Shopping Around the World

This month we are focusing on desserts/cookies or other yummy treats that you create or love to eat this time of the year.  This holiday season has been a little challenged here at the Hotel Thompson – with mom’s surgery, recuperation and other trying things that showed their ugly head.  Usually mom fixes this dessert, boxes them up in little Chinese containers that are decorated with pictures of us anipals and hands them out.  This year, she just didn’t get a chance to play around and have fun.  BUT she wanted to share this recipe because it’s fun and the treats are delicious!

So here is mom –

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What you will need:  bag of shelled pecan halves ($7.00); bag of Rolo candies ($4.00); and a bag of square pretzels ($3.00) = total cost $14.00

The most time consuming part of this recipe is unwrapping all of the Rolo’s.  Usually I will sit in front of the television with a two bowls – one for wrappers and one for the unwrapped Rolo’s.  Watch some television and start unwrapping.  It makes it go faster.  Trust me, this is the annoying part.

After you are done, get out a cookie sheet and wrap it with aluminum wrap.  Put your square pretzels on it and put one Rolo on top of all of the pretzels.  Your oven needs to be set at like 200 degrees.  Place the pan in the oven for about 2-3 minutes, until you see the Rolo’s getting soft.  Take them out and immediately push a pecan half on top of the pretzel.  We call these Reindeer noses.  Cute huh?

Now make a mental note.  Don’t put so many pretzels on the tray with Rolo’s that when you take them out of the oven they soften before you can put the pecan half on them.  I can usually do about three trays with the ingredients above.  Happy eats!

 

Shopping Around the World

Thanks to everyone for another great edition of Shopping Around the World last month.  It’s so awesome to see the various prices around the world – and the pictures with recipes!

This month we have a suggestion from my cousin Sammy on highlighting cookies or other sweets for December.  Is there a special treat that you fix only around the Christmas holidays?  A certain cookie to share?  It does not have to be five items or less this month.  Share your recipe and picture of your sweet items.

This time of the year mom loves to fix what she has always called reindeer noses.  Now they have been called other things like yummy, pure grace, delicious, Rolo droppings, etc.  Snorts with piggy laughter.  It doesn’t matter what you call them because you will absolutely love them.  AND they are so easy to make.  You will need:  1 bag of pecan halves (prices range on this – the bag I bought was $8.99); 1 bag of Rolo caramels in milk chocolate candies ($4.00) ; and 1 bag of small pretzels ($1.50 on sale).  Total paid around $14.50 for some priceless candy 🙂

Turn your oven on to around 250-300 degrees.  While that is pre-heating, start taking all of the aggravating pretty foils off of the Rolo caramels in milk chocolates.  Yes you can be like my mommy and eat some for all of that painstaking foil removal.  Then, put some parchment paper on a baking pan.  Add a bunch of small pretzels and top with one Rolo each.  Now, here is the tricky part.  You don’t want to put so many on the baking pan that when you pull it out of the oven you don’t have time to top them with the pecan half.  You see they will cool fast and you want that finishing touch – trust me.  Okay so now you have your pan planned out.  Place it in the hot oven for around 5 minutes until the Rolo melts all over the pretzel.  Once that happens, remove the pan and quickly add a 1/2 of pecan to the top squishing it down in the chocolate.  mmm – just thinking about it.

Let these cool before trying one.  Trust me on this – daddy found out the hard way.  Once they are cool, put in a air tight container and share… or not 🙂

 

Shopping Around the World

This month we received a suggestion from our friends Reilly and Denny with Cowspotdog. This month we are pricing FIVE items from two different stores for price comparisons in your area.  Now, we are going to make this kind of easy.  FIVE items of your choice in making a meal.  Of course, you can use more than FIVE items to make your meal but you have to price comparison shop FIVE items from TWO different stores.

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We here at the Hotel Thompson have been trying to eat better these days and with it being so darn hot, we have been eating a lot of salads.  With that in mind, we took this month’s shopping adventure with the makings of one of our favorite week day meals.

1 – Head of lettuce.  It’s funny how the price of a head of lettuce fluctuates so much.  We went to Kroger where it was 0.99 a head.  Publix had it for $1.19 a head.

2 – Seedless Grapes.  We got a small bag of red seedless grapes, 1/2 pound, at Kroger on sale for $1.19 a pound.  At Publix, they had the same for $2.39 a pound.

3 – Shaved Ham.  Don’t tell Bacon okay.  We got the store brand low sodium ham shaved at the deli at Kroger for $4.99 a pound.  Publix brand for the same was $6.99 a pound.

4 – Cheese.  We buy the block of cheese from Kraft and cut and shred what we need.  A block on sale this week at Kroger was $2.50.  Publix also had it for $2.50.

5 – Strawberries.  In the summer time, it’s a fight for fresh strawberries.  We love them and they are one of Bacon’s favorites.  I like to slice them up and put them in salads.  We bought a package from Kroger for $2.50.  The same package at Publix was $4.99 this week.

Things also in this salad were chopped pecans and tossed with Catalina Dressing.  The all time perfect summer salad in this Georgia heat!

Hope everyone had fun this month – I know we did!

 

Shopping Around the World

This month items to price were:

FIVE Ingredient Salads.  There you go.  Cold salads, pasta salads, seafood salads, chicken salads, hot salads – any salad of your choosing – five ingredients.  List the ingredients, prices and how you make your five ingredient salad.  We have enjoyed seeing everyone’s homemade dish over the past couple of months.  IF you can attach a picture to your FIVE Ingredient Salad that would be awesome!

  This was a challenge.  I like a lot in my salad – variety keeps me interested in eating the things *I should*.  It’s always an endless battle.  And I’m really trying to fix salads more often these days.  Me and the hub unit have come across the perfect FIVE ingredient salad for us which consists of the following:

(1) A bag of mixed lettuce ($3.00 a bag); (2) A 1/2 pound of ham ($6.00 sliced at the deli); (3) Shredded cheese ($2.50 for the block); (4) pecans ($8.00 a bag); (5) Thousand Island dressing ($2.49 bottle).

We go for the mixed bag of mixed lettuce because it has everything in it – but it’s one item, right?  Between me and the hub, the one bag can last two nights.  So for this meal it cost $1.50 for the salad mix.

We like to add a little meat to the salad for a chef salad.  We get the ham from the deli and ask them to shave it thin.  We get 1/2 pound and we can eat on this all week – it doesn’t take much to put in the salad – just some for taste.  So I’m estimating for the salad portion for the both of us $2.00.

We buy the blocked cheese when it is on sale and I shred it myself.  One block can do salads all week so for the both of us on cheese $0.50.

Now pecans are expensive around here – and we are in the south!  I like to buy a big bag of them at $8.00 – they freeze very well.  I will take some out, chopped them and toast them in the oven.  Then I put them on our salad for crunch.  Kind of like having croutons but way better.  The one bag lasts us for about 2 weeks so averaging it out it costs about $1.00 for the both of us.

Then the dressing – you have to have dressing and we both love Thousand Island.  The one bottle lasts us all week – it’s a small bottle 😦  That averages out to $0.50 for the both of us.

So what is the bottom line for this salad for the both of us together?  $5.50 for dinner.  And we change it up from time to time.  Salads are so versatile and we love them.  What about you?