My Igloo Life

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Candyland Dessert = Heaven In A Pan.

Okay, so it's a three day weekend. While I would love to think this is a good thing I feel that it is also effectively ending summer. No? Amazingly, its called Labor Day up here in Canada too. Crazy, since we have similar holiday weekends but the names are never the same. Anyway, I figure you've probably got some sort of great BBQ or party to attend tomorrow so perhaps you're still on the hunt for the perfect dessert recipe.

Oh, you are?

Good. I'm here to help.

Enter Candyland Dessert. It's a classic from my mom's kitchen. She and I made it last week while I was home and I now plan on making it every week for the rest of my life. It's that good.

So, start with some pretty basic ingredients. You'll want to go ahead and get our the mixer while you're at it.

Then put on your apron. My mom will demonstrate with her super cute, one of a kind cupcake apron.

First things first. Take 2 of the Lorna Doone's shortbread cookie and eat them. No one will ever know. Don't feel guilty.

Then take the remainder of the box and dump them in a large ziplock bag and take out all the day's frustrations with a rolling pin.

Melt a whole stick of butter in the microwave.

Put the crushed cookies in a bowl, dump the melted butter in, and mix it up to make the crust.

Take the crust and pat it evenly across the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Then pop it in the preheated oven (350) for 15 minutes.

Now, on to the fun stuff. Using the whisk attachment add 2 packs of instant vanilla pudding mix and then add 2 cups of cold milk. Just like the box says.

Let it mix for a few minutes while you take care of more important matters...

Like getting out the vanilla ice cream. We used Breyer's and you can use whatever brand you'd like but might I suggest going for quality here...this probably isn't the best time to buy Brand X.

You're going to need 1 quart of ice cream. Since I'm a math genius and the container held 1.5 quarts that meant we needed 2/3 of the container. And because we're geniuses, we eye balled it.

Are you ready for this?? Add the ice cream by the spoonful into the pudding in the mixer.

Then stick your spoon in, eat it and you'll understand why this dessert is heaven. It's such a simple combination but soooo delicious.

Once the crust is completely cool, pour the pudding/ice cream mix over the crust in the pan.

Then spread a small container of Cool Whip over top. We opted for the full on Cool Whip and none of that pansy Light stuff. At this point, there's no turning back, right?

The final step is important. It involves Heath Bars. Get a bag of Heath Crunch. If you're grocery store isn't as cool as mine then get 2 Heath bars and beat them to a pulp.

Sprinkle them over top to add the finishing touches.

Perfection! Delish!

You'll be the envy of the party. Enjoy!

Here's the copy and paste-able:

Candyland Dessert

Prep: easy, like a monkey could do it

Time: 30-40 minutes

Ingredients:

1 box Lorna Doone's shortbread cookies

1stick butter

2 c. milk

2 boxes vanilla instant pudding

1 quart vanilla ice cream

8 oz Cool Whip (1 small container)

8 oz Heath Bar (1 bag or 2 bars)

Instructions:
1. Crush cookies. In bowl, combine with the melted butter. Spread evenly across the bottom of a 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes. It will need to cool completely before the filling is added. You may place it in the fridge to speed things up.
2. Using whisk attachment, combine pudding mix and milk in the mixer. Add in the ice cream. Mix until smooth. Eat a spoonful.
3. Pour the pudding and ice cream mix into the pan. Spread evenly.
4. Spread Cool Whip over top.
5. Evenly sprinkle on Heath bar crunch.
6. Chill in the fridge until serving time!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Good Times With Longtime Friends.

So, I have been back in the real world for about a week and a half now. After three solid months of living the camp life in Maine, I must say that normal life is feeling good now that I have caught up on some much needed sleep. I'd like to say that I am officially back in the real world, but that wouldn't really be true. You see, I came directly from camp down South to visit some friends and my parents. I'll head back home to Canada in a few more days and then real life will officially commence. Ya know, the real life where there is ironing to be done, dogs to walk, and meals to cook. But for now I've been enjoying the slow transition from camp to vacation to real life.

This weekend I spent an evening out on the town with two of my very best friends from the good ole days. Josh, Allison and I go wayyyy back, I mean like middle school style. Like, I've known these people for half my life. Which in turn means that they have been putting up with me and all my nonsense for just as long. Bless their hearts.

Back in our hay day we knew how to have fun. Not that we don't anymore, but we are a little tamer these days...thank goodness. I'm not sure our livers would be able to keep up with us anymore.

Josh and I met back in middle school while sitting in line for roll call at gym. In 9th grade I decided I didn't like my outfit on picture day so I convinced Josh to give me the Structure (remember that store?!) rugby shirt he was wearing. So there I am in my freshman year book wearing an oversized maroon rugby over my cute denim dress. That's right, I wore a denim dress from The Gap. What? It was cool then. Don't judge.

Allison and I originally stemmed from different social circles but became friends when we were dating guys that hung out together. She had been part of this new circle longer than I, so when I first started coming around she took me under her wing and showed me the ropes of this new group. Eventually, the boyfriends were left behind but we still stuck together.

The three of us, along with the rest of our crew used to hang out at The Tree when there wasn't much else happening on a Friday night. The Tree was literally a big tree down at the end of a dirt road right near an old farm house where an old man lived. The old man had an understanding with our crew. As long as the beer cans were picked up he would leave us alone and let us hang out under that big ole tree of his. I'm pretty sure he was too hard of hearing to be disturbed by our music and antics so he just left us alone all those years.

We would bring all the boy's trucks back there and sit on the tailgates for hours on end listening to music, talking and drinking whatever cheap beer we had been able to score with someone's fake ID. Every now and then someone would manage to steal of bottle of liquor out of their parents cabinet and then things would get a little more rowdy. But still, never enough to land us in real trouble with the law.

Now, let us all remember that our days at The Tree were back before the advent of cell phones. Yes, I am that old. Back then we all carried pagers. I had a green one -- not black, like everyone else. And yes, I went through many pagers. I had red, green, and more awesomely a clear one. It's how I rolled. We didn't carry pagers because we were drug dealers, I promise. It was just communication's stepping stone to cell phones. The problem with pagers is that once you managed to escape your parents house you were at the mercy of pay phones to return a page. We handled this situation in a few ways:
Option 1: Go to the local Amaco gas station and use the pay phone, which everyone knew the number to and therefore congregated at because we were klassy with a captial K.
Option 2: Create codes to eliminate the need for returning calls. I'm not sure exactly what The Tree's code was but I'm pretty sure there was one.
Option 3: If no one was returning your page it was because they were at The Tree and therefore not near a phone. In that instance you would just drive out to The Tree and see if everyone was there. Pretty simple.

Geez, I'm making us sound like a bunch of farm kids that lived out in the middle of nowhere. That's really not the case. We actually come from suburbia heaven -- it just happened to have one dirt road with a tree. You know what? I'm going to stop telling stories less I keep embarrassing myself.

Anyway, these days we've all grown up a bit. Allison has been married to a wonderful guy for several years and works at an elementary school. Josh owns his own business and is doing quite well for himself. There have been rough patches but more than anything there have been a lot of really good times.

And for that, I am forever grateful.

I Love This Baby.

Remember this sweet little baby? Her name is Riley and she's pretty much the cutest thing I've ever laid my eyes on.

She was born back in February and I haven't seen her since her birthday when I went to the hospital to visit my best friend and her sweet family.

The best part of coming to visit Atlanta is not the warm weather -- no, it's seeing my friends and family. This past weekend my best friends from college, Jen and Mary, and I got to spend an entire day together. This hasn't happened in forever so it was quite the momentous occasion. While we used to spend our days shopping and our nights partying we now do things like take the kids to lunch at Chili's and roll around on the floor playing with toys.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Not at all. We had a blast. Seriosuly, look how cute Connor is. He's not even two years old but he's got a smile that will melt your heart.

And that Riley, boy is she going to be a heart breaker. She's quite possibly the most smiley baby that ever lived. She just smiles, and smiles, and smiles. I swear she's telling jokes and laughing at us all.