Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Pecan Cheesecake Bars

I dare you to try to say that mouthful 3 times fast.....

Last week I mentioned a dessert recipe that I tried over Labor Day Weekend that WILL be made again at our house....over and over again.  It was probably one of my most favorite desserts that I've made in a long time and it got 2 thumbs up from Eric. I actually set out to make one of my Mom's recipes that is similar to the one I made but she and my Dad were on the road and the recipe was in a cookbook at home.  I did what any rational woman would do....I plugged the ingredients into my Pinterest search bar and found a recipe - the Pinterest search has become my new "google" when it comes to anything handy, crafty, or recipes.  A few hours later I had a culinary masterpiece.

original recipe here

What you need:

For the crust-

3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup chopped pecans

1/4 cup butter melted

Cheesecake- 

1-8oz package cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup sugar

1 Tbsp all-purpose four

1/4 cup sour cream

1/3 cup caramel sauce

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

Topping-

1/4 cup chopped pecans

1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

12-15 Kraft caramel candies

1 Tbsp milk or heavy cream

1/4 tsp coarse sea salt

How to make it:

Preaheat oven to 350 degrees.

Stir together crust ingredients: graham cracker crumbs, pecans and butter; and press into the bottom of a foil lined and lightly greased 8" by 8" baking dish.   Bake for 8 minutes, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

In a mixer (I used my KitchenAid Mixer) beat cream cheese at medium speed until smooth. Combine sugar and flour in a small bowl and gradually add to cream cheese. Beat until just blended. Add sour cream and caramel sauce and beat until just blended.  Add egg and stir in vanilla extract and beat until combined.  Pour mixture over crust, spreading evenly to cover the entire pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until set.  Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Sprinkle pecans and chocolate chips over cheesecake.  Cover and chill for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator.

Place caramel candies, salt, and milk (or cream) in a microwave safe bowl.  Heat in 30 second intervals until melted and smooth, stirring after each 30 second interval.  Drizzle over cheesecake and serve!

Yes at first glance it looks like a long, complicated recipe, but it's far from that.  I am the queen of passing up a recipe because it has too many steps or a ton of ingredients.  This one is VERY easy to make and only takes a while because the cheesecake has to be refrigerated before you can drizzle the caramel mixture on it.  Trust me when I tell you that you will NOT regret making it.  The only suggestion I have would be to DOUBLE the recipe.  Since it only makes and 8" by 8" pan it will not feed a large group. We had a group of 6 adults and a few kids over when I served these had we had a few left, but I cut them into really small pieces so they would go further.  If we'd had 10-12 adults plus kids we would have run out quickly!

Enjoy!

Weekend Recap

As much as I wish I was sitting on our back porch with coffee in my hand, puppies at my feed, and the Today Show on, alas I am back at work.  These cooler mornings (I use the term cool very loosely) are getting me really excited about fall.

So the weekend, it really just went too fast.  The first part was pretty football-centric, which is how all good fall weekends are.  I opted to skip the football game Friday night.  The game was an hour away, they have really crappy visitor stands, and Eric assured me the game should be a blowout and I would not miss much.  I am so glad I took his advice.  We were up 42-0 at the half and they did and 8 minute running clock for both the 3rd and 4th quarters. The boys ended up winning 55-6 and they were home by 10:30pm...from an away game.  I think I made the right choice.

Saturday Eric had a full day of helping a friend move and a dove shoot, so I did what any normal southern-dwelling girl would do.....turned on College Game Day and started cooking for the game that night.

We had a spread of Buffalo Chicken Dip (Eric's favorite), First Down Hot Fiesta Dip, Pepperoni Pizza Rolls with Pizza Sauce and Garlic Dipping Sauce, and wings. 

The boys got home from hunting about 30 minutes before game time only to discover that we did not get the channel that the Auburn game was being carried on (Bama was off this week).  Eric did what any rational football fan in the state of Alabama would do....he called Dish Network and added the Sports Channel Package to our account.  We had the game on 5 minutes after kick off.  I was going to get mad at him for adding it but then I realized that the package includes the Big 10 Network which means I get to watch Purdue game so I am a happy camper!

Sunday Eric was off and running again.  I think I saw him for about an hour between fishing, football film, and running to Montgomery to put up some tvs in the HC Football Alumni Lounge he was going all day.  I kept myself busy with church, a nap, walks and pool time with the puppies (of course), and a big ole sewing project.  It's literally a huge project.  I was working sans a pattern so there was a lot of guess work and I have a few adjustments to make to it before it's done. I didn't finish it until 8pm, and was exhausted so adjustments and showing the final product will have to wait for another day.

1. My Friday face.....ready to listen to the THS game on the radio.
2. Since I can't just sit and listen to a game I made cookies, too. Oreo Pudding Cookies to be exact. They were delicious.
3. Peanut said he didn't need a bowl to eat, I could just pour the food in his mouth instead.
4. Our Hawk feeding solution on Saturday morning.  Peanut would not leave Hawk's bowl alone so I put it up where only Hawk could reach it.  Peanut still sat there and chased Hollow away from it every time he got close.
5. Pretty Morning Glories in all of their glory on Saturday morning.
6. My adorable neighbor. She brought her play-dough with her on Saturday when she came to watch the game with her parents.  I love love love play-dough, so naturally I played with her the whole time.  This was the island we made.
7. My sewing project....fabric was everywhere.  That happens when you have 3.5 yards of it!
8. Hollow and Hawk just lounging around on the porch Sunday night while they waited for their Dad to come home.
9. The fall decorations are out!  I changed out my wreaths Saturday afternoon because despite the 90+ temps outside, I was feeling fall-ey.

I guess that's a wrap.  One more weekend in the bag.  I am so ready for a home football game this weekend (finally!) and some special house guests who are coming to stay with us!  I am just hoping this week flies by!

Hollywood Trip Recap

 After rushing back into town after my reunion last weekend I had to unpack and repack in about 2 hours and head to the airport.  My job sent me to Los Angeles, Hollywood specifically, for a conference.

It got off to a bit of a rocky start with a plane delay. Not just any plane delay though. An international flight had to make an emergency landing in Montgomery and because the 6 gate regional  mini-airport doesn't have customs agents they had to "quarantine" the international passengers. This meant they wouldn't let anyone thought security. My fellow passengers and I had to sit and wait while they flew a new plane in to pick up the stranded international passengers and get them on their plane before they would let us into the terminal. At least we weren't on the plane that was coming to get us! That plane arrived in time, but they would not let the passengers off of it until the international passengers got on their plane. Makes a lot of sense, right? This meant we had an hour delay, which had me stressed out because I only had 1 hour and 30 minutes between my 2 flights. By the time we got there I had 30 minutes between flights and went running through the airport to get from one end of the D terminal to the other end of the A terminal in Atlanta. Thankfully my flight got delayed 20 minutes which meant I was on time and even had time to grab dinner.  Aside from the guy behind me who liked to push the buttons on the tv screen on the back of my chair really hard and occasionally drum on his tray table, both of which warranted me whipping around like I was trying to see what the heck was going on...like I didn't know. We got there about 11pm local time (1am my internal clock time), and I headed to find my shuttle to take me to my hotel.  By the time I laid down it was 12:30am local time (2:30am my internal clock time). I was sooooooo grateful that my conference didn't start until 2pm the next day.

1. A gorgeous sunset over my hotel.
2.  I'm in Hollywood y'all!
3. Pretty palm trees on Hollywood Boulevard. I felt like I was in a tv show. 

I slept in that morning, but not too late because I had some site seeing to do. Monday morning was the only time I would be able to, so I had to take full advantage of it. I realized Friday afternoon at work that my hotel was right around the corner from the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Grauman's Chinese Theater (the one where the start get to do their foot prints and hand prints), so that was my first stop. I decided I wanted to try to walk the entire Walk of Fame....the whole 3.5 miles and I took and obscene number of start pictures.  Plus I got to see Vin Diesel get his start on the walk. Well I saw the crowd that was very dense around him. I tried watching from a staircase across the street but it was hot and I was hungry so I walked over to Baja Taco for lunch before the ceremony was over so I could beat the crowd. =) I took it back to my suite (apparently if you get to a hotel really late you get a room upgrade) and get ready for my meetings that lasted all afternoon and evening. By the time they were over I was starving. My hotel was attached to The Highland Center and had tons of restaurants in it. I settled on Travestre and enjoyed a pizza, tiramisu, and a glass of wine on the patio overlooking the mall so I could people watch. I don't usually go out to eat by myself, but it was kinda nice, although I would much rather have had Eric with me! I went back out to take some pictures of Grauman's Chinese Theater at night and ended up finding a dance studio performance in front of Madame Toussads's Wax Museum. I stayed at watched for a little while before heading in for the night.

1. The Hollywood sign from Hollywood Boulevard.
2. Grauman's Chinese Theater where the stars leave their foot and hand prints.
3. The Kodak Theater where lots of events have been held (most recently the 2013 Oscars!).
4. Stars, stars,everywhere!
5. The lesser known Grauman's Egyptian Theater.
6. Hollywood Boulevard from the middle of the street!
7. More Hollywood Boulevard
8. El Capitan Theater..."Hollywood's First Home of Spoken Drama"

Some of my favorite hand and footprints from in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater:

1. Gene Kelly; 2. Abbott and Costello; 3. Marilyn Monroe; 4. Jennifer Anniston; 5. Danny Kaye (one of my favorite stars from the 40s and 50s) Make "Em Laugh is still one of my favorite bits!; 6. Adam Sandler; 7. Will Smith; 8. Tom Hanks; 9. Roy Rogers, Trigger, AND his gun; 10. Gene Autry and Champ; 11. John Wayne; 12. Frank Sinatra; 13. Judy Garland...had super tiny feet; 14. Julie Andrews; 15. Yul Brynner and 16. Deborah Kerr (from The King and I)

I realized after my walk on the Walk of Fame that I took 250+ pictures of the stars....here's just a sampling of some of my favorites!

The "start" of the Walk of Fame and the newest star on the walk....the crowd was nuts!

The next day I had meetings all day, but that didn't stop me from running across the street to grab a donut from a little shop. They were delicious (yes they....I'm on vacation and it was only 2). I finally met the Alabama coalition rep on Tuesday so I had someone to do things with after that. For lunch we went to a Mongolian BBQ place in Highland Center, and then for dinner we went to a burger place. But no just any burger place, 25 Degrees, a super fancy top 10 burger place in the country. It did NOT disappoint. I had the biggest, juiciest burger I think I have ever had.

The food deserved it's own collage:

1. Dinner my first night there was at Trastevere....great Italian in Highland Center
2. My Salsiccia Pizza, bread and wine from Trastevere
3. Amazing Tiramisu for dessert at Trastevere
4. The second night I went to an upscale burger place called 25 Degrees
5. I went with their Number One Burger that consisted of ground sirloin, caramelized onions, crescenza (tart, creamy cheese), plelibato Gorgonzola, bacon arugula, and thousand island dressing....and it was amazing.
6. An explanation of 25 Degrees
7. Donuts from the Highland Donut (breakfast one morning)
8. Fries and Onion Rings from 25 Degrees....sooooo good!
9. Cupcakes from Crumbs....dessert on Night #2

I called it a night after dinner because I had to catch a shuttle to the airport and 5am..... Yeah early.  After a long day of traveling I made it back to Alabama around 5pm and headed straight to basketball tryouts.  I know, call me crazy, but our head coach didn't realize I was traveling that day when she set the tryout date.

I am going to call the LA trip an overall success.  Would I have rather had someone there with me to sight-see?  You betcha.  But then again it was kinda fun exploring on my own.  I surely would have cut down on the amount of awkward selfies I took.  It was really neat to get to see Hollywood and now I can say I have been there, but I don't know that I would jump on a plane and go back there tomorrow. I guess I am turning into a bit of a country girl after all! =)

Labor Day Weekend Recap

Well I'm certainly on a roll lately, aren't I?  I still feel like I am playing catch up from my trip last week.  But hey at least this week's weekend recap isn't coming on Friday like last week!  Plus since Monday was a holiday that means that the weekend was not over until yesterday morning which would mean its technically only one day late, right?

Oh Labor Day, you were so so so good to us.  Except for a small bit of house cleaning on Saturday, we did very little labor.  We started out the weekend with a little THS football action.  After a brief lightning delay in the second quarter we finished up the game with a 42-6 victory!  The only disappointment was that their band that is always entertaining was not there.  The team we play this week has a really fun band, not entirely appropriate but entertaining none-the-less, so I may get my fill this week if I go.

This is my favorite part of the football games.  The band plays the Alma Mater at the end and the players and coaches stay out on the field for it.  I love a good tradition! Of course it's much more fun after a win.

Saturday was the day everyone in the state of Alabama has been counting down since the end of last football season. We took the opportunity to christen our screened in back porch with some grilling, pool time (for the kiddos), and some football watching. The unanimous verdict was that we have the best football watching spot in town.  I forsee many many football watching afternoons/evenings on the porch in the future.

via

Sunday Eric went golfing in the AM and then to a football film session all afternoon, which meant I was left to my own devices...muahaha.  I started my morning off with church and then headed to Montgomery to the craft store.  I restrained myself, mainly because I had a specific project in mind and had to get the supplies for it.  I decided to sew  a cover for our porch tv.  So far I have 2/3 of the fabric cut and have just been starting at it ever since.  I plan on getting the guts to keep going on it this week.....wish me luck.

That night we declared a movie night, and then I made the mistake of asking Eric's opinion on the movies before I went to the redbox. See we have complete opposite taste in movies.  I like light, funny movies, I am a sucker for a good rom com.  I can do more serious action movies but nothing too gory, and absolutely NO scary movies....they give me nightmares.  Eric on the other hand loves a good bang bang shoot 'em up movie where body parts get cut off or someone gets an arrow through their cheek (that happened in one of the movies we watched this weekend and was the point I started puttering around the kitchen so I didn't have to watch the rest of it).  We ended up with The Killing Season and Flight.  Flight was a good movie, but long.  I feel like I wasted an hour and a half of my life on The Killing Season.  It is not my cup of tea.

Monday morning Eric had practice so I started working on the tv cover (cutting a few pieces) and then decided I wanted some cookies and made a batch because it was Labor Day, I was off work, and I could. =) We headed to his grandma's house for lunch since we missed Sunday lunch the day before and then spent the rest of the afternoon by the pool.  We finally had some real summery weather this weekend (i.e. no rain, not that I am complaining because it's been a great summer, I am just stating a fact), and got to enjoy some pool time. For dinner we decided to try another pizza on the grill.  We've done it once and it resulted in a broken pizza stone, that Eric swore was NOT because of the grill.  Mom gave us an old stone she didn't use any more to try and would you believe it broke in 2 pieces as he was trying to take the pizza off the grill.  Good news is the pizza was delicious, and I got to do my I-told-you-so dance. We're going to have to go back to the drawing board to figure out the best way to grill pizza on the Big Green Egg.

Here's a glimpse of our weekend in pictures:

1. I got to do my I-told-you-so dance twice this weekend, once for the pizza stone, and again for putting reinforcements on the screened in doors.  It only took Hawk one weekend to put his giant paw through one of them.  Just for the record, I suggested it initially and was told we'd do it later if it was necessary. Ha!

2. Football watchin' outside on a Saturday afternoon.  Someone tell me why we didn't think to screen in the carport earlier? We've been missing out. 

3. You can't watch football without a delicious spread!  Tex Mex Dip, baked beans, and chicken (wings, breasts, and thighs because multiple meats is how we roll). 

4. Being the little snuggle bunny he is (with Eric and I ONLY of course), Hollow decided his favorite place to watch the games was on my lap.

5. Football game dessert.....Salted Caramel Pecan Chocolate Chip Cheese Cake Bars....UH-MAZ-ING.  The recipe will be shared soon. I promise.

6. My lil Peanut.  He stole Hawk's ball and hid under one of the chairs with it.  

7. 24 hours after the game this is all the Tex Mex that was left.  I might have eaten it and only it for breakfast AND lunch and then had this last little bit with some leftover chicken dinner.  #texmexaddict

8. Our struggles with our picky eater continue.  We've discovered he prefers to eat when we're (specifically Eric) in the room, we have to stop what we're doing and stay in the kitchen so he will finish.  Sunday night Eric was grilling outside so I put his bowl on the porch and when I looked outside Eric was holding the dish and Hawk was eating out of it.  He might be the strangest lab I've ever been around. 

9. Our Memphis Style BBQ Pizza.  The stone may have broken on the egg, but the pizza was sooooo good! 

The best part is that this week's already halfway over so woohoo!  It's almost time for the weekend again!

On another note, please say a prayer today for one of Eric's college teammates and his family, specifically his wife who is having her second brain surgery in 6 months.  She has a tumor that the doctors thought they removed the last time but turns out it's still there and it grew.  This surgery is to determine the chemo/radiation dose she will endure for the next year. They are a wonderful family and have a sweet 3 year old son, so please please keep them in your prayers.