Recipes And Cooking Tips | Premeditated Leftovers

2 Easy Candy Bar Recipes

When I was making bark candy for my kids last week, I realized how easy it would be to turn the bark into candy bars. I am going to share two variations that I have made by adapting bark recipes: Cookies and Cream Candy Bars and Chocolate Peanut Butter Krackle Candy Bars. This allows me to create gluten-free versions of my kids’ favorite candy bars and customize them to match their favorite flavors.

Homemade Cookies and Cream Candy Bars

Once the candy is firm, place it on a cutting board and use a pizza cutter or knife to cut the candy into bars.

I repurposed the foil that I used to line the cookie sheet to make “candy wrappers”.

Homemade Cookies and Cream Candy Bar Recipe

Adapted From: Cookies and Cream Bark

Yield: 14 bars
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 5 minutes
Cooling Time: 30 minutes to 2 hours

Ingredients:

24 ounces white chocolate (I used chips)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening (I use Spectrum)

4 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup chocolate cookies crumbs

Directions:

1. Cover a cookie sheet with foil.
2. Melt 12 ounces of white chocolate chips, 1 tablespoon shortening, 2 tablespoons of milk, and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla for a minute in a glass bowl in the microwave. Stir and melt for another 20 seconds. Stir again and if necessary melt for a few more seconds. If it starts to get clumpy, stir like crazy to make it smooth again.
3. Once melted stir in 1/2 cup of the cookie crumbs until just blended. Do not over-stir.
4.Repeat steps 2 and 3 with the remaining ingredients.
5. Spoon the melted chocolate on to the cookie sheet. Then use a spatula to spread it evenly over the foil.
6. Let sit for 2 hours to firm up or put it in the freezer for 10 minutes. Use a pizza cutter to divide the candy in half lengthwise. Then cut the candy in 2 inch wide bars.
7. Use foil from cookie sheet to wrap individual candy bars. You can store candy bars in the freezer.

Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Krackle Candy Bar Recipe

Adapted From: Peanut Butter Bark with Pretzels

Yield: 14 bars
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 5 minutes
Cooling Time: 30 minutes to 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 package peanut butter chips

1 tablespoons shortening

1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips

2 cups rice krispies (I used the gluten-free version)

Directions:

1. Cover a cookie sheet with foil.

2. Melt the peanut butter chips and shortening in a glass bowl in the microwave for 1 minute. Stir and then microwave for 15 – 20 seconds. Stir again and microwave a little longer if necessary. Once melted stir in 1 cup of the rice krispies.

3. Melt the chocolate chips in a glass bowl in the microwave for 1 minute. Stir and then microwave for 15 – 20 seconds. Stir again and microwave a little longer if necessary. Once melted stir in 1 cup of the rice krispies.

4. Alternate spooning the melted chocolate chips and melted peanut butter chips on to the cookie sheet. Then use a spatula to semi blend the two and spread it evenly over the foil.

5. Let sit for 2 hours to firm up or put it in the freezer for 10 minutes. Use a pizza cutter to divide the candy in half lengthwise. Then cut the candy in 2 inch wide bars.

6. Use foil from cookie sheet to wrap individual candy bars. You can store candy bars in the freezer.

Have you ever made homemade candy bars? How did you do it?

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Alea May 10, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips candy recipes 2 Comments

Tortellini Casserole

I am sharing my Tortellini Casserole at $5 Dinners this evening. It really should have been called “Clean Out the Freezer Casserole”, but the name lacked a certain elegance. However, this simple dish is made almost entirely with ingredients from the freezer. You can see how easy it is to create here.

Disclosure: I am a contributing writer at $5 Dinners.

Alea May 8, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips Comments Off

How to Broil or Saute Cauliflower

I did my taxes this year on April 15th. I don’t usually wait until the last minute, but I knew it was going to be complicated, so I procrastinated. And I was right; it took me all.day.long! In part because I couldn’t remember where I chose to place the important documents to “keep them safe”.

As dinner approached my family realized that if they were going to be fed they needed to take action. My husband found some steaks and lit the barbecue and my daughter rummaged through the fridge to find some veggies. She brought me a head of cauliflower and asked how to cook it. I told her to chop it in pieces, drizzle it with olive oil, sprinkle spices over the top, and then broil or saute it. When she asked what spices she should add, I told her to sniff the spice jars and add what smells good. Even when not stressed I think this is good advice for cooking just about any vegetable, but it doesn’t sell many cookbooks.

My daughter’s cauliflower was delicious, but as soon as I was done eating I headed back to finish taxes and didn’t ask her how she cooked it.

A couple days later I asked her what spices she added to the cauliflower so I could replicate her recipe. She told me she added garlic and onion. I said that could not have been all and she replied, “I’ve grown up believing the two main ingredients are onions and garlic – everything else is optional”.

While I agree with her, I kept pestering her because I knew there had to be something else and then she said, “oh yeah, I added some green stuff”. I asked her to be a little more specific because there is lots of “green stuff” in the spice cupboard. She very unhelpfully informed me it was the green stuff in a jar. Then she removed the jar of Herbamare Substitute that I had made last month, twisted off the lid and said, “I added it because it smelled soooo good!”

My daughter broiled her cauliflower, but when I went to make it I was already broiling fish, so I decided to saute the cauliflower instead. I have included directions for both methods.

How to Broil or Saute Cauliflower

Recipe type: Vegetable

Author: Alea

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 20 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients

1 head cauliflower, cut into bite size pieces
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon Herbamare Substitute (or seasoned salt)
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Directions

To Broil:

Preheat oven to broil.
Line a cookie sheet with foil.
Place cauliflower on cookie sheet. Drizzle with oil. Sprinkle with spices and toss to coat.
Broil for 12 – 15 minutes or until browned and fork tender.

To Saute:

Add oil and cauliflower to a large frying pan. Toss to coat.
Sprinkle spices over cauliflower. Toss to coat.
Cook over a medium-high flame until oil starts to sizzle. Lower flame to medium and cook for 12 -15 minutes or until fork tender.

While discussing taxes, my daughter observed: “The problem with your taxes is that you make money. I don’t make any money and my taxes are really easy”. I guess taxes are a good problem to have.

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Alea May 3, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips cauliflower 2 Comments

Cookies and Cream Bark

We were doing errands on Saturday when my youngest son spotted a cookies and cream candy bar and asked for it. Although he is 5 years old, he has never asked for or been given a candy bar before so I wanted to be able to say yes, but it contained ingredients that he couldn’t eat.

When we got home I decided to try my hand at making cookies and cream bark. The first batch was ugly. My daughter said it looked like “a pyroclastic lava flow”. But everyone agreed that it was delicious, so I decided to try again.

Kitchen Tip: If you want to crush cookies or crackers without leaving a layer of crumbs on your counters, put them in a ziploc bag, squeeze the air out, close it, double check to make sure it is really closed, and then roll a rolling pin over the bag until the crumbs are your desired consistency.

I used Pamela’s Products Extreme Chocolate Mini Cookies to make this gluten-free, but you can use any crunchy chocolate cookie. If you use an oreo-type cookie, I recommend scraping the cream filling out and just using the cookie part otherwise this ends up being ridiculously sweet. If you talk one of your children into scraping the cream filling out for you, remind them to do it with a spoon and not their teeth.

If you wish, you could use this bark recipe to make “candy bars”. Remove the bark from the foil, place the bark on a cutting board (let it sit until it is at room temperature if you went for the fast freezer method) and then use a pizza cutter to cut it into 8 – 10 bars.

Cookies and Cream Bark

Recipe type: Dessert

Author: Alea

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Ingredients

24 ounces white chocolate (I used chips)
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening (I use Spectrum)
1 cup chocolate cookies crumbs

Directions

Cover a cookie sheet with foil.
Melt 12 ounces of white chocolate chips and 1 tablespoon shortening according to package directions. Once melted stir in 1/2 cup of the cookie crumbs until just blended. do not over-stir.
Repeat step 2 with the remaining white chocolate.
Spoon the melted chocolate on to the cookie sheet. Then use a spatula to spread it evenly over the foil.
Let sit for 2 hours to firm up or put it in the freezer for 30 minutes. Break into pieces.

Notes

Add time for cooling.

Making sweets at home gives me complete control over the ingredients, so I can ensure that my kids don’t eat something that they must avoid for health reasons. It also helps me feel a little bit less like an ogre when I have to say no.

Related Posts:

Traditional Toffee

Cookies and Cream Fudge

Peanut Butter Bark with Pretzels

This post is linked to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

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Alea April 30, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips bark recipes, candy recipes 7 Comments

Southwest Quinoa Salad

Just when you thought it was safe to come back…I have another quinoa recipe. If I were smart, I would have spread all these quinoa recipes out over a couple of months. But why stop with torturing my family…

Seriously, my husband and kids have all been really good sports about not just eating quinoa, but eating quinoa salads night after night. I still have not heard a single complaint. I think it is because I have worked to use a different flavor palate with each recipe, but it could just be that they realize it would be a lot more work for them to cook for themselves and so they are humoring me.

This is a fast and easy recipe. Place all of the ingredients in a large bowl and toss. It was quite tasty even before adding the dressing.

This recipe calls for a couple of ingredients that you can make yourself instead of using packaged items. Here are the recipes if you wish to save money and make these items yourself:

Catalina Dressing Recipe
Taco Seasoning Mix Recipe
How to Quickly Cook Black Beans in a Pressure Cooker

Southwest Quinoa Salad

Recipe type: Salad

Author: Alea

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups quinoa
3 cups water
1/2 pound hamburger
1 can olives, drained
1 3/4 cups cooked black beans (or 15 oz. can, drained)
1 can corn, drained
1 pint grape tomatoes
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 celery stalks, thinly sliced
Dressing Ingredients:
1/2 cup Catalina dressing
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons taco seasoning

Directions

Add quinoa and water to a large pot. Cook over a medium-high flame until it reaches a boil. Lower flame, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
While the quinoa is cooking, brown the hamburger. Drain the fat.
In a small bowl, combine dressing ingredients.
In a large bowl, combine quinoa, hamburger, beans, olives, corn, tomatoes, and onion, and celery. Toss to mix thoroughly.
Drizzle dressing over the salad. Toss to evenly coat.

Notes

This salad is good served at room temperature or chilled.

I placed broken tortilla chips on the plate, then lplaced a bed of greens on the chips and spooned the salad on top of the greens.

Related Posts:

How to Cook Quinoa

Quinoa and Avocado Salad

Broccoli and Avocado Salad

This recipe is shared at Slightly Indulgent Tuesday and $5 Dinner Challenge.

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Alea April 26, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips quinoa recipes, salad recipes 3 Comments

Peanut Butter Bark with Pretzels

My oldest kids are coming to the end of their semester at college and are under stress as they finish projects and prepare for finals. They haven’t been very good company. At all! Some people living with them would even describe them as grumpy. It is at times like this that I completely understand sending kids thousands of miles away to attend college.

I can’t make their projects and finals go away, but I can try to sweeten them up a little with some candy. And if it doesn’t work, I can take the candy and go hide in my room with a good book and a cup of tea until finals are over.

I am still working on clearing out the pantry ahead of our move which has forced me to improvise on several occasions. I wanted to make something with peanuts and chocolate – two proven mood improvers, but I was out of peanuts, so I modified my Peanut Butter Bark recipe to include pretzels.

Peanut Butter Bark with Pretzels

5.0 from 1 reviews

Recipe type: Dessert

Author: Alea

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 5 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Ingredients

1 package peanut butter chips
1 tablespoons shortening
1 package semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup of crushed pretzels (I used Glutino pretzels to make this gluten-free)

Directions

Cover a cookie sheet with foil.
Melt the peanut butter chips and shortening according to package directions. Once melted stir in 1/2 cup of the pretzels.
Melt the chocolate chips according to package directions. Once melted stir in 1/2 cup of the pretzels.
Alternate spooning the melted chocolate chips and melted peanut butter chips on to the cookie sheet. Then use a spatula to semi blend the two and spread it evenly over the foil.
Let sit for 2 hours to firm up or put it in the freezer for 30 minutes. Break into pieces.

Notes

Add time for cooling the bark.

My daughter declared this candy her new favorite, but I have found that starving, stressed college students are very generous food critics…which is why I let them live at home while going to college.

Pretzel Crusted Honey Mustard Chicken Tenders

Homemade Candy and Fudge Round Up

This recipe is linked to Full Plate Thursday and Foodie Friday.

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Alea April 25, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips candy recipes 11 Comments

How to Cook Quinoa

Quinoa is not only delicious and healthy, it is fast and easy to prepare making it a great substitute for rice and other grains in recipes.It comes in a variety of colors, and though the flavor is slightly different the ease of preparation is the same.

Quinoa Cooking Directions:

To cook quinoa, place one part quinoa and two parts water in a large pot.

Cook it over a medium-high flame until it reaches a boil.

Place a lid on the pot, lower the flame and simmer for 10 – 15 minutes or until the germ separates from the seed.

I f you look closely at the picture above, you can see little ridicules, that is the germ and it will be present when the qunioa is done cooking.Use want the germ to be al dente and the seed to be light and slightly crunchy.

Quinoa Recipes:

Quinoa’s crunchy texture and mildly nutty flavor makes it a wonderful addition to many different recipes. Here are a few of our favorites:

My Favorite: Asian Chicken Salad with Quinoa

My Daughter’s Favorite: Broccoli and Quinoa Salad

My Husband’s Favorite: Quinoa and Avocado Salad

My sons’ favorite: Southwest Quinoa Salad

Have you cooked with quinoa? How do you use it in recipes?

Disclosure: I am a contributing writer for $5 Dinners.

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Alea April 24, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips quinoa recipes 10 Comments

How to Make Lemonade

I walked into the kitchen and discovered my son juicing lemons. He had already located the sugar and told me he was going to make lemonade. I took a picture because I wanted my husband to see what happens when I fold laundry or clean the bathrooms, so he might gain an appreciation for a dirty house. Perhaps I should have scolded my son, but he pointed out that it was a very hot, lemonade sort of day. So instead of being “scoldy”, I decided to teach him how to make lemonade.

If you have ever tried making lemonade with table sugar, you have probably had a hard time getting the right balance of sweet to sour. You will find it much easier to make perfectly delicious lemonade if you use simple syrup as the sweetener. You don’t have to buy simple syrup, it is easy to make and you make it with the same things that you have used in your old lemonade recipe: sugar and water. Here are directions for making simple syrup.

How to Make Lemonade

5.0 from 1 reviews

Recipe type: Beverage

Author: Alea

Prep time: 10 mins

Total time: 10 mins

Serves: 6

Ingredients

4 lemons (approximately 1 cup of lemon juice)
1 1/4 cups simply syrup
4 cups cold water
Extra lemon for garnish (optional)

Directions

Juice the lemons.
Combine the juice, simple syrup, and cold water in a large pitcher.
Serve over ice and garnish with lemon if you wish.

Frugal Tip: When lemons are on sale, juice them and freeze the juice. I like to freeze the juice of 4 lemons together, so I can easily make lemonade whenever I wish.

This recipe is linked to Tempt My Tummy Tuesday.

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Alea April 23, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips beverages, lemon recipes 9 Comments

Broccoli and Quinoa Salad

Earlier this week I was rummaging through the pantry and found a stash of quinoa. And since then we have basically been living off of quinoa and whatever produce I have on hand. I am trying to disguise the fact that I keep feeding my family the same thing every night by altering the flavors: Quinoa and Avocado Salad, Asian Quinoa Salad, Southwest Quinoa Salad…I don’t think I am fooling anyone, but nobody is complaining so I am continuing my pattern with Broccoli and Quinoa Salad.

The quinoa, with its nutty flavor and crunchy texture, was a natural addition to my Nutty Broccoli Salad. I used mayonnaise in the dressing, but you could replace it with plain yoghurt to create a low-fat dressing.

Broccoli and Quinoa Salad

Recipe type: Salad

Author: Alea

Prep time: 15 mins

Cook time: 15 mins

Total time: 30 mins

Serves: 8

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups quinoa (I used red quinoa)
3 cups water
5 cups broccoli florets
1 medium apple, diced
1/2 cup pecans
1 small onion, chopped
6 pieces of bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 celery stalks, sliced
Dressing Ingredients:
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons balsamic vinaigrette (I used Annie’s Naturals because it is gluten free)
3 tablespoons honey

Directions

Add quinoa and water to a large pot. Cook over a medium-high flame until it reaches a boil. Lower flame, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
Place quinoa in the refrigerator to cool.
While the quinoa is cooling cook the bacon and then crumble it.
Mix the dressing ingredients in a small bowl.
Once the quinoa had cooled, add the vegetables.
Pour the dressing over the quinoa and veggies. Toss to coat.
Serve immediately or place in the refrigerator to keep cool until you do serve it.

Notes

Add time to let the quinoa cool.

Don’t worry, I found lots of rice and beans in my pantry inventory, so I won’t make my family live on quinoa forever.

This post is linked to Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, Allergy-Free Wednesday, Gluten-Free Wednesday, The Hearth and Soul Hop and the Salad Social.

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Alea April 19, 2012 Featured, recipes and cooking tips quinoa recipes, salad recipes 6 Comments

How to Make a Substitute for Herbamare at Home – Seasoned Salt Recipe

Instead of buying Herbamare or another type of Seasoned Salt, I make my own. Even if I didn’t grow my own herbs and dry them, it would still be more frugal for me to make my own version at home as most of the ingredients are commonly found in the spice cupboard.

The great thing about making your own spice mixes is that you have complete control over the ingredients. Herbamare is made with quality organic vegetables and herbs, but it is also very expensive. The less expensive Seasoned Salts at the grocery store often contain ingredients that I don’t want in my food. So I balance my food ~~obsessions~~ preferences with my grocery budget by making my own Seasoned Salt.

An Herbamare substitute is easy to make. You just put all of the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. The only ingredient that is not commonly found in your spice cupboard is dried kelp. If you don’t have it on hand, feel free to leave it out. This recipe makes one cup of seasoned salt.

How to Make a Substitute for Herbamare at Home – Seasoned Salt Recipe

Recipe type: Spice Mix

Author: Alea

Prep time: 5 mins

Total time: 5 mins

Ingredients

1/2 cup sea salt
1/4 cup dried parsley
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon rosemary
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon basil
1 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon dried kelp

Directions

Place all ingredients in a food processor and chop until smooth and blended.
Let the spices settle, then remove from the food processor and store in an airtight container.
Use as called for in recipes.