Salted Nut Roll

This classic candy has a nougat center wrapped in caramel and peanuts!

I have always loved Salted Nut Roll candy bars and was totally miffed when I moved to Tennessee and couldn't find them. I was really happy to discover that Paydays were the same thing. This candy is something I had often at holiday time as a child and it's not exactly the same as a Salted Nut Roll candy bar or Payday, but it's still really really great. Same concept :)

Bacon Piggy Brittle #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.

This month's Fantastical Food Fight theme is CANDY. I originally was going to do hard candy, but had trouble finding a recipe that may fit the theme and figured my blogging friends might also have that same problem, so I broadened our theme to candy. There are so many good types of candy to choose from: fudge, toffee, taffy, brittle, hard candy, etc. I decided to try brittle once again. I haven't had the best luck with brittle. I think I need to invest in an instant read thermometer. But this recipe wasn't terrible at all. I think I just got it slightly too dark, but not burnt. So I can absolutely deal with that.

This was a recipe from Food Network Magazine that was in the "Name the Recipe" thing that they do and I could not find the name of it for the longest time. I went ahead and made it and decided to name it Bacon Piggy Brittle before finally discovering that it was named "This Brittle Piggy" which is SO cute. So whatever name you call it, it is definitely perfect for any bacon lovers you may have in your life, including yourself!

Chocolate Hazelnut Crunch Truffles

These delicious chocolate candies are the perfect bite-sized decadent treat for any day of the week!

I am in love with Ferrero Rochers and I, for some reason, got this recipe mixed up with another on my candy Pinterest board that was a copycat of the little hazelnut truffles that I love so much. I realized it when I went to go make it, but I wasn't too bummed because these are still truffles and still chocolate and hazelnut. They did take a bit of time to make - mostly chilling time - but were definitely worth it. I made mine with semisweet chocolate, but you can also do milk chocolate for a sweeter truffle. I might do milk chocolate for the center and semisweet for the dipping and see how I like that combination.

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.

Red Wine Chocolate Bon Bons #Choctoberfest

These bon bons could not be any more perfect if they tried: chocolate, red wine, and espresso?! Yes, please!

I wish I had a better picture of these bon bons because they were so darn delicious, but alas, they were so darn delicious and they did not last long. These were made in conjunction with my mom-in-law's birthday cake last December that was a chocolate cake with red wine chocolate buttercream. I actually put a few on the top of the cake for decoration.

I used a red wine that we lovingly referred to as our "fertility wine" -- Nick and I drank it one night and ended up with Mason 40 weeks later. Turns out that our fertility wine also worked its wonders on my sister-in-law and her husband too because 40 weeks after her husband devoured the bon bons they brought home with them, they ended up with little Miss Presley, my first niece. I jokingly warn them that I will make more food with fertility wine (which is unfortunately all gone now) so I can have more nieces and nephews.

These bon bons are a labor of love, but they are so good. Next time I make them (bwahahaha), I do want to try and make them a bit smaller because it's hard not to eat a whole one because they are so good, but they are also very rich. And don't miss out on the other chocolate recipes from #Choctoberfest bloggers today (scroll down to the bottom of the post to see them!) - it's only day 3, so there is tons of chocolatey goodness to come!

Pumpkin Pie Peanut Butter Cups

Move over peanut butter cups, fall is almost here and that means pumpkin is taking over!

That moment of panic when you realize that you signed up for the reveal day for the month and even pinned lots of recipes to try from your assigned blog and then didn't make anything...ACK! That was me this month. As some of y'all may know, I am the head honcho for the Secret Recipe Club. I do up all the assignments and am in charge of Group C (the group I am in), so I should be paying attention to what I am doing in the club. Whoops!

I was assigned to Sarah's blog, The Pajama Chef, this month and I picked out some really good recipes that I wanted to make. Sarah is a married mom to a sweet little boy and resides in Nashville (hi, neighbor to the west!). She has three kitties and loves to run and read!

I really wanted to make her Pretzel Rolls and that was actually my plan to begin with, but because I failed at remembering that I had recipes to make that I had picked out I went with the recipe that I had all the ingredients on hand for: Pumpkin Pie Peanut Butter Cups. I'm not too bummed about this because they were amazing, easy, and I loved them. I love Reese's, but adding pumpkin is just genius.

Some other recipes I had saved on my secret Pinterest board: Aunt Charlotte's Tex Mex Corn, The Best Egg Salad I've Ever Had, The Bestest Pizza Sauce Ever (I have never made my own and she says it isn't too tomato-y which makes me hopeful!), 1970s Style Tacos, Pumpkin Cheesecake with Pecan Praline Sauce, Coffee Blondies, Chewy Peanut Butter Brownies, and Healthy Crumb-Topped Zucchini Bread.

Salted Chocolate Cookie Butter Bark #HandCraftedEdibles

In an effort to make all of my holiday gifts this year, we are sharing recipes for hand-crafted edibles. Over the course of twelve weeks, we'll be sharing recipes that you can make at home to give to friends and loved ones, or things to serve at holiday parties. We hope you'll follow along for inspiration. You can find out more information, including the schedule: here.

This week, we are letting out our inner chocolatiers shine, sharing all sorts of recipes with chocolate.

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I know it has been a few weeks since I've joined in with Camilla and the rest of the #HandCraftedEdibles crew but I am back and excited to share a chocolate treat with y'all today. I really wanted to share a treat that works well for gifting and my mind went to bark. Even though peppermint bark is my favorite, I could not pass up making one with cookie butter. Cookie butter is something that I tried (and failed) to find for over a year. I was lucky to stumble upon some one day at the store, on the end of the pet aisle of all places. I thankfully still have an unopened jar or two in my pantry, so I was able to make this bark without hesitation!

I was surprised at how easy this recipe was to make and it turned out so lovely. I adore recipes that come out aesthetically pleasing AND taste divine! Good all around, right?! The sea salt on the bark is honestly one of the best selling points for this recipe, if chocolate and cookie butter didn't already have you convinced to try it. That little bit of salt makes these an incredibly addictive treat.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fudge #SecretRecipeClub

It's time again for Secret Recipe Club reveal day for my group, Group D! What is Secret Recipe Club? It's a bunch of food bloggers separated into four groups that post once a month on a designated Monday. Each month, we are paired with another foodie from our group secretly (hence the name). We then pick a recipe (or two or more) from that blog and make it. On our reveal day, we reveal whose blog we had and what recipe(s) we chose all at the same time. It's like a Secret Santa every month, but with food and blogs! It's a great deal of fun :)

This month, I had narrowed down my possible choices for recipes within a day or two of getting my assignment. I saved a total of 17 recipes. I had planned on making at least 2 and possibly 3 of those recipes. Then the month flew by and before I knew it, I had completely forgotten to plan out purchasing and making the recipes and had to make with what I had on hand.

So now I'm sure y'all are wondering what awesome blog I got that had me narrowing down to a whopping 17 recipes...and that blog was Karen's Kitchen Stories. It is written by Karen, if that wasn't obvious, who is a mom, grandma, and overall awesome lady! She started blogging as a way to document the recipes that were making a mess of her kitchen - I can definitely relate there ;) I love her about me page - it's informative and makes me want to redo my own.

Karen's blog has an impressive amount of bread recipes and that is where a majority of my saved recipes were. I saved her Basic Sourdough Bread, No Knead Quinoa Bread, Gruyere Cheese Bread, Corn & Jalapeno Rolls, and Cheddar Chive Bread. Karen also has some breadlike recipes that I want to try: Whole Wheat and Cheddar Mini Crackers and !!!!!!POTATO LEFSE!!!!!! My grandpa sends me lefse every year around Thanksgiving. I still have some in my freezer right now. The recipe that I was going to make was her Roasted Jalapeno Salsa. But as I said, I completely forgot to plan the ingredient purchases and make it.

Group C's reveal day came around last Monday and I was fretting our upcoming reveal day. I started to look through the dessert recipes I saved that included a few cookies, a cheesecake, and a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fudge recipe. I had all the ingredients for the fudge, so the fudge is what I made. I do hope to make the other recipes very soon. The breads all sound so so delicious. And the salsa and bruschettas are gonna be amazing too.

Chocolate Fudge Reese's Cake Bars

So it's Monday, but obviously there is no Menu Plan Monday post...why? Because I'm in the middle of moving. Goodbye forever, New York! Hello again, Tennessee. Very happy to be returning back home to the south and leaving the military life behind. We're really excited to see our families...pretty much every day...not two times a year, if we're lucky. I hope to be back to MPMs by the end of the month. :)

I love chocolate and peanut butter together. I also believe that Reese's Pieces are supreme. Mini are even better. And don't get me started on this chocolate fudge cake...best.box.mix.EVER! It's my go-to chocolate cake box mix.

These cake bars are moist and oh so chocolately. The mini Reese's Pieces compliment the cake part perfectly and they are definitely something you want to be careful around. You may just eat a whole pan in one sitting!

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Popcorn

We've been testing out some new popcorn recipes for our occasional Friday night movie nights. We sometimes forget or do other things [like play Spongebob Uno]. I often will just put salt and cinnamon on our air-popped popcorn. Sometimes I do butter, but I am lazy and we don't have a microwave, so I skip that step a lot.

This popcorn is amazing, but it is also super rich, so don't eat too much of it ;)

Peanut Butter Pudding Cookies

I am convinced that pudding cookies are the best kind of cookies and here is why: they are the softest cookies and they keep incredibly well. They also are normally nice puffy, thick cookies. They are my ideal cookie.

I have been on a peanut butter cookie kick lately, so I had to make these when I had a craving. They taste pretty similar to the Loaded Reese's Cookies I posted here and I would love to do these again with some chopped up Reese's cups in them. Oh! And a note: use mini Reese's Pieces!! You ever notice how minis taste better? Mini M&Ms, mini Nilla Wafers - minis are the bomb!

Chewy Butterfinger Cookies

I love making cookies because they keep better than other types of desserts, so that I don't feel pressured to eat them all or try and give them away to people before they go bad. These cookies would not have survived until they went bad anyways. They are incredibly addictive!

My 7 year old has a bit of a sweet tooth...okay, a HUGE sweet tooth, like me. So I have to hide sweets before I go to bed unless I want them to mystically disappear in the middle of the night. Nick ended up hiding the last 3 cookies from Matthew before bed and he forgot about them. A few days passed and no one remembered them...except for me.

And I ate all 3. Nick was devastated to say the very least when he went searching a few days later for the cookies he saved for him and the kids. I, on the other hand, have no regrets and no guilt. You can't have just one of these cookies!

Peanut Butter Lover's Rice Krispie Treats

I've only made a few variations from regular old Rice Krispie treats over the years and I really just preferred the original to the variations....until this recipe!

When I was really young, the church we went to used to have like a little brunch-y type coffee thing after the service. All the adults would socialize and us kids would grab some of the food and take off to play hide-and-seek because the church was huge. There were mint chocolate bars that were standard and so were peanut butter Rice Krispie treats with chocolate topping. We always called them Special K bars. These bars sated my appetite for those amazing treats that I haven't had in ages.

They could not have been more perfect. I loved the Reese's cups in them - that just really made them incredibly delicious. They are so sinfully sweet and decadent and scrumptious and many other descriptive words that I can't think of right now.

Movie Theater Candy Popcorn

We started doing a movie night with the kids and they really love it. But their favorite part is the popcorn that we make on movie night. Since we don't have a microwave, we use a hot air popcorn maker and they love to watch the popcorn fly out of it. It's kind of nice to just use the kernels because it kind of gives you a basis for so many popcorn recipes and there's more of a control over how much you have. This was our first popcorn recipe to try out and it was very good. I loved getting the gummy bear with the chocolatey popcorn. That was probably my favorite part!

Monster Cookie Dough Dip

On my Pinterest appetizer and snacks recipe board, I have many a cookie dip recipes. I actually had a couple for monster cookie dough dip, but ultimately chose this one. Monster cookies are awesome because they have so much going on in them - oatmeal, M&Ms, chocolate chips, peanut butter - I mean it's perfect for when you don't know what kind of cookie/treat you want. You just have them all! This dip was simple to make and incredibly addictive!

Kit Kat Cookie Bars

Blondies are quickly becoming one of my favorite desserts. I just love how they are like a soft chewy cookie, but thicker! There's just so much more to them. The addition of Kit Kats to these chocolate chip cookie bars really makes them even more delicious. I really want to try experimenting with a few other kinds of candies - like Reese's cups or maybe Peanut Butter M&Ms. I can only imagine how good they'd be with peanut butter candies :)

Milky Way Muddy Buddies

I'm trying to expand my horizons when it comes to Muddy Buddies/Puppy Chow. Me personally, I call them Puppy Chow and I about died the first time I had them as a kid. I've only made one other variation of the traditional Puppy Chow - Thin Mint. Around the time I came up with that recipe, there was an explosion of different versions (which inspired me to make my own).

This was one of the first versions I pinned to make later. They were super yummy!

Raspberry M&M Banana Bread

I am a very stubborn person.

VERY.

I am set in my ways about a lot of food, although I have recently become a little more daring and decided to try new things. I have posted 3 banana bread recipes of 4 that I have tried. My tried and true is not on the blog and the other three were great. Only one of the 4 are different from regular old banana bread (Strawberry Cake Mix Banana Bread) because I like regular ole banana bread.

When I had a craving for banana bread, I decided to see what recipes I had on my bread board on Pinterest and really wanted to make the Raspberry Dark Chocolate Banana Bread , however I only had frozen raspberries and semisweet chocolate chips. I did have a bag of Raspberry Dark Chocolate M&Ms and that was good enough for me, so I made the adaptation. It was delicious banana bread and I'm feeling a lot more comfortable about trying new banana bread flavor combinations.

For all those celebrating tomorrow, Happy Thanksgiving!! :)

Nutella Twix Blondies

It's finally Friday! This week has been a whirlwind of activity. I am about to tie up all the loose ends for transferring to another college - my current college has left a very bad taste in my mouth and I'm only halfway through the term. I'm ready for my new college. So so so ready to go! Both kids had a dentist appointment on Wednesday and no cavities for either of them. Yesterday, I was surprised to get a new dishwasher. I apparently had a lot of issues that led to my dishwasher getting replaced - it was leaking and not draining after running the cycle, plus there were parts broken inside and also a clog in the tubing/piping. It's a super amazing dishwasher so far and I'm so giddy excited about it :)

Now I can dirty dishes without worrying about doing too many dishes by hand because my nasty dishwasher doesn't really clean them. This means that I need to bake some things. These Nutella Twix Blondies are perfect for a quick fix on the weekend. They are chewy with a bit of crunch from the Twix with some delicious Nutella drizzled over the top. YUM!

Oh! I also updated my blog look. I started scheming a few weeks ago and I hope to keep it this way for a WHILE. I put categories right up top for easy access and I hope that'll be better than what I had up there. If you notice on the right, I have a category for Fantastical Friday. That is something new I'll be starting in January and I'm really excited for that :) You may notice my pin it button at the top of the post is gone and I will be working to fix that as soon as possible.

Cookie Week: Loaded Peanut Butter Cookies

I don't really remember eating a lot of peanut butter cookies when I was little, but I do remember being very excited to have them when I did. You know, the traditional criss-cross ones? I have a few classic recipes for peanut butter cookies that I want to test out until I find the perfect one that screams "I ATE THIS IN MY CHILDHOOD"...but I was totally sidetracked by the recipe that also included Reese's candies in it. I mean...classic plain peanut butter or loaded peanut butter...which would you choose?

Naturally, I went down the loaded path. I have no regrets. NONE. Perfect chewy cookie with tons of different textures from the candies. My favorite was when you got a bite with a Reese's cup though. Ahhhh sweet heavenly goodness.