Blog Archives
Some More S’mores Please!
I am not a sweets lover. Give me a bag of potato chips and I’m a happy camper. That was until my friend Jen brought over her scrumptious S’mores Bars.
I wanted just the slightest bite from one of my kids bar. After taking the bite, the sky opened, the harps played and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The slight bit of salt mixed into the sweet and sticky marshmallow, and that nostalgic bite of a Hershey bar all combined perfectly by a not overly sweet graham cracker dough. OMG!!!!!
Certainly this incredible mash-up must have been hiding in someone’s recipe vault for years. I had never …ever…heard of S’mores Bars before. But alas, it wasn’t. Jen found it online. She said her twins were wanting S’mores a lot and she just didn’t want to deal with the whole process of making them again and again. Building a fire or lighting the grill, finding something to roast the marshmallows on. And the sticky finger mess of two young kids…yup… I AGREE 100%.
Whatever magic led her to this amazingly delicious treat, I’m so thankful for it. So now let’s get cooking!
Baked S’mores
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/3 cups flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (approximately 7 full graham crackers)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
2 or 3 super sized Hershey chocolate bars (plain)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)
Preheat Oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom of an 11×7.
In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs ,baking powder and salt.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until combined.
Divide Dough in half. Press half of the mixture into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan.
Place chocolate bars over dough in a single layer. You may have to break up the bar to make it fit.
Spread marshmallow fluff evenly over the chocolate layer. Hint, grease your spreader with non stick spray or butter so it doesn’t stick too much.
Place remaining dough in a gallon size zip close baggie. Using your palms, or a rolling pin, flatten the dough out the full width and length of the baggie. Use scissors to cut three sides of the bag and open it up carefully and flip it on top of the marshmallow. Carefully peel the bag up. SPread the dough where it is uneven.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into the bars.
Devour!
Recipes, Recipes, Recipes!
I am a recipe hoarder. There. I said it! I love recipes from cookbooks, recipes from the local food section (what’s left of it anyway), recipes from magazines, recipes from food tv cooking shows and recipes from the internet. I can’t seem to get enough. I print them, cut them, file and store them. Once in a while, I actually try them.
My family loves new recipe days. A delicious home cooked meal waiting for them to return from their daily activities. Something different. Something creative. I love these days too. The problem is they seem to come fewer and far between lately. The heat of summer just hasn’t made me want to cook ANYTHING! The insanity of our weekly schedule has hardly afforded me the energy to sit down and plan anything unique.
I think often about the movie Julie & Julia. The film where Amy Adams, who plays Julie, starts on an adventure to cook through the entire collection of Julia Child’s first cookbook. She subsequently blogs about her daily adventure. I would love to try something aspiring like that. The only problem is I just can’t see myself cooking rabbit, offal and other questionable meats. I mean eeeeew! Maybe one day, I’ll cook myself through my thousands of recipes.
Motivation to try a new recipe, however, arrived last week thanks to The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. I love her recipes. They usually involve way too many steps and pots and pans. But she posted this soup recipe that intrigued me. Ten Can Soup. That’s it. Ten Cans. Oh…and some Velveeta Cheese Product.
By personal choice, I usually don’t open a lot of cans and I avoid anything that includes a word indicating it is processed. But what the heck, I thought I’d give it a try. And I am so glad I did. My family loved it. Ad I literally put it all together in less than 15 minutes TOTAL!
Here is the recipe. Drop me a line and let me know what your family thinks.
TEN CAN SOUP
1 can meat only (no beans) chili ( I might use two next time)
1 can 15oz. kidney beans
1 can 15 oz. pinto beans
1 can 15 oz. black beans
1 can 15 oz. diced tomatoes
1 can 15 oz. corn (she used, as did I, Fiesta Variety)
1 can 10 oz. Rotel
Salt and Pepper to taste
8 oz. Velveeta, cubed.
Without draining the cans, dump them in a pot over high heat. The chili, kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, diced tomatoes, corn and the Rotel.
Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Add salt and pepper as needed.
Dice the cheese and stir it in.
Serve immediately.
Yup, that’s it! Enjoy!!!!
Be Creative!! Be Inspired!!
I have a secret! I have a crush on Tim Holtz. He is amazing. Whether I watch him on television, Youtube or live and in person, he inspires me. Every. Single. Time.
Tim Holtz
For those of you that aren’t familiar with him, Tim Holtz is an artist. He works for scrapbook and rubber stamp companies like Stampers Anonymous, Sizzix and Ranger Ink, designing stamps, die-cuts and multi-media materials like ink and paint. He then travels the world to demonstrate how to use these materials and tools. He’s written books. He’s re-designed scissors and lamps. He’s a genius. Both artistically and marketing-wise. I mean the man touches a product and millions of screaming fans buy it sight unseen.
When I am not in the kitchen cooking, I am at least dreaming about being in the craft room creating. Cards, scrapbooks…doesn’t matter as long as I am being creative. And here is where I fell in love with Mr. Holtz all over again yesterday.
I went to a Rubber Stamp Convention yesterday with my girlfriend Julie. We went to be inspired, but mainly we went to see Tim. Of course his totally insane fans made it difficult to see what he was doing. These relentless women wouldn’t budge an inch so we couldn’t see what amazing projects he was creating. But we could hear him. And what he said was just what I needed to hear.
Mr. Holtz talked about being sad that he gets comments on his blog posts and in person about people not being able to find the time to be crafty. He questioned what kind of life we are leading if we can’t even find one hour a month to do something for ourselves. And he’s right on the money.
“You just create. You gotta play!”-Tim Holtz
He offered a great suggestion. Schedule one hour a week…or one hour a month, even if it is in 20 or 30-minute increments and just do one thing. Just die-cut shapes. Then the next scheduled period just ink. After all the steps are complete your last appointment with yourself should be to assemble your pieces into the final project. Repeat.
This type of scheduling could work for any project that you can’t seem to “get to”. But for me, being creative is key.
Thanks Tim for once again inspiring me!
friday brews 