Taste Testing Tuesday #71 – Super Quick Snack

Here we go again with Taste Testing Tuesday! I hope your Tuesday is going well! We’re getting close to the end of the school year and things are getting crazy busy, aren’t they? Today’s post can help you whip up a yummy snack in just a couple of minutes! Really? Yes, really! 🙂 This is a super quick snack and you’ll wonder why you never tried it before! (We had this for a snack occasionally when I was a kid back in the dark ages.) 😉

Yes, those are graham crackers. All you need for this snack is graham crackers and frosting! Homemade frosting is great but if you don’t have time to make frosting, the kind in a tub from the grocery store works perfectly.

All you do is break a graham cracker into the size you’d like them to be and spread frosting on one side of one piece.

Add a second piece of the same sized graham cracker to the frosting side, making a little sandwich. And that’s it! You have a snack for those hungry kiddos! Any flavor of frosting should work great!

Now, if you want to fancy things up and you have the time to do so, put the frosting on one side of a piece of graham cracker and then sprinkle on your favorite topping. Like…

Chocolate drink mix like Ovaltine…

Colored sprinkles…

Colored sugar…

Or chocolate sprinkles…just to name a few things you can use.

Even if you choose to go the “fancy way”, preparing this snack is sooo quick! What if you don’t have graham crackers on hand? This snack also works with other crackers. For example, Ritz crackers work fine too!

Feel free to experiment with whatever similar items you have on hand. I’m betting vanilla wafer cookies would be great too! Have a great Taste Testing Tuesday making super quick snacks! 🙂

Making Candy Pretzel Rods

Here’s a fun quick project you can do with the kids to welcome Spring! Or for some extra fun for Easter…pretzel rods dipped in candy and coated in sprinkles!

You will need a bag of Wilton Candy Melts (I used yellow but there are other colors available), some wax paper or parchment paper, pretzel rods, a microwave safe mug and some candy sprinkles.

Put some candy melts in a microwave safe mug or cup.

Melt in the microwave according to the package directions.

Dip the pretzel rod into the melted candy. Tipping the cup sideways some can help to get the candy farther up on the pretzel.

Let the excess candy drip back into the cup. While holding the dipped pretzel over a clean bowl, drop/pour the candy sprinkles over the melted candy part of the pretzel.

After you have added the sprinkles, lay the pretzel on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper. The candy will gradually harden again or you can place the dipped pretzels in the refrigerator for 5-10 minutes.

And that’s all there is to it! 🙂 You can arrange the pretzels on a plate or in a cup or vase and share them with your family and friends. Sweet and salty mixed together is a great combination! Yummy!

Taste Testing Tuesday #68 Sausage and Cabbage Soup

Hello, again! Last week for Taste Testing Tuesday we talked about ways to try eating cabbage. For this week, I wanted to share a recipe with you that I’ve eaten ever since I was a little girl. It’s original name was a bit off putting, so we will simply call it Sausage and Cabbage Soup. Now that the weather has turned colder again, it’s a great time to try some hot soup to warm your family up! Let’s start with the cabbage. Cut up about half of a large head of cabbage into small to medium sized pieces.

Place half of the cut-up cabbage into the bottom of a crockpot.

You will need about 1 pound of your favorite ground sausage. You can use rope sausage too and just remove the casing. You can use whichever level of spiciness in your sausage as your family likes.

Peel around 6 or 7 nice sized white potatoes. I used a few more than that because some of our potatoes were pretty small.

Chop the potatoes into small pieces.

Layer half of the cut up potatoes on top of the layer of cabbage.

Break half of the uncooked sausage into small pieces on top of the potato layer.

Make a second layer of each thing…cabbage, potatoes and sausage pieces. Now my crockpot is full.

Add salt and pepper or other spices to suit your family’s tastes. Pour water over all until the water comes up about halfway in the crockpot. Cook on high 4-5 hours. Stir once or twice while it’s cooking. When the cooking time is done, you will have a warm hearty soup! The ingredients will cook down and will look like less than you started with.

Each person can add more salt or pepper or other spices to their individual bowl of soup. I hope you will make this soup and your family will give it a taste test! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #66 Sugar Wafer Cookies

Greetings on another Taste Testing Tuesday! Today we’re taking some vanilla sugar wafer cookies and dipping them in some yumminess and adding a few sprinkles on top for good measure! You will need some vanilla sugar wafer cookies, some different kinds of candy chips and some toppings.

I used peanut butter chips, milk chocolate chips and butterscotch chips. For the topping I used assorted sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles and some colored sugar.

We will be melting each kind of chips to dip the cookies in. If your candy chips seem too thick after melting, you can add a small amount of coconut oil to help thin it to a better consistency.

I chose to do 3 cookies in each type of candy but you can choose however many you want to use. Lay them out in a piece of wax paper to make the clean up easier.

I started out by melting a few peanut butter chips in a small bowl in the microwave.

Dip your cookies in the melted candy to coat the bottom half and immediately before it can harden, add some sprinkles or toppings.

Lay the cookies on another piece of waxed paper on a cookie sheet.

I bet it’s starting to smell good at your house! 😃 Do the same with each type of candy chips you are using. Melt the candy, dip the cookie in it and then lay the cookie on waxed paper and add your toppings. When you have finished making your fancy cookies, place them in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes so the candy can harden.

Here we have 3 peanut butter dipped cookies.

And 3 milk chocolate dipped sugar wafers…

And 3 butterscotch dipped cookies.

Do a taste test by sampling a cookie with each kind of candy on it. Which one is your favorite? Is there any you didn’t like? They do look pretty on a plate together, don’t you think? 😊

Have fun with your taste test of candy dipped sugar wafer cookies! 😃

Taste Testing Tuesday #65 Hot Chocolate

Picture this scene…it’s February and a big winter storm is blowing in, dumping lots of snow and cold where you live. You find a good book, grab a blanket and a cup of hot chocolate and snuggle down to wait out the storm. Mmm! Nothing like a cup of hot chocolate to warm you up! 🙂 But do you like to add anything to your hot chocolate? Today we’re going to mention a few ideas you might like to try. But first, what is an easy way to make hot chocolate?

One way to make great hot chocolate is by using Rich Chocolate Ovaltine.

Add 1 cup of milk to your cup.

And 2 Tablespoons of Rich Chocolate Ovaltine.

Pop your microwave safe mug into the microwave and heat for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes, depending on how hot you like your drink. Now for the things that you can add to hot chocolate to make it even better!

#1.) Mini Marshmallows. This is one of my favorite things to add. 🙂

#2.) Cinnamon. If you have cinnamon sticks, you can use them to stir your hot chocolate. Or if you are like me and you don’t have cinnamon sticks, sprinkle some cinnamon on top.

#3.) Caramel Sauce. Mmm! What goes better with chocolate than caramel? (Ok, maybe peanut butter, but I don’t think that would work too well in hot chocolate.) You can add a little sea salt too for a salted caramel taste.

#4.) Sprinkles! But, of course! Sprinkles go well on everything, don’t they? 😉 Some of the sprinkles will sink to the bottom but some stayed nicely on top.

One of my favorite ways to have hot chocolate is to use a peppermint candy cane to stir it. Or to add in crushed peppermint candy cane. But alas, we are out of candy canes now. 😦 Some other ideas to try might be adding mini chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, vanilla flavoring, toffee bits or some coffee.

I hope you will enjoy trying a hot chocolate taste testing party at your house and you will feel nice and cozy and warm while doing it! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #64 What Tastes Best on Apple Slices?

We’re back for another round of Taste Testing Tuesday! What goes well with apple slices? There’s no better way to find out than to have a Taste Test! Grab an apple and we’ll get started!

Start by peeling and slicing an apple. (If your family will eat apples with the skin on, all the better!) Look around your kitchen or pantry and see what ingredients you have on hand that might go well with apples. Make some separate little piles of apple slices and add a different topping to each one. I suggest leaving one group of apple slices plain.

Here are the toppings I used:

#1.) Just plain apple slices with nothing on them. (This might be the best way!)

#2.) Sour cream

#3.) Peanut Butter or another type of nut butter

#4.) Caramel sauce

#5.) Grated Cheese

#6.) Chocolate Syrup

Go with whatever you have on hand. A couple more suggestions might be cinnamon, brown sugar, Ranch dressing or cream cheese. For some added fun, make a chart and keep track of what each person doing the taste test thinks of each topping. This is the type of chart that I like to use for our taste tests. A smiley face means “Yum!”, and straight face means “It’s ok.”, and a frowning face means “No, thanks!” (Look at the picture to see who did this taste test. 🙂 )

Did you learn anything new while doing your taste test? Did you find a topping that you really like on apple slices that you never tried before? Which one was your favorite? I think my favorite is either the peanut butter or the caramel sauce. 🙂 I hope you enjoyed doing your taste test today!

Making Snowmen From String Cheese Sticks

Making snowmen from mozzarella string cheese sticks is a fun activity to do with your kids. Or you can make them yourself and sneak one into your kid’s school lunchbox for some giggles at lunchtime. Aren’t’ they adorable?! 🙂

All you need are some string cheese sticks and some permanent markers.

I tried using regular Crayola Supertips markers, but the color didn’t show up very well and the snowman rubbed off even after allowing time for the marker to dry.

Using some permanent markers, all you do is draw a snowman on the side of the string cheese that has less words printed on it. If your kids are working on this project, I suggest putting some newspaper or paper towels under their work. You can design your snowman in any way you like. Add a hat, eyes, nose, mouth, bow tie or scarf and some buttons on his tummy.

You can make different kinds of eyes, noses or mouths to change the look of your snowmen.

Or give him curly blue hair. Or make a snow lady. 🙂

Maybe your snow person is feeling rather sleepy. 😉

These snowmen would also be a fun snack to share at school if you are providing a snack for your child’s class.

I hope you’ll try making these adorable string cheese snowmen! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #63 Apple Cider

Welcome back to another Taste Testing Tuesday! Today we’re looking at ways to drink apple cider. Does your family like to go to the orchard or country market and buy fresh apple cider? There are so many ways to drink this delicious beverage! Do you like it hot or cold? Plain or add in something tasty? Here are a few suggestions you might like to try:

#1.) Cold and straight from the jug into your glass! Mmmm!

#2.) Heat the cider and add some cinnamon powder or stir the cider with a cinnamon stick. Apples and cinnamon are always great together!

#3.) Heat and add some dehydrated apples. Maybe even some dehydrated apples that have cinnamon too.

#4.) Warm up the cider and stir in some maple syrup. My mouth is watering at the thought! 😉

#5.) Warm the cider and stir in some caramel topping. Oh my, but that sounds delicious!

Have you tried apple cider all these ways? I hope this will help you and your family find new ideas to try and that you will find one you think is delicious!! Warm cider on cold days is so nice and comforting! Enjoy sipping your cider! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #62 – What Goes With Peanut Butter?

Here we go with another Taste Testing Tuesday! Did you ever think about all the things you can do with peanut butter? It can be used to make cookies, cakes, pies, pizza, chili and it’s paired with all sorts of veggies and fruits, oatmeal, drinks, candy…the list goes on and on! For today’s taste test, we’re just going to put some peanut butter on some small pieces of bread and see what we can think of to put on top of it. Are you ready? Let’s go!

First, cut some bread into small pieces or use some crackers like Ritz crackers. I made 9 little pieces of bread for 1 person’s taste test.

Spread some peanut butter on each piece of bread.

I will share with you the 9 foods that we paired with our peanut butter but feel free to come up with your own combinations.

#1.) Strawberry Jam.

#2.) Honey

#3.) A slice of banana

#4.) Miniature Chocolate Chips

#5.) Apple Butter

#6.) Miniature Marshmallow

#7.) Raisins

#8.) Chocolate Syrup (The kind that goes on ice cream.)

#9.) Caramel Topping (Also the kind that goes on ice cream.)

Make the same taste test for each person that wants to participate. Let the tasting begin! They all look so yummy!!

For some added fun, make a chart so you can record what each person thinks of each type of peanut butter bread. Here’s what my chart looks like:

I put the names of the participants down the left hand side of the chart and filled in the spaces across the top with the names of each item I added to the peanut butter and bread pieces. As you taste each kind of sample, draw a smiley face in the corresponding square on the chart to show what you thought of that sample. A face that is smiling means, “YUM!”. A straight face means “It was ok.”. And a frowning face means, “No, thanks!”.

If you have room on your paper, you can add another column titled “Favorite” and each person can write in which sample they liked the best.

And now you know what your family likes with peanut butter! 🙂 I wonder if there were any samples that everyone liked? Or one that everyone didn’t care for? Whatever the results are, I hope you all enjoyed our Taste Testing Tuesday! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #60 Rum Tum Ditty

Today’s Taste Testing Tuesday takes me back to when I was a little girl and my mom would make us a special treat for lunch. It was called Rum Tum Ditty. The younger ones of us 6 kids decided it sounded much cooler to call it Rum Tum Ditty Dum! It just had a cooler ring to it! In fact, I remember marching around the kitchen and dining room saying “Rum Tum Ditty Dum!” over and over in time to our marching. (It’s a wonder Mom ever made it for us again after that! Lol)

Here is the recipe, straight from our family cookbook:

For our taste test today, I want to encourage you to use whatever kind of tomato soup you normally buy. When I was little, we used Campbell’s tomato soup and it does need a soup can of milk (or water) added to it. Many soups today don’t need any additional liquid, like the one in this picture.

Also, you can use whatever kind of crackers you have on hand. We used saltine crackers, or as we called them “soda crackers”. But I prefer to use Ritz crackers now. Cheez-its would be awesome and so would most any other cracker.

You can use different kinds of cheese. We don’t often have Velveeta cheese on hand now, but my next favorite for this dish is American. But be open to trying whatever kind of cheese your family likes. Just know that some kinds of cheese are more “stringy” than others. Velveeta and American melt nicely into the soup and crackers.

This recipe is super simple! Break up some crackers into individual bowls. Maybe your family will like different kinds of crackers. No need for everyone to be the same. 🙂

Next, make the cheese into small pieces and add it on top of the crackers.

Pour the soup into a container safe for heating in the microwave OR pour it into a pan and heat it on the stovetop. The soup needs to be warm enough to melt the cheese.

When the soup is hot, pour it carefully into each bowl.

It will be smelling delicious by now!

Gently stir the mixture with a spoon. Look how yummy the melted cheese looks!

I like to eat it as soon as it is cool enough to eat safely, while the crackers are still a bit crunchy. And that’s all there is to it! Rum Tum Ditty! (Or Rum Tum Ditty Dum!) I hope you will give this recipe a try and make some new warm memories of your own! 🙂