Dessert Green Bean Casserole

I have a dear friend who has a strong hatred of green bean casserole. So much, that he's written many diatribes on Facebook about it's nastiness. Here's just one of the more tame, abbreviated examples: 

"Ebola, schmebola. If you've had that Thanksgiving green bean casserole - made by suffocating innocent vegetables in a can of Campbell's Cream of Toxic Gray Sludge, garnished with an old man's yellowed toenail clippings - then you've survived something far worse than Ebola.

Hoping to bring a smile to his face and laughter in his belly this Thanksgiving, I created a dessert version of the classic green bean casserole in his honor.

Thanks, Joe. Your friendship is better than a "steaming pile of raccoon vomit" any day.

Instructions and step-by-step photos of how to bake your own dessert green bean casserole are below. Enjoy!

Dessert Green Bean Casserole

This recipe will make 2 tart-sized desserts or one casserole-sized dessert

Approximate time: 30 minutes

Ingredients & supplies:

1 tube sugar cookie dough

8 ounces cream cheese

½ cup granulated sugar

Lemon juice

Green and black food coloring

1 cup Frosted Flakes cereal

2 tart dishes or one casserole dish

1. Gather your ingredients and supplies.

2. Spray your casserole or tart dishes with non-stick spray. Using half of the sugar cookie dough, press it into the bottom and sides of your baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 11-15 minutes.

3. Add green food coloring to the other half of the sugar cookie dough. Mix well. You might add a little bit of flour to keep it from sticking to your hands as you roll it.

4. Roll the dough into tiny green been shapes and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. (If they spread slightly during baking, just use your fingers to reshape them like green beans while they’re still warm.

5. Mix together the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and creamy. Add just a tiny bit of black food coloring to make it light gray (similar to what cream of mushroom soup looks like.)

6. Top the baked sugar cookie crust with the cream cheese mixture.

7. Add the baked, green bean sugar cookies on top and line the outer edge of the dessert with Frosted Flakes cereal to look like the “fried onions.”

Serve up a surprising slice or a spoonful to your Thanksgiving guests!

Strawberry Turkeys

This year, I'm thankful for simple food crafts that make me smile - like these sweet, strawberry turkey treats.

Just cover a strawberry in a caramel apple wrap, add some pretzel and Tootsie Roll legs, and you've got a miniature roasted turkey.

Then, gobble, gobble, gobble them up.

Here are my step-by-step instructions. Enjoy!

Strawberry Turkey Treats

This recipe will make 10 Strawberry Turkeys

Approximate time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

10 large strawberries

10 caramel apple wraps

10 dipping pretzel sticks

10 vanilla Tootsie Rolls

1. Gather your ingredients and supplies.

2. Cut a small piece off the upper side the strawberry so that it leaves a flat area for the strawberry to sit.

3. Place the strawberry in the center of a caramel wrap, with the cut side up.

4. Gently wrap the strawberry in caramel, trimming off any excess caramel with scissors, and shape it to look like a roasted turkey body.

5. To make the turkey legs, break the dipping pretzels in half. Tear off pieces of vanilla Tootsie Roll and shape them over the rounded end of the pretzels to make the bone. Use your scrap pieces of caramel from wrapping the strawberries, to make the meaty part of the turkey legs.

6. Attach the pretzel turkey legs to the sides of the strawberry turkey body. If they don’t stick immediately, use some softened pieces of caramel to help attach them.

Strawberry Turkey Treats are best if served immediately. Store in a cool room. Can be refrigerated for 24-hours, but will start to get sticky if left refrigerated too long.

Turkey Leg Treats

I created a dual-holiday treat that could work for either, Thanksgiving Day or April Fool's Day: Caramel Pear Turkey Legs!

It's just like a caramel apple, but instead of apples you use small pears. And instead of wooden sticks, you use pretzel rods. Add toasted coconut marshmallows to the tops of the pretzels, and they look just like turkey leg bones.

You can find my simple tutorial at SheKnows.com. Gobble, gobble.

Would you believe that I brainstorm a lot of my dessert ideas while I'm running? I guess it's kind of like the carrot dangling in front of me to keep me going. Except, my carrot is probably made of sugar and butter. Dipped in chocolate. And covered in caramel. :)

Turkey Treats for Toddlers

Bea wanted to bring Thanksgiving treats to daycare this week, so she and I made these Oreo turkeys to share with her friends. (As much as I love her helping me, geez-a-loo she makes it 100 times more complicated than it needs to be. But, that's OK. I'm glad she enjoys being in the kitchen with me.)

Anyway, here are our Oreo Gobblers. Turkeys-on-a-stick. Turkey Pops. (Insert your idea for a clever name here.) I saw these on a website called Cookies and Cups, but modified it to use Reese's Peanut Butter Cups instead. Because, well ... I really just wanted an excuse to buy a bag of Reese's.

Also, here's a handy-dandy tip on assembling them. If you try to cram the stick and pretzels and candy corn into the Double-Stuff Oreos, they'll fall apart. And it'll start to piss you off. So, you kind of need to take the Oreos apart first, place the stick and pretzels and candy corn into the cream filling, and then glue them shut with some melted white chocolate. Works like a charm. You'll thank me later.