Oreo Truffle Turkeys

I must first start with I'm sorry I have been away.  I had to travel to Boston for work and the week before I left with Thanksgiving I lost all track of time to blog or do anything.  I promise to get back in the swing of things this coming week.

I found this idea for Oreo Truffle Turkeys on Pink When so easy to make and you should have seen Caden's classmates, huge smiles!!

• 36 OREO cookies finely crushed (about 3 cups)
• 1 package (8oz.) cream cheese (softened)
• 4 (4oz.) semi sweet baking chocolate (melted)
• candy corn
• candy eyes
• tubed icing (to help things stick together)

Break cookies into cookie crumbs. Mix cream cheese and cookie crumbs until blended well. Shape the mixture into about 48 (1′ inch) cookie balls.Freeze for 10 minutes. Then dip the balls into the melted chocolate and then place onto a pan covered with wax paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to an hour.Once you have the cookie balls made, it’s now time to make the OREO cookie balls into OREO Thanksgiving Turkey Cookie Balls. You will need a few extra ingredients to finish off the turkeys. Remove the OREO Cookie Balls from the refrigerator (only cooling for about 10 minutes) and grab your supplies.  I just simply grabbed 5 Indian colored honey flavored candy corn and add them to the back of the cookie ball.

ALEXIS NOTES:  I changed a few things that I found were easier.  I used my ninja to make the cookie crumbs.  I made my oreo balls a little larger so the turkeys were a little bigger, I made 26 enough for the whole class, but I would say 24 is the perfect amount for these.  I melted my Wilton melts in the microwave.  NOW this is what I found was the easiest method.  Once you dip the ball in chocolate work quickly adding three candy corn for the feathers on the rump, add 2 Wilton candy eyes and I broke off the white tip of the candy corn for a beak.  I found trying to add the candy corn etc after the balls had dried to be a pain in my rump. :).  Now I also tried to dip several then decorate but my house was warm so the chocolate dried to fast. So unless you have a helper decorating after you dip the chocolate.

Any school treats planned to make?

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Turkey Parade ... Turkey Rice Krispie Treats & Turkey Cookies

Next on our list was some turkey's for the boys class rooms.  I of course couldn't make the same treat for both classroom.  I found two really cute turkey's I wanted to try out.

First one I did was actually very simple.  Caden helped decorate these for his classroom.  I found these Turkey Rice Krispie Treats on Shugary Sweets.  You start with a basic rice krispie treat, with a circle cookie cutter and some candy you have the perfect turkey!

Ingredients

For the krispie treats:
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 10oz bag marshmallows
• 5 cup Rice Krispies Cereal
For the turkeys:
• 1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels, melted 
• 12 chocolate wafers or Hershey Kisses
• candy corn
• candy eyes (Wilton - Walmart, Target or Michael's sales them)
• orange m&m's

Instructions

1. In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Once melted, add marshmallows and stir continuously until melted. Remove from heat and quickly fold in the cereal, until completely coated.
2. Press lightly into a buttered 13x9 baking sheet. Allow to set, about 30 minutes.
3. Using a 2 1/2 inch round cookie cutter (or whatever desired size), cut circles into the krispie treat. Eat discards immediately.
4. Using the melted semi-sweet chocolate, attach about 5 candy corn for feathers, one wafer for the face, two eyes and half of an orange m&m for the beak. Feel free to add a red candy (or pipe on red candy melts) for the waddle.

Alexis Notes: I used frosting as my glue instead of melted chocolate.  Instead of hersey kisses I used mini Reese's Cups.  I pick up my Candy Eye's at Walmart.  Instead of Orange M&M's I used Reese's Pieces that I cut in half. 

And the Second one I did was simple also.  I did cheat and use chocolate covered Oreo's and already chocolate covered pretzels.  I found this idea for Turkey Cookies on A Thrifty Mom.  I took her idea and tweaked it a little bit.

Ingredients:

Oreo Cookies

Mini Pretzels

Red Gummy Worm

Candy Corn

Frosting

Chocolate Candy Coating

Wax Paper

I used chocolate dipped Oreo Cookies and Pretzels.  This way I could avoid the melting of Chocolate Candy Coating and hand dipping.  If you want to do or can't find these melt your chocolate Candy Coating, dip your Mini Pretzels and set them aside.  When dry dip your oreo and place on 4 mini chocolate covered pretzels.  I fanned them out to look like the feathers.  If doing this method add your candy eyes, nose and waddle to the wet oreo cookie.  Since I used chocolate covered oreo's, I melted a little chocolate to glue the oreo to the pretzels.  I used frosting to add the eyes, nose and waddle. I wanted the waddle to look like a waddle so I used a red candy worm.  For the nose I used a candy corn.  A Thrifty mom used Red and Yellow Fruit foll ups.  My way gave it more of a 3D look, it's your call.

Hope you are all have an amazing Thanksgiving & Black Friday!

Thanks for Stopping by!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

Any Thanksgiving Plans?

Chocolate Cupcake Turkeys & Candy Corn Mix

For some last minute treats I made these for the boys classrooms.  Pretty easy to make and you can make these up for tomorrow for the kiddos!

First I wanted to make another type of Turkey Cupcakes, this time I started with Chocolate Cupcake recipes.  Then I decorated them to look like Turkey's.

Mom's Chocolate Cupcakes (not mine but someone's hey it was the title):

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup oil
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon vinegar

Directions:1. Mix all ingredients together until moist and well blended.
2. Put in cupcake cups and bake for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees F.
3. Frost with your favorite icing.
4. To make a layer cake, double the recipes and put in 2 round cake pans.
5. Increase baking time to about 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

I followed along steps I found for Totally Terrific Turkeys.

Step 1: Frost Thin Base Layer

Step 2: Add "Globs for head" you can add one for tail I didn't

Step 3: Add Candy Corn Tail & Beak

Step 4: Add Eyes and Sprinkles

And we of course had to do one more recipe so I made up some Candy Corn Mix recipe found on I Heart Nap Time (She also made cute bags, I used the holiday ziplock bags).

5 Cups Honey Nut Chex

4 Cups of Mini Pretzels (I used the bag of large I had)

1 pkg of Vanilla candi Quick (I used Wiltons Melts)

1 Cup Candy Corn (found in my bulk section)

1 Cup Candy Corn M&M's (I couldn't find used Reese's Pieces)

Mix all your dry ingredients in a big bowl. Melt the candi quik in the microwave for one minute and pour over your mix. Stir it around and then lay on wax paper to dry.

There you go some quick and easy recipes that can be made up and even given as gifts!

Pumpkin Cupcakes turned into Turkey Cupcakes

Can you believe it's almost Thanksgiving?  I know crazy huh?  Cole had his pioneers meeting last night (like the boy scouts) and I always like to make a special treat for them.  Why not make cupcakes that look like turkey's?  I saw a few ideas on pintrest and kind of ran with it.  I first started with a pumpkin  cupcake recipe that I found on Taste and Tell Blog.  And then frosted with chocolate frosting and formed the little guys.

Pumpkin Cupcakes:

1 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup milk
Grated zest of 1 orange
One 15-ounce can pure pumpkin puree

Preheat the oven to 350°.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, pumpkin pie spice, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar and the 1 cup granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until combined.

Beat in the flour mixture in 3 parts alternately with the milk and orange zest on low speed until just combined. Add the pumpkin puree and beat until just combined.

Pour into cupcake liners and bake until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean about 15 to 16 minutes.

Then went to the decorating of the cupcake to look like a turkey!  I saw this picture and added my look.

• Chocolate Frosting
• Candy Corn
• M&M's or Reese Pieces

Frost the cupcakes I used a knife so it wasn't the big glop of frosting I usually do.  I then added Candy corn to make the tail feathers (You can use 3 or go crazy and add 6 to 9).  Add a small round dollop of frosting for the head.  Then add two pieces of candy to be eyes and add one piece of candy corn for the beak (see the picture below for the step by step).

Tada You're done!

Have a wonderful day!  I hope to get one more Thanksgiving treat recipe up for tomorrow!

Weekend to be Thankful …

What a fun weekend it was like a 4 day break, but I had to work a short time on Saturday like usual but 3 hours was nothing.

As most of you know I spent most of Wednesday after working prepping and cooking and then cooking before my guest arrived for Dinner.  Sadly my dad was sick so he stayed home and my cousin and family didn’t stop by so it was very small with lot’s of food … lol.

If you’re needing some yummy weight watcher friendly holiday foods here are my two post of what I made.

First off I noticed that wow my roots are looking crazy long … then I counted and I was a few weeks overdo for a color.  I gave our cousin a call and she was so sweet and squeezed me in after hours.

Thanksgiving was a great day, my mom and grandmother stopped over for dinner.  The boys even got to stay the night with my parents! Yeah!!

Now the stores went and moved Black Friday up to Thursday PM which wasn’t bad it was kind of nice to do it early.  So I put my teenies on and my hat (Well at first the wrong one … lol).  Rick decided to work for his security job they took on security for Walmart shoppers.  That left me shopping by myself.  I was a little nervous to go by myself.  Then by God’s hand I ran into a old friends mom, I hadn’t seen either of them in almost a year.  We said hi and then I went on.  I looped around and again and ran into both of them got to talking and I had instant shopping buddies which was really cool.  So we finished up Walmart & went on to Target.  NOW the only bad thing was Fred Meyers stuck to their 5am so after we tried two restaurants to come to the conclusion who is going to be open Thanksgiving pm, we headed to my friends house for a snack and coffee.  We killed 3 hours watching Son’s on Anarchy, my first time watching.  By 6am I was done with my Christmas shopping.  I finished the boys, the boy at church Cole picked to buy for, Rick and even for me.  Plus I had a pile of things to go back, I have the grab and return later if I don’t need theory .

By Friday I had the presents wrapped and the boys home.  Rick brought down the tree and put it all up for me and even put the presents underneath.  The rest of the weekend was kind of lazy, except Sunday for church and then the boys and I helped decorate the church.  Now to finish up the stocking stuffers and we’re done!

So how was your Thanksgiving?  Did you Black Friday shop?  Is your shopping done?

Our Thanksgiving Feast Part II

I started my Turkey day up at 7am to make sure everything was done up right and ready to go for my guest to come visit.

The night before I made my list of what I needed to do and the order I needed to do it in.  Made my day run smooth.  I even found a way to put up my note with a magnet on my stove hood … lol

My morning started with taking the turkey out of the brine rinsing it and putting it in the oven. Then came next on my list to do the Mashed Sweet Potatoes Brulee. Which turned out so yummy.  I had Rick take his torch to the top to caramelize it … lol.

Next on my list was a veggie I hated as a child but now as an adult I love (I’m sure it had nothing to do with it being paired with Pancetta either .. lol).  These Sautéed Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta were so yummy I think I may have to make them every week.

And then of course the best part and you all know my love of pumpkin, which was a perfect way to end our course with Skinny Pumpkin Pie.  Mine wasn’t as pretty as the recipe I got it from but it sure did taste good!

Hope you enjoyed the meals you had and might like want to make something here.  Thank you again for being a blessing in my life.  Have a wonderful day and I hope a great meal tonight.  Anything special planned for tonight?

Our Turkey Day Part I

Well my all weight watcher meal turned out very yummy and no complaints!  Sadly my dad was sick and my cousin didn’t stop by this year so it was a very small gather with LOT’s of food left over.  Now I must say I didn’t make the end photos all dressed up like I usually do.  My guest showed up an hour later then I planned so it was a little rush at the end to just get everything out before it was too cold.

Let me start with the items I made the night or prepped the night before to make the next morning run so smooth!

First off I started with Brined Turkey that was so easy and turned out VERY most.  I have never done a brine before and was very surprised how it turned out.

Next on the list to make was the Cranberry Pear Sauce that was so yummy.  I’m not a big cranberry fan (ok except the jelly in a can I know STOP judging me). The pears in here cut the bite and made it so delish!

Next on my list was a favorite of Rick’s done on the light side. These Skinny Scalloped Potato Gratin were very yummy.  While did get a little crispy on top due to guest late and they had to go back in the oven to warm up, but STILL very yummy!

And my last prep of the night was the Chicken Sausage and Herb Stuffing. I MUST tell you this was the BEST stuffing I have had in a long time and it was nice not to feel guilty eating it.

So there you have it my night before prep work made the day of so much easier.  And thankfully everything turned out wonderful!

How did your Thanksgiving go?  Did your meals turn out?  Did you try anything new? Or did you do like me and do everything new?

Thanksgiving Meal Plan

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I want to first off say thank you all who stop by, you make my day and are true blessings in my life.  I give thanks to you all who have touched my life more then you will ever know!

I know we’re all busy and I won’t be around much today but I thought I would give you a taste of what I will be doing around here.  I’m going to try to do a all Weight Watcher Friendly Meal, wish me luck!  All recipes and pictures are from my favorite site Skinny Taste.

Brined Turkey

Chicken Sausage and Herb Stuffing

Sautéed Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta

Skinny Scalloped Potato Gratin

Mashed Sweet Potatoes Brulee

Cranberry Pear Sauce

Skinny Pumpkin Pie

Thank you to Skinny Taste you have the best recipes and I can’t wait to have everyone try them today!

Thanksgiving treats for Cole’s School

So I picked the turkey treat I want to make for Cole’s classmates.  The Rice Krispie Turkey Pop Treats turned out so cute and THANK God my friend April was here for Tuesday night dinner to help out.  Let’s just say these little suckers were not my friend at first.  I might have said a few not lady like names and thrown the whole batch away if it wasn’t for her.  She had the idea to take a knife and but a whole before putting the candy corn in.

Happy Early Thanksgiving, it will be a busy day at work today and some serious cleaning before my parents come over and of course a bunch of cooking.

Hope you have a wonderful day and if you get a chance make these little guys. 

Here is what we did last year .

Thanksgiving Treat Ideas

While being sick with no voice, the only thing I was really up to has been to watch tv (blah) or search the internet for recipe ideas.  Most of you know by now that I love to make treats for Cole’s classmates.  So I went on a search.  Last year I made the Rice Krispie Turkies that were so cute (But of course it snowed last year so Rick’s work got the treats … lol).  And being the crazy person I am I can’t make the same thing again, so the search to find a new turkey treat started.  Here is what I found, What do you think?

What I did last year: Turkey Rice Krispy Treats

Ideas for this year:

Pretzel Tailed Turkey Treats

Turkey Shaped Cookies

Turkey Cookies

Turkey Cake Pops

Turkey Candy Corn Cupcakes

Oreo turkey cookie

Fudge Stripe Cookie Turkeys

Turkey Rice Krispy Treat Handprint

Turkey Rice Krispy Pop Treat

Turkey Reese’s Cookie

I think I have narrowed it down to Turkey Rice Krispy Pop Treat and/or the Turkey Cake Pops.  What do you think?

Do you have any special to make?  What are you making?