Gooey Peanut Butter Popcorn Treat

This is really easy and SO good!!

Melt: 1 c. sugar, 1 c. peanut butter, and 1 c. of Karo syrup on low heat for 5-10 min. Mix with 1 bag of popped popcorn (I do 1 1/2 bags of popcorn b/c it's too gooey for me with just 1 bag), let cool, and enjoy!

Regulars

Sisters of mine,
I want to know what is on your list of "regulars" for dinner. Steph I know you don't like having the same meals all the time but I'm sure even you have a few meals that you like to turn to when you can't think of anything else. I do try a new recipe every two weeks or so but not many of them make it onto my "regulars" list. Many of the things on my list are family favorites we grew up eating, others I've gotten from one of you, and a couple I've found on my own. Anyway, please share yours! These aren't in any special order I just listed them as they came to mind.

- Chicken Noodle Soup (Lion House)
- Spaghetti w/ mushrooms
- Chicken parmesan
- Ceasar'd halibut
- Grilled cheese and soup
- Mac and cheese
- Egg burritos
- Homemade pizza
- Tacos/taco salad
- Ham and potato soup
- Ugly chicken
- Potato soup
- Tuna casserole
- Baked potatoes, chili, and cornbread
- Lemon pepper chicken
- White bean chicken chili
- Hawaiian hay stacks
- BLTs
- Frito pie
- Shepherd's pie
- Chicken fajitas
- Chicken stir fry
- Scones and peaches

Tortellini Casserole

This is a recipe my mother-in-law gave me, and I LOVE it. We make it as often as we can.

Ingredients:
2 packages fresh tortellini (I usually get one cheese and one chicken)
1 tub fresh parmesan cheese
1 pint whipping cream

Directions:
Combine the parmesan cheese and whipping cream in a bowl for 2 or more hours.

Boil the tortellini for 6 minutes. I can tell when they're finished because they get bigger... hopefully you can tell in these pictures.
Before:

After:

At least you can tell it's a little more crowded in there. Anyway, after boiling, put the tortellini in a 9x13 pan and add the cheese/cream mixture.

Stir it up and make sure it's all evenly mixed.

Then pop it in the oven at 350 for 25-30 minutes uncovered. It'll look like this:

Then serve and enjoy! We love that this meal is really good leftover too. It's a little more dry than originally, but it's still really yummy.

YUM! (Made the mistake of buying a loaf of garlic bread at the store... doesn't that look disgusting? The garlic and butter were dripping out the bottom. SICK.)

Chicken Dumpling Things (?)

I don't really know what these are called. But, they are delicious! They're total comfort food in our house now. Credit for the recipe goes to Aunt Launette, through Tiffany.

Ingredients:
2 c. cooked chicken breast, shredded
8 oz. cream cheese
3 tsp. minced onion
1 tsp. lemon pepper
2/3 c. chopped mushrooms (I've made them with mushrooms and without, and there's not too much of a difference, so nowadays I don't)

2-3 cans of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls (recipe calls for 2, but I always have insides leftover, so I try to use 3 instead)
1-2 T. melted butter
1/4 c. bread crumbs (I use Italian but any kind is fine)

Directions:
Mix the first 4 ingredients (or 5 if you're putting in mushrooms) in a bowl (the picture below was taken after I'd already used some of the stuff. Don't worry, it makes more than pictured)

Roll out your crescent rolls. They come in triangles obviously, but keep the triangles together so they make a rectangle:

Then cut the rectangles in half to make semi-squares:

Squish the triangles together so they don't come apart. Spoon a bit of the cream cheese mixture into the middle:

Then fold the corners over so they make a cute little pocket:

Continue until you've used up all your squares. Once they're all filled, dab a little bit of melted butter over each of them and sprinkle some breadcrumbs on top of the butter.

Bake them at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. I accidentally bought a can of round rolls instead of crescents, so some of them were way small (as you can probably tell from the picture above. The big ones in the middle are how they'll normally look). Sometimes they open up a bit when they cook, but they're just as good.

I serve them with rice and cream of chicken soup, but I've had them with rice pilaf and it was delicious. We love this meal!

Granola

Our friends in our ward gave away a bag of granola to neighbors/friends for a Christmas goodie and after gobbling it up I decided I HAD to have that recipe! It's one of those you just have to share:

Granola

In a large bowl combine:
10 1/2 c. regular oats
2 1/2 c. brown sugar
1 c. wheat germ
1 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. shredded coconut
1/2 c. sliced almonds
1/2 c. unsalted roasted sunflowers seeds
1/4 c. sesame seeds

You can use all of none of the seeds and nuts above. Mix well in bowl so all of the ingredients are not in clumps.

In a small bowl mix:
1 c. water
1 c. oil
2 Tbsp. vanilla

Mix well so oil and water are not separated. Then quickly pour wet mixture over dry mixture and coat. All of the dry mixture should be coated and clumps start to form. Spray two 11x17 jelly roll pans with non-stick spray. Divide mixture in half and spread out on each pan. Bake in oven @ 235 for 3 hrs. Make sure it isn't completely dried out. Stir occasionally, not too often if you like it chunky. When done place on counter to finish drying. At this time you may add fruit, 3/4 C raisins, craisins, dried blueberries, apples, strawberries, peaches, etc.

Tips:
- Wheat germ is found on the top shelf on the cereal aisle (at least at Walmart that's the case).
- Unsalted sunflower seeds and sesame seeds are harder to find. I didn't use any. The girl I got the recipe from doesn't either, but sometimes she adds in chopped up pecans. For the fruit I just did craisins and it was really good.
- I don't have jelly roll pans so I just used one 11X17 and one 9X13 and divided the granola up between the two pans.
- You can cook for the full 3 hrs without ever stirring and it's not too dry and it's the perfect balance of chunks and non chunks in my opinion.
- Great with milk and fresh strawberries or raspberries!

I mentioned this recipe to Cami and she wondered if it's any cheaper to make granola than to just buy it. So I priced it all out and I figured it cost me about $5.00-$5.50 to make this recipe, using just coconut, almonds, and craisins as my additives, and it makes about 16 cups of granola. The box of granola we like costs $4.25 for 8 cups so making it is cheaper than that, but if you buy granola in bulk (like from the church) I'm not sure how the price would compare to making it. On the other hand if I bought my oats and brown sugar in bulk then the cost of those would go down too so making it would be cheaper than what I quoted. And it just always seems healthier when it's fresh and made in your own kitchen! Enjoy.

Punch Bowl Cake

Punchbowl Cake

1 German Chocolate Cake Mix - made according to directions on the box, baked and cooled.
2 small pkg. Instant Chocolate Pudding - made up one at a time as directed on box. Keep separated
1 lg container of Cool Whip
6 Skore or Heath Bars (or 1/2 bag of Heath Bits)

Crumble 1/2 of the cooled cake into a punch bowl (or other large bowl). Mix up one pudding as directed and spread over the cake (I like to let the pudding set first so the cake doesn't get soggy, but some people like it soaked into the cake. To each his own I guess). Spread over the cake. Spread 1/2 of the cool whip on top. Crush 3 candy bars (in a zip lock bag with something hard used to crush them) and sprinkle over the cool whip. Repeat all layers. Refrigerate.

*This wasn't listed on the original recipe, but I used a vegetable peeler to make some yummy chocolate curls to make it look pretty on top of the last layer, in part because I could find Heath bits with chocolate. Weird. Anyway, try it out. This is such a good recipe!

Pretzel Salad

Here you go Linds!

Ingredients:
Crust:
-2 c. Pretzels, crushed
-3/4 c. melted butter
-3 T. sugar
Filling:
-8 oz cream cheese, softened
-1 c. sugar
-8 oz Cool Whip, thawed
Topping:
-2 packages of 3 oz strawberry Jell-O
-2 c. boiling water
-2 packages 10 oz frozen strawberries, thawed and sliced

Preparation Instructions:
1. Crust: Mix crushed pretzels with butter and sugar. Spread in a 9x13 pan (Linds, 9x9 would probably work fine, it'll just be a bit thicker). Bake for 10 min. at 350 degrees. Let cool completely and refrigerate for 1 hr.
2. Filling: Mix cream cheese, sugar, and Cool Whip with hand mixer. Spread evenly on pretzel crust-- all the way to the edges. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
3. Pour Jell-O into boiling water. Stir 'til dissolved, let cool just a little. Combine strawberries and Jell-O, then pour over cream cheese mix and crust. Refrigerate for a few hours or until Jell-O sets.

ENJOY!