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!

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 With Christmas Cookies

Things are a bit crazy around our house this year with a lot of things going on. So here is a repeat of a special Taste Testing Tuesday from last year. 🙂 And if you are worried about someone stealing your Christmas cookies, I’ve heard that certain elves can be bribed to guard them for you. 😉

It’s time to rev up your taste buds! Yep, it’s Taste Testing Tuesday once again. And I’m betting today’s taste test will be your all time favorite! What are we testing? Christmas Cookies!!! A special thank you goes out to my daughter, Megan, for sharing some pictures with me of some of the Christmas cookies they made at their house this week. 🙂 Here are some suggestions for yummy cookies you can make and test out:

#1.) Peanut Butter Blossoms. Oohh these are soooo yummy! A peanut butter cookie with a chocolate kiss added on top. Drooooooling…

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1-small-4.jpg

#2.) Rice Krispies Treats Christmas Trees. These are made just like the original Rice Krispies Treats recipe on the cereal box plus some green sugar and sprinkles added. Then cut them into triangles and you’re done!

#3.) Molasses Crinkles – This is one of my favorite cookies. I remember making them with my mom when I was a little girl. 🙂

#4.) Sour Cream Cookies – I was looking for the recipe that my Grandma used to make for us and these are similar but not quite the same. The recipe calls for adding a frosting glaze to these while they are still hot but I went with sprinkles instead to cut down on the amount of sugar.

#5.) Cut-Out Butter Cookies – Ok, this has to be my all-time favorite cookie! (Molasses Crinkles are a close 2nd.) This is another recipe I made with my mom when I was little. Well, and even after I got “big”. And then I made them with our kids and now our daughter made this batch with her kids. 🙂

I have to admit that decorated cut-out cookies get my vote for at least LOOKING the best! 😉

#6.) Russian Teacakes – This cookie is one of my hubby’s favorite cookies. They rank pretty high with me too. I make them with finely ground pecans but you can use other nuts instead. They are rolled in powdered sugar which helps to make them especially tasty.

#7.) Peanut Butter Cookies – Another one of our favorites! Ok, yes, there seems to be a pattern developing here, doesn’t there? I have a lot of favorite cookies! Haha! One of my jobs when I was little and helping my mom make these was to make the criss-cross pattern on each cookie. I always thought that was pretty cool. 😉

So what is your favorite Christmas cookie? Do you make Christmas cookies at your house? Maybe you buy some from a store? What is your all-time favorite cookie that you would ask for if you could have any cookie in the world? I hope you have a great Christmas cookie Taste Testing Tuesday at your house! 🙂

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 #61 Teddy Grahams

I’m finally back with another Taste Testing Tuesday! This week we’re looking at Teddy Grahams snacks. These are little graham crackers made in the shape of Teddy Bears. 🙂 Very cute and quite yummy! I only have 2 flavors to use for my taste test due to being in quarantine for weeks because of my hubby and I catching Covid-19 at different times. (I haven’t been to a store since October 15th!) Teddy Grahams come in a few more flavors so check your grocery stores to see what is available near you.

As you can see, the flavors used for our taste test were Honey and Chocolate. You might want to use some cupcake liners to serve your Teddy Grahams in.

These snacks are so cute! Can you see the two different poses the teddy bears are in? Here’s a close up of the Honey flavor.

Here are the chocolate ones.

I know Teddy Grahams also come in at least Chocolatey Chip and Cinnamon so be sure to keep an eye out for those flavors too.

The boxes of the Teddy Grahams also have some fun ideas on the back of the boxes.

And it looks like there are more discovery ideas at the Teddy YouTube Channel. 😉 (I haven’t seen it myself yet.)

Which flavor is your favorite? I think I like the Honey flavor best! 🙂 I hope you can have some fun with a Taste Test of Teddy Grahams snacks!

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! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #59 Cheez-it Crackers

Hello again! Have you ever noticed how many flavors of Cheez-it crackers there are in the grocery store? There are a BUNCH! For our Taste Testing Tuesday today, let’s take a look at some of the types and flavors there are.

So first there were the Original Cheez-it crackers. These were around when I was younger and they were the only flavor available.

I don’t know what order the flavors were added but here are some more of them.

White Cheddar

Extra Toasty. I have to say these are my favorite! I remember when I used to find an overcooked cracker in the original flavor box and would wish they were all that way! 🙂

Hot & Spicy. These might light up your mouth a bit!

Cheddar Jack

Italian Four Cheese. I haven’t tried this one yet but I think I will soon!

The Cheez-it website shows some more interesting sounding flavors but I haven’t seen them in our local stores. Like Extra-cheesy, Pepper Jack, Cheese Pizza and Buffalo Wings. Here’s one that looks like a lot of fun!

Which ones will your family use for a taste test? I hope you have fun and you find some new favorites!

Taste Testing Tuesday #58 Chewy Granola Bars

Another Taste Testing Tuesday is under way! Today we’re trying Quaker Chewy Granola Bars. I found one box with 4 different flavors in it. And there are 2 bars of each flavor. 🙂

Before we begin, you might want to draw a simple chart to record what everyone thinks during your Taste Test.

Write each participant’s name down the left hand side and the names of each kind of granola bar across the top. Draw a smiling face for “Yum!”, a straight face for “It’s ok.”, and a frowning face for “No, thanks!”

You can decide how big of pieces to break the granola bars into depending on how many people are involved in your taste test or how old the participants are. This is a picture of a fourth of a bar and a half of a bar. I decided to use half bars so they are easier for you to see them.

#1.) Chocolate Chip. Are you a chocolate chip fan? My husband loves them, but I prefer milk chocolate.

#2.) S’mores. Does this one make you think of campfires and making your own s’mores? If you look close, you can see little marshmallow bits in this flavor.

#3.) Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip. Whoever discovered that peanut butter and chocolate go together was a genius, right?! This kind has tiny little peanut butter chips in them. Spoiler alert…this one is my favorite. (I love Reese Cups!)

#4.) Oatmeal Raisin. This one makes me think of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. Mmm!

And there you have it! Put a piece of each kind on a plate for each taste tester.

Let the tasting and the voting begin! Which is your favorite? Which is your least favorite? Which one got the most smiley faces? I hope your family will have fun taste testing chewy granola bars! 🙂