Caramels

I love baking around the holidays (or anytime for that matter) but making candy always reminds me of Thanksgiving and Christmas!! Be prepared for lots of candy recipes on here the next few weeks :)

*1 Cup sugar
*3/4 C. Karo Syrup
*1 C. Cream
*4 T. Butter
*1/2 t. vanilla

Bring to boil sugar, syrup, butter, 1/2 the cream. When boiling vigorously add the rest of the cream slowly so not to stop the boiling. Cook to 235 degrees (soft ball stage). Add vanilla. Stir well and pour into buttered loaf pan. Cool till cold, cut and wrap!

Peppered Meatballs

picture by Taste of Home

Another Taste of Home recipe that is a favorite at our house. I serve the meatballs over pasta. Delish!

1/2 c sour cream

2 ts parmesan cheese

2 to 3 ts pepper (2 is plenty for me!)

1 ts salt

1 ts dry bread crumbs

1/2 t garlic powder

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

Sauce:

1 c sour cream

1 can cream of mushroom soup

2 ts dill weed

1/2 ts sugar

1/2 ts pepper

1/4 ts garlic powder

In a large bowl, combine the sour cream and parmesan cheese. Add pepper, salt, bread crumbs, and garlic powder. Crumble meat ovr mixture and mix well. Shape into 1 inch balls. Place meatballs on a greased rack in a shallow baking pan. Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minuts or until no longer pink; drain.

Transfer meatballs to a slowcooker. Combine the sauce ingredients; pour over meatballs. Cover and cook on high for 2 hour or until heated through.

Pasta Crab Casserole

Photo by Taste of Home

This is absolutely delicious! The flavors are so wonderful together. It was this dish that made me decide I do in fact like crab. This is a regular at our house. A must try!!

8 ounces uncooked spiral pasta

2 large onions, chopped

1/2 pound FRESH mushrooms, sliced (fresh is KEY! Don't use the canned junk)

1/2 cup chopped green pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup butter (Don't try to use less butter and use real butter if you can. It is so much better!)

2 pkgs (8 ounces each) imitation crabmeat, chopped

1/2 cup sour cream

2 ts salt

1 1/2 ts dried basil

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Cook pasta according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a skillet, saute the onions, mushrooms, green pepper and garlic in butter until crisp-tender. Remove from the heat. Drain pasta; add to the vegetable mixture. Stir in the crab, sour cream, salt and basil.

Transfer to a greased 9x13 dish. Sprinkle with cheese. Cover and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Uncover; bake 5 minutes longer or until heated through.

*This makes a lot so you can divide it into two 8-inch dishes and cover and freeze one for up to a month. To use the frozen casserole, thaw in refrigerator for 24 hours. Remove from refrgerator 30 minutes before baking. Cover and bakeat 350 for 55-60 minutes or until heated through. We never have a problem finishing off the 9x13 dish though because it really is delicious!*

Candy corn cookies

These cookies are so much fun to make! And sure taste good too!!

*white melting chocolate

*regular melting chocolate

*your favorite sugar cookie recipe

*orange food coloring

Make you favorite sugar cookie recipe and dye it orange. Cute out cookies in a candy corn shape. Just to let you know I didn't have a candy corn cookie cutter and couldn't find one so we just rolled out the dough, used a big bowl to cut out a big circle, and then used a pizza cutter and cut it into 8 pieces (like a pizza). Worked pretty good! Cook the cookies and let them cool. Melt the white chocolate and dip the bottom third of each cookie in the chocolate. Let that dry then dip the top third in milk chocolate. Let dry and enjoy!

Snake pizza

I made this the other day for Travis for lunch :) I am too lazy to type it all up so here is a link to the recipe

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/snake-bites-recipe/index.html

But here are the changes we made to make it a pizza. We used pizza sauce instead of the mustard, pepperoni in place of the lunch meat, and we just used cheddar/mozzarella cheese. We used a cut up pepperoni for the tongue and black olives for the eyes! It sure was tasty!

Mummy dogs

How cute are these! We are actually making these tonight for dinner so I got this pic off of 'our best bites' blog!

*1 package crescent rolls

*hot dogs

*sliced cheese

Place cheese on hot dogs and wrap thin slices of crescent rolls around hot dogs. Cook according to directions on crescent rolls. (Yes these are just pigs in a blanket with a Halloween twist!)

Jello Blood worms :)

I love the holidays and making food that goes with each holiday! So this week I heve been busy making all sorts of fun (and sometimes gross looking) Halloween treats. Enjoy!

*one 6 oz package of ras. jello

*3 packages of unflavored jello

*3 cups boiling water

*3/4 c. whipping cream

*15-20 drops green food coloring

*100 plastic straws

Combine gelatins in a bowl and add boiling water. Stir until well mixed. Place in fridge till lukewarm (about 20 min). While that is cooling place rubber band around straws loosly to hold them together. PLaces straws in an enpty cleaned out milk jug or any tall container. Blend food coloring and cream to the jello mixture and pour into the container, filling the straws. Chill at least 8 hours.

To get the worms out pull straws out of container and run under hot tap water for a couple seconds (its easiest to only do 3-4 at a time). Starting at the empty end push the worms out, they should slide out pretty easy. Lay worms on a wax paper lined baking sheet and chill for an hour or up to two days. Enjoy!!