Salted Caramel Pretzel Chocolate Chip Cookies
For the last few years, we have had a cookie exchange with the girls at work. Every year, I try to make my own cookie. Last year, mine turned out so bad that I had to throw them away. It was a really simple recipe, so I’m not sure what possessed me to attempt to make a cookie from scratch this year. I followed the recipe EXACTLY the way that I found it on The Diary of Dave’s Wife website.
We also do a gift exchange at the party. I brought a leopard print santa hat and an iTunes gift card. I LOVE doing white elephant exchanges, but I always stress about what I’m going to bring. I have decided that everyone needs gift cards, so that is going to be my new go to for the future exchanges. At first I got the movie Elf and a thing of syrup in the exchange, but someone ended up stealing that from me. They didn’t want the syrup, so I ended up going home with syrup, a bottle of wine, and a corkscrew with a mustache top.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup unsalted butter, (softened)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups of all purpose flour
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup Kraft caramel bits
1/2 cup crushed pretzels
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
cream the butter and sugars together
Add egg and vanilla and blend it all together
Mix the flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt
Stir in the chocolate chips, caramel bits, and crushed pretzels
Drop the dough on to a cookie sheet. The cookies don’t spread a lot, so you can put them fairly close together. I kind of smooshed them down a little bit on the cookie sheet and then added salt on top of them.
Bake for 8 – 10 minutes or until kind of browned around the edges. (Don’t over bake)
Taco dip
I really didn’t have time to make a meal for the week on Sunday, so here it was on Tuesday and I still had nothing. I decided that I would throw caution to the wind and make myself something that I would enjoy and not worry about how healthy it was. Naturally, my meal would have to include chips, so I decided I would make a taco dip. This is a really easy thing to make. When it was done, it reminded me of Bob Armstrong dip from Matt’s, but without the guacamole. I may have to stop by and get some guacamole from the store to add to my dip when I eat it again tonight!
Ingredient:
1 – 2 lbs. of ground round
2 packets of taco seasoning
Sour Cream
Velveeta 2%
Chips
Brown the ground round and add taco seasoning, follow directions on the bag.
Put the taco meat in a casserole dish. Layer sour cream on the taco meat.
Cover the taco meat with sour cream
Layer slices of velveeta cheese on top of the sour cream.
Put in the oven at 375 for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
Take a scoop of the dip and put it in a bowl. Mix it up and dip your chips!
A Cowboy Boot Giveaway
A Cowboy Boot Giveaway. I want to win!!
I love sundresses!!
Last summer all I wanted was tube top style dresses. This year, I’ve been wanting a one shoulder dress. I hadn’t been able to find any that I liked until I went to Marshall’s yesterday and this one was sitting in the Juniors department waiting for me. I’m not a junior, but luckily I can still wear some of the clothes. I wasn’t really sure where I was going to find shoes to match them, but when I left Marshalls, I stopped in to TJ Maxx and found these perfect flip flops to go with the dress. It was like they knew I needed them!! 
Katie-bug Lady bug
My beautiful niece turned ONE today! It’s hard to believe that she has been in our lives for only a year. She has brought so much joy to all of us. I love it when I can get a little smile out of her. I’m so excited about staying with my parents this week so she can get to know me better and hopefully want to let me hold her more!! My sister did a great job with the birthday party. The lady bug theme was perfect for her!!
The K with a lady bug was so cute. These were the best cookies. I usually don’t even care for cookies, but these were amazing!!
These were the cutest lady bug cookies.
Lady bug cupcakes with a giant lady bug smash cake. She didn’t smash it though. She’s very dainty like that.
The kids got little backpacks with goodies inside. The girls got lady bugs.
The boys got caterpillars. They ordered these through H&B sports at (214) 641-4897
H&B also made these cute embroidered matching shirts for mom and baby girl!
These were cute little appetizers. They are just crackers, herb cream cheese, cherry tomatoes cut in half, black olive halves, and decorating gel to make them look like little lady bugs. I helped decorate them.
Crock pot
I’ve been having fun making crock pot recipes, but mine is really small. I went to amazon.com and bought a bigger one. I can’t wait to get it! Pinterest is getting expensive with me trying to cook and all! If you click on the amazon widget below, you can see which one I bought.
Warm Bean Dip
I think if you work around a lot of women, a pot luck is bound to happen. We were at training yesterday and the group decided that if we did a pot luck today and worked through lunch, we can get out early. I jumped all over that because we are supposed to be doing four day work weeks and today is supposed to be a day off anyway. Plus, I’m a morning person and by the end of the day I’m tired. The only issue I had with it is that I don’t live very close to a grocery store, so last minute pot lucks are not easy for me. I decided that I would make something that WOULD be easy for me, so I chose this bean dip recipe that I saw on Pinterest. The original recipe was found at the life at a loft house blog. Since I didn’t get home until late yesterday, I got up early this morning to make my bean dip. I hope it’s still hot by the time people want to eat it, but I kind of doubt it will be.
Ingredients:
1 8 ounce package of softened cream cheese
1 cup of sour cream
1 pkg. of taco seasoning
2 16 ounce cans of refried beans
4 cups of shredded monterrey jack/cheddar cheese
pre heat the oven to 350.
Mix the sour cream and cream cheese
Add in the two cans of bean dip and mix it really well
Add in the taco seasoning and mix it up
Put the bean mixture in a 9X13 baking pan with cooking spray.
Sprinkle cheese on top and then put in the oven (at 350 degrees) for 25 – 30 minutes or until the cheese is melted and/or a little brown.
Serve with chips!
Out and about
Last night we went to one of our favorite places, Lavaca Street Bar and Grill. One of the reasons we like it is because they always have good specials. Tuesday night is $1.00 Tecate night. Wednesday is Hamburger basket for $5.00 night. Thursday is baconmania. I still haven’t made it there for baconmania yet though. Dare to dream!!! We all shared queso, fries and wings. The guys had pizza, too. They have pretty good bar food. The only complaint that I have about the place is that the music is really loud. I can’t ever hear the people I’m sitting next to. Does that mean I’m getting old?
On the way to crash one of our friend’s birthday party we saw this cool statue of Willie Nelson. It’s right outside of the W Hotel. Some day I’d like to stay in a W hotel. Austin is so cool.
Brie Bites
As usual, I was looking on Pinterest at all the delicious looking food and found a recipe for Brie Bites. I love brie, so this seemed like a match made in heaven for me. When I looked at the recipe up close, I felt like they looked kind of bland, so I made some adjustments. I’d say that this is the first recipe that is mostly mine. I figured everyone loves bacon, so I added that and apple to the recipe and got rid of the pecans. I was going to make these for one of the parties yesterday, but I think it’s better that I had the opportunity to try them out first. I’ll be bringing these to future party events because they are GOOD! Mike said he would add something spicy to the mix, maybe cayenne pepper or jalapeño peppers, but I don’t really like spicy.
Ingredients:
Phyllo tarts
bacon
brown sugar
apple
brie
Make some bacon bits
While bacon is cooking, put the phyllo tarts on a cookie sheet
Add brie to the phyllo cup
Top the brie with about 1/2 tsp of brown sugar
Top that with apple
Top that with bacon, put in the oven at 350 for about 15 minutes or until the brie is melted.
Let cool and eat!
Is anyone else having problems with Pinterest? I have gone 3 days now without seeing anyone’s pin updates. I got off Facebook recently and now Pinterest isn’t even working. Today I started seeing a few pins, but not ones from the people that share the same interests as me. I hope that means they are trying to fix it. I wish I could see everything I’ve missed over the last few days!!
Also, if there is anyone on wordpress that is also doing amazon associate ads, can you please tell me how to add a widget? I can’t figure it out and all I get is a link to a deal of the day. It’s not attractive, so I doubt anyone will ever click on it. See my side bar if you are wondering what I’m talking about!!
Hope everyone enjoys a Sunday Funday!!
Fabulous after FIFTY 