Food Friday: Crispy Pretzel Bars

Photo courtesy of Taste of Home

The Food Friday recipes are on four different posts this week--check them all out!

The Recipes are for Chicken Pesto, Basil Carrots, Popovers, Crispy Pretzel Bars, and Chocolate Peanut Grahams.

Tuesday we had the privilege to visit some new friends who have 3 girls aged 10-12 (they are a blended family), a boy who's 9, a 2-year-old and they're expecting a baby in 2 weeks! The mom is very busy, needless to say.  Her girls are at varying skill levels, but are a huge help and could be even more in the next years, especially with the cooking, which isn't something the mom really loves to do. My goal was to increase their skill and excitement about cooking and encourage the mama, who just needed fellowship with another mom and to talk.

So! I thought it would be fun and a help to have Kelsey, who loves to cook, make a simple meal with the girls, rather than just bringing a meal to them.  One thing the girls don't get to do very often, due to life, is make desserts.  The girls love to make desserts!  So, Kelsey found two that were fun and easy! (They actually made 3 desserts that day, if you can believe it, because they had extra chocolate they "had to" use up.  The last one was kind of like Scotcheroos!)

One of the girls was sick, so we hope to include her next time and get to know her better, but we all really enjoyed ourselves and our time with them, and hope to visit and help more after the baby comes.

Do you want to encourage your girls to cook? Or just want some easy recipes? Here are the recipes for the meal that our girls prepared!  The meal was delicious!

Crispy Pretzel Bars

Makes about 5 dozen depending on how you cut them

Ingredients:

1 cup sugar

1 cup light corn syrup

1/2 cup peanut butter

5 cups crisp rice cereal

2 cups pretzel sticks

1 cup plain M&Ms

Directions:

• In a large microwave-safe bowl, combine the sugar and corn syrup.

• Microwave on high for 2 minutes or until sugar is dissolved.

• Stir in peanut butter until blended.

• Add the cereal, pretzels and M&Ms; stir until coated.

• Press into a greased 15 x 10 x 1-inch pan.

• Cut into bars. (These are rich, so small might be good!)

Click here or at the top to see the other recipes! They'll be posted very shortly, if you don't see them here yet.

Crispy Pretzel Bars, Chocolate Peanut Grahams, Chicken Pesto, Basil Carrots, and Popovers.
Enjoy!