Yum, Yummy, Yummers!

I'm in charge of making lunches for my Dad for work. Recently, we've been out of some of our stock items which means that Dad's lunch has been reduced in consistancy to a sandwich, and a hard-boiled egg rather than his usual sandwich, hard-boiled egg, piece of fruit, and cookie. Well, yesterday I thought to make some cookies so I could beef up the lunches in the absence of fruit. I wanted to make peanut-oat-chocolate cookies, but we were out of oatmeal.

So I went to Allrecipes.com and found a...unique...recipe featuring 2 ingredients we happened to have in the pantry...and freezer. Despite how strange they sound, they're actually really good. And light too!

I give you. . .

COOL WHIP COOKIES

Ingredients:

1 (8oz) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

1 (18.25 oz) package cake mix

2 eggs

1/3 cup confectioners' sugar for decoration

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease baking sheets.

2. Beat together the whipped topping and eggs. Add the cake mix and continue to mix. Dough will be thick.

3. Drop by teaspoonfuls into a bowl of confectioners' sugar and roll to coat. Place cookies on the prepared baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Yield: Approx 3 doz.

You can seriously use any flavor of cake or brownie mix for this. I didn't have an entire box of yellow cake mix, so I used Gingerbread Cake mix, and supplemented with the yellow cake mix (I also accidentally used a 12oz container of Cool Whip--thus my need to supplement with the yellow cake mix).

These are some of the easiest cookies to make--EVER! Amazing what you can do with Cool Whip and a cake mix huh?

Repurposed

Yesterday: placemats. Today: hanging file folders.

Super easy truffles!

LK, this is the recipe you keep hounding me about so I'm posting up here for everyone to see and enjoy.

A coworker brought homemade truffles to a work meeting in November. They were a HUGE hit at the staff meeting, and she was kind enough to share the recipe with me. They are a cinch to make, and not too sweet either.


Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients:
1 (8oz) pkg cream cheese
36 Oreo cookies (approx. 1 pkg--double stuffed Oreos are really good)
Chocolate for melting and dipping: Candy melts...chocolate chips w/ shortening...

Directions:
Crush the oreos. Using a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese until softened and fluffy'ish' (you don't want it too "warmed" or it will be difficult to work with later). Cream the crushed oreos and cream cheese together until thoroughly blended. (It will look like a blackish goop/dough.) Roll or scoop the "dough" into bite-sized balls, place on a cookie sheet and freeze for about 1/2 hour. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or according to pkg directions in the case of candy melts). Using a tooth pick, shish-kabob skewer, or small fork, dip the frozen balls into the melted chocolate and place on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper to cool/harden.

Optional: You can drizzle any leftover chocolate over the cooled/cooling truffles to create designs. Also if you want a less rich alternative, chop up some nuts and add them to the mix. The saltiness of the nuts balances out the sweet of the cookies.

Note: I haven't had the best of luck using chocolate chips and shortening for the dipping chocolate, so I use Wilton's Candy Melts. Plus, if you use the candy melts, you won't have to refrigerate the truffles for them to harden.

These truffles are simple enough for young kids to help out with. I did this as an activity with some kids I babysat in early December. The 9 year old and 5 year old crushed the cookies, and then the 9 year old helped me roll them into balls once I'd mixed it all together. When it came time for the chocolate dipping, we all participated--though my primary roll was to guard against licking and re-dipping (we went through the entire drawer of forks, and then some!).

Next I want to try a variation with white/yellow sandwich cookies (e.g Nutter Butters) and white chocolate.

Yumminess!!