World's Easiest fudge recipe

My Girl Scouts did this recipe at our last meeting:  It's a breeze.

• 1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips
  
• 1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  
• dash salt
  

Line 8" by 8" pan with foil.  Melt all ingredients together over low heat. Spread in pan.  Chill 2 hours until firm.

Cinnamon Spice Craft Dough

With the holidays coming up, it's time I share one of my favorite crafts. This dough makes wonderful ornaments that smell great during preparation, hold their shape and bake into hard, long-lasting shapes. Paint them with a little glitter gel and they look like brown sugar cookies. A wonderful Sunday School project. Not edible!

• 4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons cloves
• 1 1/2 cup warm water

Mix dry ingredients. Add water gradually, until mixture is like playdough. Role to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters. If hanging, make a hole with a drinking straw. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour.

Monkey Bread

My 7-year old son prepared this for a Cub Scout requirement. Delicious hot from the oven. Halving the recipe gives a good, family- sized loaf; use the full size for a crowd. Fun with kids because there are lots of little dough balls to roll.

• 3 10-oz (or 4 7.5-oz.) cans refrigerated biscuit dough
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup brown sugar

Separate biscuit dough and divide each piece in fourths. Mix sugar and cinnamon in bowl; roll each dough ball to coat. Drop in a greased and floured bundt pan. Melt butter and mix with brown sugar; I dump any leftover cinnamon sugar into to mix. Pour brown sugar mixture over dough balls. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool 5-10 minutes in pan, then invert onto plate. Break pieces off to serve.

Iced Brownies

My daughter won a blue ribbon at the Albemarle County Fair with this recipe when she was 7. Adapted from recipes in the old Betty Crocker's Boys and Girls Cookbook, my first cookbook as a child.

• 4 squares unsweetened chocolate
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Melt chocolate and shortening in microwave. With wire whisk, beat in eggs and sugar. mix together last three ingredients, stir into chocolate mixture. Bake 30 minutes at 350 degrees in a greased square or rectangular brownie pan.

Icing:

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 tablespoon milk

Stir together until blended, add an extra tablespoon of milk if needed. Spread over brownies while they are still warm.

Orange Balls

My absolute favorite no-bake cookie. These are hugely popular whenever they are served and are elegant enough for fancy occasions. Fun to make with kids if you don't mind germs; it's hard to avoid licking your fingers when rolling. The recipe calls for rolling the balls in finely chopped nuts or flaked coconut; I don't care for either but have used vanilla wafer crumbs with great success. Just grind them fine, ideally in a food processor.

• 12 oz. vanilla wafers, crushed into crumbs

• 1 pound powdered sugar

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 6 oz concentrated orange juice

• Finely chopped pecans, flaked coconut or vanilla wafer crumbs for rolling

Mix all ingredients together and chill slightly before shaping into balls and rolling in desired topping. Store in refrigerator.

Butterbeer

Hot...frothy...warms you from the inside...
I'm not sure Muggles have successfully duplicated Butterbeer as described by JK Rowling, but my son enjoyed this beverage at the recent Harry Potter 7 premiere party.

• 8 oz cream soda
• 1/2 cup butterscotch syrup
• 1/2 tablespoon butter

Heat butter and syrup in microwave until hot and bubbly. Sir and cool for 30 seconds. Slowly pour in soda. Mixture will fizz. Serves 2.

Cockroach Clusters

For Harry Potter Day, of course. I made a batch of these to take to my class on Friday, before I jump into the car to drive 8 hours to take my kids to the midnight premiere. I am nuts, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

• 12 oz chocolatey bark coating
• 3 cups chow mein noodles

Melt coating in microwave, add noodles and stir to coat. Put oval-ish tablespoonfuls on wax paper to harden. Makes about 30.

I also found a recipe for butterbeer: 1 part butterscotch schnapps to 7 parts cream soda. No idea if this is any good, as I'm not much of a schnapps drinker, and my school would probably frown on me serving up a batch to students. If I go to a certain Mother's Reunion in the fall, maybe I'll let you know.

Grahammy Bars

I agreed tonight to teach two quarters of children's Sunday School next year, which reminded me of this recipe. One of the easiest to do in a group setting, even with preschoolers.

• 2 1/2 packs graham crackers*
• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 package chocolate chips
• 1 cup nuts (optional, I usually skip these, especially with kids)

Crush graham crackers into crumbs.** Dump crumbs into bowl, add chocolate chips. Pour in sweetened condensed milk, stick until coated. Press mixture into greased 13 X 9 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. While bars are baking, remove cotton from ears and hose down any sticky children who helped you. Remove from oven and cut while bars are still warm.

*By "packs" I mean the wax-paper bundles that come in the box, usually 11 crackers. Total number of cracker used should be about 28, full-sized, or slightly over half a box.
**Here's where the kids have fun; put the crackers in a Ziploc bag, give them a rolling pin and let them go at it.

Easy Blackberry Cobbler

We picked fresh blackberries on our recent vacation in Big Canoe, GA and my children (10 and 7) were able to prepare this almost entirely on their own. Delicious with vanilla ice cream.

• 1 stick butter
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2/3 cup milk
• 3 cups fresh blackberries

Melt butter in casserole dish. Mix everything except berries and pour over butter. Pour berries over batter. Don't stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Pizza Chicken Italiano

One of my most frequently prepared dishes. I classify this in the Really Useful and Great for Kids categories. I making this frequently when I take meals to families at a time of death, illness, birth of a baby, etc. Kids who dislike the usual casserole-type dishes often love this! It's easy, and, if you're like me and get the big bag of frozen chicken breasts from Sam's, you usually have all the ingredients on hand.

• 4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 can tomato sauce
• 1/2 onion, minced (or 1 tablespoon dried)
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 1.5 teaspoons oregano
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4-6 slices mozzarella cheese

Place chicken in lightly greased casserole dish. Combine sauce with all ingredients except cheese, pour over chicken. Top with cheese slices. Bake at 425 degrees for 35 minutes.