Pretzel Bites - Take 2

I can tell it's close to the start of school.

The attitude of my oldest has gotten worse exponentially.  If this is what I'm getting at 7, I hate to see what she's like at 14...and 16...and...yeah, you get the picture.

Needless to say, the days have been rough around here.  I've got my foot planted on her backside and am ready to shove her out the door...I just need those darn school doors to open!

To beat the attitude, I thought, why not cook with the kids.  We could make something to take to their teachers for Back to School night tomorrow night.

I decided to go with an old faithful.  Chocolate Pretzel Bites.  You can't go wrong with chocolate and pretzels, plus this is super-duper easy for the kids to help with.

Last time we made them, I let Maddie pick the Hershey's Kisses and she went with the hugs.  If I had really been thinking (well, thinking of things other than how to get her in school ASAP), I would have stuck with the hugs.  They would have looked like white tiger stripes when melted (the school mascot), but we chose the cookies and cream Kisses instead...they still kind of go with the whole mascot thing.  And with a blue M&M on top and wrapped in cute little treat bags, they look very Caldwell Elementary festive. 

Now, I also decided to grab a bag of the caramel Kisses and some Reese's Pieces.  I absolutely love caramel and chocolate and peanut butter....reminds me of a Take 5.  This is how I had wanted to make them the first time, but I wasn't able to find the caramel Kisses, but today I scored them.

Now you know how when you are really excited about something...and how you picture the end result in your head...and it's perfect and beautiful and awesome and all those fantastic words?  Well, that's where I was as I spread a bazillion pretzels on the cookie sheet to make this batch of pretzel bites.

And then the perfectness all came crashing down.

After 2 minutes, the Kisses were not melted.  After another 2, barely melted.  Another minute and the very tippy top was melted, so I went for one more minute and then pulled the sheet out.  I mean, how can chocolate not be melted after 6 minutes?  Well, when you are a Hershey's Caramel Kiss, I guess this is possible.  I'm not sure what they do to make these things...or what they are even made out of, but the darn things were barely melted, so when I went to press the Reese's Pieces into the tops, the didn't squish down all ooey gooey like they should have...they kind of cracked and flopped and pretty much ended up looking like crap.

I should have known it wasn't going to work out my picture-perfect way....the attitude issues and rough day all around should have been my clue.

But I'm here to tell you, if you ever want to try making pretzel bites, just stay away from the caramel ones...it's really not worth the time. 

Chocolate Caramel Bacon Brownies

So our beach trips with my husband's friends are notorious for being on the pricey side.  Not because of travel costs or too many side trips taken, too many souvenirs bought or an expensive rental house.  Nope.  When it comes down to it, our trip cost is only inflated by one thing....food.

Overbuying tends to be a problem on the trip, although there is one person who takes overbuying to an entirely new level.

Four years ago, we sent him to the store to buy some frozen ravioli for dinner.  Four bags would have been sufficient...he came back with 8...or maybe it was more.  My mind has tried to block out the whole incident....we ate ravioli for way too many meals.

This year we were spared from ravioli....but not from the overbuying.  This year's product of choice: bacon.  An absurd amount of bacon.  I think in one trip alone, a minimum of 5 lbs of bacon was purchased.  Seriously?!

I mean, don't get me wrong...bacon is great, especially when it is baked to extra crispy so it melts in your mouth when you eat it.  But after eating bacon three mornings in a row and knowing there were still unopened packages of bacon in the refrigerator, well, I'm sure you get the picture.

While browsing around on Pinterest one evening, I happened to peruse my "Sweet Eats" board and there, in all it's glory, was my pin for Pecan, Bourbon and Bacon Brownies from Bluebonnets and Brownies.  YES!   A way to use up some of the vast amounts of bacon still left in the fridge while creating something chocolaty good.

I didn't make these exact brownies because I didn't have everything needed to make them.  (Although I WILL make these exact ones someday...I mean bourbon and pecans and brownies?!  What could be better than that?!)  But I figured I could come up with something similar using a simple box mix from the store and doctoring it up a bit.

Most people in the house were skeptical...I mean not many people think of throwing bacon in brownie mix.  But convince them I did, and 30 minutes later the most ooey, gooey, chocolaty brownies came out of the oven with just the tiniest hint of saltiness from the added bacon.  Not much else to say but yummo!

Chocolate Pretzel Bites

Seriously, I couldn't have married into a better situation if I tried again.

We all know keeping up with friends from our past is hard work (although definitely made easier since the invention of Facebook).  And when it comes to keeping up with friends, it's usually the women that have held on to their best buds.  Men, not so much.

So it is just completely amazing to me that after 30+ years, my husband is still tight as can be with the friends he used to run wild through the neighborhood with as a kid.  Not something you normally see.

And what's cooler...they actually converge on OBX, NC once a year for some good old family fun (with geeky board gaming thrown in for good measure, because you can't have a trip and not play board games...it just isn't going to happen.)

This year, after a two year hiatus due to some cash flow issues, we were finally able to rejoin the ranks on THE TRIP, as it has been named.

Now what you need to know about the trip is that when it comes to food, well, let's just say the menu for the week tends to include a lot of sugar with some alcohol and chips thrown in for good measure.  Drumsticks are the mainstay in the freezer and it isn't uncommon to find 2-3 packs of Oreos (or beach cookies, as they were dubbed by my oldest daughter back when she was 3) sitting open on the counter.

So really, I couldn't have been dropped into a better situation this year...the baking bug hit and I had a houseful of people who were more than willing to eat whatever I made, meaning less for me to have to eat...although don't get me wrong, I partook in A LOT of what I made.

I took along my Carcassonne cookies from my previous post.  Those were a HUGE hit...especially with the kids.  I think every kid made sure that they had the chance to eat a cookie of every color...made for a lot of hyperactive kids.

I also took along the rest of the chocolate chip cookies I made...you know, the ones from my famous friend Megan.  And I was right...they are the best cookies ever...they didn't even make it through 24 hours.

But I couldn't just stop there.  No...all my browsing through Pinterest found quite a few yummy things that just had to be tried.  First up....Chocolate Pretzel Bites.

A quick Google search reveals that they are nothing new...seems everyone is making them with all sorts of different color combinations, depending on what holiday is right around the corner.  I wanted to try something a little different, but being stuck on a small island chain where you basically have one store to shop at and it only carries a small variety of any given product left me unable to try what I wanted....so I let Maddie be the picker, and she chose Hershey's Hugs with regular M&Ms.

They didn't turn out half bad, even if they weren't what I originally wanted.  (But that's okay because that just means I can make them at a later date.)  They were even pretty simple to make...and would have been more simple if a certain 7-year old would have helped me unwrap all those darn Hershey's Kisses, but we won't go there.

Anyway, if you are looking for a good sweet/salty treat to take to a get-together...you know, a Bunco night or a meeting of the nerd herd for some serious gaming, you just might want to check this babies out...you won't be let down.

Carcassonne Cookies

So here are the cookies I made with my first hand-crafted cookie cutter.  The cookies themselves turned out great.  I'm especially happy with the cookie recipe I decided to use.  It's Bridget's (from Bake at 350) Vanilla-Almond Sugar Cookie recipe and it is fan-tast-tic!!  I rolled my cookies a little thinner than normal and some of them ended up breaking while icing them, so I will definitely make sure to roll them 1/4" thick next time.  But that aside, they dough was so easy to work with and the taste was out of this world!!!

As for the actual decorating....at least the people that were eating them didn't care what they looked like.  I completely forgot about icing them until the night before we were to leave for our trip.  I knew there wouldn't be enough time for them to dry, so I opted to drag the icing and bottles with me.  In theory, this should have been no problem....but I'm pretty sure leaving tub-fulls of royal icing to swelter in a 90+ degree car for many hours was not one of my brigher ideas.  The icing didn't completely mix smoothly and I kept getting clogs in the bottles...and as usual I made the icing a little too runny and had no extra powdered sugar with me to thicken it back up.  But at that point I just wanted to get the darn things iced...and this is the final result.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's been awhile since I've eaten a good chocolate chip cookie.

Now don't get me wrong.  I've didn't say I haven't eaten chocolate chip cookies, because that's just plain absurd.  It's just been awhile since I've made chocolate chip cookies that weren't sliced off a log, scooped out of a plastic tub or mixed up from a pouch. 

But when you are craving...I mean really craving something, you know only the best will satisfy.  So I turned to my old high school yearbook where buried deep amongst big-banged girls and mulleted guys, I have preserved the one and only go-to recipe for chocolate chip cookies.

One of my best friends from high school, Megan, made the meanest chocolate chip cookie around.  I lived for the days she would whip up a batch and bring some to school to share with the rest of us.  I mean, these cookies were to die for.  I could never understand what she did to make them so good because I just could never make mine taste as good as hers.  (Here's a hint...she did not follow the recipe on the back of the Toll House bag.)  Her cookies just melted in your mouth and made you want another....but the catch was, you really shouldn't eat another.  They were so darn rich and good that a second one usually made me sick to my stomach which seems like a weird thing to say about a cookie that you absolutely love, but it is what it is.

Today I decided it had been too long since I'd had one (coming up on 20 years, to be exact), so I dug out the ol' yearbook and found the recipe...and promptly realized two things: 1) I did not have enough eggs to make the recipe and 2) when Megan gave me this secret recipe, she forgot to say what temperature to bake them at.  The egg problem was solved quite easily...a great friend gave me the one egg I needed.  As for the oven temp, I decided to just wing it and go with 350 degrees...because it seems like everything bakes at that temp.

I have to say, the cookies turned out almost exactly how I remembered them.  Not 100% the same, but I'm thinking that's just the extra added "Megan" touch that only she will ever be able to give to these cookies.  Still, it's nice to know when I need a blast from the past, I can come almost close enough to the real thing.

Now I'm off with my cookie and a glass of milk...I think some old 90210 re-runs are in order.

*Oh, and if you are wondering where the recipe is, it's hidden safely in my yearbook...according to what is written, there are only 3 others besides Megan who have this "special" recipe.  If you really want some, just ask me to make them for you!

Chocolate Cherry Milkshake

I just love the days leading up to vacation.  The anticipation of fun times to be had, only overshadowed by the hassle of having to do endless loads of laundry so that everyone in the family will be able to take along their most favored outfits.  And then there's the week of the most random dinners as you attempt to "clean out" the fridge so you aren't throwing away spoiled food when you come home.

That's where we are this week.  Between the mounds of laundry and the endless batches of cookies I'm trying to get baked to take with us, I'm pretty much pooped.  Dinner was less than stellar...one of those fend-for-yourself nights that our kids love because they get the Mac & Cheese and hot dogs they'd eat for every meal if we let them.  As I scrounged for what random items would become my dinner, I realized that we still have over half a bag of fresh cherries sitting in the fridge.  Seriously, what am I going to do with these?!  The kids aren't eating through them quick enough and it's just too many cherries for me to eat by myself in 3 days.  Then I happened to see a coupon magnet-ed to the freezer door...for a free Blizzard from DQ.  And it hit me.  I could make a homemade blizzard-y thing and I could throw in cherries...and chocolate, because you can't have a Blizzard and not have chocolate in it.  And so quick as a wink, I whipped up a batch of chocolate cherry milkshakes.  No real recipe, because let's face it, everyone has there preference for how thick a shake/Blizzard/Frosty thing should be.  I just tossed in some vanilla ice cream, a handful of fresh, pitted cherries, some milk and a few good squeezes of chocolate shop.  A few pulses in the Magic Bullet, a sprinkle of mini chocolate chips and BEHOLD....the Chocolate Cherry Milkshake.  The kids woofed it down (oh...not surprised about this at all) and asked for seconds.  (This was no surprise either.)  And then my oldest (the pickiest kid ever) claimed that it was better than a Blizzard from DQ.  Awesome...looks like we can save ourselves a little bit of money and start making our own concoctions here at home.

DIY Cookie Cutters

I heart Callye over at The Sweet Adventures of Sugarbelle.  Seriously, her cookies are simply amazing...I could only wish to be half as good as her.  A couple of months ago, she wrote a blog post about how she made her own custom cookie cutter.  I immediately tucked that bit of knowledge in the back of my brain because I knew someday I would need a cookie cutter that I couldn't buy.  Well, today is that day.

While out running errands this afternoon, I stopped by the local cake shop to pick up some things I need for the cookies I'm taking on our beach vacation next week....with the entire family in tow.  Of course, I couldn't just run in and grab what I needed...I had to peruse the cookie cutter section because there just might be something I needed.  The kids were of course touching everything...declaring we needed this cutter or that.  One of the cutters my youngest pointed out made my husband remark that it looked like a Meeple.

Now I know what you are thinking...what in the heck is a Meeple?!  Seriously, only a board game geek would know what one is...it's one of the playing pieces to the game Carcassonne (one of the greatest games out there).  Anyway, when I heard my husband say that, I immediately realized that this was something have to do.  I have to make Meeple cookies to take on our beach vacation where my husband and his friends will spend hours upon hours playing this geeky game.  And what would go better with the game than a nice cold beer and a Meeple cookie?! 

We scoped out all the gingerbread-y shaped cutters and I settled on a small one that had a similar shape to a Meeple.  I figured I could re-bend it a little to get a closer shape.  Yeah...easier said than done.  I think I abandoned that idea in about 2.5 seconds.  And then I remembered Sugarbelle's tutorial on how to make your own cookie cutters and knew that this was the day I would be making my first homemade cutter.

It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be to make the cutter.  Of course, it could have been easier to make if I weren't so much of a perfectionist.  But in the end I'm pretty pleased with how my first DIY cutter turned out.  I can't wait to test it out tomorrow!!