Rice Crispy Treats

Back again. I survived the week of the 4-yr-olds. There were 7 of them… you know the McCaugheys that had septuplets around 10 years ago? Now I know a little bit of what the mom was going through when they were 4. Only, she couldn’t send them home mid-afternoon and then go home herself and take a nap.

The week actually went good though. The first day, they were all low-key, then they got progressively roudier each day as they learned the ropes a little better and we got used to each other. By the end of the week, there were more sommer-saults going on and more ‘falling’ off the bench during assembly and bringing an inchworm to class. Do you want proof of an inchworm in class? Here you go:
inchworm.jpg

It’s the light green thing on the leaf. It was Sammie’s worm and she’d rip up little leaves for it to eat. That’s what she’s doing on the picture.   ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

Teaching these little people was definitely more like being a mom than a teacher. For example, at lunchtime: “Can you open my juice/yogurt/pudding/lid for me?” “I don’t like this green stuff on my sandwich (lettuce). Can you get it off?” “I spilled my chocolate milk on my dress.” “Do you have a napkin? Look at my hands.” “I’m gonna go play now” as the lunch bag is thrown down beside me and on and on.

We had snacktime every afternoon… cookies, finger jello, rice crispy treats, pretzels, fish crackers, chocolate milk, juice, iced tea, etc. So, in honor of this post, I’m posting a rice crispy treats recipe. It’s nothing special, just the usual, probably what you’d get off of the rice crispy box.

rice-crispy6.jpg

Rice Crispy Treats

Printable recipe 

1/4 cup butter
10 oz bag of marshmallows
6 cups rice crispy cereal

Melt the butter and marshmallows in the microwave.
rice-crispy1.jpg

rice-crispy2.jpg

Stir cereal in.
rice-crispy3.jpg

Press into a greased 9×13 pan. I spray cooking spray on a sandwich bag and put my hand inside to press the mixture into the pan.
rice-crispy4.jpg

Let sit for awhile till it cools and firms up. Cut into squares. If you’re making squares for 4-yr-olds, take extra time to cut the squares as evenly-sized as possible… this cuts down on the “Hey! She got the biggest piece!” and pawing through them, touching every piece, looking for the biggest one.
rice-crispy5.jpg

Serve with pretzels and chocolate milk.
rice-crispy8.jpg

rice-crispy7.jpg

Simple, delicious, refreshing!

dip1

Dreamy Fruit Dip   …from the 2004 Quick Cooking annual cookbook

1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, sftened
1/2 cup marshmallow creme
1 carton (8 oz) frozen whipped topping, thawed
Assorted fresh fruit

In a small mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Beat in marshmallow creme. This works too…
dip2 …I don’t usually have marshmallow creme on hand, so one time I put marshmallows in the microwave, then got them out when they puffed up, scraped them into the mixing bowl, and they beat in nicely. Just be sure to beat them in before they cool. Fold in whipped topping. Serve with fruit. Store in refrigerator. Yield: about 4 cups.
dip3   One thing I tried this last time that I made it was to put some of it in the freezer. It worked wonderfully! When I was ready to use it, I put it in the fridge the night before to thaw, then served it for lunch the next day. It was as good and creamy as it was when it was freshly made.

Finger Jello fits any occasion!

I saw layered finger jello on misssteph101’s site awhile ago, so I asked her for the recipe. We have our school program/picnic today, and I made it for that. It’s fun and easy and very pretty! Thanks Steph!

Layered Finger Jello

Printable recipe

For each colored layer:
1 3 oz pkg of jello
1 pack (or Tbsp) unflavored gelatin
1 cup boiling water

For the white layer:
1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
4 packs (or 4 Tbsp) unflavored gelatin
2 cups boiling water

Mix each layer separately in containers. Let stand till room temperature, stirring occasionally.
jello2
Put 1st color in. Put in fridge until firm.
jello3 ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Put a third of the white layer in next. Refrigerate until firm.
jello4 ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Repeat layers until done.
jello5 —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

jello6 ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

jello7 ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

jello8 ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

jello9 When all mixtures are at room temp, it takes about 7 minutes till it’s firm enough to put the next layer on. As you can see below, I didn’t let the green get quite hard enough before putting the white on, or the white was still too warm, or both.
Mix and match and have fun!
jello1 

Diabetic?… To make a sugar-free version, use sugar-free jello for the colored layers. For the white layer, use evaporated milk and 6 packets (or however sweet you want it) of Equal or other sweetener instead of the sweetened condensed milk.

This jello can be so fun! Use it for any occassion…

13jellovalentines.jpg Valentine’s Day: red and white. You can even cut it out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter.

13jellochristmas.jpg 

Christmas…red and green (and white). ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

–St. Patrick’s Day… green and white.
–4th of July… red, white, and blue.
–Easter or Spring… pastels (4 colors of jello, and instead of having a white layer, mix 1/4 of the white part with each color, making them a more pastel color).
–School colors… if your school has colors.
–Or to make it more colorful, you can make 2 pans and make sure that the top and bottom colors are all different, then have some flipped over so all 4 colors show. Like this:
finger-jello-at-picnic.jpg

Snack Time!

Here is the perfect snack. We make it alot! And we have also made it for company. It’s a knock-off of an appetizer we had at a restaurant. We call it…

Nachos

Turn the oven to 400.
No measuring here… Cover a plate with tortilla chips (not more than 1 or 2 chips thick).
nachos1  

nachos2   Then cover the chips with a layer of cheese (we use pizza cheese or mozzarella cheese).
nachos3   Repeat the layers.

nachos4 Whether the oven is preheated or not, put the nachos in the oven. Leave in till cheese is melted to your liking. This is how it looks after about 7 minutes.

nachos5 And this is how it looks after about 10 minutes.
Serve with salsa and sour cream.

Sometimes we do these variations: Add sliced jalapeno peppers on top. Sprinkle crushed red pepper on top.

If you’re doing it for a group , use a cookie sheet instead of a plate. Also, we have Corelle plates, but we don’t use them in the oven. Our Coke plates are about twice as thick and it was an experiment the first time to see if it would break or melt but it works fine… why don’t we just use a small baking sheet? I don’t know.

I have a meat and potatoes meal done, pictured, and ready for posting, so you can expect that later this week.

And, as usual, thanks so much for your encouraging, fun, helpful, humorous, and interesting comments! You guys are great!!!

Delicious! Licked clean! A winner! Must have! Double the recipe! Fans are everywhere!

That describes this new recipe. It comes from a ‘95 Taste of Home magazine. My mom-in-law planned dinner and supper for T-giving Day, then assigned us to bring stuff. This Hot Pizza Dip was one of my things to bring for supper. She had never tried it before, but thought it looked good. And it was!!!!! It’s so easy to make too. I don’t have progressive pictures because I was hurriedly putting it together because people were already in the kitchen snacking and it still had to bake for 20 min.   Then, while it was baking, I thought, ‘Hey, that’s a new recipe’. So the only picture is after I took it out of the oven.

s pizza dip

  Hot Pizza Dip

1 package (8 oz. ) cream cheese softened

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

2 cups (8 oz. ) shredded mozzarella cheese

1 cup ( 4 oz. ) shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup pizza sauce

1/2 cup finely chopped green pepper

1/2 cup finely chopped sweet red pepper

Tortilla chips or bread sticks

In a bowl, combine cream cheese, italian seasoning and garlic powder;

spread on the bottom of a greased 9-in. pie plate. This was easier AFTER I greased my spatula. Otherwise, it sticks to the cheese mixture.

Combine cheeses; sprinke half over the cream cheese layer.

Top with the pizza sauce and peppers. Sprinkle with the remaining cheeses. I saved some peppers to sprinkle on top, just for looks.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Serve warm with tortilla chips or breadsticks. We used tortilla chips.

Yield:  about 3 1/2 cups.

The “hot” in the title means because it was in the oven… it has no ‘zip’ to it. When (yeah, when ) I make it again, I’m going to try adding some chopped pepperoni, jalepenos, or crushed red pepper seasoning to it. When we were talking about making supper, there were some groans and comments about still being full from the main meal. But, it still got licked clean and raved about anyway! Just delicious! Definitely going in my not-so-blank-anymore cookbook!

← Previous Page

   Her Blog Directory