M&M Granola Trail Mix

Around this time of year, several Fall and Holiday type of recipes emerge from our recipe boxes.  They hang around for the rest of the year, and on into January of the new year.  Often, the two recipes I'm highlighting today, end up in small portions for gift baskets or in a Christmas tin for small gifts for friends.  They are perfect for fending off the vultures hovering in the kitchen disturbing the work snacking on while Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner is being prepared.  ;)  They are also great Super Bowl snacks to have out during the big game!

A couple years ago, about this time, I introduced to you my family's twist on Chex Mix (photo on right).  Today we are going to look at an M&M Granola Trail Mix (photo on the left).  A sweet friend gave me a tin of this trail mix a couple years ago at Christmas and it quickly became a favorite.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter

4 tablespoons honey

3 cups granola*

2 cups M&Ms*

1 cup nuts (of your choice; mixed or peanuts or almonds, etc)

1 cup pretzel twists

Directions:

Melt honey and butter over low heat, gently stirring, until blended.  Remove from heat, and add granola, nuts, and pretzels.  Stir until coated with honey and butter mixture.  Spread on cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees for 10 minutes.  Spread on wax paper and allow to cool.  Mix in M&Ms.  

*Notes:

The original mix I received as a gift is exactly as the above recipe.  However, when I make it, in place of traditional granola, I often use Kashi Honey Almond Flax Cereal.  Also, I find that 2 cups of M&Ms are just a little too much; I often cut back to only 1 cup.  Lastly, I increase the butter/honey mixture by a little bit -- it coats the dry ingredients much better, and I don't feel so badly about it as long as I'm using raw local honey and real butter.  I could definitely see adding sesame seeds as well as dried cranberries.  I personally do not care for raisins  though I know many would prefer them over the cranberries.  Any of these additions should be added with the granola, nuts, and pretzels.  

Homemade Salsa

I love this salsa recipe.  It's so simple to throw together and the flavor is very full and... well, you can't stop eating this salsa!  It makes up quite a bit, which is a very good thing.  I've recently started using Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, but I've also used just regular Diced Tomatoes.  I've considered using some of the tomatoes that have other flavors already thrown in, but since I use fresh green onions, cilantro, lime, and garlic, I usually end up getting plain tomatoes.  I'd love to try fresh tomatoes, but just haven't yet.  The bonus to that is it's usually easy to have the ingredients on hand.  Which is nice when you live 20 minutes from town!

Ingredients:
2 cans Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes
1 can Rotel
1 small can tomato paste
1/2 to 1 bunch cilantro, chopped
2-3 green onions, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Serrano pepper, seeded and diced
sea salt, to taste
juice of one lime

Directions:
In a blender, blend tomatoes, Rotel, tomato paste, garlic cloves, Serrano pepper, sea salt, and lime juice.

Transfer to a large bowl and mix in (by hand) cilantro and green onions.

Store in clean mason jars or a glass refrigerator dish.

Pretzel Bites with Honey Mustard Sauce

Why, yes, this is another Pinterest find.  I can't help it.  But this doesn't even begin to cover the multitude of recipes and ideas I've been pinning.  It's a sickness, I tell you.

Anyway, these pretzel bites are just as good as they are in the mall stores!  They don't keep well, though, so you may as well eat them all at once.  Just throwing that out there.  You're welcome.

As for the Honey Mustard Sauce -- It's incredibly simple to throw together and is (rather surprisingly) really good!  Much better than the jarred stuff on the market, I think.

The pretzel bites come from the blog Two Peas and Their Pod.  They share an amazing sounding/looking and easy cheese dip here as well.  I'll definitely be trying that some day, but on this particular day I used a Honey Mustard recipe I found online somewhere.  This would also be great with chicken strips or as a dressing on a salad.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoon prepared mustard
2 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice


Directions:
In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, mustard, honey, and lemon juice.  Store covered in the refrigerator.

Avocado Chicken Salad

Another Pinterest find of mine was this Avocado Chicken Salad.  Tonight, inspired by that recipe, I made up a slightly different version for my lunch tomorrow at work.  Apparently, and very unfortunately for me, small town, Midwest IGAs do not have cilantro.  I was not about to go to a second grocery store after work the other night, so that was my first variation away from the original.  Secondly, I added a hard boiled egg.  It turned out really well and I'm looking forward to my lunch tomorrow.  I'm also looking forward to adding cilantro next time!  I love that only a tiny bit of mayo is needed.  Before adding the mayo, the chicken salad was a bit dry; but because the avocado is so creamy, it really only needs a bit of mayo.  I actually used a smidge too much tonight and will cut back a bit next time.  The original recipe calls for about 2 cups of chicken for 1 avocado, but I only had about 1/2 to 3/4 cup chicken and I still used 1 whole avocado.  But I love avocado.

Ingredients:
1 avocado
1 green onion, finely sliced
(cilantro, chopped)
1/2 cup shredded chicken
1 hard boiled egg
1/2 tablespoon to 1 tablespoon mayonnaise
juice of 1/2 of 1 lime
salt to taste


Directions:
Slice and peel the avocado; coarsely mash.  Mix in chopped egg and salt to taste.  Add shredded chicken and green onion (this would be the point I'd add my cilantro); mix well.  Add mayonnaise until you reach a desirable consistency.  Squeeze lime juice over salad and mix.  Serve with crackers or on a bed of lettuce.

Hot Cocoa Bar

This was another fun Pinterest find, this year.  I love the idea of a Hot Cocoa Bar!  So fun and of course really yummy, too.  Of course, you can customize this any way you want as far as ingredients are concerned.  I've also seen some really cute printables to label all of your ingredients for your guests and create a fun and interesting table, as well as invitations to invite friends if you're doing this as a theme for an entire party.  Check out Etsy for these full sets and search the internet for some of the free versions that are a little more limited in what printables are included.

My cocoa recipe was simply the cocoa found on the side of the Hershey's Baking Cocoa can.  Trust me, you'll never go back to powdered mix from a box again after you use this recipe.  It's really easy to make just one cup or an entire batch.  I used a Crock Pot to keep my cocoa warm throughout the afternoon, which worked really, really well.

To compliment my cocoa, I set out large marshmallows, Pepperidge Farms Piroutte cookies, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, Heath Bar bits, and semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Bacon Crackers

I stumbled on these little gems back when I was a faithful (read: daily... every.single.day) reader of Pioneer Woman's blog.  I don't get over to her blog nearly as often as I like these days, but I still love to check on new recipes from her.  :)

These little guys joined us for New Year's Eve 2010 and made a reappearance for Christmas 2011.  They were a HUGE hit!  But, really, what's not to like about them -- bacon? Club crackers? Parmesan cheese?  YUM.

No one says it better than PDub, so head on over to her blog and catch the recipe there!  :)

Reindeer Cookies

These Reindeer Cookies were one of the hottest pins on Pinterest right before Christmas.  I thought they would be a big hit with the kids at our Christmas dinner.  These little guys were incredibly easy to make, though a bit time consuming.  It would be a really fun afternoon with the littles in your life, though!

I actually wanted mini M&Ms for the little noses, but couldn't find any in the grocery store.  Next year, I'll begin looking a little sooner and try to come up with some, because I think that would be more tasty than a red hot.  ;)

I've also seen this same concept done with white almond bark to create little snowmen, with mini M&Ms for buttons down the front and using Wilton Food Writer Edible Color Markers to draw in eyes and nose.

Ingredients
Nutter Butter Cookies
Chocolate Almond Bark

Wilton Candy Eyeballs

Pretzels

Red Hots

Directions:

According to package directions, melt about 3 blocks of chocolate almond bark.  Completely coat 1 Nutter Butter cookie.  Working quickly before almond bark hardens, place your pretzel for the antlers, and then place your eyes and nose.  Continue this method until your almond bark becomes a little too stiff to coat nicely.  Allow the cookies to harden on wax paper until set and then store in an airtight container.


Note: I used about 6 blocks of chocolate almond bark to coat an entire package of Nutter Butters.  3 blocks of almond bark was a good amount to melt at a time; I found I was just getting to the unworkable point as I got to the end of the first batch of melted bark.