Caramel Pumpkin Rice Crispy Treats

I have totally become that girl on Pinterest who goes crazy for fall and re-pins every last pumpkin whatever recipe. But what other times of the year do we get to eat so much pumpkin and not feel like an addict? Never. And it’s a wonderful time of year.

I brought these in to my last day of work at my previous job and my coworker justified eating them at 9am because  “rice crispies are cereal and cereal is breakfast!” I may just use that logic more often when it comes to treats in the AM.

 

 

Caramel Pumpkin Rice Crispy Treats

• 6 cups rice crispies
• 1/2 cup caramel ice cream topping
• 2 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 1 bag of mini marshmallows
• 3 tbsp butter

1. Melt butter in a sauce pan.
2. Add bag of marshmallows and stir constantly until melted.
3. Immediately remove from heat and add caramel and pumpkin pie spice.
4. (If you’re me, move to a much larger bowl and) Add melty goodness to rice crispies and stir your heart out.
5. Add batter to a greased 9×13 pan, flatten with a greased spatula and let it cool.

Taste Rating: 6/10

I really wanted these to be excellent, but they kind of fell short for me. The rice crispy cereal was kind of soggy, and I couldn’t really taste the caramel. They were also wayyyy gooey-er than usual rice crispies (I’m guessing the caramel had something to do with that) and didn’t feel like they’d ever completely set up.

Ease of Cooking: 9/10

Confession – I’d never actually made rice crispy treats before this. I was really glad the recipe was so simple, and if you follow it to a tee, I can’t imagine how you could screw this up. It seems like I had roommates in college mess up rice crispy treats all the time and now I’m seriously questioning their intelligence.

 

Thanks to 30 Handmade Days for the great Fall recipe!

Chocolate Caramel Crinkle Cookies

Alliteration. Big time. But totally worth it.

 

Chocolate Caramel Crinkle Cookies

• 1 package fudge brownie mix (9X13 inch pan size)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• About 24 caramels, cut in half
• Powdered Sugar, for rolling

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. In a large bowl beat the brownie mix, flour, egg, water and oil until well blended.
3. Place powdered sugar into a separate bowl. Scoop up a tablespoonful of dough (you can use a cookie scoop if you want, but it will still work if you don’t have one) and push a piece of caramel in the middle.
4. Roll the dough around the caramel so it is completely covered.
5. Drop by tablespoonfuls into the powdered sugar and gently roll, shaping into a ball.
6. Place 2 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes or until set.
7. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

 

Sometimes, if you eat these when they’re still hot, you will burn your mouth. And die.

No but really, it’s super painful. Wait for these to cool. You will regret it for weeks if you don’t.

And this happens sometimes.

All the caramel-y goodness comes out in one bite and you’re left with a brownie cave covered in powdered sugar (while never a bad thing, it’s still kind of sad in this case).

 

Taste Rating: 8/10

I don’t know if there’s a bad way to eat powdered sugar, brownie and caramel, so these were bound to be delicious. But, like I said before, I ate these too soon and wanted to cry (again, my impatient self). Boiling hot caramel sticks to your mouth and buuuuurns like no other. Don’t eat these right for at least, uhh, 10 minutes? Wait at least that long.

Ease of Cooking: 7/10

It was kind of hard to get the brownie over the caramel and some of the caramel leaked out during baking and made the cookies stick to the pan (also made washing the melted caramel off really difficult). Then to also cover the already fragile balls of brownie/caramel with powdered sugar – it was just messier than I expected, so be prepared for that.

 

Thanks to Six Sisters’ Stuff for the recipe!

Monkey Bread

because I’m an idiot (and always hungry), I always eat my food before I remember that I have a food blog and should probably take a photo of it before I scarf half of it down.

soooooooooorry.

Monkey Bread

• 1 can of pop biscuits
• 3/4 cup margarine
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a bread pan.
2. Cut biscuits into quarters.
3. Melt about 1/4 cup of the margarine in the microwave (or stove if you’re fancy).
4. Toss biscuit chunks in melted margarine, just enough to coat the pieces.
5. Melt the brown sugar and remaining margarine (again, through melting method of choice).
6. Put the biscuit pieces in the bread pan and cover with melted sugar mix (and optional cinnamon).
7. Cook at 350 until “not doughy” – I think I cooked it for a little under 20 minutes? but my oven is also crazy. Go by the biscuit wrapper directions.

Taste Rating: 10/10

This was our favorite dessert as kids in my house. We would always fight over who got the pieces at the bottom covered in the most sugary goodness. I could probably eat the whole pan by myself (I may have eaten like half before asking my roommate if she wanted some). I never add cinnamon and it’s divine without it.

Ease of Cooking: 9.9/10

I also like to base the ease of this recipe on it’s cost. Super simple, and the oven is what takes the longest part. Definitely my kind of recipe (and will of necessity be repeated again very soon).

 

Thanks to my mommy dear for this recipe. I found decent ones online, but I wanted my mom’s recipe. Of course, she never uses recipes so I bugged her about it and she made one up for me 🙂 Now that’s love.

Chicken Pillows

So my new roommate and I put up this quote above our kitchen wall yesterday.

I think it’s pretty fitting – especially considering I’m an excellent cook. wink wink.

Good thing it doesn’t say “I kiss better than a photograph my meals” because nobody would kiss me ever.

(Thank you to my dear friend Joy for the vinyl and her cute vinyl store.)

 

Last night I was determined to make these chicken pillows – even though we were invited to two different dinners and ate half a pan of 7 layer dip beforehand. C’est la vie.

We were really really full though.

 

Chicken Pillows

• 3 chicken breasts
• 1/2 block of cream cheese
• 1 pop can of croissant dough

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a cookie sheet.
2. Cook and season the chicken in your favorite chicken-cooking way. I just threw it in a crockpot for a couple hours with some pepper and onion.
3. Shred cooked chicken and mix with cream cheese.
4. Unroll croissant dough and fill with chicken cheese mixture.
5. Bake for 10 minutes.

Taste Rating: 9.9/10

I want to eat these every day. I may just make them again tomorrow. They just melt in your mouth and make you very very sad when they’re gone. This only made about 8 pillows, but we had extra filling left, so make sure you buy lots of dough if you want them to go farther.

Ease of Cooking: 9.875/10

So you can make these look prettier by actually folding the croissant dough into balls around the chicken mixture, but I didn’t even go that far. Seriously – chicken, cream cheese, croissant dough from a can. How much easier can it get?? This was the easiest thing I’ve made since I started this blog and they make everybody happy.

Thanks to uh… common sense? life? … for this recipe!

White Chicken Enchiladas

So I apologize that this is way more than 5 ingredients. But it’s worth it – I kid you not, I’ve been craving these since Tuesday. I want to make these every day for dinner now.

And I’m sorry I’m very clearly not the queen of food photography. Just bear with me please. Also this was taken late because we were so anxious to eat them (aka – why half the tray is gone).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

White Chicken Enchiladas

• 10 soft taco shells ( or tortillas)
• 2 cups cooked, shredded chicken
• 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 3 Tbsp. flour
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup sour cream (or greek yogurt)
• 1 (4 oz) can diced green chilies

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9×13 pan
2. Mix chicken and 1 cup cheese.  Roll up in tortillas and place in pan.
3. In a sauce pan, melt butter, stir in flour and cook 1 minute.  Add broth and whisk until smooth.  Heat over medium heat until thick and bubbly.
4. Stir in sour cream and chilies.  Do not bring to boil, you don’t want curdled sour cream.
5. Pour over enchiladas and top with remaining cheese.
6. Bake 22 min and then under high broil for 3 min to brown the cheese.

Taste Rating: 9.75/10

Gooooood heaven these are wonderful. I made them for the boys that helped me move across a parking lot into a new apartment and they were very very happy. I’m not a big fan of red sauce enchiladas, but I could eat these all day every day. And paired with my roommates spanish rice… mmmmmm. They were so so so so heavenly.

Ease of Cooking: 8.5/10

If you know how to make a rue (which is the flour/butter mixture from step 2), these are really simple. Having a rotisserie or pre-cooked chicken would make it even easier, but it still took me like an hour tops to assemble everything once I had cooked chicken.

Thanks to Joyful Momma’s Kitchen for the recipe!

The green monster (aka – Elphaba juice)

Okay so I was super hesitant about this – it looks like that slime from those hilarious 90s Nickelodeon shows like Double Dare. Ridiculous.

But I gave it a shot because the post said it didn’t taste like healthy goop. Good thing I’m a trusting person. And she was right! For a juice made of spinach and peanut butter and yogurt- was actually pretty dang good!!

Green Monster Juice. Or Elphaba Juice.

• 1 slides banana, frozen or not
• 1 tablespoon peanut butter
• 1/2 cup (or one to go cup) Greek yogurt
• 1 cup milk
• 4 cups baby spinach (more or less)

1. Blend banana and peanut butter
2. Add yogurt and milk- blend that all together
3. Fill the rest of your blender with baby spinach and, you guessed it, blend!!

Taste Rating: 8.5/10

Other than the green appearance, this juice tastes really good! You can’t taste the spinach, so it mostly just tastes like banana and peanut butter – although I’d add more peanut butter next time 🙂 And I expected it to be more of a smoothie consistency, so I may try adding ice or freezing my banana if I make this again. But it’s a great way to force me to eat spinach. I also have a reeeeeeeally hard time with the consistency of Greek yogurt (I know, I know. I’m so not trendy) but this was great! No weird yogurt consistency.

Ease of Cooking: 9.5/10

Seriously. It’s just a blender. Great for a quick breakfast or after workout boost. And yummy 🙂

The hardest part was washing out the blender.

Thanks to Iowa Girl Eats for the recipe!

Pizza Factory Breadsticks

Being away from Utah and away from Pizza Factory has been a sad sad thing.

Luckily, these are spot on when it comes to those yummy breadstick twists. And for those of you who’ve never partaken of this blessing – you’d better make these ASAP.

… Also this is apparently carb week. Sorry to everyone’s diet in advance.

Pizza Factory Breadsticks

• Rhodes rolls–2 per breadstick (or make your own homemade bread dough! lots of easy recipes online- third comment down on this site is the one I used)
• 2-3 Tbsp melted butter
• 1/4 tsp garlic salt
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp dill weed
• 18″ bamboo skewers (or some kind of long skinny skewers)

1. Let dough rise. Then knead two rolls together and roll into a thin rope.
2. Twist the rope around the skewer and balance them across the width of a cake pan (you can place them on a greased cookie sheet, but they’ll have flat marks on the bottom when they’re done baking).
3. Let twists rise till doubled.
4. While they are baking, combine the glaze ingredients so the flavors will blend.
5. Bake twists at 375 for about 12-15 minutes or till golden brown.
6. Remove from oven and brush with the butter glaze.

Taste Rating: 9.5/10

These breadsticks are seriously soooooooooooooo yummy and super addicting. I dare you to try to eat just one. Pretty sure it’s impossible. Even my fitness-saint mother couldn’t help herself. I made them when I was home and my family ate the entire batch! And the dill – dill is a weird-ish thing to have (at least for me), but find a friend with some dill that you can borrow and trade them for a finished breadstick. They will be so so so happy. The dill is what makes these so divine.

Ease of Cooking: 8.5/10

Twisting the dough onto the skewer was kind of tricky, but once you’ve done a few, you get into a rhythm and it gets easier. Everything else was cake-sauce easy peasy.

Gah. Now I’m craving these again.

Thanks to recipe exchange!

English Muffin Bread

This was seriously YUMMIEST bread I’ve ever had!! I was so proud that I made this!

Now — I have never in my whole entire life made bread before, but I’ve wanted to try for a while. I couldn’t believe how easy this was!! It’s sooooo yummy toasted with butter and jam- I could just die. I really almost ate the whole loaf tonight. I feel quite sick but it was totally worth it.

English Muffin Bread

• 5 1/2 cups warm water
• 3 packages RAPID RISE yeast (You can use regular yeast, but you will need to let is rise TWICE. Once in the bowl, til it reaches the top…and then again in the pans, til it reaches the top. With the RAPID RISE you only need to let it rise once in the pans.)
• 2 Tablespoons salt
• 3 Tablespoons sugar
• 11 cups flour

1. Mix altogether, then spoon into (4) well greased loaf pans.
2. Let dough rise in pans until dough reaches the top of the pans, and bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or until golden brown. (keep an eye on it for the last 10-15 minutes though.)
3. 10 minutes before done, brush with melted butter. Makes 4 loaves.
4. Bread will be moist at first. Allow to cool COMPLETELY before cutting.

taste rating: 10/10

like I said before, best bread I’ve ever had. no joke. it’s different than normal bread — it really is the consistency of English muffins. that being said, I don’t know if I ever want regular homemade bread again. especially when this was so stinkin easy!

ease of cooking: 9/10

this was a very very simple recipe — just throw everything in your mixer and be done with it. the only bummer was not having rapid rise yeast so I had to wait twice before I could get this goodness in the oven. even then, it was just a matter of patience, not a complicated recipe.

Special thanks to One Good Thing for this amazing recipe.

OMGosh Chicken

but that’s just what Pinterest calls it.

sorry it doesn’t look pretty, but it’s that weird brown mushy guy on the left.

OMGosh Chicken

• 4 [thawed] boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup yogurt or sour cream
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• italian bread crumbs

1. mix parm and yogurt/sour cream in a bowl
2. place chicken in a baking dish
3. cover chicken with sauce
4. sprinkle bread crumbs on top
5. bake for 20-30 [which actually means 45] mins [at 350]

taste rating: 5.5/10

I guess should’ve known before making this, but I’m not a big sour cream girl. so I tried to half the recipe and it turned out kinda weird. it ended up with this weird layer of sour cream on top, rather than baking in to the chicken. too much sour cream for my taste.

next time I would pick yogurt.

ease of cooking: 7/10

my biggest problem with this recipe is that it didn’t give me a temp. to cook the stupid chicken at! I guessed 350, but it took 45 minutes to cook the chicken all the way through. I also used frozen chicken that hadn’t been thawed, so that may have been part of the problem. everything else was simple enough though. the sauce took 2 seconds and it just sat in the oven, so that was nice.

on a personal note

so a little note about me.

and a little something I discovered the other night when I was going to make cookies.

there are four girls living in our house right now. it’s a decent sized house, and it never really feels cramped.

except for in the kitchen. there isn’t a lot of shelf space in our kitchen. there also isn’t anything at eye-level for any of us. and that makes things tricky. case and point – my pantry food items are stored in a cabinet in the laundry room, just off the kitchen. why? I was the last one to move in and there was zero storage space when I got there. that being said, it’s a pretty good option. just about as good as any of the other shelves in the main kitchen area.

this is my view of my shelf from where I stand. and that is our ceiling at the top of the photo. at 5’6″, I can reach the bottom shelf, and the stuff on the front of the 2nd shelf, but to get to anything else, I have to climb on the washing machine to get it. totally awesome. I hit my head on the ceiling last night trying to get the flour down.

I also have my own fridge and freezer (kind of cool,  you’d think), but it’s in the garage. so I never ever want to cook anything because all my food is either hard to get to or …. well, no that’s really it. I forget that I know how to bake or that I have ample baking supplies because I can’t ever see them or reach them without very determined effort.

first world problems, I know. but, basically all I’m trying to say is, that whole “out of sight, out of mind”  TOTALLY works. just in case you ever feel the need to test it for yourself, don’t because I’ve already done it for you.

you’re welcome.