Blog - Authors Kitchen - Stories of Sugar and Spice

Entries in it's magic! (10)

Sunday

Jul062014

Magic Cookie Bars

Sunday, July 6, 2014 at 5:12PM |

I grew up calling these Magic Cookie Bars. But I’ve also seen them called 7 Layer Bars, as well as a few other things, which aren’t coming to mind just now. Personally, I think the name Magic Cookie Bars is what best describes them, because they are just that. Basically, you spread a few basic ingredients in a pan, drizzle on some sweetened condensed milk, pop the whole thing into the oven for a bit, and you end up with this amazing, chocolately, chewy, cookie bar goodness.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 Pkg graham crackers
4 Tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons sugar
½ cup each of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, chopped pecans, broken pretzels
¾ cup shredded, sweetened coconut
½ can sweetened condensed milk (about ⅔ cup)

First, melt your butter and set it aside. Then, for the crust, the graham crackers need to be crushed. I have decided the easiest way to do this is to slide them into a ziplock bag.

Then just seal it up and go over them with a rolling pin. See? Perfect crumbs.

The advantage to doing it this way is that you have no dishes to clean. Just pour the melted butter right into the bag.

Shake the crumbs until you have something that looks like wet sand.

Dump that into a parchment lined 8x8 pan.

Spread it to the edges and press it with something flat, or even just your hand. Place that into the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Longer is fine. During that time, preheat your oven to 350°

When you’re ready, pull out the crust and sprinkle on both chocolate chips, pecans, and pretzels. Just a quick tip. To get small pieces of pretzels, you’ll want to use the bag and rolling pin trick again. I tried just chopping mine and ended up with some of them flying across the kitchen. Not my most brilliant moment.

On top, goes the coconut.

Drizzle the sweetened condensed milk evenly over the top.

I only put pecans in half of mine because Hubby is allergic to them, so I marked that half with a pecan on top. As you can see, they don’t look like anything special. In fact, not really even that appetizing, but just you wait.

Here comes the magic part. Pop them into the oven for 35 minutes and you have gone from “Meh” to “Holy crap those look good!”

Allow them to cool completely before cutting them if you can. It won’t be easy, because they smell every bit as delicious as they look.

Zucchini Fettuccini

Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 6:01AM |

Seeley deBorn

Not a noodle!

Side dishes are usually overlooked and kinda boring. No wonder they're overlooked.

This one is definitely not one of those.

There are some days when boiling a huge pot of water just seems like too much trouble. Especially in the summer when it's warm outside and adding humidity to the house is the last thing you want to do. It's not quite that warm here yet, but I've been craving zucchini, and this is a fun way to eat it. I'll bet even kids would be willing to try them this way!

Zucchini Fettuccini

(this serves one, multiply as needed!)

1 zucchini
1 tsp butter
1 clove garlic

Using a vegetable peeler, or a mandolin (if you have one) peel thin strips off the zucchini.

Keep going with the peeler. Don't worry if the strips are even in width, or if they break a bit.

The middle, where all the seeds are, won't work well, so don't worry about it. Just keep turning and peeling the zuke until you've turned as much of it into ribbons as possible.

Heat a large pan over high heat. The goal here is to really sautee these things. You don't want them to steam at all. Zucchini has a very high moisture content, and we want to trap that moisture inside the "fettuccini."

Chop the garlic. Get the butter sizzling, then drop in the garlic. It and the butter will start to brown pretty fast. As soon as you see that golden edge, drop in your zucchini.

Keep the fettuccini moving around and DON'T add salt. Salt will draw that moisture out, and we want it trapped. It takes about 3 minutes for the zucchini to cook.