Bacon, cheese and flaky biscuits.  Is there a better snack or appetizer?

I’d bought a couple of rolls of Grand’s biscuits a few weeks ago, and almost had forgotten about them!  I wanted to use them since accidents happen in my fridge and I didn’t feel like cleaning out gloppy biscuit dough if the package burst by accident.

Bacon Cheese Pull-Aparts

Also cooked up some bacon the other day, just for a demo on my Facebook fan page on cooking perfect bacon.  Had cheese because, well, I ALWAYS overbuy that!

And the result was this.  Tasty and satisfying.  Oh, did I mention EASY too?  You can leave out the hot sauce if you want.  I just like it with bacon cheesy stuff.  Fine without too.

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Bacon Cheese Pull-Aparts

Bacon, cheese and flaky biscuits.  There isn't a better snack or appetizer than these bacon cheese pull-aparts!

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Total Time35 minutes mins

Course: Appetizer

Cuisine: American

Keyword: bacon, pull-aparts, rolls

Servings: 6

Calories: 386kcal

Author: Judith Hannemann

Ingredients

• 1 can refrigerated biscuit dough 8 count large flaky biscuits (like Grands)
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp hot sauce
• 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
• 5 slices crisp bacon diced
• 4 green onions finely sliced

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 11 x 7-inch pan with non-stick spray.
• Separate biscuits and cut each biscuit into quarters.
• Beat egg and milk thoroughly; beat in hot sauce. Add biscuit quarters to milk mixture and stir gently, coating all sides of the biscuits.
• Stir in cheese, green onion and bacon.
• Turn into prepared pan, making sure biscuits are in a single layer.
• Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-30 minutes, or until golden brown and cheese starts to brown.
• Serve immediately. Makes about 6 servings.

Nutrition

Calories: 386kcal | Carbohydrates: 39g | Protein: 12g | Fat: 21g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 50mg | Sodium: 959mg | Potassium: 259mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 3g | Vitamin A: 261IU | Vitamin C: 2mg | Calcium: 155mg | Iron: 3mg

Bacon Cheese Pull-Aparts

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Quickie Kit Kat Bars

 

Here’s this week’s Meatless Monday entry–Quickie Kit Kat Bars.  Yes, I know it’s candy…but it IS meatless, and it’s by a special fan request

This is an easy snack and I had small amounts of caramel sauce, graham crackers and chocolate chips and some coarse-grained white sea salt, so why not?

Ready in a jif

I had originally planned a peanut noodle bowl for this week, however, when my fans saw this and I said I’d probably post it Friday….well, that’s a LONG time, so I hold off the noodle bowl to NEXT week and publish these homemade candy bars. LOL!

Anyway, I did tell dessert and baking bloggers that as long as it was meatless (and this sure qualifies) it can be posted on my “roundup” here….

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Quickie Kit Kat Bars

These homemade Kit Kat bars are a delicious combination of graham crackers with sea salt, caramel and chocolate.

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time2 minutes mins

Total Time7 minutes mins

Course: desserts

Cuisine: American

Keyword: candy recipe, caramel, chocolate, graham crackers, kit kat bars

Servings: 10 -12

Calories: 200kcal

Author: Judith Hannemann

Ingredients

• 8 sheets graham crackers
• 1/2 cup caramel sauce
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 tbs butter
• 1 tbs coarse sea salt

Instructions

• Line an 8 x 8-inch or 9 x 9-inch pan with aluminum foil.
• Lay out a layer of graham crackers along the bottom. Fill in spaces with pieces of graham crackers so the bottom is totally covered.
• Microwave caramel sauce on HI for 20 seconds, or until it's thinner pourable consistency. Pour over graham crackers, and spread in an even layer.
• Top with the rest of the graham crackers, repeating as in the first layer, with all the spaces filled.
• Microwave chocolate chips and butter on HI for 1 minute. Remove and stir until very smooth. Spread chocolate over top. Chill.
• Top with coarse salt and cut into pieces of desired size

Nutrition

Serving: 1piece | Calories: 200kcal | Carbohydrates: 25g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 10g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Cholesterol: 7mg | Sodium: 833mg | Potassium: 131mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 9g | Vitamin A: 89IU | Calcium: 26mg | Iron: 2mg

Quickie Kit Kat Bars

Quicke Kit Kat Bars

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A bag of mini pretzels, some white chocolate, some dark chocolate and a microwave. What can be easier?

This is a KINDA healthy snack mix.  It doesn’t overdo the chocolates, pretzels are really a better choice than chips and dark chocolate is pretty healthy so they say.

OK, I’m a nut for white chocolate, and I think this tastes better with it.  But that’s just my opinion so try both flavors!!

For this you will need REAL white chocolate if that’s what you choose to use.  It must contain cocoa butter to melt and drizzle correctly.  White baking morsels don’t, and I don’t think those disks that Wilton puts out do either, but I did read the package and it says that it melts and drizzles nicely, but there will be a caveat here with it and I do recommend using the real deal.

Baker’s® Premium White contains the cocoa butter and so does the Ghiardelli® *BAR*.

Microwaving the white chocolate at 30 second intervals is the way to go.  It will not look like it’s melting, so you do have to stir.  I didn’t make too much mix, and used 2 squares.  It melted nicely to the right consistency in a total of 1 minute, 10 seconds.

As to the regular semi-sweet chocolate, use the same microwave times and remember, do not get a speck of water in either, or the chocolate will seize.  You can correct that somewhat by adding vegetable shortening (Crisco, for example) by the teaspoon until it’s smooth again, but it just won’t be the “same” so best advice I can give is, be patient, and do it slowly!!!

I used butter-flavored “waffle” pretzels and mini unsalted twists here.  A new-wave flavor combo recently has been salt and dark chocolate, so by all means, use a salted variety if you like that.

FYI the little nonpareils are a pain YOU-KNOW-WHERE rolling around all over the place, but they do look pretty.  But since they add no flavor and are only a decoration, leave them out if you’re making this as a snack for a family movie nite or something.

I used 1/2 a bag of each variety pretzel here, and use any amount you wish and as much chocolate as you wish.  My instructions are a guide from what I did.

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Black and White Pretzel Mix

A bag of mini pretzels, some white chocolate, some dark chocolate and a microwave. What can be easier?

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Total Time10 minutes mins

Course: candy

Cuisine: American

Keyword: dark chocolate, Pretzel Mix, white chocollate

Servings: 8

Calories: 194kcal

Author: Judith Hannemann

Ingredients

• 4 cups mini pretzels shape your choice
• 2 squares white chocolate see above regarding white chocolate
• 2 squares semi-sweet chocolate
• colored decors optional

Instructions

• Line a work surface with either baking parchment or wax paper.
• Lay pretzels on parchment/wax paper with a small space between each pretzel.
• Melt chocolates in separate microwave-proof bowls, according to melting directions on each package, usually this is 30 seconds for each square plus 10 seconds for each additional square.
• Drizzle chocolate(s) over pretzels either with a spoon or a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip. You can also use a plastic sandwich bag in place of the pastry bag and just cut a teeny bit off one corner.
• Sprinkle with decors if using. Let set. This will take about 2 hrs OR refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 194kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 5g | Fat: 4g | Saturated Fat: 2g | Cholesterol: 1mg | Sodium: 507mg | Potassium: 94mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 4g | Calcium: 12mg | Iron: 3mg

Black and White Pretzel Mix

Black and White Pretzel Mix

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Sopapilla Rolls

 

A new twist on a timeless and dessert sweet. Easy too.

I hadn’t thought of this dessert for ages.  Then a friend posted about it on her Facebook page saying how much she enjoyed it and whenever a co-worker made it, how it would vanish into thin air immediately.

Another mutual friend saw the recipe and made it up, but didn’t think much of it as it was written.  She said it was too buttery and way too sweet.   When I’d looked at the recipe the other friend had posted, it had ridiculous amounts of sugar in addition to cinnamon sugar topping, and, 1/4 cup of melted butter?  An 8 ounce package of cream cheese? Seriously?

Easy to assemble

She also said it was a pain to assemble since the crescent dough kept breaking at the perforations no matter how she tried to close the seams.

I got an idea to make this just as filled crescents and reduce the fat and sugar and also use up some toasted almonds I’d had hanging around from various desserts I’ve done for the blog.  If you have leftover apples, berries, etc., that can neatly substitute for the toasted almonds I used, or use both! Regardless of the fact that I reduced butter and sugar, the result is still plenty of fat and calories so a few more AIN’T GONNA MATTER LOL.

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Sopapilla Crescents

A new twist on a timeless and dessert sweet. Easy too.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Total Time45 minutes mins

Course: Breakfast, desserts

Cuisine: Mexican, sopapilla crescents

Keyword: crescent

Servings: 8

Calories: 236kcal

Author: Judith Hannemann

Ingredients

• 1 tube crescent roll dough
• 6 oz softened cream cheese low fat can be subbed
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 3 tbsp toasted sliced almonds
• 2 tbsp butter melted
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or grease the bottom of either an 8 x 8-inch or 9 x 9-inch pan.
• Beat the softened cream cheese with the 2 tbs sugar until very smooth.
• Unroll the crescent dough and separate into 8 individual triangles. Divide the cream cheese mixture evenly among the 8 triangles and spread the mixture over the entire triangle. Sprinkle with the toasted almonds reserving about 1 tbs for topping. Roll up each triangle as for a crescent roll.
• Place 4 rolls evenly down one side of the pan, place the other 4 rolls evenly down the other side of the pan. (the placement should look like 2 columns of a newspaper)
• Melt the butter in the microwave. Mix the 1 tbs sugar with the cinnamon.
• Brush the tops of each crescent roll with the butter. Sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar and remaining toasted almonds.
• Bake 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from pan and cool. May be eaten warm or chilled.
• Serves 8

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 236kcal | Carbohydrates: 18g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 18g | Saturated Fat: 9g | Cholesterol: 31mg | Sodium: 315mg | Potassium: 56mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 8g | Vitamin A: 374IU | Calcium: 31mg | Iron: 1mg

Sopapilla Rolls

 

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Butterscotch Zebras

So, what do you do with an open package of graham crackers where you used part for something else?

You make Butterscotch “Zebras”, of course.  And surprise–they’re diet friendly too.

I had a pack of graham crackers I’d opened to make “bits” for another dish, and I knew there was nothing I could really do with them.  I had tons of graham cracker crumbs, so I couldn’t make those.  Didn’t want to eat them.  Didn’t want to use a big Lock and Lock container just to put 2/3 of this package in.  I also had about a scant cup of butterscotch chips, so the idea came to me to make a candy/cookie concoction similar to what I put in the dessert I’d made with some of the crackers.

So I melted the butterscotch chips–and the same caveat goes for these as melting white chocolate chips–NO LIQUID/MILK/CREAM.  I’d forgotten that but was able to salvage the molten mixture.  OK, it’s texture was more like fondant than ganache, but it could be worked with and it tasted fine.

Speaking of fine taste, that’s these cookies…or candy…or whatever you want to call them.  I gave them a final drizzle of melted chocolate ganache just for effect, but it tastes fine.  Plus I discovered I need a finer round decorating tip!  I’d have liked the chocolate thinner because it would have looked better, but I seem to think the chocoholics would disagree there.

Butterscotch Zebras

• 12 whole graham crackers
• 1 cup butterscotch morsels
• 1-2 tbs Crisco (NOT butter or margarine)
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• 2 tbs heavy cream

Prepare a large cookie sheet by laying a piece of waxed paper or parchment across the bottom.  Lay out graham crackers–I left mine whole but you could break them in half or even into individual quarters.


Melt butterscotch chips and Crisco in a microwave-proof bowl for 1 minute at HIGH. Stir.  Keep stirring until there are no lumps.  You may have to microwave for an additonal 10-30 seconds.  


When butterscotch sauce is smooth, pour over graham crackers, trying to pour as evenly as possible to cover most, if not all, of the cracker.  It’s OK if you don’t though.


Place in refrigerator to set butterscotch sauce; about 5 minutes.


When set, prepare chocolate ganache as follows–place the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl.  Add the cream, starting with 1 tbs (that may be all you need). Microwave for 30 seconds and stir until no lumps are in chocolate.  You may have to microwave for an additionsl 10-20 seconds.  


Drizzle over graham crackers.  Refrigerate to set; about 10 minutes.


Makes 24 servings (1/2 a whole graham is a serving)

Butterscotch Zebras

Butterscotch Zebras

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Spinach & Sausage Nibblers (phyllo cup method)

Spinach & Sausage Nibblers (crescent method)

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