March 19th 2010

Happy national Chocolate Caramel Day!!

How did you celebrate? (don't feel bad if you don't like chocolate paired with caramel... March 24th is national chocolate covered raisin's day)

We made chocolate caramel pretzel "truffles." I saw this idea in a magazine somewhere. I don't remember. Real Simple? Food network? Rachael Ray? Ugh. I'd love to give credit where credit is due... but I honestly can't remember where I saw it. But these are the easiest yummiest crowd pleasin' little bites!

And here with me to show you all how to make them is my 14 year old (step) daughter, Logan!

Say hi Logan.



ingredients you'll need:



I know! It's that easy! Three ingredients. Well, maybe four, but we'll talk about that later.

So first you want to unwrap your caramels (is that too obvious?)...



(We may or may not be painting over the wallpaper in the kitchen. Excuse the mess.)

Then... enlist the help of a five year old to help unwrap the rest of the caramels while you start to roll the already unwrapped caramels flat. This is no job for a wimp... the rolling out caramels.



See those red cheeks and nose? That is his first sunburn of the year!! It was gorgeous here today!

So now you have your caramels unwrapped and rolled out... and we're going to wrap them around pretzel bites and make little round balls.



You can get a cute three year old to help with this step if you want to.





After you've got all of your pretzels wrapped in caramels, you're going to melt your chocolate. If you are planning on making a ton of these like for a party... or to package up as Christmas gifts... then I've found it's easier to melt your chocolate in a crock pot, but if you are just gonna do a handful like we did tonight, then just melt some chocolate in a bowl, cause next we're gonna dunk the pretzel caramel bites in chocolate, completely covering them.



It helps if you have purple finger nails



After you have them all dunked, set them on wax paper and wait for them to harden. This is the hardest part for me. Harder than rolling those booger caramels out.



Ok... now remember that optional fourth ingredient we talked about? If you have some nuts taking up space in your pantry... get them out, crush them out, and roll the chocolate covered caramel covered pretzels in the crushed nuts.

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

To die for!

I LOVE these.

You know what else I love?

The freckles on Jason's upper lip. (click on the picture... it will enlarge and you can check out the freckles. adorable!)



*swoon*

Ok... got sidetracked there for a sec.

Oh hey! Remember a couple of nights ago when Jason rescued that kitty and I said if it could live through the night and stay around, we'd keep it??

Well guess what...

It's made itself very comfortable out here on the farm!!



Back off, cat! He's mine!

Yeah... I'm talking to you



You know exactly what you're doing, kitty!!



*sigh*



I'm a goner

*** HEAD'S UP!!! ***

Tomorrow is Corn Dog Day, Maple Syrup Day, national Quilting Day, Proposal Day, and Great American Meat Out Day

Hopefully you can celebrate one of those with us. If you do... email me pics! I'd love to feature YOU on our blog!