Baklava Bars

I made these for Thanksgiving and they were the BIGGEST hit. So delicious! You can use any nut you like. The recipe (I will post the original below with my modifications in parenthesis) called for walnuts, but I wanted to have a pecan dessert, so I used pecans...YUM!

Baklava Bars (courtesy of Betty Crocker)
(Printable Recipe)

Cookie base
1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 tsp grated lemon peel
1 egg

Filling
1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (feel free to substitute any nut you like- I used pecans)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
8 frozen mini fillo shells (I used the whole package)

Glaze
1/3 cup honey
2 Tbsp butter or margarine, softened
1 Tbsp brown sugar, packed
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Spray bottom of 13 x 9 inch pan with cooking spray
2. In large bowl, stir cookie base ingredients until soft dough forms. Press dough into bottom of pan. Bake for 15 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in medium bowl, stir nuts, granulated sugar, 1/4 cup butter, 1 tsp cinnamon, and salt with fork until well mixed and crumbly.
4. Sprinkle nut mixture over partially baked crust. With hands, crumble frozen fillo shells evenly over nut mixture. Bake 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
5. Meanwhile, in small microwavable bowl, combine 1/3 cup honey, 2 Tbsp butter, brown sugar, lemon juice, 1/4 tsp cinnamon. Microwave uncovered on High for 1 minute or until bubbly. Stir in vanilla. Drizzle evenly over fillo. Cool completely (about 2 hours).
7. Optional- before serving, drizzle honey over bars, cut and serve. (I didn't use the extra honey).

I will definitley be making this again! It is so delicious. The entire pan was eaten in about 2-3 days.

Money Saving, Alice.com & Giveaway

No recipes in today's blog. Things have been hectic as is usually the case. Today I wanted to share some super great ideas for saving money when buying groceries. I have a subscription to the Sunday paper, so my typical Sunday mornings include looking through sale ads, clipping the coupons. I then visit a few different websites for ideas of how to use these coupons. I check my cousins blog www.savingyoudinero.com which has ideas for coupons for groceries, household items, and the list goes on. Through using her site, I have come across some other truly great blogs which have helped me save money. Some of my favorites are www.fiddledeedeemom.com, www.couponingtodisney.blogspot.com. I use fiddledeedeemom for Publix deals and couponingtodisney for Christmas shopping ideas.
In clipping all of these coupons, I am in dire need of a better organizational tool. I have a plastic thing that holds my coupons, but has no sorter. I tried to design my own by putting small envelopes labeled with different grocer departments. This helps a lot, but I have had more than one occasion where all of my envelopes slid out of the plastic holder all over the floor of the store. Ugh! This brings me to another blog that I enjoy reading for delicious recipes (I spend hours a day looking at food blogs for recipe ideas...lol). http://www.thenovicechefblog.com/. Today, she decided to blog about her money saving advice. Some great ideas I got from reading her blog today include getting 2 newspapers, keeping your coupons with you at all times, and making a plan. I definitley impulse buy especially when I have a good coupon. If I had a plan, I might not be tempted to buy those impulse buys. She also has a link to a website www.alice.com where you can buy household items for much less and with free shipping! Check out her blog http://www.thenovicechefblog.com/2009/11/alicecom-and-giveaway.html. She is also giving away a super cute coupon organizer!
Enjoy!

Pumpkin Scones

I bought a cute little sugar pumpkin at our local fruit stand this year. I used it mostly to decorate, but after Halloween, I started to get antsy that I needed to use it before it rotted into a mushy smelly mess. I knew I didn't want to use it to make a pumpkin pie....I wanted something more interesting. Plus we are going to have pumpkin pie in a few weeks and wanted something different. I looked through tons of blogs and found so many wonderful ideas....pumpkin fudge, pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin bars, muffins, cookies, etc. Note- I do not like pumpkin in savory recipes....I came across lots of those too. I finally found something I knew I wanted to try. Pumpkin scones! I had my very first scone at Panera...their orange scone...so these had some big shoes to fill. Panera's scones are soft, slightly sweet, and SO delicious. These came out a great texture, but just a little dry.....I probably didn't put enough liquid though, because I don't have real half and half....so try the recipe below if you like and tweak as you might see fit. YUM!

Pumpkin Scones
From Recipezaar.com

2 cups all purpose flour
7 Tbsp sugar (I used mostly brown sugar)
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
6 Tbsp cold butter (cut into small pieces)
1/2 cup mashed pumpkin
3 Tbsp half and half
1 large egg

1. Preheat oven to 425 F. Grease baking pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, spices). Add in butter and combine until resembles crumbles.
3. In a medium bowl, combine pumpkin, half and half, sugar, and the egg.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix until well combined.
5. Turn dough out of bowl onto lightly floured surface. Knead 4-5 times. Shape dough into disc. Cut disc into 8 wedges. Place onto baking pan and bake 15 minutes or until golden.

These would be great with a glaze...yummm!! This link above has recipes for different glazes.