Happy Valentine’s Day!

So, I had to do some cooking for Valentine’s Day. I don’t know why, but I just LOVE Valentine’s Day. Even when I didn’t have a significant other, I still loved Valentine’s Day. (I just love it even more now!) I liked to give Valentines to friends and always looked forward to Valentines I’d receive in the mail from my Grandma, and my Mom would always give us Valentines treats too. Today, both our Mom’s still send us Valentine’s Day treats. I love it!

So, here are a couple of recipes I came across that I whipped up earlier this week. I shared the turtles at work and the Chex mix we had at home! Both were big hits!

I hope you enjoy these recipes! Happy Valentine’s Day!

Chex® Chocolate Malt-Cherry Mix

Ingredients
3 cups Corn Chex® cereal
3 cups Rice Chex® cereal
1 cup dry-roasted peanuts
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup butter
1 cup natural-flavor malted milk powder
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped malted milk balls
1/2 cup dried cherries, chopped

1. In large bowl, mix cereals and peanuts.
2. In 1-quart microwavable bowl, microwave chocolate chips and butter on high for 1 minute; stir. Microwave about 30 seconds longer or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Pour over cereal mixture, stirring until evenly coated.
3. Gradually stir in malted milk powder until evenly coated. Stir in remaining ingredients. Spread on waxed paper to cool. Store in airtight container.

Pretzel Turtles

Ingredients
48 Rold Gold Round or Classic Twist pretzels
48 Rolo caramel Chocolate candies (unwrapped)
48 pecan halves

1. Preheat oven to 275.
2. On a cookie sheet spread out 3 rows of 4 pretzels about 2 inches apart.
3. Place Rolo candy in center of pretzel.
4. Put on lowest rack of oven for around 8-10 minutes.
5. Be sure to watch as the caramel will come melting out if you don’t. You just want the candy softened.
6. Remove cookie sheet from oven and press 1 pecan into the center of the Rolo candy.
7. Allow to cool and then remove and place in an airtight container.

This was super easy and got rid of those pretzels I had bought at Christmas time for Reindeer Chow! ha!

February

So, it seems February is just zooming on by. I can’t believe next week is mid-February already! We started work on a new magazine at work early last week. When I got my assignments, I was like, oh, I have all month to work on these. And now look, the month is half over! Wow. I need to get busy! ha!

So, we had a huge snow storm last Saturday. 11 inches is what they reported. It seemed our backyard nearly filled up with snow!

Crazy looking, eh?

Cant believe that will be the same place where in less than three months we’ll be having to mow, weed and water.

So, since this big snow storm, the weather has turned a bit. No more 60 and 70 degree days. But it still isn’t too bad. I can take temps in the 30s, just as long as we don’t get any of that below 0 stuff. Brr! However, Tim and I had a great weekend last weekend despite the big snow storm on Sat. We went downtown Friday night for a little happy hour at Barrymores. It seemed we hadn’t been there for awhile. Saturday we got up and watched a movie. Now, you know its a snow day when that happens! ha! We watched Crazy Stupid Love and really liked it! We also watched several other movies in the last week: The Guard, Drive, White Irish Drinkers, 127 Hours and Hall Pass. We also checked out Shame at The Ross. Yeah, get a little bored when the weather isn’t nice. I must say, I only watched 127 Hours because it was on HBO. (Yes, we lucked out and got HBO free for like a month because our Dish box and remote broke down.) However, I really liked it. Watching it wasn’t near as claustrophobic as I thought it was be. It was gut-wrenching, tho. I would not recommend White, Irish Drinkers. It was pretty shallow, but hey, we were low on ideas for movies to watch. Crazy Stupid Love was a funny feel good movie.

We wanted to get to A Dangerous Method, too, at the Ross, but probably won’t make it. It ends tonight and there is only an early showing at 5:15. Won’t make that. Will probably have to get it on video. We would of probably seen that instead of Shame last week, but I am thinking Blockbuster may not get Shame as it is rated NC-17. Shame was a pretty hard movie to watch as well. It was about a man who was a sex addict. As other movies that delve into addiction (Leaving Los Vegas), it really portrayed just how ugly addiction and depression can be. I highly recommend this movie, but warn you it is pretty graphic.

Well, as you can see, movies keep us from thinking too much about winter. ha!

So, I am pretty excited about this weekend. Tim surprised me and booked us a date night at the Corky Canvas! So excited to check this out! We also hope to maybe see The Lady in Black this weekend and plan to take our sisters Sara and Kris out to brunch. All around it will be a good weekend.

Valentine’s Day Tim made us reservations at the Green Gateau. Yum!

I hope all of you have a Happy Valentine’s Day too! Stay warm!