Maple Nut Sticky Buns

Okay, these are pretty easy. Considering I was able to make them all by myself and they turned out good the first try, they're easy. I thought the maple syrup thing would make them taste gross, (I'm only a fan of maple syrup on certain occasions) but they were good too!

Ingredients:

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts

1/2 cup maple syrup

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 pckg quick-rising active yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup warm water (120-130 degree F)

6 tablespoons softened butter, divided

1 egg at room temp

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar, divided

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Grease 13 x 9 baking pan, spread pecans and maple syrup evenly over bottom.

2. Combine 2 cups flour, granulated sugar, yeast and salt in large bowl. Mix in water, 2 tablespoons butter and egg. Beat until smooth. Gradually stir in remaining flour until soft dough forms. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.

3. On lightly floured surface, roll dough to 15 x 12 inch rectangle. Spread with remaining butter. Mix brown sugar with cinnamon. Sprinkle over surface. Starting with a 12-inch side, roll up tightly.

4. Cut into 12 slices. Place cut side down in prepared pan. Cover with plastic wrap, place on wire rack set over large pan of hot water. Let rise until buns double, 30-45 minutes. Preheat oven to 375. Uncover buns. Bake until golden brown, 25-30 minutes. Cool for one minute. Loosen edges, invert onto a serving plate. Serve warm.


Okay, so story with this one: I don't know if you remember last semester I had that ridiculously horrible week, and the icing on the cake was my broken car. The whole flat tire thing. Well Mike, Tom's brother, basically saved the day. On a few occasions. He kept saying it was a good break from homework, and he misses working on cars, so he didn't need anything in return. But c'mon, he's a Possin boy, he needed some food for payment. So i made these for him and brought him to his apartment. Good times.

oatmeal cookie bars

You guys know these... can't believe they weren't up here yet. And I needed the recipe, so I called mom and am typing it straight from her...

1/2 c butter
1/3 c white sugar
1/3 c brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 c quick oats
1 6 oz pckge chocolate chips.

(double for 13x9)

350 for 20-25 mins, greased pan.

This recipe comes from the green cook book that the Grand Rapids ward put together. It's only the best cookie bar ever, and I am going to make a double batch tonight, just to make me feel better about my job. It's the classic comfort food. Childhood memories, chocolate chips, cinnamon, and that warm oven feeling.

Crunchy Granola Suite

Okay, So this isn't a recipe, I just wanted to tell you a story

On the way to Utah, I was playing Aaron's i-pod and listening to, of course, Neil Diamond. And there is a song called "crunchy granola suite"

Cailey and I were at the grocery store, and I saw good granola bars on sale, so when I picked them up, I started doing a little dance in the aisle and singing "Let me hear that, let me near that crunchy granola SUITE!!"

I tried to find the meaning of the lyrics, and guess what!?...nobody knows.

P.S. its behaviors like this that got me my dates for every night this week. :)


Then I found 15 bucks. Just sitting there. In the cereal aisle.

***EDIT- I don't really have a date every night this week. That was a joke.

The Most Amazing Salad

Seriously, if I had to give up either chocolate or this salad, I'd choose to never eat chocolate again. Its that good.

1 bag of fresh baby spinach
1 chicken breast, cooked and cubed
1 jar marinated artichoke hearts, diced
1 can of pears, sliced
handful of walnuts
handful of bacon bits
handful of fresh parmesan cheese
a bit of poppyseed dressing

If I don't have some of the ingredients on hand, I just leave them out and its still a pretty good salad. The parmesan cheese is really expensive, and the artichoke hearts are only affordable if you buy them in buk at Sam's Club. Only use a little big of the salad dressing- enough to flavor, but don't coat the spinach in it at all. Its not at all good for you and the less you use the better health wise. And soggy spinach is gross anyway. So just flavor, don't drench.

I've had this for lunch for the past few days, and wow, thats become my favorite meal of the day. I like to think its healthy because of the spinach. If you use the rest of the ingredients sparingly, I suppose it is healthy.

Oreo Truffles

Well, ya'll already know how to make these, but I'll put them up anyways.

I had a really good sunday school teacher when I was 17 and she brought us oreo truffles one week, because we were such a great class. Then I planned a laurels activity for us to go to her house and learn how to make them. They are so easy, but sooooo good....but sooo bad for you.

Then I made them when we went to Denver for Thanksgiving one year, and Aunt Paulene decided to learn how to make them and sell them in her candy business.

Now I have to make them every Thanksgiving and Christmas. I have pictures of Jesse shoving them in his mouth, and Sammy would get frustrated because after he had them, he thought thats what was in the the little white eggs in the carton and got really mad when amy would boil an egg and there wasn't a chocolaty oreo filling inside.

You need:
One package of Oreos
One package of Cream Cheese, softened
Almond Bark or White chocolate- if you're really good with it, one package is enough
Chocolate Chips

A food processor makes this whole process much, much easier. The oreos need to be crushed really finely. Then you mix in the cream cheese. Then you make 1 inch round balls, or as big as you want the truffle. They are pretty rich, so not too big. I usually fill up two cookies sheets. Then you chill them for a couple minutes so they don't fall apart. Roll them in the melted almond bark, if you're really good, you can make them look pretty too. Then after they chill again, you heat up the chocolate chips, put them it in a plastic zip-lock, cut the little corner and swirl chocolate over the top.

There ya go. They are easy, but they do take some time and almond bark can be awfully frustrating sometimes.

Fudgey Oatmeal Bars

These are really easy and one of my favorites from my in-laws.

Mix:

2 cups brown sugar
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups of instant oats

Press half of the mixture into 13 x 9 pan.

Melt:
12 oz chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

After melted, spread on the mixture in 13 x 9.
Put the other half of the oatmeal mixture on top of the chocolate spread.

Bake on 350 for 27 minutes. Let cool completely before serving.

Tamales

That's right, suddenly I can make tamales. Here's the story first.

My co-worker was laid off, and I am stuck running the classroom by myself. We had planned to make tamales for a parent participation day, and I was scrambling to put together the project. I found a recipe online, I asked my boss to pick up the ingredients, and she told me that she already knew how to make them, so she would pick up the ingredients and show me. Then she brought me the ingredients for her tamales (different ingredients than for the recipe I found) and told me that she wished she could come to our fun activity, but she was at a conference for the rest of the week. Thanks alot. So I frantically searched online for a recipe that seemed to use her ingredients, but to no avail. The morning of the Tamale Day came, and I drove to work in a snowstorm, still wondering how to face the great tamale dilemma.

Here are the ingredients I had:
Corn Oil
Chicken Broth
Olives
One whole Chicken (plucked, not cut or de-boned. Emma HELP!!!!)
Masa
Corn Shucks
Chili powder
Can of fajita sauce
assorted spices from the kitchen
Shortening

Here is what I did:
Boiled the chicken in a pot of Fajita sauce and water.
Made the class of four-year olds wash their hands and "pull the yummy bits of chicken off and put them in the blue bowl. Put the yucky pieces in the Black bowl."
Voila. One shredded chicken. And 16 traumatized children.
Save the fajita sauce/boiled chicken juice. Pour it into the bowl of masa.
add some spices, some shortening, some corn oil, and some chicken broth, until it is about the consistency of cookie dough. All things can be likened unto cookie dough.
Soak the corn shucks in water this entire time (about 2 hours), and hand corn shucks out to the kids. Let them smear the masa dough onto the top half of the corn shuck, stick a handful of traumatically shredded chicken in the middle with an olive.
Fold it like a tamale.
Put it in a pan with a steamer in the bottom.
Once the pan is all full, fill the bottom of it with the rest of the broth and some water.
Steam them until they are done. We made about 30, and it took an hour to steam them. One parent said that 5 take abot 20 minutes. If they are taking a long time, you have to make sure that the pan doesn't steam itself dry. Just keep adding water/broth.

Here's the kicker people. They were a hit. The kids LOVED making them (talk about a sensory experience) and they were really good. I ate two. They were tasty. Parents took them home for dinner.

All I'm sayin is, if you ever need a fun (messy) FHE activity, this is it. You can simplify it in obvious places. No need to force your children to de-bone a chicken, just buy boneless skinless chicken. Or ground beef, or pork. Whatever meat works. I probably won't make them on my own, not without small children to enslave. Plus, it makes a lot of food.