Pretzel Turtle Bites

These pretzel bites have been popping up all over the internet recently.   The day before christmas Eve my mother decides that she wants to get in on the action and make them as well.  The original recipe calls for Rolos, but due to the popularity of these things every store we went to was sold out of bags of Rolos.  They did have bags of the mini Rolos but we were afraid the chocolate to other stuff ratio would be off.   We browsed the candy aisle and finally decided to go with Dove caramel filled milk chocolates.  Then we got home, got some wine, and set to work making these little treats.

Pretzel Turtle Bites

Ingredients:

• Pretzels (I chose the mini twists but any roundish shape should work)
• Pecan halves
• Dove caramel filled milk chocolate

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Arrange the pretzels in a single layer on a parchment lined cookie sheet. 
2. Place one chocolate covered caramel candy on each pretzel.    
3. Bake for 4 minutes. 
4. While the candy is warm, press a pecan half onto each candy covered pretzel. 
5. Cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Graham Cracker Bark

So...I've been slacking a bit with this blog.  I meant to post this a month ago and failed. I cut back on the amount of sweets I made this year for Christmas, but I had to make my favorite treat.  It's sooo yummy and as a bonus it end up looking pretty cool as well.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Graham Cracker Bark

Ingredients:

• Graham crackers 

• 6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

• 1/2 cup peanut butter 

• 3 oz white chocolate

Directions:


1) Line a  9x13 baking sheet with foil, making sure to cover handles. Layer grahams onto sheet, covering as much space as possible.

2) Melt semi-sweet chocolate and peanut butter in the microwave, and stir until smooth.

3) Pour melted mixture over the graham crackers and spread until smooth.

4) Melt the white chocolate in the microwave and dollop over the chocolate.

5) Using a knife, swirl the chocolate into whatever pattern you like.   Refrigerate until firm.  Once firm, break it into pieces. 

Very Merry Bead Sprites

While I have been pretty good about posting recipes and holiday things, I feel the video game portion has been slightly neglected.  I shall remedy that now with a very cute yet very nerdy set of Christmas decorations I made.


This is a Christmas set of bead sprites I made.  As you can see I adapted each one to be slightly more festive with antlers, santa hats and Christmas colors.  I then put them in some red and green frames I got from IKEA. You could do this with any character and they look very nice hanging on the wall. You could also thread string though the tops and use them as ornaments.

Festive Cranberry-Apple Salad

I make this dish every Thanksgiving.  It can be a side dish or a dessert depending on what you serve it with.  Its pretty easy to make and its a nice change from the traditional canned cranberries.

 

 

Festive Cranberry-Apple Salad

 

 

Ingredients:

 

1can (20 oz.) crushed pineapple, undrained

2 pkg. (3 oz. each) or 1 pkg. (6 oz.) JELL-O Raspberry Flavor Gelatin

1 can (16 oz.) whole berry cranberry sauce

1 Apple, chopped

2/3 cup chopped pecans

 

 

Directions:

 

1) Drain pineapple juice into large container (at least 4 cups).

 

2) Add enough cold water to the juice to measure 3 cups.

 

3) Pour the juice into saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and add dry gelatin mix. Stir until completely disolved 

 

 

 4)Stir in cranberry sauce.

 

 5) Pour into a large bowl and refrigerate 1-1/2 hours or until slightly thickened.

 

 

6) Stir in pineapple, apples and nuts.    

 



 

7) Refrigerate 4 hours or until firm