I decided I wanted some No Bake Oatmeal cookies the other day so I whipped up a batch one evening. I don't know what it is about having cookies in a mini Pyrex bowl and milk in my Hazel Atlas cup, but it seems to make it taste better.
Hubby has created a pasta salad that has become very popular at the showers we have been having at church. The mother of the groom at a recent shower loved it so much, she had him make her a double batch this week for her family to have at home. He made it yesterday so I thought I would document the process for all you pasta salad lovers out there. He uses the Garden Rotini noodles for it. It takes the one pound box size.
He made a double batch this time, so the quantities are doubled. But you can cut it in 1/2 for a smaller amount if you want. In a double batch he uses four carrots, two cucumbers, one jalapeno, two red onions, two containers of cherry tomatoes (tommy toes), two Granny Smith apples and two red apples of your choosing. We used Jonathan's in yesterdays batch but we have made it with red delicious.
The double batch uses three bottles of the large size Zesty Italian dressing. You can substitute the dressing with your own favorite. This double batch takes 1 1/2 bottles of Bac'n Pieces (Bacos) and a small can of chopped black olives.
Cook and drain your noodles and place them in a big bowl for mixing purposes.
Peel and chop your veggies. Core your apples and it is your personal preference if you want to peel them or leave the peel on.
Pour the dressing over the entire mixture.
Stir it around to thoroughly mix it all together. Be gentle but mix well.
And you have a nice hearty bowl of pasta salad.
After he was finished with the pasta salad, he asked me to make this fudge recipe he found on Pinterest. Yes, that's right, my man is a Pinterest man now. He loves creamy chocolate fudge, but we don't make it a lot because it gets expensive to make and it takes quite a while to make it. But this only had two ingredients. Hershey's milk chocolate chips and Eagle Brand condensed milk.
All you need is a microwavable mixing bowl, an 8 x 8 baking dish or metal cake pan and a spoon.
You pour one and 1/2 bags of the chips into the mixing bowl. I use my Pampered Chef pitcher because it is easy to pour out of when I'm done.
You cover the chocolate chips with the milk.
Put it in the microwave and heat it until all the chips melt. Take it out a couple of times in the process and stir it to keep it blended well.
Mine took about 2 minutes, give or take. Remove it and stir really good till all the chips are melted and blended well with the milk.
It recommended lining your baking dish/cake pan with wax paper. Well, I did. And I didn't like it. Next time I will probably butter the bottom and sides of my pan. That's what I do with all my other fudge recipes. The wax paper kept pulling loose when I was trying to smooth it out in the pan and you couldn't get in the corners as well as you can in a buttered dish.
Refrigerate for a couple of hours till it sets up and then remove it and cut into pieces. Hubby is a muncher and likes his fudge in bite size pieces so he can just grab a couple when he has the munchies so he cut his up small. I am more of a cocoa fan for fudge but he loves it with chocolate chips. He said this turned out really good.
So after all the photographing and all the mixing and baking, I went and took a bath while he fixed supper. We had decided on spaghetti. He makes it home made with all kinds of wonderful seasonings. I am not a garlic bread person, but I love it with just good old fashioned buttered bread. Yum! It was delicious as always.
He fixed himself a little side salad with tomato, onion, lettuce and Kraft Tangy Bacon Catalina dressing.
After supper, I did the dishes and cleaned the counters and we were ready to set and relax. We did our normal Friday night three hour marathon of watching American Pickers. We absolutely love that show. I decided when I go to the 10 Mile Yard Sale today, if I see something I want that is too high, I'm going to try to bargain with them instead of walking away from something I want. People do that to me at my yard sale all the time and it never bothers me, but I've never done it myself when I'm the shop, but thanks to Mike and Frank on Friday nights, I feel I have been trained on the powers of bargaining. So I'm going to give it a try.
Time to head out soon and hit the yard sales. Have a great day.
