Puppy Chow

I grew up in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was a time of microwaves and convenient health foods. And Bartle & James. Remember those commercials? Whatever happened to those guys? Hmm.
It was also a time of American Gladiators and with all the talk of the new series this week, it got me thinking about those days of growing up. Now, when I was growing up, my mom was a bit of a health food junkie. We didn't eat a lot of processed foods (except the occasional bag of wedding cookies), if we wanted something sweet... she'd make us some Grandma Cookies. We also didn't have any types of sugary cereal. Only cornflakes or regular cheerios for us. She always added brown sugar to it for us, but no fruit loops or cocoa puffs. To this day, I've never had captain crunch or lucky charms.

Anyway, I think I seem to remember having chex cereal a few times, but we never made puppy chow or muddy buddies or whatever you want to call it with it. No, I only had puppy chow when I went to slumber parties. I never really even knew what it was or how to make it. I just knew that it was covered in powdered sugar (my favorite) and that it was crunchy and chocolatey. In other words, Heaven in a Bag.

Recently, I bought some chex cereal after seeing a recipe on tv for making faux fried chicken with chex cereal. You can read about the chicken here. So, since I have a huge box of chex lying around and with the nostalgia that American Gladiators brought back... I decided to finally give these a try.

I didn't make a full batch. I actually just kind of eyeballed everything. I melted some hershey chocolate bars with a spoonful of peanut butter and some butter in the microwave, poured it over some chex cereal and then shook it in a bag with the powdered sugar. I let it harden on a piece of parchment paper and then this morning, I decided to shake it with some more powdered sugar (have I mentioned how much I love powdered sugar?). It is just how I remembered. So sweet and crunchy. The perfect pop in your mouth snack.

Chex Puppy Chow

Before the second coating of powdered sugar.

No Fridge Cookies

This is my refrigerator:
ok, well… this is where my refrigerator will be once I actually get it delivered. I ordered it last Saturday along with a tv and while I have the tv, I don’t have the refrigerator, yet.

You don’t realize how hard it is to live without a fridge. I mean, it’s really hard. I feel like I’m not really living there. I feel like I’m just the cleaning lady there or something. But come on, I bet even cleaning ladies snag diet cokes from the fridge when no one is home, right??

So the other afternoon, I went to Kroger and milled around the baking aisle trying to think of something that I can make that doesn’t require a refrigerator and that contains items that don’t have to be refrigerated. Not easy. Not easy at all.

I ended up purchasing the following items:

Graham Cracker Crumbs
Lean Cuisine Mushroom Pizza
Butterscotch Morsels
Peanut Butter Morsels
Sweetened Condensed Milk
Coconut

And what I ended up with is a fudge! And it’s good! Really good! Here is how I did it:

No Fridge Fudge

1 cup butterscotch morsels
1 cup peanut butter morsels
1 ½ cup graham cracker crumbs (I eyeballed it)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup coconut

Melt morsels in a microwave safe bowl. Add the sweetened condensed milk. Then stir in the graham cracker crumbs and coconut and press into a 8x8 inch pan.

Let it set for 3-4 hours.

You could also make this a chocolate fudge, by using chocolate morsels and chocolate wafer crumbs.

Low Country Bars

Ok, usually, I can make a batch of cookies and get away with eating 2-3 of them before I’m sick of them. (When I say 2-3, I’m of course not including the additional 2-3 cookies worth of cookie dough that I’ve scarfed down as well…but those calories don’t count… cause it’s raw, right? Yeah, that’s what I thought).

But these cookies… these simple, sugary bits of goodness are like crack. They should actually be called Crack Cookies. Because once you taste them you know you are headed towards an all day sugar headache.

I’ve made them twice before… once as a test run and then again for my friend April’s Bridal Shower. And each time, I ate so many that I actually went into a diabetic coma and woke up 4 days later with the icing crusted around my finger tips and my name on the pancreas donor waiting list. It’s bad. Very Bad. They are really sweet though, some people might think they are too sweet. (As if anything could ever be too sweet. Hmph).

What I’m saying folks… is that these cookies should come with a warning label. Proceed with caution…

This is another recipe from Paula Deen. God Bless Her.

I don’t like the way she wrote the instructions for this recipe, so I’ve changed them to make it easier to follow:

Low Country Bars (or as I like to call them Sugar High Bars).

Filling:
1 14.4 ounce box of Graham Crackers *You wont use whole box
¾ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup coconut
1 cup pecan pieces
½ cup milk
1 egg

Topping:
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
3 tablespoons milk

First, line the bottom of a 13x9 inch baking dish with graham crackers (I usually use 7 whole graham crackers for both the top and bottom.

Crush one cup worth of graham crackers into crumbs and place in a bowl, add pecans and coconut to bowl and set aside.

Measure your ½ cup of milk into a bowl and crack egg into the bowl and gently mix together; set aside.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and add sugar. Stirring constantly (so as not to scramble the egg) add the milk and egg mixture to the pan and bring all to a bowl while you stir constantly. This takes about 10 minutes, because you want to start out a lowish heat and then work your way up (again, so as not to scramble the egg… you could also temper the egg mixture before you add it in, if you like, but I usually don’t).

Once boiling, take off the heat and add the pecans, graham crackers and coconut. Stir to mix well, then pour over the graham crackers in the pan and spread evenly. Top with another layer of graham crackers.

Prepare your icing: Combine all icing ingredients and stir well. You want it to be thick but spreadable. Add extra milk if you need to thin it out. Pour on top and smooth over the whole pan. Chill and cut and serve.

They taste great both chilled and at room temperature, but for storing you need to keep them in the fridge.

Grandma Cookies

Everyday when I came home from school, my mom was there. I didn't realize at the time what a sacrifice that was for our family, to have her stay at home with my two brothers and I, but I am very grateful that my family was fortunate enough to be able to make that decision. I may not have had all the barbies or video games that my friends had, but having my mom there when I got home from school made it worth it.

When we got home from school, we were always hungry and clamoring for something to eat. And this is the recipe that my mom made us at least twice a week. (Probably more like 3-4 times a week). We call these Grandma Cookies. And strangely enough, not after our grandmas or any other grandmas in our family. We call them Grandma Cookies because a boy in my brother's boy scout group brought these cookies to the boy scout functions and called them Grandma Cookies (after his Grandma, I suspect) and so the name stuck.

Normal people call them No Bake Cookies, Chocolate No Bake Cookies, Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies.... you get the idea.

My mom NEVER used a recipe (see a pattern here?). And these cookies NEVER turned out the exact same way. Sometimes they would be thick and harden almost before she got them out of the pan (This is how everyone else liked them). Sometimes they would be gooey and chocolatey and never firm up, you had to scrape them off the aluminum foil with your fingers (how I preferred them). And sometimes they would be thin and lightly crispy, but tender (how I think they are supposed to turn out). Sometimes my mom forget to put butter in them, or vanilla (she forgot the vanilla a lot). Regardless of how they turned out, we always gobbled them right up.

If my brother or I ever tried to make them, we used this recipe that one of my aunt's penned. They called them Boiled Cookies (sounds delicious, huh?). I think my Aunt Evelyn wrote out this recipe, (although for some reason I think it might have been my Aunt Carolyn) and practically every word is misspelled. Whoever it was, was probably 12 or so when they wrote it out.

This is a cookie that is quick and simple, requires few ingredients and brings back great memories for me. I will definitely make these cookies for my kids one day.

Mine turned out pretty well, but I'm hoping to one day make them the same way my mom does/did... without a recipe.

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bake Cookies

1 stick of Butter

2 cups of sugar

1/2 cup milk

3 tbsp Cocoa

Pinch of Salt

Boil all these ingredients together at a heavy boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and quickly add:

2 1/2 cups of Oats

1/2 cup Peanut Butter

2 tsps Vanilla

Stir in and drop onto a a sheet of aluminum foil to cool.