Asian Dragon Party Mix
Not too long ago, I ordered a bunch of fun seasoning mixes from Mystic Blue Spice Company. They all smell so good! Yesterday I needed to make some party mix to sell for my daughter’s dance fundraiser and thought an Asian-spiced mix would be fun to try with their Asian Dragon seasoning. It turned out fantastic … Thanks, Mystic Blue.
Asian Dragon Party Mix
- 6 cups of unsweetened cereal (your choice … I used 4 cups of rice chex, 2 cups of corn chex)
- 3 cups of pretzels
- 1 cup of peanuts
- 2 cups of mixed Chinese rice crackers or Asian snack mix
- 1 1/2 cups of wheat thins (or whatever other crackers or mix-ins you’d like to include)
- 1 or 2 packages of Ramen noodles, uncooked (just the noodles) … or chow mein noodles
- 6 Tablespoons butter
- A few drops of sesame oil (or hot pepper oil if you want it to have a little kick)
- 1 Tablespoon soy sauce
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 teaspoon Asian Dragon seasoning mix from Mystic Blue Spice Company (or other Asian seasoning mix … don’t use five spice, though … I don’t think that would work)
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic
Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Mix the cereal, pretzels, peanuts, and crackers or snack mix in a large bowl or big flat baking dish (I used two 13x9x2 inch baking dishes). Crumble the Ramen noodles over top.
Put the butter, sesame oil, soy sauce, worcestershire sauce and seasonings in a microwave-safe mug or bowl, cover and microwave on medium for about 2 minutes or until the butter is melted. Stir to mix it all up together well. Drizzle over the cereal mixture and gently stir to coat more of the pieces.
Bake at 250 for 1 hour, stirring every fifteen minutes. Let cool, then store in an airtight container.
This recipe was shared at Weekend Potluck, Scrumptious Sundays, Mealtime Mondays, Tuesday Talent Show, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Newlyweds Recipe Linky, Thursday’s Treasures and Tastetastic Thursday.
Heavenly Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Brownies
It was Thursday, and every Thursday I have to pick up my daughter from school and take her to dance lessons. She is always STARVING right after school because they feed her lunch very early in the day, so I have to bring her a snack. Usually I try to make it healthy, and yes, I did bring her an apple and some corned venison, but I thought brownies would be a nice treat to top it all off.
There’s more to this story: for Christmas, my kids both got Ghirardelli milk chocolates with caramel filling in their stockings. Now they love milk chocolate – and they love caramel, but for some reason, they are not so fond of the caramel filled chocolates. So my daughter and I came up with this idea to break up the caramel chocolates and put them over brownies with some pretzels. We have been meaning to do this … but didn’t have a recipe for brownies that we liked and haven’t really had time … well, you know how life goes sometimes. You get so busy with things that little projects like this get swept to the wayside.
So I found a recipe for brownies from the Southern Lady Cooks and thought it was time to try out our idea.
Heavenly Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Brownies
Adapted from the Southern Lady Cooks.
I added the chocolates before I baked them, then put the pretzels on top, but they completely melted into oblivion. I think the right way to do this is to put the pretzels on before you bake the brownies, then right after you take the brownies out of the oven, sprinkle with chopped caramel-filled chocolates (or caramel bits and chocolate chips) and a bit of sea salt. That’s my plan for next time I make these, anyway.
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/4 cups white sugar
- 1/2 cup dark unsweetened cocoa
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 sticks butter or margarine or 12 tablespoons, melted
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Broken pretzel bits
- 5 squares of Ghirardelli caramel-filled milk chocolates, chopped
- Coarse sea salt
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt. Add the eggs, butter, and vanilla. Mix well with a spoon. Pour into a sprayed 8 x 8 inch baking dish and spread out evenly. Sprinkle pretzel bits over the top. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven 35 – 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Right after you take them out of the oven, sprinkle the chopped chocolates over top so that they melt onto the brownies and sprinkle with a bit of coarse sea salt. Let the brownies cool a bit before you try to cut them. Makes 9 to 12 brownies depending on size you cut them.
Part 2: the brownie saga continues …
Of course, after I made the brownies for my daughter, then my SON wanted brownies. But he didn’t want any of that caramel or pretzel stuff on HIS brownies.
So I asked my foodie friends on facebook what their favorite brownie recipe is and wow did I get a great list of brownie recipes! Here’s the list: I made the Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter for him.
- Brooke’s Best Bombshell Brownies
- Best Brownies (minus the frosting, she said)
- Cocoa Brownies with Browned Butter (Leave out the walnuts, cut sugar to 1 cup.)
- Brownie Bonanza
- Triple Chocolate Brownies
- Blondies from the Wandering Chicken & Mini Farm: melt 1 stick of butter in a pan, stir in 1 cup brown sugar (here is were you would add the cocoa powder, couple T. should do good OR a bag of chocolate chips). stir in 1 egg, 1 cup flour, 1 t. vanilla, bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. do not overbake and YUM!!! sooooo easy and so yummy
- Jillian Michaels Healthy Fudge Brownies
- Baker’s Brownies
- Betty Crocker right out of the cookbook (1977 version)
- Hershey’s Brownies
Here’s a shot of the boy’s browned butter brownies. Really, I am not sure which recipe I like better … but my daughter and I really really really love the pretzels and caramel chocolates on top. I was worried the pretzels would get soggy, but they don’t! They stay nice and crunchy (for a day or two). The boy can have his plain chocolate brownies. We’ll do the pretzel thing.
This recipe was shared at Everyday Mom’s Meals and Thursday’s Treasures.
Chocolate Peppermint Pretzel Munch
One of our favorite treats at Christmas is to dip pretzels. I like mine with white chocolate and peppermint. My daughter likes just white chocolate, or sometimes we will drizzle the white chocolate pretzels with milk chocolate or sprinkles.
I meant to make lots of treats to bring on my trip for my friends at the office, but I was running out of time. So I had to simplify.
This is so much faster than dipping all the pretzels individually. You just spread them in a pan, drizzle them with melted white almond bark, and then sprinkle with crushed candy canes. I threw in some chocolate graham cracker pieces. Result: the same sweet and salty, chocolate minty taste, but without all the work–and it’s a great way to use up broken graham crackers and pretzels.
Peppermint Pretzel Munch
- Chocolate Graham Crackers, broken into pieces
- Pretzels
- Almond Bark (I used 6 squares for my batch)
- Peppermint Candy Canes, crushed
Directions:
- Spray a large baking sheet with cooking spray and lay out broken chocolate graham crackers randomly across the pan.
- Add the pretzels, interspersing amongst the crackers to create a blanket of crackers and pretzels.
- Melt the almond bark or white chocolate chips. I used a plastic spoon to stir them so I could make a peppermint spoon.
- Drizzle across the cracker/pretzel blanket.
- Immediately sprinkle with crushed candy canes.
- Allow the mixture to cool, then break into pieces.
- Dip the spoon you used to stir the almond bark into the crushed candy canes and allow to sit until the chocolate has hardened. The spoon is great to include in a gift basket with some hot chocolate mix or coffee and a nice mug. I think it would be REALLY cool to do this with some funky antique real spoons.
This recipe was shared on Favorite Holiday Recipes, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Wonka Wednesdays, Holiday Treats Week, Katherine Martinelli’s Mint Blog Hop and EveryDay Mom’s Meals.
Witch’s Broomstick Cookies
I have Halloween cookie envy again. These looked so easy! And adorable. They were supposed to have gorgeous chocolate and butterscotch drizzles across the middle. But the cookie batter was crumbly and the chocolate was gloopy — definitely not the pretty drizzle I had in mind at all!
The cookies were so ugly to me when they came out I wasn’t even going to bother with the chocolate. But then I tasted one and it tasted pretty dang good. So I decided to add the chocolate after all and take them to the Halloween party with us. They have been elevated a bit in looks with their smeared-on glops of chocolate. Certainly still not up to the vision in my head, but almost presentable.
Maybe I don’t have to put them back in the closet after all.
But go look at Budget Gourmet Mom’s beautiful broomstick cookies. You’ll see why I have cookie envy.
I’m not even going to post the recipe because I’m convinced I must have done something wrong. Visit Budget Gourmet Mom and maybe you will have better luck …
But hey, isn’t our little ceramic pumpkin cute? We picked it up at a gas station on a trip up to see my parents a couple years ago. My daughter saw it and just had to have it and I caved. How can you resist that cuteness? Now it’s a little smile added to our table every October. 
Melted Witches for Halloween
When I found these adorable Melted Witches in my quest for spooky foods for my Halloween Collection post, my daughter was really taken with these and DETERMINED to make them for the upcoming Halloween parties we are helping with. So we went out and bought Oreos, Laffy Taffy, pretzel sticks, Hershey’s Kisses, almond bark, and food coloring. And last Sunday we sat down to make these.
First we had to clear off our table and our island in the kitchen so we would have plenty of space for our project. That is a major task in itself in our messy house!
Making the Hats
The hats are simply half an oreo with a chocolate kiss stuck on top. My girl sat down and made the hats herself, using the sticky stuff from the oreos to stick the kisses on the “hats”. It was a great idea, but I really recommend using something stickier, like some melted almond bark or a bit of melted chocolate. The oreo filling just isn’t quite sticky enough to hold the hats together.
Next, make the Broomsticks
The broomsticks are made from pretzel sticks and Laffy Taffy. You have to flatten the taffy with your fingers, then cut it in half. “Fringe” the bottom half with a scissors, then wrap around the pretzel to make the broom. The taffy is very sticky, by the way, so you need to set them far enough apart so they don’t stick to each other.
Now, time to Melt the Witches
Melt your green candy melts or almond bark, then tint it with green food coloring in the microwave. Also melt a small amount of chocolate–you don’t need much chocolate. We used semi-sweet chocolate chips and they worked fine I think.
With the back of your spoon, make a circular shape with the green candy melt, then add a drop of chocolate and swirl it around in the green with a toothpick. Before the melted candy cools, stick on the broomsticks and hats. I recommend putting the sticky taffy end of the broomstick on top of the melt to keep the witches from sticking to the serving tray.
After making these, I have to say I have a completely new level of respect for Confessions of a Cookbook Queen. Not only is she incredibly entertaining in all of her posts, she has a level of patience and dedication that clearly surpasses mine. Both my daughter and I were exhausted after this project! I felt a little melted myself.
I think I’ll be a witch for Halloween.
This is part of my series of 31 Days of Warmer Connections. Every day in October, I am blogging about connections through food.
