I’m not going to lie to you here, these are going to take the better part of your afternoon to make – but not all at once. There’s a lot of chilling and rechilling and setting and chilling again. So make sure you make this for someone who will really appreciate it, or someone you’re really down with – or both! I made these for our friend Steve’s birthday this weekend. He’s got a bit of a serious sweet tooth. His cake was even more epic than these – more on that later this week. I’m happy to report he loved them, his girlfriend loved them and their guests loved them too! Winning all over the place.

So, they are labor intensive because they’re made in four separate steps and they need to completely set up and cool off before you pour the next layer on top or you’ll totally wreck it. No pressure though haha. Also, I should note that even if they set up properly, they’re a pain in the ass to cut free from the pan and this whole production might have gone a lot smoother (and prettier) if I had made them in chocolate bar molds. When I made Twix Bites a few months ago, I made a mess and then I used molds. I’m about 4200km (or 2609 miles) from all my cool kitchen gear so I had to make due, however I’m totally ordering chocolate bar molds like, right now.

First you’ve got the base chocolate layer, then the nougat, then caramel (I reeeeally recommend you make this from scratch) and then of course the top layer of chocolate. So let’s get to it!

Homemade Snickers Bars – via How Sweet it Is
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter
             *
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cup salted peanuts chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract
             *
Homemade caramel (or 1 14-ounce bag of caramels & 1/4 cup whipping cream)
             *
1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup peanut butter

So first, melt 1 1/4 cups chocolate chips with 1/4 cup peanut butter over medium low heat until creamy and then pour/spread into the bottom of a well greased 9 x 13 pan. You can use a smaller pan, up to about 9 x 9 (each layer will be thicker but there will be fewer pieces overall and it will take longer for each layer to set). Let this cool and then totally set in the fridge. Now, onto the nougat.
Melt the butter and the sugar in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat and stir in the evaporated milk.
Add the marshmallow fluff (sadly it has to be the crap from the store or it wont set right) and once that’s incorporated, the peanut butter.
Chop up the peanuts roughly so there are still some big chunks in there! Stir that into the saucepan.
Let this cool off a bit before you pour it over the bottom layer! The bottom layer will be cold and set in the fridge by now, but if you pour crazy hot nougat over it, you’ll melt it! I let it cool for about 10 minutes or so before I poured it over the chocolate. Pop this back in the fridge and set your sights on caramel!
I made Amish Caramel (the only real difference I found between Amish Caramel and the Microwave Caramel I made in February for the Twix Bites is that Amish Caramel takes longer and is a bit of a pain in the ass). I will explain Amish Caramel in a different post, so in the meantime, either use about 1 3/4 cups of the Microwave Caramel or melt a 14oz bag of caramels with 1/4 cup of whipping cream. Either way, let it cool off some before you pour it over the nougat! Put it back in the fridge while you prep the top layer of this ridiculously amazing treat. The top is the same as the bottom, so again melt 1 1/4 cups of chocolate chips with 1/4 cup of peanut butter in a saucepan and pour it over the caramel layer.
Let these babies set up overnight in the fridge and they’re ready to be attacked the next day! You can probably get away with just a couple of hours in the fridge but they’re worth the wait! We dug into the tray while I was at their house, and hours after I left I was getting texts that they were still being devoured and loved. Best compliment ever.
This pic was taken the next day as they sat down with the tray – and a spoon. Love!!

Today I am linking up with Kate Says Stuff, Obviously Marvelous and Saved by Love Creations.

This is one of those lunches that you MUST serve with a salad or else you’re staring down the barrel of a seriously sad meal, nutrition-wise. Taste wise? I hear it’s amazing! I’m going to defend myself a little here and say that when I do make something like this these days, all the ingredients are as healthy as I can get my hands on. So the chicken is local and grain fed, the bacon is low sodium, the cheese is local and rBST-free, the flatbread is all multigrainy and the ranch is homemade. The entire family gobbled these down and that pretty much never happens.

Chicken-Bacon Wraps
4 pieces flatbread
2 chicken breasts, cooked and chopped
4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 cup cheese, chopped or shredded
1 green onions, chopped
1 batch ranch dressing

So painfully simple. Lay out the chicken in the middle of the flatbread, top with cheese and bacon.
Then drizzle on some ranch dressing and sprinkle the green onion bits over top. Roll them up and baket at 350 for about 15 minutes (so the bread is crispy and the cheese has a chance to melt).
Each wee one asked for a second wrap when they were done! Miracles!

This week, I’m linking up with Organizing Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday and The How To Mommy’s Meal Planning Monday.

My kitchen is so confused. Silken tofu and dairy free cream cheese in the morning, buttermilk fried chicken at night. What can I say? I cook what makes me happy and then I do my best to cook for my family the things that make them happy. There is a lot of dish washing going on around here.

I first found this recipe in February and bookmarked it to do it, but I’m not a huge fan of frying (or more specifically, the splashy mess it makes of my stove top) so I put it off. Once we got down to LA I thought it was time to actually cook up some of these dusty bookmarked recipes and away I went. I’m not going to lie, it feels so wrong to pour that much oil in a pot and have at it, but I’ll keep the honesty going and admit that it was actually a fun recipe to make.

Super simple to do, as long as you make sure your oil doesn’t get too hot (but gets hot enough) and you have some patience with it. Everyone loved this meal, I served it with wedges! I will not be making this again this week, but it did rank really high with the fam so I will likely make it again soonish and thought it’d be a fun addition to Menu Monday! This week I will photograph all of the recipes as I do them so I can link back to them!

This Week’s Menu:

Sunday – Mini Chicken Hot Pockets with Potato Rings for the fam, Chick Pea Salad for me and Salty Sweet Butterscotch Brownies for dessert

Buttermilk Fried Chicken – via Allrecipes

Before you do anything, mix all of the ingredients in the left column with the buttermilk, plunk your chicken in it and soak for about 6 hours. Then get your oil heating and theeeeeeen, mix all the ingredients on the right side and use that to dredge your chicken pieces in.
So you just shake off the buttermilk coated piece of chicken and place it in the seasoned flour. Roll it around a bunch to make sure it’s totally coated. Pile them all up and wait for your oil to heat to about 350 degrees.
Now add your chicken to the pot, with 2 1/2 quarts of oil you should be able to cook all of the chicken at once. Leave it in there for about 10 minutes, then poke at it and turn all the pieces around and leave it for another 10-15 minutes. Dry the chicken on pieces of paper towel for at least 10 minutes. Serve with wedges and a salad!

Today I’m linking up with Organizing Junkie, Life as a Lofthouse, KDBuggie Boutique

Moving over 2200 miles and not bringing everything with us put a few kinks in our kitchen at first. Hello no fridge for a few days and only a small fraction of my kitchen gear. Today marks two weeks in our new place and I am happy to report that I spent this weekend running errands and baking up a storm – I am even happier to report that I can even get back into Menu Mondays because I can finally reliably plan what I’m cooking at night. Although to be honest, there are more rando ‘wanna go out for dinner’ nights because there are just so many rad places to go! This, however, is what I’m planning on for now…I’m including desserts this week because I almost always plan and make those too!

This Week’s Menu (April 23 – 29)

Sunday – Homemade Pizza and Calzones and Peas and Thank You’s Peanut Butter Blondies for dessert

These treats are Wednesday’s dessert this week and so simple I don’t even want to call this a recipe! You just make your favorite brownies and once they’re cool, cut out cute shapes with cookie cutters and ‘glue’ them to pretzel sticks with melted chocolate. Adorable, right?! If you’re super lazy really pressed for time, you can even use a brownie mix. Yes, I’m judging you (that can’t be a huge surprise).

I’m almost positive I’ve posted this recipe for brownies before but I’ll post it again because I know it by heart and it’s such a great brownie recipe you should know it by heart too and I swear it only takes like maybe two whole minutes longer than a mix. True story. It’s easy for a weekday dessert for the kids too!

Preheat your oven to 350, and melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once it’s melted, remove from heat and stir in the sugar till it’s melted and the eggs until they’re combined. Then add the vanilla.
In a smaller bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Then dump that into the pot with the melted butter mixture.
Stir, stir, stir!!
Pour the batter in a greased brownie pan and bake for about 25 minutes. Then attack with your cookie cutters.
Now melt some chocolate chips and dip the pretzel sticks in the melted chocolate and then poke inot each brownie shape. Voila!

I know I’m not going to get any sympathy for this but man it’s hard to stay on a productive routine down here. The weather is so lovely and if it isn’t the beach calling my name it’s the pool – or it’s the kids wanting to check out one of the eleventy billion neat things there are to check out here. We also do at least four hours of homeschooling every weekday morning so that takes a serious bite out of the day as well. We have managed to force a routine on ourselves this week though. After my husband leaves for work (at what feels like the crack of dawn), I down water and a pot of coffee, wake the kids, feed them and do school until about noon. If we have an adventure planned, away we go. If we don’t, we’re off to the pool. Then we’re back in time for me to do some cleaning, make dinner, usually with the assistance of my lovely 6 year old sous chef and it’s ready when my husband gets home from work. Tidy, baths, stories, get the two little kids off to bed and theeeeeen I have time to crack open my laptop get a blog post out and then chat with my honey while I knit or bake or whatever. Phew. It’s a full life, but it’s hella good. <3 There is a Whole Foods and a Trader Joes in the same plaza just a few minutes from us! Imagine my glee – go ahead, imagine it! Considering that less than a month ago we were living in the woods and the closest Whole Foods to me was at least two hours away and that we are sorely deprived of Trader Joes in Canada, this is big, big news. I like to go at night after my husband gets home so I can actually hunt down the vegan cream cheese without three kids begging for organic gummy bears (the new fave treat around here). I have been cooking and baking my way through Peas and Thank You still and OMG what a great cookbook! Lots of updates on that next week!

I’m still adding recipes to the site without blog posts so I have a nice record of everything I’ve made! Here is what I’ve added lately!

	I have a pretty serious problem with these candied pecans. I mean, I don’t want to admit this but in the interest of full disclosure, I ate all of them. Not in one sitting mind you, but I ate every single pecan. They really are that good. Of course they are though, right? It’s not like I’m going to post a loser recipe on my blog. One other side note about these little babies is they’re vegan! Hooray! (read).
	They really are so so good. White chocolate and macadamia nuts are a perfect pairing! We included this in last year’s cookie tin and everyone loved them. (read).
	Polymer clay is so fun to make little trinkets and buttons and pendants with. It’s essentially play-doh you bake to set it and keep it forever. Since it sets up really hard you can make buttons and actually use them in garments! Or you can make little beads and string them on thin elastic for bracelets or necklaces. Kids especially love making them and grow ups with a soft spot for that specific child will love receiving (and wearing) them. So cute. (read).
	Just cut the apple into thin slices, carve out the core of each slice (if you have an apple corer, just pop the whole thing out first) and fill the middle with peanut butter, cranberries and chocolate chips. Then sprinkle with cinnamon. You can fill it with whatever you want. The point is to keep it healthy and keep it small (read).
	These cookies are so painfully simple, they’re easy and fun to make with kids and you can roll them in any kind of baking candies to match whatever occasion you like. (read).
	I knitted this blanket for our cousin Jenn and her new husband Adam. They’re mega, super rad. It was a pretty easy knit once I got going on it, the bulk of it was a bit much in warmer months, but totally worth it. (read).
	I made these when I wanted to serve up something cute and simple, but that was a little more ‘adult’ than typical apps I make for the kids after school. (read).
	This snack is especially handy when people show up unexpected for movie night, or when you’re poking around the kitchen in the middle of the night when you should be in bed. (read).

Happy Orthodox Easter!!!

This parade of frosted Easter love is especially dear to me because I used my Granny’s vintage cookie cutters to make them! It’s always a little sweet but sad to bake with her kitchen gear – she’s the only person who spent as much time in her kitchen as I do!

Today will be spent exploring a beach we haven’t checked out yet and general family fun on the wholesome end of the spectrum because today we spent the day in Hollywood and while we met Spiderman and the Green Lantern and Wee One #3 got a hug from Diego, we also saw a whole lotta Hollywood, you know? Yoda totally tried to cop a feel! I mean, hello!

Anyhoo, back to Easter. Usually we spent Orthodox Easter with my extended family (all Greeks have seriously huge extended families) however we will be sending long distance love to them this year and celebrating this one out here.

Moving to California update to come tomorrow!

I know this is a week late for a lot of people, but the Eastern Orthodox Easter Bunny (aka the Greek Easter Bunny in our house) is hopping around this weekend for a lot of us. I’ve mentioned about a zillion times before that I’m from a mixed heritage family, lovingly described as half painfully Canadian and half hardcore Greek. I love this family makeup and as I’ve married into a painfully Canadian family (a painfully Canadian family that I adore) I choose to be the hardcore Greek half, even though I’m hardly Greek enough for the role. It just means I’m a stern mama (most of the time), I insist on celebrating both Easters, both Christmases and the occasional name day – oh and I totally support the desire for two kitchens or at the very least two fridges. If you know any Greeks, that’ll make sense to you. If you don’t, too bad. 🙂

So anyhoo, Easter baskets for Eastern Orthodox Easter! Cheesecake isn’t an often requested treat in our house, but these things were way cute. They would be even cuter with Easter cupcake liners which are officially on my list of things to do next year. Maybe I wont be moving across international lines this time next year! Also, these were actually made last year.

Easter Cheesecake Baskets – adapted from Kraft

2 8 ounce pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cups crushed graham crackers
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut, tinted green
36 small jelly beans
12 pieces shoestring licorice, 4″ lengths

Preheat your oven to 350F and beat the cream cheese and the sugar. Add the egg and beat until blended.
Mix the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter, then press into individual muffin cups.
Now pour the actual cheesecake batter over top of the crust.
Bake for about 20 minutes, then cool and pop in the fridge for at least 2 hours. The green coconut is for festive grass but my kids hate coconut so it’s a waste. However, they love mini eggs and jellybeans so I added those to the ‘baskets’ and then the licorice handles! Way cute!

I wish I could remember which random ‘special interest publication’ this recipe came from. You know at Christmas you see Better Homes and Gardens and Good Housekeeping and even Martha and Pillsbury have a ‘special’ cookie magazine? It doesn’t come as part of a subscription, it has like 300 pages and is more than double the price of a regular magazine? This is from one of those from at least 5 years ago. Last year I went through my Hoarders-esque stack of closet of magazines and ripped out the pages I was holding on to them for. I put them in page protectors in a painfully organized binder. This post is proof that I actually bake some of those recipes too! So anyhoo, while that’s nice and tidy of me, there is no trace of what magazine I pulled it from. Whoops.

The recipe itself is too good for me to make on a regular basis, or at least to make without already deciding who I am gifting them too. They. Are. So. Good. They have a s’more taste to them with the graham crackers + marshmallow + chocolate, but I think the weird oaty base (and splattered on top as well) is what pulls it all together and really won me over. I first made them as part of our cookie tin the year I bought the magazine, and I’ve made them every year since for random Christmas treats but in the last year or two I’ve been making them whenever the mood strikes.

Must try! Make for a crowd!

Ooey, Gooey, Chewy S’more Bars

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups quick oats
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips or chunks

Cream the butter, then add the sugar, eggs and vanilla and mix to combine.
Add the flour and mix, then the oats and cracker crumbs.
Line a baking dish (mine was 13 x 9) with parchment paper and press half of the dough into the dish. Bake at 350F for 20 minutes.
Sprinkle the mini marshmallows and the chocolate chips on top, now drop the rest of the dough, in tablespoon sized chunks on top of that and bake again for another 10-15 minutes.

This right here? Is husband food. Both the chicken wings and the potato wedges are far too spicy for 2/3 of the children, and I went ahead and made something different for all three of them anyway so my husband wouldn’t have to share. He has his favorites that the kids and I like too, like stew and chili and lasagna and chicken ceasers and things like that, but this kind of meal, the kind of purposely greasy but still made from scratch food you only really find in old school pubs and family restaurants, is defo his hands down number one love. Not just the combo of wings and wedges, but wings that aren’t off chickens that look like they starved to death and wedges that have been cut to actually resemble a wedge of some kind.

Next time I make these though, I need some cute pub-style baskets to serve them in!

First wash and cut your potatoes into wedges. Then mix all the seasonings in a large plastic bag (sandwich bag style).
Put the wedges in the bag, a handful at a time and shake it up to coat them. Bake them at 400F for about 15-20 minutes.
The sauce for the chicken is ridic simple. Just heat up your favorite hot sauce and add the butter. Cook it down a little, about 10 minutes or so before you toss the chicken in it.
Toss all of the ingredients except the cornstarch and water for the honey garlic sauce in a saucepot and stir till it’s almost boiling. Then reduce the heat, mix the hot water with the cornstarch and then add a little of the sauce to the water/corn starch mixture. Slowly incorporate that back into the sauce so it will thicken up nicely.
I cooked the chicken wings in a little oil in my wok, but you can deep fry or bake them if you want. Coat the chicken in the hot sauce, plate the wedges separately and serve the honey garlic on the side.

With a Greek mother and a painfully Canadian father (my grandparents from his side are from Saskatchewan and Quebec!) who was more than happy to adopt as much Greek cooking as my mother liked, we ate a lot of pilaf growing up. There is still a lot of pilaf going on over there – and now that Wee One #2 has decided it’s one of her most treasured things to eat, there is a lot of it going on around here as well.

When I was a kid I thought it was tricky, but by the time I was around 13 my Dad showed me how to do it and I’ve been making it since. Easy peasy!

6-8lb roast 2 tablespoons parsley flakes 1 tablespoon paprika 1 teaspoon chili powder 1 tablespoon garlic powder 2 teaspoons black pepper 2 cups water 1/4 cup molasses	Pilaf 1 onion 3 + cloves garlic 2 tablespoons butter 1 cup rice 2 cups water

Mix all the spices for the rub in a bowl. Rinse off the meat and massage the rub into the meat.
Mix the water and molasses and pour into the roasting pan with the rubbed pork. Slow cook this baby all day at just under 300F. I went with 270F for about 8 hours or so.
Let it sit for 30 minutes or so and the shred it.
I waited till the pork was sitting before I started the pilaf. Chop the onion and garlic and chase them around a frying pan with the butter, until the onions are clear and the kitchen smells like garlic heaven. Add the water, set the heat to low and don’t touch it for about 30 minutes. Everyone has their favorites, but pulled pork on a bun with a pilaf?! How can you not win friends with that?! Or have like, three helpings. Not that I’d ever have three helpings. Ha!