Peanut Butter Covered Pretzels

There's something about the salty and sweet combo of covered pretzels that just does me in.  Well one day my mind was a-brewin' and I came up with this little concoction that's easy peasy and so luscious! (grandma word alert)

Peanut Butter Covered Pretzels

You'll need:

• 1 bag white chips
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup peanut butter
• 3-4 cups pretzels

Melt white chips over low-medium heat in saucepan on the stove.  Stir constantly until smooth.  As soon as it's smooth, add peanut butter and continue stirring over low heat.  Make sure not to over heat because your chocolate will scorch!  Add pretzels one handful at a time and stir until well coated.  Spread out on wax paper or parchment paper to cool.  Enjoy!

Grape Salad

I promise from the bottom of my heart that you won't regret making this salad.  I got the recipe from my amazing sister-in-law after a picnic one Saturday.  It was honestly one of those things where I couldn't believe I had lived my life to that point without tasting it!  I'm not even kidding when I say that.  Now wherever I take this salad I get requests for the recipe so I know it's not just me who loves it!

Grape Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs grapes (I do half red and half green)
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 8 oz sour cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Cut grapes in half and place in large bowl.  Beat cream cheese until smooth then mix in sour cream, sugar, vanilla and brown sugar.  Fold in pecans.  (You probably noticed that pecans are optional.  While they aren't essential to the tastiness of this salad, I HIGHLY recommend using them - unless you are terribly allergic or can't stand them of course!  They add this perfect little edge though and are my favorite part of the dish!) Pour sauce over grapes and stir until all are coated evenly.  Voila!

Want to change it up?  Cut up apples are also yummy in this sauce.

Vanilla Pops

WARNING:  These are totally addicting! They are so simple - just 2 ingredients - but so glorious at the same time!  It's a perfect snack for conference (if you don't mind the risk of acquiring an extra pound while you chill, watch, listen and pop the pops).  But I present to you......

Vanilla Pops

Ingredients:

• 15 oz bag of corn pops
• 24 oz white chips (or morsels, if you will)

Directions:

• Empty 1/2 bag of corn pops into a large bowl.  If you have a GINORMO -sized bowl you can attempt doing the whole thing at once but even my largest bowl, which is 32 cups/7.5 liters, doesn't leave me enough room to mix it up with more than half the bag.
• Melt chips over low-medium heat on the stove or in the microwave.  I usually microwave by putting them in there for 30 seconds, stirring, then back in and stirring every 15 seconds until smooth.
• Pour half the "chocolate" over your pops and stir until well coated
• Spread on wax paper to cool
• Repeat with the 2nd half of the pops and chocolate

They take maybe 15 minutes to cool and set.  These make a great treat for neighbors and kids love them!

Frozen-themed Birthday Party

 If your house is anything like mine, it's filled with the songs of Disney's Frozen pretty much around the clock!  So when it came time for my little lady's 6th birthday celebration, it was no surprise to me that she had Frozen on the brain.  Here are a few fun things we did...

Bag of "Olaf Parts"

I got cellophane bags and put in about 10 mini marshmallows, 3 pretzel sticks, about 20 mini chocolate chips and one orange sixlet.  You could also use candy corn or any other orange candy (for the nose).  The only thing I'd change is that next time I'll use 3 regular sized marshmallows and 2 minis (for his feet).  The kids all wanted to build Olaf and the little mallows were a little hard to get around the pretzel stick.  It worked great with 3 because they used one as the base and the other 2 for arms.  Click on the image below to use the tags.

Frozen Jello Ice Cubes

First of all, blue jello is officially the most delicious.  All I did for these was mix a few boxes of blue jello with the amount of water it calls for on the box to make jigglers.  Then I sprayed a glass 8x8 pan with cooking spray and poured it in.  Refrigerate jello to allow it to set.  I actually stuck it in the freezer because I was under a little bit of a time crunch.  Once jigglers are set, cut into squares and place in a serving dish.  Then place in the freezer for a few minutes to allow edges to form a lighter blue "frosty" finish.  So fun!  The kiddos loved these!

Snowman and Snowflake Cupcakes

Snowmen: make any kind of cupcake and frost with your favorite kind of white frosting.  I sprinkled white glitter sprinkles to give it a glittery texture.  Glitter sprinkles can be found at most party stores.  I used mini chocolate chips for the eyes and mouth and an orange sixlet for the nose.  Orange Mike&Ikes cut in half or orange jelly bellys would also be cute.

Snowflakes:  Because we already had blue "ice" I thought the cupcakes were a great place to add some purple to go along with the movie's color scheme.  I added gel food coloring to my white frosting to get this bright fun color.  I made the snowflakes ahead of time by melting white almond bark and placing it in one of these...

I used the end with the smallest completely round opening with no added textures.  Then I drew snowflakes on a cookie sheet covered in wax paper.  Remember, no two snowflakes are exactly alike!  Place in freezer to allow snowflakes to harden completely.  After cupcakes are frosted but frosting is still wet, place one snowflake on each cupcake. Then I sprinkled more of the glitter to give it the fun snowy look.

I leave you with just one simple question... Do YOU want to build a snowman?

Turkey Bacon Ranch Stromboli

Last weekend we hosted a shin-dig for the Super Bowl.  I whipped up this delicious stromboli for the occasion and it was a hit!  It was so flavorful and SUPER easy!  Here's how it works:

Ingredients:
One loaf of frozen bread dough
Shortening
Ranch dressing
2 cups shredded cheese (divided)
1/3-1/2 pound turkey deli meat
1/2 cup crumbled bacon pieces (I totally cheat and buy the little 2.5 ounce pouch from the salad aisle)
Onion powder

Coat a loaf of frozen bread dough in a thin layer of shortening and place in the center of a cookie sheet.  You could most definitely make your own bread dough, I'm just not really into that sort of thing (despite my mom's deepest desires - she's a bread/roll making pro. I'll have to bring her in as a guest speaker for those recipes!).  Then cover in plastic wrap and let it rise until it doubles in size.  It takes about 4-6 hours.  If it hasn't risen enough when I need to put the stromboli together, I just put it on top of my stove and turn the oven on.  The hot air rising from the oven is usually enough to get it rising a little faster.

Once the dough has thawed and risen, flatten it out to fill the surface of the cookie sheet.  Brush on some Ranch dressing.  A pretty thin layer will give you quite a bit of flavor but be as generous as you'd like, depending on your taste.  Then layer one cup of shredded cheese, turkey deli meat, crumbled bacon pieces, one more cup of shredded cheese and sprinkle onion powder lightly across the top.

Fold ends up like so:

And then wrap the sides in to close up your stromboli.

Flip it over so it's seam-down.  If you're just making the one, you can cook it in the center of the cookie sheet.  Since I was cooking for the masses (as I tend to do even when it's not necessary) I cooked two on a cookie sheet.

Bake for 25-35 minutes @ 350 degrees.  Just watch closely and take out when it's a nice golden brown.

Let it cool for just a couple minutes and slice into 2 inch sections.  Look at that gooey deliciousness!