So here’s the story – The Prep and Planning series that I’m doing with Liz from Hoosier Homemade starts today and we’d decided to do homemade gift ideas from the kitchen for the first week.

Friday night came and I knew I had to come up with an idea for today’s post.  I had nothing.  Squat nada.  Zilch.

But, a tiny bit of holiday magic happened and I woke up Saturday morning with the idea for snack mix in jars.

Not totally original, maybe, but   I think it’s the perfect idea.  I had no time to bake or cook.  I’m a no-fuss gift giver.  I’m not good at beautiful, well planned gifts.

This is perfect for me!  Everything looks better in a Mason jar, right?

Ever since I put these together on Sunday afternoon, my family has been munching on them.  I had to beat them off with a stick until I could take the photos.

I’ve got 4 snack mix ideas here, but use these just as a jumping off point.  Feel free to do your own thing.  I really wanted to do a Circus Mix with iced animal cookies, colorful marshmallows, peanuts and…whatever else sounded good.  I also think a Coffee Break Mix with chocolate covered coffee beans and other stuff sounds great.  Use your imagination and invent your own.  Or use the ideas below.

Bonus:  There’s a free printable to go with the Hollywood Mix.  I bribed my daughter into making it for us and I think she did a great job!

Here are the 4 mixes, all jarred up and looking cute.

First up, Hollywood Mix

This won the “best mix” award from my family.  Plus, you can download the cute printable to go with it.  Pair it up with a classic movie DVD for more fun.

Click here for the printable labels:  Hollywood Mix Labels (730)

This mix tastes just like banana pudding.  Well, if you could hold banana pudding in your hand and munch it with your fingers.  Delish!

Peanuts, chocolate and bananas, together at last.

I love these dark cocoa covered almonds and they pair up well with the mixed berries.  This would make a perfect snack to keep on your desk at the office.

I’m going to make more of these so I have them to give during the holiday season.  I think I’ll hide them, so my family doesn’t eat them all.  Do you have other ideas for make-ahead snack mixes?

We like to snack and graze in our house.  Apples and peanut butter are a favorite.  The other day I decided to spice it up a little bit.

Put some peanut butter in a bowl.

Add a squirt of honey and a shake of cinnamon.

Microwave for a few seconds, till it gets warm and a little melty.

Stir it up.

Dip apples or anything else you like.

If you’ve got a little one who likes to cook in an Easy Bake Oven, this would work great under a light bulb!  It’s also an easy “recipe” to teach kids to make themselves.

Do your kids like to cook?

This is a guest post from my friend, Laura at Real Mom Kitchen.  She has a new cook book out.  I had a chance to look through it recently and it is full of easy, delicious recipes.  Please welcome Laura as she shares one of her recipes with us.

Summer is a great time to enjoy fresh fruit. I also love to serve fresh fruit with a nice dip. This recipe for Lemon Cheesecake Fruit Dip from my new cookbook “Real Mom Kitchen Recipes” is an excellent choice to pair with the abundance for fresh summer fruit. It really does taste like lemon cheesecake but in a dip-able form. Who wouldn’t love to eat fresh fruit with a dip that tastes like cheesecake? Lemon adds such freshness to any dish and the lemon in this dip also adds a nice fresh flavor.

Lemon Cheesecake Fruit Dip

1 (6 oz) container Lemon Burst yogurt

1 (7 oz) container marshmallow cream

1 (8 oz) container Whipped cream cheese

Zest of one lemon (Optional)

1. With a hand mixer, blend all ingredients into a medium-size bowl until smooth.

2. Serve with fresh fruit.

Makes about 2½ cups.

Laura Powell grew up in the Salt Lake Valley. She gained a passion for cooking from her mother and created her own
recipe book as a young girl along with participating in a summer cooking program through the Deseret News. She began her blog, RealMomKitchen.com, in April of 2008 as a way to showcase her passion for cooking. Since then RealMomKitchen.com has turned into her own small business. Laura resides in Utah with her husband and three children.

It’s like a S’more.  Only built like a nacho.

Oh yeah, and it has caramel.  And fudge.

And you don’t hold it on a stick over a fire.

I’d love to say this idea was mine, but it wasn’t.  Original idea belongs to George Duran.  I saw the title on his website and decided to run with it.  Mine are constructed different than his.  I didn’t check out his recipe until after I made them.  He uses chocolate bars and constructs them in a skillet.

I used caramel ice cream topping, hot fudge and caramel swirl marshmallows.  I don’t think you can go wrong, no matter how you do it.  Here’s how I constructed them:

I started by breaking up graham crackers and placing them on a baking stone.  I wanted them to be piled on each other, kind of like tortilla chips are in savory nachos.  Then I generously swirled hot fudge (heated in the microwave) and caramel syrup over the top.

Next, I placed caramel swirl marshmallows on top of it all.

Into the oven they go at 350 degrees.  This is to get the marshmallows melting.  After a few minutes, I used the back of a spoon to flatten the marshmallows a bit.  Once they were good and melty, I switched the oven to broil.  Watch them close.  It only takes a couple of minutes to brown them.

Here’s the whole recipe/method in one spot:

Caramel Fudge S’more Nachos

• 1 sleeve graham crackers
• about 1/2 jar hot fudge, warmed
• generous squirt of caramel topping
• about 16 marshmallows or caramel swirl marshmallows

Break the graham crackers into pieces.  Place them in uneven layers on a baking stone or cookie sheet.  Swirl hot fudge and caramel topping over the top.  Place marshmallows on top of it all.  Bake at 350 for several minutes, until marshmallows start to melt a bit.  Test this by smooshing them with the back of a spoon.  Turn the oven to broil and toast the marshmallows.  Serve with a big glass of milk.

This post is linked to Tidy Mom’s I’m Loving It.

I whipped these muffins up one night to snack on during family game night.  We were playing spoons, which usually leads to ice cream for some reason.  Then the next morning we have no spoons to stir coffee or eat cereal because they’re all dirty from the game playing, ice cream eating fun the night before.

But on this night, I decided chocolate chip muffins would make a fine snack.  I love baking muffins, because it’s so fast and there’s an infinite variety of flavors.  Needless to say, these were a hit.

I have some big plans for taking these muffins to a new level that involve cream cheese and chocolate ganache.  I’m waiting for a day when I can bake in the afternoon so the photos have some daylight.  We’ve had so much rain lately, I may have to settle for a dark day.

Back to the muffin recipe.  Here’s what you’ll need.  I didn’t grab a photo of the ingredients, but they’re all common items.

Do you have a favorite muffin flavor?  What kind do you like?

I have a huge love for peanut butter.  And chocolate.

The idea for this little snack popped into my mind one day and oh, what a wonderful idea it was.  The peanut butter gets all warm in the oven, providing the perfect spot for the toasted marshmallow to sit it’s gooey bottom.  Sorry for that visual, but it couldn’t be helped.

Here’s what you’ll need to satisfy any peanut butter and chocolate craving you may have:

• Chocolate graham crackers
• Marshmallows
• Peanut butter

That’s pretty simple!  Break the graham crackers into squares.  Spread them with peanut butter and place on a cookie sheet.  Top each with a marshmallow.

Stick the pan under the broiler to toast the marshmallows.  Watch them closely!  They toast up fast and the smell of burnt marshmallow is not a good one to fill your house with.  I speak from experience here (although, I’d like to go on record saying it was not me this time, but my oldest daughter who got distracted and forgot about the snacks in the oven).

Take the toasted treats from the oven and top with another chocolate graham cracker.  Eat up, then have S’more!

If you don’t want to bother toasting marshmallows, you might like Peanut Butter Cheater S’mores.  They have Nutella in them!

All the scrumptiousness of a snickerdoodle cookie baked into a muffin.  The idea for this muffin popped into my mind, so I went on a quick internet search for a recipe.  When the search yielded nothing, I decided to make up a recipe myself.  I wanted the tops to come out crinkled with cinnamon sugar like the namesake cookie.  I also wanted to use cream of tartar in the batter, since that is a key ingredient in the cookies.

Success!  We now have a new family favorite muffin.  The cinnamon sugar is a bit crisp on top and the muffin is slightly sweet and vanilla -y.  Here’s what you’ll need:

Here is a picture of the tops of the muffins, so you can see how much they resemble snickerdoodle cookies.

You’re going to want to make these!

I found this idea in the current issue of Taste of the South magazine.  King Cake is traditionally served on Mardi Gras, which is coming up.  But I did manage to pick up enough of the Super Bowl talk to know that the New Orleans Saints are playing.  I think this cake might be a fun addition to your Super Bowl food.  Unless, of course, you’re a fan of the Colts.  (For the record, I had to ask my husband and son who the other team is. I also had to verify the name of the New Orleans team.  Yeah, I’m not much of a football fan.)

Here are the 2 ingredients you’ll need for this version of King Cake:

• 1 can cinnamon rolls with icing
• colored sugars – purple, gold and green

Grease a 9″ round cake pan.  Carefully unroll a roll and then fold it in half.  Here’s a picture of what I mean.

I know that’s a really strange picture, but hopefully it shows what I mean.  After you fold the roll over, twist it a bit and put it in the pan.  Do 2 more rolls, to make a circle around the outer edge of the pan.  Repeat with the last 2 rolls, laying them in the pan to make an inner circle.  Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

If you’re going to eat them right away, you can ice them while they’re still warm and decorate with the sugar.

If you want to serve it later, cool the roll completely, then ice and decorate.

I love guacamole.  It’s dangerous for me to start eating it, because I have trouble stopping.  So yummy.  And it’s very easy to make homemade.  The only trick is having ripe avocados.  Anybody know how to have perfectly ripe avocados when you need them?

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 2 ripe avocados
• 2 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
• lemon or lime juice to taste
• salt and red pepper to taste

Slice the avocados in half and take out the pit.  Mash them together with the other ingredients.  I put everything in the stand mixer to do this.  Adjust the seasonings as needed.

The last time I made guacamole , I used it in a Mexican Layer dip.  It was delicious and would make great Super Bowl party food.  I used ideas from both Pioneer Woman’s site and Simply Recipes to make my layer dip.  I wish I could order up a plate of it now, along with a bag of chips. Mmmm!

A while back, I made a pot of Baked Potato Soup.  That recipe calls just for the fluffy middles of the potatoes.  I decided to freeze the skins to use another time.  It worked great.  I froze them in a ziplock bag and then let them thaw on the counter for a while before baking.  There was a bit of frost inside the skins, so I used a spoon to gently scrape it off.

I altered the method used by Simply Recipes to make the potato skins.  Here’s what you’ll need:

• potato skins (I had 8 skins from 4 potatoes)
• cheddar cheese, shredded
• bacon, crumbled
• Kosher salt and pepper
• olive oil
• green onions and sour cream if you like (I was out of both)

Brush olive oil over the potato skins, inside and out.  Sprinkle with salt.  Bake them at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.  Turn them over and bake for another 10 minutes.

Pull them out of the oven and fill them with cheese and bacon.  I coulda/shoulda put in more cheese than I did, but they were still fine.  Pop them under the broiler for a couple minutes to melt the cheese.  Serve with sour cream and green onions.

We had these with a pot of Mel’s Diner Chili.  I felt like I was eating in a restaurant.  Yum!

On a completely unrelated note, are you done with your Christmas shopping?  I’m not.  I tried to finish today, but I just couldn’t.  It didn’t help that I put things in my cart, drove them around the store and then decided to ditch it all walking out without a thing.

Are you a last minute shopper or have you had it all done for weeks?