Fantastical Friday: Happy National Junk Food Day

Happy Friday, everyone!

Today is National Junk Food Day and I have a few junk food recipes to share with y'all today. When I think of junk food, I think of things I would find at the fair or something with loads of sugar and I think that is reflected in this list.

Soft and Chewy Snickers Chocolate Chip Cookies

These amazing chocolate chip cookies have a hidden caramel, peanut, and nougat treat inside!

I posted a chocolate chip cookie recipe a few weeks ago, but you can never have too many chocolate chip cookies recipes. There is no such thing. I was intrigued by the addition of Snickers in this recipe and I knew I would love these cookies so much. They were thick, but soft and chewy - just the way I like my cookies. I love the caramel, peanuts, and nougat in the cookies and don't get why Snickers aren't added to regular chocolate chip cookies more often!

Maple Bacon Crunch Ice Cream #FantasticalFoodFight

Welcome to another Food Fight! Fantastical Food Fight is a group of food bloggers who will get a theme or ingredient each month and make some sort of variation for it. It could be traditional or nontraditional and can be found in a cookbook, on a blog, or be a blogger's own creation! For more details, check out this page.

It's time again for another Food Fight and I'm so excited about this month's theme: ICE CREAM! The Food Fighters were not given any particular flavor...it just had to be ice cream. It could be an ice cream maker recipe or a no-churn. I love both and look forward to seeing what other recipes are shared today. Plus I'm really excited to see if there are any creative flavor combinations.

I went through my recipe binder to see what I had in my dessert section for ice cream. I found a clipping from Food Network Magazine for Maple-Bacon Crunch Ice Cream. Personally, I'm not a big fan of maple syrup at all. But Nick (my husband) loves it and I am no stranger to making foods that someone else may like that I don't. Nick about died when he heard I was making a maple ice cream with bacon brittle in it.

I had a time and a half with this recipe. The ice cream part....I cooked my egg mixture 30 seconds too long and it cooked the eggs. So I had to scrap it and redo it. It was perfect the second go around....then I had issues with the original bacon brittle recipe. It was just rough. So I looked up one on AllRecipes for peanut brittle. I subbed in some honey for corn syrup because I ran out and, of course, no peanuts. Just bacon! :)

From an objective standpoint, the ice cream was very creamy - the perfect consistency. The crunch of the brittle was wonderful. It does taste like maple, but I will say that it wasn't an overwhelming maple taste and I think that is really appealing. The aftertaste almost reminded me of one of my favorite flavors of ice cream: butter pecan. Nick loved the ice cream and that's what I was going for, so it was definitely a winner. If you love maple and you love bacon, you will LOVE this ice cream.

Peanut Butter Sweetie Pie

This sweetie pie combines peanut butter and chocolate and tastes like a cookie!

I don't make pie a lot because I'm not a big fan of pie crust. Next time I make this pie, I'm definitely going to use a chocolate graham crust because that sounds like the perfect crust for a pie like this. Not only is there peanut butter in the batter, but you also have peanut butter M&Ms, which are one of my favorites. I go back and forth between peanut butter and plain peanut M&Ms being my favorite. This sweetie pie is like a giant cookie and it's so awesome! :)

Menu Plan Monday - July 17, 2017

Excited for tonight's veggie packed meal and copycat cheeseburgers and hot dogs! I feel like I don't use strawberries enough, so I'm so ready for this weekend's dessert. Let's hope I can get around to making the three breakfast recipes because I was doing pretty well for a while in June, but fell of the wagon.

Monday - Grilled Summer Vegetable Pasta Primavera
Tuesday - Lemon Blueberry Streusel Muffins // Beef Fajita Nachos
Wednesday - German Cheese Soup with Slow Roasted Tomato BLTs with Basil Mayo
Thursday - Cinnamon Roll Donuts // Loco Moco
Friday - Copycat McDonald's Cheeseburgers
Saturday - Blueberry Pancakes // A&W Chili Dogs // Strawberry Yogurt Cake
Sunday - Chicken Schnitzel with Potato Crust

What's for your meal plan this week?
Leave links, if you want!

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