Man In The Moon Cookies

When your kids are little they eat pretty much anything you put in front of them. Mine all had their own picky peculiarities in terms of what they loved and what they didn't but, overall, they accepted whatever was put on their plate.

One of the first kid requested recipes I ever made for Brian was Man In The Moon cookies. Who knows how they got their name? I actually tried researching this online but couldn't come up with any kind of answer. Maybe the chocolate chips look like craters?

Brian's first tasted these in his preschool class at Penasquitos Lutheran. Once introduced, my preschooler couldn't wait to make his Mom crank out a batch or twenty. You know what I still remember about making those cookies for Brian? How surprised he was that his Mom could create something he'd experienced at school and loved. I got to be the maker of magic just by shaping balls of cookie dough into Men in The Moon.

This is another of those recipes that eventually wound up at the back of my recipe box.. until this week. I couldn't even remember what the cookies looked or tasted like until I whipped up a batch to share with Awana kids.

The dough is shiny and greasy. With the liberal amount of oil called for in the recipe, I almost wondered if my slick little dough blobs would keep their shape during the baking process. They did. For very little effort, I was rewarded with rich, chocolatey cookies that taste great dipped in milk. A cookie Brian would probably still approve of.

Man In The Moon Cookies

Ingredients:
1 chocolate cake mix
2 eggs
2/3 cup oil
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:
Mix all ingredients. Drop by small spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes.

Pumpkin Pudding Dip

A lot of pies I can take or leave: even the typical fruit varieties don't do much for me, unless they have a big scoop of ice-cream on the side. I do, however, truly love pumpkin pies though I only make them for the holidays. Thanksgiving dessert becomes my favorite breakfast treat, with a piece of pumpkin pie every morning until there is no more.

After telling me about this recipe for a few weeks, Millie brought her take on pumpkin pies for our meeting Monday night. One bite was all it took for me to fall in love! No need to wait for Thanksgiving to roll around again - I can have these little mini pies any time I want. 

I suppose you could assemble the "pies" ahead of time but Millie brought hers as a dip, with graham crackers and pumpkin snaps placed nearby. Homemade whipped cream would be lovely but there was something kind of fun about making a pretty little squirt dollop of the canned kind of whipped cream to cover the pumpkin dip. Cookie, dip, and dollop together create a twee little pie that in addition to being adorable tastes just like a perfect bite of pumpkin pie. 

Pumpkin Pudding Dip

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 2 Tbs. water

1 pkg. sugar free vanilla pudding

1 can (15 oz) pumpkin

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp pumpkin spice

1/2 tsp. finely grated orange peel (optional)

Directions:

In a medium bowl, blend water and pudding mix until smooth.

Add remaining ingredients. Mix on low speed until smooth.

Serve with whipped cream and graham crackers or ginger or pumpkin snaps (available at Sprouts)

Saltine Toffee

I seem to be on a kick of digging out recipes I haven't made in decades and cooking them up. Monday night, I wanted a quick finger food for the Reading and Rambling group. Usually I'll check Pinterest for inspiration but, this time, something made me go through my own Longaberger recipe box. That's when I noticed the Saltine Toffee card former neighbor Trish Arthur gave me way back in the mid 80's. After tasting hers at some neighborhood gathering back when all our kids were little, I remember making my own batches for a period of time. You know how that is - you find a recipe, you keep making it, and then the phase passes and you move on to some other go-to favorite.

Obviously, making this toffee is quick and easy. While it takes little effort, the results do taste like a poor man's version of toffee. Like eating a heath bar with a cracker base.

Gianne liked this tasty recipe so much that I ended up giving her what we didn't eat Monday night. Young, sweet thing that she is, she'd never heard of saltine toffee. Maybe now it'll be her chosen recipe to make over and over... until she doesn't.

Saltine Toffee

Ingredients:
Approximately 40 saltine crackers
2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 cup light brown sugar
8 oz semisweet chocolate chips
Finely chopped nuts (optional)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Line a jelly roll pan with aluminum foil. Spray lightly with nonstick spray (I didn't do this) and arrange the saltines salt side down in a single layer.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar and boil til it turns a caramel color, a few minutes. (It will begin to pull away from the sides a bit) Remove from heat and pour over the crackers, covering them evenly.
Put the jelly roll pan into the oven and bake for 3-5 minutes, or until just bubbly, watching carefully. Remove from oven and pour chocolate chips over the crackers. (I used an entire bag of the chocolate chips). As the chips melt, spread them over the crackers with a knife.
Transfer the pan to the freezer for about 15 - 20 minutes, or until completely cold. Break the toffee into pieces. Store in an airtight container.