Homemade Chewy Caramel Sauce

We all know that a food blog isn't really any good without pictures.  But I've made this sauce at least 4 times in the last 3 weeks and it never sticks around long enough for me to get a picture of it.  I will try to work on that this week.  In the meantime, I couldn't keep this recipe to myself.

Are you a burner of caramel? 

I have made homemade caramel sauce using the dry method and burned it every time on my electric stove.  This caramel sauce uses the wet method and I have NEVER managed to burned this.  What I'm saying is- You can do this. I promise. It only takes about 10 minutes or so to make and it tastes SO much better than store-bought sauces.  It's also so versatile.  I have used this on trifles, ice cream, cakes, cupcakes.  It's no wonder it never lasts.

This caramel is thin and pourable when warm, but turns into a soft solid in the fridge.  To return it to pouring consistency you can just pop your jar of caramel in the microwave.  This is awesome over ice cream because when the hot caramel hits the cold ice cream it turns a little chewy. 

Heaven!

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Slime Rims

In case you're not in a Halloween-y mood yet, I decided to make it my personal mission to get you ready before October even rolls around. 

I mean, what's not fun about eating candy for a month, chasing your children around Target wearing assorted zombie and Voldemort masks, and decorating your porch with rotting vegetables?  

It's really okay for it to last longer than a month.

I used melon flavored Powerade for the drink above but you can use any drink you want with these fun slime rims.

During our Africa unit I made the kids some "swamp punch" (read: layered grape juice and green Powerade) complete with worms, and slime rims.  They were a hit and sufficiently creepy to convince them that swamps are gross.

Although.

Now that I think about it they may visit Africa someday and be confused when they realize real swamps are not filled with juice and gummy bugs and sugary slime.

It's so hard to be a kid.

Happy Halloween Season!

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Peanut Butter Marshmallow M&M Cookies

It's finally Fall!

This is ironic since I'm not even posting a Fall recipe, but I have been doing lots of Fall baking and have some yummy recipes to share with you soon.

Last weekend I put out all the Fall Bath and Body Works soap and wallflowers, and picked a great big pumpkin from the garden to harvest.   We might've also put out every Halloween decoration we own, even though it's only September.

It finally looks and smells like Fall inside the house, and I'm nothing short of giddy about it.

Before Halloween sneaks up, I wanted to share another great recipe you can use to get rid of some of your extra Halloween candy.

Seriously when I made these I used the last 10 packages of plain M&M's we got from Mickey's Trick or Treat party last year.  Candy at the dollar store is at least 3 years old so I figured we probably wouldn't drop dead or anything.  So far, assumptions confirmed.

These cookies are soft and gooey and delicious. They are great out of the oven or even a few days later.  They will stay soft and the marshmallow won't firm up much. You can use peanut butter M&M's if you want in place of plain.

I've looked EVERYWHERE for green/purple/black Halloween peanut butter M&Ms, but no luck.  How cute would those be for October?  Eek!

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Blue Bubblegum Ice Cream

Soccer update:  Chase's first game went great.  There was no blood, no tears, no tantrums.  No children lost limbs or threw over the water table in a rage. There was no big reveal at the end where we found out one of the boys was actually a girl pretending to be her twin brother so she could prove girls can play soccer as well as boys and win over Channing Tatum in the process.

He listened to his coach (actually he perched himself on his coaches knee every time the kids all came in to take a knee...) and ran after the ball with all the other kids.

I noticed that he is really non-agressive.  I guess it is pretty confusing to be told to share all the time and not take other people's things and then to be screamed at to "be agressive" and try to steal the ball from other kids.

Talk about mixed messages.

I basically had a panic attack when I walked in to the sports store to buy his equipment.  I played sports as a kid but never soccer, football, or basketball (ie: all the sports my kids will probably want to play.)  I just stood there and stared at the 6 different kinds of cleats wondering which sport they were each for and whether my kid needed bands to keep his shin guards up or whether he was supposed to wear two pairs of socks with his cleats.

Like.  How do people even learn how to use these things?

What did people do before Wiki Answers?

(In case you are wondering, there is an article on eHow entitled "How to Wear Soccer Shoes and Shin Guards".)


I know I've been whining a lot recently about the LONG summer we've had this year, but really, my boys are my little piece of heaven.  They give my life purpose. I love that I can stay home with them even though sometimes I think I'd rather shoot my brains out than listen to the Doc McStuffins theme song one more time.

I really love to make treats that I know will put a huge smile on their face.  In all honestly I developed this ice cream just because I knew they'd freak out when they saw it.  If you like Baskin Robbins pink bubblegum, you will like this.  The great part is there's no bubblegum pieces to pick out so you wont have to save it all in a big wad on your napkin to eat later.

You do that.  Right?

If you want, you can turn this ice cream into Bubblegum ice cream cupcakes.
(Just sub bubblegum ice cream for the black raspberry ice cream.)

Or, if ice cream isn't really your thing, you can always make regular Bubblegum cupcakes instead.

This isn't super sweet considering it is Bubblegum flavored, so feel free to go a little heavy on the sugar if you want.

 Happy Thursday!!

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Tiki Punch Freeze

 

I am apparently the only one whose school district hasn't started back up again.  (And we still have 9 days of summer... WHAT?)

I'm sorry, four months of summer is just too long.

If the Halloween decorations are out my kid should already be back at school.

I'm going finger-lickin' insane without a solid routine or schedule.

Basically the only good thing about it still being summer is finishing up the last of the summer treats.

Tiki punch freeze is a little spin off of the root beer freeze's I posted recently.  I just used a can of Tiki Punch (any sparkling fruit punch will do) in place of the root beer.  It is surprisingly good, and tastes kind of like a sweet sherbet.

It's quite a bit sweeter than the Rootbeer freeze, so smaller glasses may be in order, or you can always add some ice to water it down a tad.

Let's start saying goodbye to summer, shall we?

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Peanut Butter Butterfinger Crumble Cookies

Want to meet one of my new favorite cookies?

Crumbly.  Peanut Buttery. Butterfinger-y. 


Delicious.


Also, it's a great way to use up some of that Halloween candy that you'll be rolling in pretty soon.

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Rolo Brownie Trifles

Today I walked in to my preschoolers room and he had miniature dinosaurs, shells, and rocks all lined up against his window frame.  I tried to move a couple of them to clean the window and he got all upset:

 "Mooom! They're lined up according to the period they lived in.  That one belongs in Cretaceous not Triassic."


Excuse me?


Do you know what I was doing at age 4?

Probably picking my nose or trying to figure out how to put my shoes on the right feet.  (Seriously... I struggled with that one.)

I love this child and I love that he uses his brain but suddenly I'm left wondering where his childhood has gone.  He is starting soccer this week and I'm biting my nails wondering how he is going to fit in with his team and whether he's going to freak out if they don't win, or pants somebody else's kid, or spend the whole game explaining the anatomy of the human body to the referee. 

It seems like life suddenly got so much more complicated.  Not only do I have to worry about him being kidnapped, run over, or maimed, now I have to worry about kids refusing to play with him, calling him a nerd, or informing him that he's NOT actually as good at soccer as he thinks he is (He has REALLY high self-esteem which doesn't seem to be based on any kind of external feedback).

When you're pregnant you think, "Gosh, I'm going to be so tired all the time and constantly feeding a baby and now we'll need to get a babysitter when we want to go to the movies." 

You don't think about that baby growing up and getting his feelings hurt or failing at something they love or being excluded or unhappy and being entirely unable to control any of it.


As a control freak, I think I just discovered a whole new level of anxiety.


Whydotheyhavetogrowupsofasssst?
     

Sometimes when I'm anxious I eat stuff from my Pinterest boards.  Like these trifles. I like them best assembled right before eating.  You can make all the parts in advance and store in the fridge, I just don't like the rolos after being in the fridge.. 

Pretty sure the chocolate bible says chocolate should always melt in your mouth.

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Frozen Hot Chocolate

Summer.

I'm over it.

Does that make me a bad person?

Is it sacrilege to say I'm counting down the days to boots and leaves and Fall treats and baking with pumpkin?

Is it weird that I bought Christmas presents yesterday?

{These questions are all rhetorical.  Unless you happen to agree with me, I mean.}


Today I was so bummed to find no apple cider at the store and no Halloween M&Ms at Target.  I had to step back a little and re-evaluate my life a little and pull out my calendar book to check which month it was.

I went home and decided to compromise with this recipe. It's frozen so it's obviously summery.  But it's also hot chocolate which is a Fall/Winter treat.  Best of both worlds.  (Sing Hannah Montana here.)

Also, it's delicious.

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Chocolate-dipped Butterfinger Oreos

My husband and I are slightly obsessed with Disneyland.  We're one of those families that will go every single year if we can. We last went about a year ago and promised ourselves we'd wait until our littlest guy was 40 inches to go again.  Well, he's 35 inches, a little runt for his age, and I'm really not sure we can wait that long.  Do they sell child-sized stilts?

These Oreos are an attempt to bring a little Disneyland magic into our home even though they have nothing to do with Disney except they look like they belong there because everything at Disney is freaking delicious.

You caught me.

I really only go for the food.

Also I found out today that the Arby's symbol is NOT an ice cream cone with a bite taken out of it.  It is in fact a cowboy hat.

WHAT!!

Since my entire world has just been shattered I pretty much feel justified in eating lots of these.  Seeing ice cream cones instead of hats probably says all kinds of deep psychological things about me that I don't want to know.

Have a happy weekend friends!

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Vanilla Bean Cookies n Cream Ice Cream {Best Basic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream}

Do you ever say "This is the best thing I've ever eaten!"  But then think, "I eat lots of yummy things... Realistically this can't be THE best thing I've ever eaten.  What kind of label is that anyways? How could you ever decide?"

I say that a lot, but then I remember that I really do know the best thing I've ever eaten. 

When I had our first son I was induced.  Which means they basically starve you until your baby comes.  Unfortunately he was a long time coming and I only had chance to sneak a sucker in that 20-ish hours or so.  (Seriously... tell a lady to have a baby and not feed her? Dumbest idea ever.)  Without going into details, he was a very difficult & complicated labor, my epidural didn't work, and I'm not entirely certain my doctor was actually an MD.

Fast forward to his arrival. My sweet sister-in-law worked at the hospital where I delivered and gave me a coupon for a free shake at the cafeteria.  My husband cashed it in as soon as they moved me to recovery and I vividly remember this Caramel Oreo shake being The. Best. Thing. I've. Ever. Eaten.  INMYLIIIIFE.

I inhaled it.

And seriously?  I still dream about it. 

There is zero doubt in my mind that I will ever eat anything as satisfying and delicious as that shake.

But making a pretty good copycat is always a good idea.  This vanilla bean ice cream is amazing, and even better if you put a whole bunch of Oreo chunks inside. Putting caramel sauce on top?  Heavenly.  It could turn out to be one of the best things you've ever eaten.  Make it into a shake if you want.

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