Sweet & Salty Chex Mix

Did some more Holiday baking today. One of my favorite snacks is the Sweet & Salty Chex Mix. I saw this on the back of one of the holiday shaped chocolate chips bags many years ago and have made it part of my tradition to make for Christmas and Halloween. I adapted it to my taste adding preztles and my favorites Bugels. Bugels are tough to find sometimes, you have to really look hard in the chip section. Hope you enjoy!

Note: Change up the M&M colors to suite whatever holiday or event you are making it for.

Sweet & Salty Chex Mix

• 9 cups chex mix (your choice of flavors)
• 4 cups of popcorn (I use microwave) 1 bag is more than 4 cups
• 1 1/2 cups of dry-roasted peanuts
• 1 cup pretzle sticks
• 1 cup bugels
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 bag of your favorite colored M& M's

Preheat oven to 250,grease large cookie sheet or 2.

Mix: cereal, popcorn, peanuts, pretzles and bugels in a large bowl.

Combine: brown sugar, butter and corn syrup in a medium heavy duty sauce pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat; stirring constantly. Boil, without stirring for 5 minutes (watching carefully). Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and baking soda. Pour over the cereal mixture and stir to coat evenly.

Bake: for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Cool completely in pan stirring frequently to break apart.

ADD M&M'S AFTER MIX IS COMPLETELY COOL. If not you will have a gooey mess.

Store in airtight container.

Tis the Season!

Tis the Season to make "Peanut Butter Balls". Super easy to make and so delicious. It's a tradition in our house to make these every year. I will be making these babies on Weds. night.

PEANUT BUTTER BALLS

• 1 lb powdered sugar
• 2 cups creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup butter; softened
• 2 cups rice krispy cereal; crushed in a ziplock bag.
• 2 (12 oz) pkgs milk chocolate or semisweet chocolate chips.

Combine sugar, peanut butter and butter in a bowl. Mix until smooth. Add cereal and gently stir until combined. Roll mixture into individual balls and put on a coo

kie sheet. Refridgereate for 20 minutes. Melt chocolate and dip each ball into chocolate. Keep in a cool area or in refrigerator.

Enjoy!
Kimm

Crockpot Carnitas

This is a wonderful recipe for crockpot carnitas. I make this and have tacos and any leftovers we make green enchiladas with.

I just rub this mixture all over the pork and let sit a few days before I put in crockpot.

Crockpot Carnitas

Serves 6-8

• 1 (4 lb) pork shoulder or pork butt
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
• 3 teaspoons seasoning salt 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 1/2-2 teaspoons cumin
• 1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to taste)
• 2 onions, thinly sliced

Put meat in crockpot and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4 hours. If you have too much you can use the left overs and put BBQ sauce on it and then make BBQ beef sandwiches.

Homemade Clam Chowder

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while. Things have been busy with work and keeping up with the kids. Today was a nice cool and rainy morning and I wanted to make some sort of soup. Just seemed like the perfect day. I decided on making Clam Chowder. Everyone in my house loves Clam Chowder so it was a safe call.

Here is the Simple recipe.

CLAM CHOWDER

Serves: 4-6

2 Cups Water

1 pinch of Salt

4 Cups of peeled chopped potatoes (I cube mine)

1/2 C finely chopped onion

1/4 cup butter

3 T all-purpose flour

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp celery seed

2 T dried parsley flakes (I used 1)

1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk

2 (10oz) cans baby clams (I only use 1 can as it was way too many clams for us) It's your preference.

salt and pepper to your taste

1. Cook potato in 2 cups of water with pinch of salt until tender, but DO NOT drain.
2. In a small pan, saute onion in butter until tender, add flour, cayenne, and celery seed; stir well.
3. Drain juice from clams into potatoes and reserve clams for later.
4. Add parsley and milk to potato mixture, and stir well.
5. Heat potato mixture, and add onion/flour mixture, stirring constantly until thickened slightly.
6. Stir in clams, and season to taste with salt and pepper.
7. Cook for 5-10 minutes till heated through.

Enjoy with some nice crusty french bread.

"T's" Pizza Dip

This is a dip that my friend Tina makes all the time and it gets rave reviews ALWAYS. You can do your own variation of it adding different toppings of your choice but I am the kind of gal who likes to keep things simple. Here is my version of the Pizza Dip.

Pizza Dip

• 2 (80z) Cream Cheese; softened
• 1/2 tsp Italian Seasoning (McCormick)
• 3 garlic cloves, pressed or crushed
• 1 jar pizza sauce
• 1/2 onion chopped
• 1 cup Mozzerella cheese; shredded
• Pepperoni (they have some cool mini ones in the grocery store) any will do.

Directions:

1. In a bowl mix cream cheese , italian seasoning and Garlic. Spread into a baking dish.
2. Pour pizza sauce over top and spread evenly over cream cheese mixture.
3. Spread chopped onions over sauce evenly.
4. Top with cheese and pepperoni.
5. Now you can add whatever extras you want like: Olives, Bell Peppers etc... its all up to you

Bake at 350 until cooked through. Serve with Tortilla chips.

Halloween Spider Eggs

These were some fun eggs me and alyssa made for her soccer party. We were really happy with the way they came out. We used olives to make the spiders.

Deviled Eggs

1. Store your eggs in the carton sideways in the fridge (see pic below). this will center the yolk.

2. Place eggs in pan and cover eggs with cold water. Bring water to a boil.

3. Once water is rapidly boiling, shut off heat and cover with lid. Let sit for 15 minutes.

4. Drain and run cold water over eggs until completely cooled.

5. Peel eggs and cut in half. Remove yolks from the centers and place in a bowl.

6. Mash eggs add ingredients and mix well.

Ingredients:

• 12 eggs; boiled
• 2-3 T Mayo (add one at a time to get desired consistency)
• 1 tsp pickled relish
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• Couple drops of yellow mustard (I use for color)

Note: On ingredients, add a little at a time so you don't make too wet. You may end up adding more mayo or other ingredients to your taste.

Bakerella

Last week me and Wendy went to South Coast Plaza to meet and get our cookbooks signed by Bakerella. For those of you who are not familiar with Bakerella you need to check out her blog http://www.bakerella.com/southern-california/. She is the Cake Pop Queen. She makes the cutest cake pops and cake balls. Wendy and I have been following her blog for over a year know and were really excited to meet her. Now that I am working at The Shirt Cannery I made us a couple cute shirts to wear. Today I got onto facebook and WE MADE HER BLOG!!! I was so excited. You need to pick up her cookbook, its filled with so many great cake pop recipes and amazing decorating tips. I have to do some handy work on my pics my color didn't come out like I would have liked. I will post some pics of us with her and of her book as soon as I go clean them up a bit. Here is one that Bakerella posted on her blog of me and Wendy. This is a gal who works at the Mission Viejo mall William Sonoma she hung out with us.