Wednesday Night Dinner

This week's dinner was fruity chicken salad as an appetizer, spicy spaghetti, and then brownies and chocolate peanut butter rice krispy treats for dessert. It was delightfully easy, and it was certainly satisfying.

I made a double batch of spaghetti, with half hot sausage and half beef (and a healthy dose of red pepper), over whole wheat pasta. Yum! I didn't want to use 2 dishes for the spaghetti, and I didn't have a pan quite big enough for everything, so I made it in a wok; please don't judge me.
Brownies were the ultimate cheat, Ghirardelli Triple Chocolate boxed brownies. Thanks to Dorie, I finally have a good from scratch recipe, but that'll have to wait for weeks when the Bar isn't sneaking up on me quite so quickly.
Rice Krispy treats are one of those easy desserts that really aren't that bad for you (as far as fat/calories, anyway). However, I almost doubled the marshmallows (marshmallow cream, to be more precise), added half a bag of milk chocolate chunks, and added 5-7 tablespoons of honey peanut butter. They barely resemble the light snack that the recipe on the side of the box would make. They were more like gooey Reese's bars with a hint of crunch from the rice krispies.

Rice Krispy Treats

Yumm! I don't know why, but this simple dessert always makes me happy. Perhaps it has something to do with never having these kinds of sugary snacks when I was growing up.

I added the remainer of a bag of chocolate chips, and a bag of chocolate chunks that were lying around. ...because chocolate is good. I also was a little short on rice krispies, since I was just trying to use up what was left of a giant box of rice krispies after making the Easter treats. I went ahead and used as much marshmallow fluff as I normally would, because I love gooey treats!

Master Baker March Challenge Roundup

I loved making all the Easter treats! I suppose that I have more than a little streak of competitiveness. While I am normally quite lazy, a competition moves me to action pretty quickly. Master Baker's March contest is a great example! Here are all the treats that I made with the theme ingredient: Easter Candy!

Reese's Egg Banana Bars

Reese's Egg Granola Banana Bars

Easter Rice Krispy Treats

(made with Peeps and Mini Reese's Eggs)

Mini Reese's Egg Cheesecake

S'more Peep Bars

Mini Cadbury Nest Eggs

...Just posting this makes me want to bake more!

Master Baker March Challenge - Part II

I felt the need to use more of the reese's eggs. I find peanut butter and chocolate quite inspiring! This time, it was Easter Rice Krispy treats. I used the box recipe as a base, just adding in the eggs and substituting peeps for the marshmallows. I opted for yellow, since it is the closest color to plain white marshmallows, but I imagine that pink, purple or green would be more festive.

Easter Rice Krispy Treats

6 cups rice krispy cereal
3 tbs butter
3 packages of peeps (I used 2 of bunnies and 1 of chicks)
20 reese's eggs

Spray a large casserole pan with cooking spray.

Melt butter in saucepan over low-ish heat.

Add the peeps and stir over heat until all melted. (This part is fun, because you get to watch them dissolve, and they keep their eyes much longer than you'd expect!)

Stir in reese's eggs until melted (this should be much faster).

Remove from heat and stir in rice krispies.

Press into the greased pan using a sheet of parchment paper.

Let cool and serve.

I'm very pleased with the way this turned out! I think it's just the right amount of peanut butter and chocolate - not overpowering, but enough that you notice. I'm incredibly tempted to just eat them all myself. That can't be good.