With all of the nuts in this recipe it is not cheap to make, but, oh, is it worth it. I learned a couple of things while making this that I thought I would pass on to you. When cooking the sugar mixture, the temperature goes from soft crack to hard crack fast so you need to be on your toes or it will burn. I burnt the first batch and was not about to mess up all of my precious nuts for something that tastes burnt. So I started all over again.
I love the look of all these nuts together. I think that they look so autumny. I spread them out in a 9 x 13 inch pan, but when I do it again I think I will use a jelly roll pan that is bigger. That way the pieces don't end up as thick and would be easier to bite into without some kind of dental work later.
Before the brittle was totally hard, I scored the entire thing with a sharp knife so that it would break easier once it was cool.
I will be making this again real soon. Not only is it wonderfully good, but it is so pretty.
Tonight we are headed to our summer small group "Grillin' Group". This is where we meet for some grilled food and share a little bit of life together. It has been a great way to meet new folks that you would not otherwise have a chance to get to know just in passing on a sunday morning. I love this opportunity to try out new recipes. Tonight we using our Grillin' Group as taste testers of a Garden Medley Salad recipe I came across recently at The Realistic Nutritionist. The ingredients are all things that we eat a lot of but never together, so I just had to try this one out. I have already done a little testing myself and it is awesome! You really need to give this one a try!
One of my favorite parts of Summer is going to the Farmers' Market. There is nothing better than cooking with fresh picked vegys and because I am not growing anything other than herbs this year, the Farmers' Market is the place buy. Normally I go and just buy what looks good and for me more often than not that is everything. So this year, I have armed myself with the newest issue of Farmer's Market Cookbook magazine.
This is a special publication put out by Vegetarian Times. It is pack full of all kinds of recipes made with items you purchase at the Farmers' Market. Just look at those stuffed tomatoes on the front cover, I am here to tell you they are absolutely fabulous. Here is what mine turned out like.
Okay, so mine are not near as pretty as the the magazine's, but after all I am not a professional.
Here are all of the vegys I picked up. Aren't they pretty? As for the fennel, I did not even know what that was, let alone what it looked like. But I had to find it for the Cold French Lentil Salad. It is my new favorite ingredient. I love the licorice smell that it has as well as the taste.
Here is my salad. The dressing really makes the whole thing. My guess is you can't just use any olive oil, I picked up a fancy one from The Tasteful Olive. I purchase one called Hojiblanca. I have no idea how to pronounce that but it has a very robust flavor and made my dressing delicious. Next time I go to the Farmers' Market I am looking for eggplant. I have never prepared eggplant before but my magazine has a great recipe for a Walnut-Stuffed Eggplant, sounds good to me!
One of the things that I look forward to when visiting my Mom up North is attending her church on Sunday. This is a small country church with forward thinking folks that want to attract the younger families in the area and minister to the seasonal people in the both Summer and Winter. One of the ways that they get to know the visitors in the Summer is their hospitality tent where they serve coffee and treats after the service. As I was checking out the treats, I spied these great looking peanut and marshmallow bars and just had to try one. I am usually a chocolate kind of a gal but these have to be the best non-chocolate bars around. Mom knew the gal that made them so of course we called her for the recipe.
It only takes these few ingredients. I love recipes with just a few things in them, they are easy to remember when you forgot you need to whip something up and are already at the grocery store.
Peanut Marshmallow Bars
16 oz. peanuts
3 tablespoons butter
1 bag peanut butter chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cup mini marshmallows
Grease a 9 x 13 pan and then pour half of your peanuts in the bottom. Melt butter and chips in the microwave, when smooth, add sweetened condensed milk and stir until well blended. Add the marshmallow and stir (marshmallows do not melt). Pour mixture over the peanuts in the bottom of your pan and pat down. Put remaining peanuts on top and pat down. Chill and cut into squares and serve. Yummy!
Participating in the following link ups: Its a Keeper
With this week being Teacher Appreciation, the folks at Indian Creek Community Church, Gardner wanted to bless the teachers and faculty at Wheatridge Middle school where we meet for church each Sunday. One of our people came up with the idea of collecting teacher supplies. You know, those supplies that teachers use but are not supplied by the school. Things that they purchase out of their own pocket. What a fabulous idea, Willie! For the last month our peeps have been bring in all kinds of supplies, scissors, dry erase markers, page protectors, etc. But there are others that serve at Wheatridge and we did not want them to get left out of the love. So some gals and I made rice crispy treats for the entire staff. Now these were no ordinary rice crispy treats, we made them the size of Texas. Knowing that all of our children spend so much time at their schools, we depend on these folks to help shape the future of our nation and we at Indian Creek Community Church just wanted them to know that we support them in all that they do for the students they touch each day.
We placed each rice crispy treat in a cello bag with a card attached. One side said "Thanks."
This is what went on the other side of the card.
We made 80 GIANT treats for the staff at Wheatridge Middle School.
Thanks so much to all the teachers that make our children into the adults of the future.
Easter is just a couple of days away and I love to find new ways to make the day special. Browsing around on The Pioneer Woman earlier this week, she featured this Easter Carmel Popcorn from Heather Christo Cooks and I knew that we would be serving this at our Easter dinner on Sunday. Being the adventurous cook that I am, I took a few liberties with the recipe just to make it my own. First of all, I used my own Microwave Carmel Corn recipe, which is way easier and faster than the traditional Carmel Corn recipe that Heather has on her site.
Microwave Carmel Corn
16 cups popped corn (a little more then two microwave bags)
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter (use real butter, it totally makes a difference in the taste, why cut fat now?)
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup cashews (I added this instead of peanuts, thought I would class it up a bit :o)
1 cup white chocolate chips
Sprinkles
1 large paper grocery bag (next time you are at the store remember to ask for "paper")
Microwave the popcorn and place in the large paper grocery bag. Microwave brown sugar, butter, and syrup for 2 minutes on high (until bubbly), remove and stir. Return to microwave for 3 minutes, stopping to stir every minute. Remove and add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1 teaspoon vanilla, stir, allow the mixture to rise a little bit. Pour carmel mixture over the popcorn in the paper sack, close and shake well.
Place bag in the microwave (really, put the whole thing in) for 30 seconds, remove and shake. Repeat this 2 more times. After the last 30 seconds shake well and pour on a cookie sheet spreading it out. Sprinkle M&Ms on and gently push them in. Melt the white chocolate chips and drizzle them over the mixture and then immediately shake the top with sprinkles.
Before adding any of the yummy goodness, be careful it is really hot.
You could stop here, but why not go for the whole shebang!
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