What do with leftover popcorn...

It's Friday night and Miss Celia and I decided to do some leftover cooking.  A couple of nights ago my dad, "Papa", bought Celia and Charlie a giant bag of kettle corn- yum!  Unfotunately we also had a tin of popcorn leftover from Christmas.  Needless to say the kettle corn did not get eaten, but I could not let such yummy goodness go to waste, so here's a recipe for popcorn bars.  I have never made popcorn balls, but I would guess it is a version of that recipe- but it's for lazy people :)   I mean who really wants to make all those sticky balls?  Enjoy!

Cashew Popcorn Bars
Ingredients:
4 TBSP Butter, melted
10 Cups Popcorn*
2 Cups Cashews
4 Cups Mini Marshmallows
1/4 Cup Light Corn Syrup
 Chocolate Cookie Icing (optional) 


1.  Measure out 10 cups of popcorn in a large bowl.  Add 2 cups of cashews to the popcorn.  Set aside. 
2. Spray a 10x15 bar pan with pam.  In a small bowl, melt butter in microwave.
3.  Put marshmallows in a third bowl.  Pour corn syrup on top.  Microwave marshmallows in 30 second intervals for 2 minutes.  They will expand to 3 to 4 times their size.  When expanded, fold pour popcorn mixture and butter into marshmallows.  Pour into pan and pat down.  Let sit for 30 minutes.  Swirl icing over top of bars and let sit until hardened.  Cut into squares and serve.

*I would not use popcorn with extreme amounts of butter on it.

What to do with watermelon....

Summer is finally here!!!!  As a teacher, summer is a precious time for me.  It means weeks of teaching and spending time with my own babies.  I love it!  For us, an important part of summer is grilling with friends.  I tend to buy huge watermelons and then after the bbq, my children get to see the watermelon at every meal for the rest of the week.  This week I decided enough was enough, I was going to figure out something to do with the rest of the watermelon.  Celia, Charlie and I created this recipe for watermelon muffins.  Can you believe it only has 2 ingredients!  They had a lot of fun helping me.  Charlie loved them so much he ate 7 in 2 days!

Watermelon Muffins
Ingredients:
3 Cups of Cubed Watermelon
1 Cake Mix (white, yellow, or be creative, maybe strawberry)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Puree watermelon cubes in the food processor until it resembles chunky applesauce.  Don't over puree, 5-7 pushes of the button should do the trick.
3. Mix watermelon puree with cake mix.  Pour into cupcake pan.
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Makes 24 muffins.

What to do with Chocolate Easter Bunnies...

I love after holiday sales!  I went to Dollar General the other day and I got these 3 Chocolate Bunnies for ten cents apiece.  What a savings!  Andy's cousins moved into a new house so I made these Chocolate Bunny Bars for them for a housewarming gift.  They were oooey gooey chocolate goodness and easy to make!  Enjoy :)

Chocolate Bunny Bars
Ingredients:
For the Base:
1 Devils Food Cake Mix
3 Chocolate Bunnies (I used the hollow ones)
2 Eggs
1/2 Cup of Vegetable Oil
1/4 Cup of Milk

For the Top:
1/2 Cup Cake Mixture
1/2 Chopped Chocolate Bunnies
3/4 Package Cream Cheese, chopped into small cubes
1&1/4 Cup Coconut

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 9 x 13 glass baking pan.
2. Chop Chocolate Bunnies into small pieces, then set aside.
3. In a large bowl, mix together cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil and milk.  Add 1/2 of the chopped bunnies.
4. Set aside 1/2 Cup of the mixture in another bowl for the topping.  Spread the rest of the cake mixture onto the bottom of the 9 x 13 pan.
5. In the other bowl, add the rest of the chocolate bunnies, coconut and creme cheese cubes.  Mix together with 1/2 cup of cake mixture.  When mixed, drop onto base in small dobs.  Make sure to dob evenly across cake base. 
6. Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

What to do with applesauce...

This is a coffee cake I made for our Easter Breakfast at church. I have been working on "healthifying" my recipes, so this one is made with skim milk, pineapple and apple sauce.  There's not any oil or eggs in it!  It turned out incredibly light and delicious.  It was so easy to prepare, I will definitely make it again.  If you cut the cake in 10, there's about 5 weight watchers points per slice.  Enjoy!

Pineapple Coffee Cake
Ingredients:
1 cup applesauce
1 cup bisquick
1/2 yellow cake mix
1/2 cup skim milk
1 can pineapple chunks and juice

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees 

2. Mix together applesauce, bisquick, cake mix, skim milk and the juice from the pineapple in a bowl.

3. Spray 9" pie pan and pour pineapple on bottom.  Pour batter on top.  Sprinkle ground cinnamon on top.  Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

4. Let cool and serve, or flip coffee cake over onto a serving platter and have Upside Down Pinapple Coffee Cake.

What to do with instant oatmeal?

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What's cooking What's for Leftovers readers?  This has been a great spring break week, but since we've been so busy, I haven't actually been doing a lot of cooking.  The other day I did make peanut butter cookies for our Community Group.  We did not bring a single one home, so I think everybody liked them.  For breakfast that morning, I had fed Celia and Charlie instant oatmeal.  This was my first time preparing it, but it is like a gold mine.  It is so easy to make and they loved it!  Well, I made Celia's great, but I think I got distracted with Charlie's and did something wrong (I know you're asking yourself, who messes up instant oatmeal!?).  To thicken it up, I had to open another packet.  Instead of making a huge amount of instant oatmeal, I saved the rest of it and added it to the peanut butter cookies.  According to Belinda, it made the cookies look healthy :)

Peanut Butter Cookies
Ingredients:
1 Cup Peanut Butter
2 Eggs
3/4 Cup Pecan Meal (Finely chop pecans in your food processor if you don't have pecan meal)
3/4 Cup Honey
2 TBSP Instant Oatmeal (You can add a whole packet if you don't have one open already)
1 TBSP Baking Powder
1/4 Cup Flour
M&M's (Optional)
Powdered Sugar (Optional)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
2.  In a large mixing bowl, mix together peanut butter, eggs, pecan meal, honey, instant oatmeal, baking powder and flour until dough forms into a large lump.
3. Place dough in freezer for fifteen minutes.
4. Spray a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray.  Take cookie dough out and roll into small balls.  Place several M&Ms on top of balls (optional).  Put remaining dough back in freezer.
5.  Bake in oven for 11 to 13 minutes.  Cookies are finished when they puff up and start to turn light brown.  Take out of oven, sprinkle with powder sugar (optional) and let cool.  Repeat until dough is finished.

**Makes 2 and 1/2 dozen cookies** 

What to do with tortillas? Part 2

I had five tortillas left after last night's dinner to do something with tonight.  My friend Kim said that tortillas freeze nicely, but since we only had five left, I thought I would do something desserty with them.  If you are going to freeze your tortillas, Kim said to double-bag them for freshness.  This is a great tip to have for the future!  For tonight's dessert, I fried the tortillas just like last night.  Then I sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon and topped them with chocolate, honey and whip cream.  Mmmmm!  It was excellent.  A light, easy dessert for our families to enjoy.

Dessert Nachos
Ingredients:
5 Tortillas (or more if you have more)
Cinnamon and Sugar
Honey
Whip Cream
Chocolate Sauce

1. Cut up each tortilla into 4 triangles.
2. Heat a thin layer of oil in your frying pan.  Put tortilla triangles into pan, frying one side, then flipping and frying the other side.  Fry until they are a light brown.
3. When removing from pan, immediately sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on both sides of tortilla triangle. 
4. When finished frying all triangles, arrange on plates.  Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar again.
5. Heat 1/3 to 1/2 cup of honey in the microwave for 10 seconds.  Drizzle honey and chocolate on top of triangles.  Top with whipped cream and enjoy!