Last Minute Treats and Handmade Gifts

I am so cookied out! I keep thinking of other cookie recipes I want to make, but in reality, I really don't want to stand on my feet in the kitchen for hours on end, reaching into the hot oven. After baking 22 dozen cookies, I'm looking for an easy way out. And these cookie sandwiches are the golden ticket. 

I found these on my friend, Michelle's blog, One Ordinary Day and they could not be simpler. The hardest part was unwrapping all the shiny gold foil off the chocolate covered caramels, the rest was just easy peasy. You line up your crackers, top them with Rolos, bake for 3-5 minutes, then top with another Ritz and you're done. From start to finish, these took me about 10 minutes, so if you're in need of a quick sweet treat, these are for you. 

Rolo Stuffed Ritz Crackers adapted from One Ordinary Day

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• Rolo Candies
• Ritz Crackers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Place Ritz crackers on a cookie sheet face side down, and top each one with a Rolo candy.

Bake for 3-5 minutes to soften (but not fully melt) the Rolos, Remove from the oven and immediately top  the Rolos with a second Ritz cracker. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container. 

NOTE: There are about 55 Rolos candies per bag. 

If you need a last minute gift for the grandparents, these salt dough ornaments are perfect. You only need three ingredients to make the dough, and acrylic paint and ribbon to embellish them. You can make them as fancy or as simple as you want, it's the handprint and the memory of spending time with your child that's important. 

Salt Dough Handprint Ornaments adapted from Once A Month Mom 

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• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 cup salt
• 7 tbsp water
• Round cookie cutter large enough to go around the handprint
• 1 drinking straw
• Craft paint
• Ribbon

Preheat oven to 250°F. 

Mix together flour, salt, and water. Knead for 10 minutes til smooth and no longer sticky. Add a little flour at a time, if necessary.  

Roll out the dough to no more than 1/4-inch thick, then use the cookie cutter (or glass) to make rounds. Press a hand into dough. If you’re doing this with really little ones, you may have to go back and make deeper impressions of their hands with your fingers or a kitchen utensil–the deeper the impression, the better your ornaments will turn out. 

Use a straw to poke a hole in each ornament (this is where the ribbon will go later). Place on a baking sheet and bake for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until ornaments have completely dried out. 

Remove the tray from the oven, once they're cool enough to handle, place ornaments on a cooling rack and allow to cool before painting. Paint or decorate as you want. When the decorations have dried, thread ribbon through the hole. Hang on your tree. 

A Tasty Snack and A Winner

Hope everyone has has a nice week. I feel like it was just Mother's Day and now it's the weekend again. We had a great Mother's Day and took Hayden to the park to play on the swings for the first time. He was a little hesitant but he had fun and kept trying to eat the chain links (ewww!). The rest of the week was filled with doctor visits and appointments and I was kept very busy. I did manage to squeeze in a much needed haircut since I hadn't trimmed my hair since before Hayden was born! Needless to say, I did not get to bake up anything new this week so I'm sharing a treat I made earlier in the year. 

Mr. H loves this snack. His mom has been making Goldfish Bowl Bites for as far back as I can remember. She serves it in a giant glass round bowl that looks like a Goldfish bowl and she covers it with yellow plastic wrap that she's had in the cupboard for the last 10 years, that she inherited from her mother-in-law. It's kind of funny, but that never ending roll of Plastic wrap is finally used up. haha! My mother-in-law hasn't made these in awhile so when Mr. H gets the craving we whip up a batch together. 

This snack is buttery, crunchy salty, and loaded with Ranch flavor. The original recipe calls for pretzel crackers but those aren't my favorite so we just use the plain and cheddar Goldfish. You can use any combination you'd like, though I would avoid those with extra flavoring like the pizza and extra cheesy ones. We also like to add a bit more Ranch powder and pecans but that's just personal preference. My changes are noted below. My favorite thing about this recipe is when you get a clump of crackers that get a bit more love from the butter and Ranch topping. As they bake those pieces get nice and crusty and pack a punch of flavor. I like to dig those fishies out and eat them first- so good! This recipes makes a lot and would be good for large crowds, parties, or school events but could easily be halved. Enjoy!

Goldfish Bowl Bites
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• 2 (6 ounce) bags plain Goldfish® crackers* (see note)
• 1 (6 ounce) bag cheddar Goldfish® crackers
• 1 (6 ounce) bag pretzel Goldfish® crackers
• 1 cup pecan halves (I double this)
• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 envelope (3 Tablespoons) Ranch salad dressing mix (I use 4 Tbsp.) 

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

Combine crackers and pecans in large shallow roasting pan. Combine melted butter, Worcestershire and Ranch dressing mix. Pour over crackers; gently stir to coat. 

Bake 60 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

Once evenly toasted, remove from oven and allow to cool completely before serving.  

NOTE: Any combination of of Goldfish crackers will do. You just need 4 six-ounce bags. I like to use 2 plain, a bag of Cheddar and a bag of the baby Goldfish crackers. 

And the winner of the Chinet Bakeware is #42- Andrew's Mom of Mad Rantings of Andrew's Mom. Congratulations. Please email me with your address as soon as you can. Oh and send me your recipe for Mac and Cheese too :-)

Some Call It Crack

For my 100th post (2 years ago) I shared a recipe for Graham Break-Aways. It's a layered snack of graham crackers, buttery toffee, chocolate with a sprinkling of nuts on top. It's a decadent treat that my husband adores. I like them too, but I saw this recipe for saltine toffee and thought I'd give it a try. It's basically the same concept with salty crackers on the bottom instead of the grahams. And since we bought a case of Saltines from Sam's Club, I thought this was a good idea!

I did make a boo-boo when it came to the recipe though. It calls for 1 cup one butter, and I mistook that as 1 stick even though I read the recipe about 3 times as I was making it. I didn't realize my mistake until after I had taken them out of the oven- my bad! The saltine toffee was good but I'm sure it could have been better with the extra stick of butter...that's a no brainer! I liked these but still prefer the the ones made with grahams simply because of the texture of the cracker. Definitely super sweet and addicting though- some have even refereed to it as crack. Try it and decide for yourself!

Saltine Toffee from All Recipes

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• 35 saltine crackers (4 ounces)
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Line a cookie sheet with foil and spray with non-stick cooking spray. Spread out saltine crackers in single layer.

In a saucepan combine the sugar and the butter. Bring to a boil and boil for 3 minutes. Immediately pour over saltines and spread to cover crackers completely.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 5 to 6 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle chocolate chips over the top. Let sit for 5 minutes. Spread melted chocolate and top with chopped nuts.

Cool completely and break into pieces.

Dinner and Dessert for Jeanette

I dedicate this post to my friend Jeanette from Starting Over. On Monday, I got an email with some heartbreaking news- Jeanette passed away on Christmas morning.

Jeanette and I became friends in early 2010. She found this blog and emailed me to tell me that she loved and trusted the recipes I shared. You see, Jeanette was in a car accident several years ago and suffered some brain damage that affected her olfactory gland, which in turn meant that she could not taste or smell. She enjoyed textures and she ate for health, but she couldn't really enjoy food like you and I do. She relied on the people she cooked and baked for to tell her how something tasted. When she received requests for recipes, then she knew it was a keeper. One day she emailed me to say "You know because I can't taste I always come to your blog for new recipe ideas. I never worry about how things will turn out...you just don't know how much I appreciate you and your recipes. This is the first time since I lost my taste and smell that I am not afraid to try new things for my friends and family." That means the world to me.

This fall, Jeanette went in for back surgery to repair some ruptured discs. When she went home she was filled with nuts, bolts and screws holding her all together. She was in pain. Over the next few weeks, she returned to the hospital for more surgeries- a total of 6, I believe. Then she had a stroke which affected her speech. She was on bed rest and pumped full of drugs. All through this, she was still upbeat and positive. I was not there, I have never met her in person, but we communicated via email quite a bit, or when she was able to. I considered her my friend. She's still my friend though there will no longer be emails shared between us. I will miss that.

She was a kind soul and a symbol of strength. I don't know of anyone else who has been through so much and still had a smile on her face. She still laughed and joked and shared stories with me. She told me about how she would make costumes for her rabbits and dress them up as other animals. She told me about her pot belly pigs- Hamlet and Yam Yam and how when they were little she tried to sneak them into WalMart. And how she bakes them cornbread on their birthdays. ha! More recently she took her dogs to the drug store to get their passport photos taken, just because she wanted decent photos of them. She told the people there that her dogs were famous and they needed passports to travel outside the country. She was a hoot! She loved animals and had several dogs to keep her company and love on.

Jeanette shared with me memories of her late daughter Jenee', which I was more than happy to read about, honored really. I don't know why Jeanette's life was cut short. I don't know many details of her death except for that she is no longer here. I do know that she loved her husband and her family with all of her heart and she'd do anything for them. She had a big, generous heart and I will never forget her. I believe there is a Heaven, and that Heaven is anything you dream it can be. I believe in my heart, that in her Heaven, she no longer hurts. And that she joins her daughter, her father and her dogs, Keelie and Ning.

In her Heaven, there will be scramble dogs and soft chocolate chip cookies and she will not only eat them, she will taste and enjoy them! These two recipes came from her blog. The scramble dogs are basically chopped up chili dogs in a bowl with the added crunch of oyster crackers on top. The chocolate chip cookies are thick and soft and a favorite of her husbands. We ate them and felt like she was sitting down with us for dinner. I hope you'll make them and feel the same.

Aunt Nette's Scramble Dogs adapted from Starting Over

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• 1 hot dog bun, toasted and chopped
• 1 all beef wiener, cooked and chopped
• chili
• chopped onions
• mustard
• 4 dill pickle slices, chopped
• shredded cheddar cheese
• oyster crackers

Toast a hot dog bun and cook your wiener. Chop both into bite sized pieces and set aside.

Place your chopped and toasted hot dog bun in a bowl. Scatter the wiener on top of the bun and pour chili over it.

Top with shredded cheddar cheese, diced onion, dill pickles slices, and a squirt of mustard. Top scramble dog with a handful of oyster crackers. Dig in!

Serves 1

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies from AR via Starting Over

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• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 (3.4 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.

Drop cookies by rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.

Makes approx. 3 dozen.

NOTE: I used a medium ice cream scoop to portion out the cookie dough. I got 32 cookies and baked them for 13 minutes on parchment lined sheets.

Please, please please, take a moment to visit her blog and leave a note for her husband, Doug. He is stationed in Saudi Arabia for work and is trying to make his way back to the States to be with his wife. I'm not sure if he's made it home yet, but prayers for him would be much appreciated. I wish him peace and blessings.

Jeanette you will be missed.

~Monica H

Sweet and Salty

Here's another quick treat for anytime of year but also really simple and good enough for a Halloween party. My MIL used to make these all the time- Chocolate covered peanut butter crackers. mmm!

There's no recipe, just an idea. And even at that it's nothing new. But I think it's a cute idea to make for the holidays because you can use different colored chocolate and sprinkles for any occasion. Just think white chocolate with red and green sprinkles or crushed peppermint candies for Christmas, milk chocolate with pink heart sprinkles for Valentine's Day or semi sweet chocolate with Autumn leaves and pumpkins like these for Fall.

I used packaged toasty crackers with the peanut butter already in them but you could easily buy some Ritz crackers and fill them with your favorite PB. My neighbor makes these every year to put on her Christmas trays. They provide the perfect balance of salty and sweet. If you've been reading long then you know that I'm not generally a fan of chocolate and peanut butter together unless it's Chex Mummy Mix, but these I love- lots of chocolate, the salty crunch of the crackers and the nuttiness of the peanut butter. Enjoy!

Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Crackers

• peanut butter filled crackers
• chocolate chips
• sprinkles (optional)

Melt chocolate in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time til smooth and lump free. Stir gently as to not incorporate any air bubbles.

Dip crackers in the chocolate and coat then on all sides. Pick up chocolate coated cracker with a fork. Shake off excess chocolate by gently tapping on the side of the bowl.

Place on wax paper and top with sprinkles of choice. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container or in the freezer up to 3 months.

NOTE: I was able to cover 54 sandwich crackers with a bag and a half of chocolate chips- about 18 ounces.

I used Lance crackers, Guittard semi sweet chocolate chips and Wilton sprinkles and pumpkins.

These 3 crackers for especially made for the little boy I nanny for. He has a thing for sprinkles!

Stay tuned for one more Halloween treat coming up Saturday morning!