White Chip Lemon Streusel Bars

I love making treats that impress and pleasantly surprise anyone that tries them.  This one is also pretty easy to make and very easy to cut small and share with large groups.  I love milk and dark chocolate but sometimes the refreshing zest of lemon hits the spot.

Get your oven heating up while you work on the layers.  Start by combining the sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice and lemon zest in a bowl and then stir in a portion of the white chocolate chips.  You will separate out 1/4 cup and 1/3 cup of white chocolate chips for the other layers.  The rest are for this layer.

When that is mixed up, set aside.  Next, beat together the butter and brown sugar, add flour, oats, pecans, baking power and salt.

Remove 1 2/3 cup of that mixture and set it aside.
Add egg to to remaining mixture (the larger amount), blending until crumbly.  Press that mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 pan.

Gently spoon lemon mixture on top, spreading it out evenly.

Add the reserved 1/3 cup of white chocolate chips to the reserved crumb mixture and sprinkle that over the lemon layer.
Press that lightly into the lemon layer and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Cool in the pan on wire rack.

While that is cooling, take the last of the chocolate chips and melt in the microwave, starting at 30 seconds, stirring after every interval until smooth. Drizzle that onto the bars.

You will want to wait until these have cooled to cut them into squares so they will better stay together.  I couldn't wait to eat one of these again so I cut them pretty quickly!
While not easy to cut and serve while warm, they are even more amazing!

White Chip Lemon Streusel Bars

Ingredients
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 tsp freshly grated lemon peel
2 cups white chocolate chips, divided
2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups oats (rolled or quick cooking)
3/4 cup toasted pecan pieces*
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp canola or vegetable oil

Directions

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 13x9 baking pan. Combine sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice and lemon peel in medium bowl; set aside. Measure out 1/4 cup and 1/3 cup white chips; set aside. Add remaining white chips to lemon mixture.

2. Beat butter and brown sugar until blended in large mixer bowl. Add flour, oats, pecans, baking powder and sal to butter mixture, blending well. Remove 1-2/3 cups oats mixture; set aside. Add egg to remaining mixture, blending until crumbly. Press egg/crumb mixture on bottom of prepared pan. Gently spoon lemon mixture on top, spreading evenly. Add reserved 1/3 cup white chips to reserved crumb mixture. Sprinkle over lemon layer, pressing crumbs lightly.

3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool in pan on wire rack. Place remaining 1/4 cup white chips and oil in small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 30 seconds; stir. If necessary, microwave for 10 seconds at a time, stirring after each heating, until chips are melted and mixture is smooth when stirred. Drizzle over bars. Allow drizzle to set; cut into bars. Makes 24 to 36 bars.

 *To toast pecans: Heat oven to 350°F. Spread pecans in thin layer in shallow baking pan. Bake 7 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden brown; cool.

Chicken Bacon & Tortellini Bake

I am not a precise cook, sometimes I am a bit of an absentee cook even, but I am also a lucky cook!  It was my turn to host the family dinner and as I was trying to figure out what to make I realized I had most of the ingredients to make this pasta dish.  Now this is actually a combination of 3 different recipes so this one is truly a Kathy original!  

Now I am not going to sugar coat this one, it can take awhile to prepare.  I cooked the chicken and the bacon before taking my first picture cause cooked chicken and bacon look much better!  Any recipe can come together pretty fast once the ingredients are prepped, this is the same way.  I prefer to cook my chicken on the stove top and the bacon in the oven.  Fortunately they can both be done at the same time.  When those are done I get the Alfredo sauce started.  There are lots of Alfredo sauces out there and I have tried more than one and was really impressed with how this one turned out.  These sauces can take a while though, Parmesan cheese doesn't melt quickly.

Once that has been started, keeping it on low of course, get your water boiling for the pasta.  I had read online about how a wooden spook keeps pasta water from boiling over, it worked for me!

While the pasta and sauce are doing their thing you can get your chicken, bacon and green onions cut up.  Once everything is done, you can now assemble this dish of goodness!  Combine the chicken, bacon, most of the green onions and Parmesan cheese.  Pour the sauce into the meat mixture in the bowl. Add the drained pasta. Now, this is where I talk about my lack of attention to detail.  I should have purchased a tub of that wonderful Philly cooking cream, but I missed that and had to improvise.  Fortunately for me, everything still turned out great.  So if you buy a tub, include that here.  Otherwise, use the remaining cube of cream cheese, about 1/3 cup of cream or half and half, approximately 2 cloves of garlic minced, I sprinkled in some basil, some garlic salt and an all purpose seasoning from Trader Joe's.

Once everything is combined, pour it into 9x13 cake pan.  Sprinkle the top with mozzarella cheese and remaining green onions.  If you needed to bake this advance, cover with foil and place in the fridge until you are ready to bake.  If you are baking it immediately, cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, uncover and back for 10 minutes more.  If you are baking it at a later time, add 15 minutes to the covered bake time.

This was a big enough hit I think it might even get requested as a birthday meal!

*I recently made this one again, using sausage instead of bacon.  Turned out great!  I couldn't find the Philly cooking cream anywhere though.  I think stores have stopped carrying this.  In that case, use the improvised version but add it to the Alfredo sauce to make a creamy sauce to be combined with the meat and pasta.

Chicken Bacon & Tortellini Bake

Ingredients
2 large chicken breasts, cooked and cut up
1 package of bacon, cooked and cut up
1 (20 oz) package of frozen tortellini
1 bunch of green onions, chopped
1 tub of Savory garlic cooking cream or 6 oz cream cheese, 1/3 cup of whipping cream, 2 cloves garlic, garlic salt, basil.
1 cup mozzarella cheese
Alfredo Sauce
2 cups of heavy cream or half and half
2 ounces of cream cheese
1 cube of butter or 1/2 cup
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup parmesan cheese



Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 350.   Combine butter, cream, garlic and parmesan cheese in medium pot.  Keep on low heat stirring frequently.  Cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Combine chicken, bacon, green onion, mozzarella cheese and cooking cream in large bowl.
3. Drain pasta when done.  When alfredo sauce is smooth and creamy, pour a small portion, enough to coat the bottom of the 9x13 pan.
4. Pour renaming sauce over the meat mixture and stir to coat.  Pour everything into the prepped 9x13 pan.  Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
5. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.  Remove the foil and bake for 10 minutes or until slightly browned and melted.
Serve with garlic bread and enjoy!

Slow Cooker Tortellini Soup

There is nothing quite like a comforting soup on a cold winters day and this one fits the bill perfectly!  The fact that it is fairly easy and comes together in a crock pot is just icing on the cake.

Ok, lets get this started, there is still time for you to make this for dinner tonight!

Start by putting your dry Alfredo sauce mixes and the water.  Mix until smooth and then stir in broth, mushrooms, onion, garlic, basil, salt, oregano and cayenne pepper.  Cover and let that cook for 5-6 hours on low or 2 1/2 -3 on high.

Stir in the frozen tortellini and put the lid back on.  It needs to cook for another hour.  While that is cooking, go ahead and cook your sausage in a frying pan.  Drain the grease and add that to the soup.  The total cooking time doesn't change though.  Final steps are to stir in the evaporated milk and fresh spinach.  You can serve it with Parmesan cheese if you so desire.

This is a very flavorful soup and that flavor intensifies so it is even better the next day!

Slow Cooker Tortellini Soup

Ingredients
2 packages of dry Alfredo sauce mix
2 c. water
2 (14 oz) cans of vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups of sliced mushrooms (1 container from grocery store works perfectly)
1/2 of medium onion, diced
6 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
10 oz of frozen tortellini
12 oz Italian Sausage
2 (12 oz) cans of evaporated milk
3 cups of fresh spinach, cut or torn up
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Directions

1.Place dry white sauce mix in a 3-1/2- or 4-quart slow cooker. Gradually add the water to the white sauce mix, stirring until smooth. Stir in broth, mushrooms, onion, garlic, basil, salt, oregano, and cayenne pepper.

2.Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 5 to 6 hours or on high-heat setting for 2-1/2 to 3 hours.

3.Stir in dried tortellini. Cover and cook on low-heat setting for 1 hour more or high-heat setting for 45 minutes more.  While this is cooking.  Cook and drain the sausage, add to soup.

4.Stir in evaporated milk and fresh spinach. If desired, sprinkle individual servings with Parmesan cheese. Makes 8-10 servings.

Peanut Butter Cup Rice Krispie Treats

Rice Krispie treats.....do they bring back memories of being a kid?  Helping your mom make these and hoping to get to clean the bowl when it's over?  Your fingers and face covered in the soft marshmallow?  My mom was more into baking cookies, but for me, Rice Krispie treats still make me feel like a kid again.  These are no exception but are SO much better than the standard kind! 

You still start with a whole bunch of marshmallows, butter and Rice Krispie cereal, but then you add in some chopped up peanut butter cups.  Start by melting your butter with the marshmallow and some light corn syrup.

(Sorry for the blurry pictures, not sure what was wrong with my phone that night!)
If you are super talented or have some help, while that is getting softy and gooey, get your peanut butter cups chopped up and add those to your rice cereal, in a very large bowl.

Once the marshmallow mixture is all soft and melted, pour that over the cereal and candy mixture.  The heat from the marshmallows will start to melt the candy, this is what you want.  Try to stir and coat the cereal as quickly as possible.  You need to get this in your pan in a hurry!
I like to keep my butter wrapper and use that to help spread my mixture into my cake pan.  My fingers don't get too messy and it seems to work just great.
To make it little pretty, melt about 1 Tbls of peanut butter in a small dish, transfer it to a plastic bag, cut the corner and drizzle it all over.  You can also do the same with some melted chocolate chips.  I ran out of time for the double drizzle, still tasted amazing though!

My co-workers chowed these down like there was no tomorrow!

 Peanut Butter Cup Rice Krispie Treats

Ingrediants
6 c. rice cereal
Approx. 40 small peanut butter cups (16-18 big ones), diced
5 Tbls butter or margarin
3 Tbls light karo syrup
1 (10 oz) package plus 2 heaping cups of mini marshmallows
2 Tbls peanut butter
2 Tbls chocolate chips

Directions
1. In large bowl combine cereal and diced peanut butter cups, set aside.  Spray 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray and set aside.
2. In large pot melt butter over low heat.  Add karo syrup and marshmallows and stir continuously until mixture is smooth.  Remove from heat and pour over cereal mixture and fold together until cereal is even coated.  Be careful not to over mix.  Press mixture into cake pan.  Set aside.
3. In small microwave safe bowl, melt peanut butter, start at 30 second intervals.  Let it cool slightly before transferring to small plastic bag.  Cut off one of the corners and pipe onto the treats.  Repeat steps with chocolate chips.
4. Let treats set up for at least 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Nutella Bread Pudding

In my family we have a tradition to celebrate someone's birthday.  We have a birthday dinner and the birthday individual gets to pick the main meal and their dessert.  Now between you and me, nothing would make me happier than if every birthday dessert that gets chosen is one of mine!  Growing up I always selected a cheesecake for mine.  A couple of years ago I started making my own dessert and this last year was no exception, but this year I wanted something warm and gooey so this year I made this amazing dessert!

I have always been drawn to bread puddings, I haven't found one that I didn't like and this is is just about the best one I have ever made!

It is easy and you can't beat something that has Nutella and croissants in one dish!

Nothing too complicated here, start by slicing the croissants and making little Nutella sandwiches from them.  Here is the hard part though, try not to eat several as you will need all of them for the pudding!

So yummy looking right?!  Next get those little guys stuffed into your pan, it needs to be full with minimal gaps.

Next get the custard part whipped up.  Nothing too difficult here, just whisk up the eggs, cream, sugar, vanilla and salt.

If you will be baking it in the next 1-2 hours or so, go ahead and pour the custard over the little sandwiches.  I pour it slow and deliberate to make sure every piece gets it's fair share.

You will want to let it sit and soak up that custard, at least for 30 minutes.  If your bread was quite dry or it will need to sit for more than an hour, feel free to increase the custard mixture.  Or if you like your bread pudding really soft, increase it as well.  Play around with it and see what works best for you.  Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes or so.  Remove the foil for the last 10  minutes.  My family likes it extra crispy so I turned the broil on for a couple of minutes. 

Let it sit for a couple of minutes before sprinkling with powdered sugar and serving.  Everyone loved it, especially me and this pan was empty by the time I took it home!

Nutella Bread Pudding

Ingredients
7-8 large croissants or 18 small croissants (preferably 1-2 days old)
Approx. 1 c. Nutella
1/4 c. pecans (optional)
4 eggs
2 c. heavy cream
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. salt
1 c. powdered sugar

Directions
1. Slice each croissant in half length wise and spread Nutella on one side.  Put the halves back together to make little sandwiches.  Cut those into smaller 1" size pieces.
2. Put those little pieces into a 9x9 baking dish.  You will want to arrange and stuff to make sure it is well packed and minimize the gaps.  If using pecans, sprinkle them on top.
3. Whisk together the eggs, cream, vanilla, salt and sugar.  Make sure there are no lumps.  Pour slowly over sandwich pieces.  I try to make sure that each open ends gets some so it can really soak it up.  Gently push down the bread so it will absorb.  Put this in the fridge for at least 30 minutes so everything is absorbed.  Get oven pre-heating to 350 at this time.
4. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove foil and bake for 10 minute more.  If the top didn't get brown or crusty, feel free to turn it to broil for a couple of minutes, but make sure to closely watch it!
5. After it has come out of the oven, let it cool for a couple of minutes before serving.  This tastes amazing as is, but you could serve with ice cream, cool whip or maybe even some of my buttercream syrup!
Tip: If you need to make part of this in advance, you can make it up to right before pouring on the custard.  Just make sure it is wrapped up tight in plastic wrap to keep it from drying out.  If you only need to make it and hour or two in advance, feel free to increase the custard just a bit and let it soak for until you are ready to bake it.

Sopapilla Cheesecake

I think I have mentioned this before, but if not, I do love cheesecake!  If I can find a quick and easy cheesecake, double win!  This one fits the bill, though it does have a tricky step.

To start, gather you actually fairly simple ingredients.  It is really best to let your cream cheese soften to room temperature.

If you have the time this can be done over an hour or two or less than a minute in the microwave. 

What that is softening open up the first can of crescent rolls and spread it out in the bottom of your pan.  Make sure to press the seams together and get it to the edges.

Once that is in the pan, get the very basic filling mixed up.

Pour and spread that over the crescent rolls and then sprinkle with some cinnamon sugar.

Next step is the tricky part.  The recipe I was following suggested laying out the rest of the crescent dough on parchment paper to get it spread out and the seams pressed together before flipping it onto the filling layer.

You can try that method or just sprinkle a little flour on your counter top and work in smaller pieces to spread them out before transferring it over to the pan.  Of course it would be even better if you bought the sheets that don't have seems, but either way it will still taste good.

After the dough is in place, sprinkle a fair amount of cinnamon sugar over the top.  I love that flavor so I was pretty generous.  Bake it and then let it set up for a bit before serving.  It does taste best warm but it does need about 10 minutes after it comes out of the oven to set up.

Cut into squares and serve!

Sopapilla Cheesecake

2 cans Pillsbury crescent rolls
2 (8oz) packages cream cheese (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup butter (melted)
Cinnamon & sugar (1 tablespoon cinnamon to 4 tablespoons sugar)
Caramel Syrup (an optional topping)

1. Unroll and spread 1 can crescent rolls on bottom of un-greased 9×13 pan. Press all the seams together.
2. Combine softened cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Spread mixture over crescent rolls.  Sprinkle with a little bit of the cinnamon sugar mixture.
3. Unroll and spread remaining crescent rolls over mixture. Lay first on either parchment paper or your counter top to spread it out and press the seems together.  Carefully lay on top of cream cheese mixture.
4. Spread melted butter over the top and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes.
6. Let set up for 5-10 minutes before cutting into squares to serve.

Christmas Chex Mix

Every year I make several treats to give away to neighbors, friends and co-workers.  I love doing this one since I get a fair amount, it's very yummy and pretty easy to make.  I don't have many pictures, so forgive me for that!

This year I made two varieties, White Chocolate Peppermint Chex, as pictured above, the second is Mint Chocolate Chex or Grinch Mix.

Both are yummy, but I do admit that the peppermint variety is more appealing to look at!  Both start with Corn Chex, the peppermint is made up of white chocolate and then I add some of those peppermint chips that you get in the baking aisle and then a couple drops of peppermint extract.  I add the extract when the chocolate is all melted.  The peppermint chips will turn the chocolate pink, but I like that since it makes it easier to see how coated the cereal is.
For the Grinch mix I used these chips, again:

I had some left from making truffles, plus I had some Chex left from making the Peppermint mix and decided to combine the two.
After the chocolate is melted, pour it over your cereal.  Stir until coated.  Spread it out onto a cookie sheet to dry and harden.  Dish up or parcel out depending on how you intend to give it away.
I will be doing a post shortly about different options when giving out treats so look for that!