The Easiest Salted Caramel Cookie Bars

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Come here.

Closer.

Closer.

There.

That should be close enough. I have a secret I want to share with you. It involves zero guilt and tons more time on your hands. The secret is this, “There ain’t no shame in the faking it game.”

I read a food blog I adore recently that condemned store bought pie crust. I love that blog. This ain’t that blog. I like homemade pie crust. I like homemade cookie dough. I like my house vacuumed frequently. I like to read after dinner. But we all know there simply isn’t enough time in the day for all of our “likes” and “wants.” Heck. There is barely enough time for the “needs.”

So let’s fake us some homemade cookie bars, shall we?

I won’t tell if you don’t.

I was so pleasantly surprised how well these cookie bars turned out. I do highly recommend using parchment paper, because the bars are too sticky to get out otherwise.

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Ingredients:

2 packages of sugar cookie dough logs or 1 package of the preflattened sugar cookie dough (I prefer the preflattened kind made by Nestle. It ends up being cheaper, but the logs make a prettier cookie bar)
1/3 cup caramel sauce
1/3 cup toffee bits
Sea salt
Parchment paper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Place parchment paper in an 11 X 7 baking dish. Take a log of sugar cookie dough and press it into place over the parchment paper or lay one layer of your flat cookie dough and push it into the corners of the parchment paper (depending upon which premade sugar cookie dough you purchased). Put into the oven and bake for fifteen minutes.

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Remove from oven. Microwave caramel for 25 seconds to soften and make it easier to pour. Measure it out. Pour over slightly cooked cookie dough. Sprinkle the toffee bits on top. Now sprinkle sea salt over top. Just give it a nice dusting.

I have a hand-cranked dispenser from Costco, so I turn it seven to ten times over the caramel.

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Now break up your remaining cookie dough log over the top if you bought the logs or simply place the other cookie sheet over the top, if you bought the preflattened kind.

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Put the whole thing back into the oven and bake for twenty five minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for one hour before cutting into bars. I lift the parchment paper with the cookie bar in place and then lay it on my counter before I cut this into bars with my pizza cutter.

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Now eat this sinfully simple (or would it be simply sinful dessert?). Either way, it is good. It is quick. It is easy. This is my husband’s favorite cookie lately. It is equally good served warm with vanilla ice cream on top drizzled with caramel sauce.

Just bake it. (I am pretty sure Nike did not mean bake a million calories into a dessert when they made that slogan, but I will oblige them by running to the stove the moment these babies are done. That’s gotta burn a zillion calories, right?).

The Easiest Chicken Tamale Casserole

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The other day I came across this recipe on Pinterest. It was a delicious looking homemade tamale casserole. My mouth salivated.

“Self,” I said. I always call myself self. Unless I don’t. “Self, why don’t we make this recipe?”

“Let me see it.” Self is pretty demanding.

Self looked over the ingredients. Then she looked at me. You would be surprised how difficult that last part is.

“Girl, we are too lazy to make this.”

I looked the recipe over and was sad to see that she was right. But I happen to be a bit smarter than Self. And a bit more lazy. It is funny how that works.

“Why don’t we just use store bought tamales?”

I think Self agreed because she proceeded to drive us to the grocery store to get them.

Here is the easy recipe we came up with:

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Ingredients:

1 package of green chile and cheese tamales (mine came with six for our family of four)
1 10 oz. can of green enchilada sauce
2 cups of diced cooked chicken breast (Self bought us a rotisserie chicken)
2 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese (1 8 oz. package)

Optional toppings:

Sour cream
Chopped cilantro
Salsa

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“Self, can we really call this a recipe? All we did was throw some ingredients into a pan. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Calm down. Move over. Let me give the directions.”

Directions:

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“Sorry about Jenni. She’s too theatrical. Let’s just get to the recipe with no more shenanigans.”

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Pour a small amount of enchilada sauce into the pan. Unwrap tamales from corn husks. Place tamales in a line in the pan. I would use an 11 X 7 pan next time. My 9 X 13 was too big. Place diced chicken on top of tamales. Pour enchilada sauce over chicken. Sprinkle with shredded cheese. Cover with foil and bake twenty minutes. Uncover and bake another 5-10. You want the cheese melted but not brown.

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Top with toppings of your choice. We served ours with rice, tortilla chips and homemade salsa. It was a good quick meal and we will definitely be making it again.

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I hope one of yous makes this. Then all of yous will be happy.