Jan.14, 2013: Crepes with Cream Cheese and Fruit; Ravioletti Minestrone in Bread Bowls, Side Salad and Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream Crepes with Hot Fudge Sauce

Crepes with Cream Cheese and Fruit;

Ravioletti Minestrone in Bread Bowls, Side Salad and Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream Crepes with Hot Fudge Sauce

THE PLAN:

With 5 kids that keep us busy, meal times are an important time of the day for our family to keep connected and have both silly & important conversations that help us learn more about each other and what is going on in all our lives. So enhancing that experience with a wide variety of textures, flavors and healthy elements is important to me. And I use the crockpot whenever I can (modifying recipes if I have to) because it is such a helpful tool to cook food all day long and have it ready to incorporate into delicious and healthy meals.

I prep dinner at the same time as I make breakfast - which saves me time at dinner and makes it more likely that I will cook dinner. The dinner hour is just so busy here - and it's when my energy sort of dips. So having everything ready to just be thrown together is huge for me.  

TODAY'S CHOICES

For breakfast, it's Monday so I decided crepes filled with lightly sweetened cream cheese and fruit would be a great way to start out the week. My family loves this and the recipe always makes enough crepes that there are plenty left over for another time. I think I will use the leftover crepes for dessert tonight -with ice cream and the leftover Hot Fudge Sauce I made last week. So making crepes will take care of 2 elements for today's menu.

For dinner, Mondays are usually soup day at our house. I have a couple of zucchinis so I think I will use them in a hearty minestrone. Instead of using macaroni in it, though, I decided to use some parmesan ravioletti I bought awhile back. I want to serve it in bread bowls and I will serve a simple garden salad on the side.

For dessert, I will use the crepes from breakfast and roll up some Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream inside, then top them with Whipped Cream and Hot Fudge Sauce.  

 

 

 

 

CREPES

Here's the recipe:

2 c. flour
2 1/2 c. milk
4 eggs
2 Tbsp melted butter/margarine
pinch salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Sift flour & mix with salt in bowl. Make a well, break eggs inside well and stir well. Slowly pour milk while stirring batter, keep stirring until bubbles form on surface. Stir in melted butter and vanilla. Heat small frying pan on med-high heat until it is hot. Spray pan with cooking spray and pour just less than 1/4 c. of batter in center
 and using wrist quickly tilt pan wide in every direction to spread batter thin into a circle covering the bottom of the frying pan. Set pan on burner and let cook until the edges are dry and the center begins to dry, then flip over and cook until golden on the other side, then turn out onto serving platter. Repeat with remaining batter

 

MAKING BREAKFAST:

The first thing I did was get some frozen strawberries and blueberries out of the freezer and put them in a bowl, poured about 1/2 cup of sugar on top and popped it in the microwave. I put them in for 5 minutes, which thawed them and brought out their juices. Then I mashed them just a little to bring out more juices and to make them suitable for a filling. Like this:

Then I got out 2 (8 oz) packages of cream cheese, put them in a bowl and poured about 3/4 cup of powdered sugar and a tsp of vanilla in and mixed it up with the mixer.

 

Now it was time to make the crepes. First, I got out 2 small - omelet sized frying pans. I heated them on medium-high. Then I followed the above recipe exactly for the crepe batter.  With crepes, the thinner you can make them the better, so crepe batter should be very runny (see picture on left below - the batter doesn't stick at all to the beaters).

 

The pans need to be very hot before the batter touches them. This is so the batter will immediately start cooking and become firm where it meets the pan. But it means you have to work quickly to spread the batter very thin and in a wide circle. What I do is make sure the pan is hot, spray it generously with cooking spray. Then I pour just under 1/4 cup of batter into the middle of the pan and then pick up the pan, and use my wrist to roll the batter all around the pan. If the pan is hot, the batter will "stick" to wherever it touches while the top of the batter will still be able to move. So I roll, roll, roll my wrist until there is a thin round layer of batter filling the inside of the pan. then I set the pan back on the heat and let it cook.

 

Once the bubbles are all popped and the batter no longer looks wet, (see middle picture below) it's time to flip it over. You may need a fork to pry up the edges depending on how good the non-stick surface is on your pans. But then use a really thin-edged spatula to flip it over. Let it cook a little on the other side, (see picture on right below) and then I just turn the pan upside down over the serving platter to get it out of the pan when it's done.

 

Once all the crepes were done, I assembled 2 on each person's plate by spreading a little bit of cream cheese down the middle, and then a generous ladle of the fruit and its juices, and rolled them up.

 

 

 I stored the remaining crepes to use for dessert after dinner.
 

MINESTRONE (crockpot recipe)

Here's the recipe I started with:
3 Tbsp olive oil

2 onions, chopped

2 Tbsp. minced garlic

2 carrots, sliced
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 small zucchini, ends trimmed off and then cubed
1 (15 oz) can white beans, rinsed and drained
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
Ground black pepper, to taste
¼ c. fresh parsley leaves, chopped
2 (14 oz) can fire roasted diced tomatoes, with juice
1 (10 oz) package frozen baby lima beans
4 c. chicken stock
1 lb. fresh spinach ½ c. red wine (or red grape juice)
½ c. elbow macaroni or little shells
Parmesan for serving

Add everything up to the spinach and then add enough water to cover and go one inch above the veggies. Cook on LOW for 5 hours, then add Swiss chard and red wine. Cook 2-3 hours more. A half hour before serving add the macaroni and let cook 30 minutes or until pasta is tender.

THIS PART I DID IN THE MORNING AT THE SAME TIME AS I WAS MAKING BREAKFAST:

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I made almost the whole soup in the morning. I put a little olive oil in a small frying pan and put in the minced garlic. I used my Ninja to chop the 2 onions and put them into the hot oil. I let them cook down while I sliced the carrots and celery (instead of diced like the recipe calls for) and then I diced the zucchini.
I put 4 cups of water and 4 chicken bouillon cubes in the crockpot. I dumped the cans of tomatoes and white beans in and all the veggies. (I didn't add any lima beans because I didn't have any on hand.) Once the onions were softened and translucent, I dumped them in. I put the parsley and bay leaf in. Then I salted and peppered it. I also added some basil, oregano and sage in fairly good amounts and put on the lid. I turned it on LOW.

 

THIS PART I DID AT DINNERTIME:

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About 45 minutes before I dinner, I stirred the spinach into the minestrone. Then I dumped the ravioletti into the mix. I have never used ravioletti before - but we all love ravioli. They were tiny so I thought they would be an interesting alternative to macaroni since they have parmesan inside. I stirred them in and put the lid back on. I was surprised to find out they cooked up much larger than they were originally! Ravioli doesn't do that so I wasn't expecting it. They also soaked up virtually all of the broth. See pictures below, the first is the ravioletti before it is stirred in the middle after it was stirred in and the pic on the right is after it was cooked:

I had planned on serving it in bread bowls but the broth was completely gone. So I improvised by pouring a jar of marinara sauce in to make it more liquidy again - so that it would still be good served in bread bowls.
I cut open the bread bowls. If you've never used them, they look like large rolls - about 3 or 4 times the size of a dinner roll. You take a knife - I just use a serrated steak knife - and place it about an inch from the edge on the very top of the roll. Try to visualize what it would look like as a bowl and cut a circle around the top to represent the bowl's opening. Then you just pull the cut out circle out - making sure to pull the insides out with it. See below:

SALAD   

 

I just tore us some lettuce greens and tossed in some cherry tomatoes, julienne carrots, sliced red onions, sliced cucumbers and croutons and topped it with Ranch dressing in small salad bowls for everyone.

 

 For dessert I just put 2 half scoops of Strawberry Swirl Ice Cream along the center of each crepe, rolled them up and topped them with whipped cream and heated up Hot Fudge Sauce. (See recipes for Whipped Cream and Hot Fudge on the post for Jan. 7, 2013)

 

Jan. 10, 2013: Jelly-in-the-Middle Muffins with Cantaloupe; Meatloaf on a Bed of Potatoes, Green Beans and Lemon Squares



Jelly-in-the-Middle Muffins and Cantaloupe

Meatloaf on a Bed of Potatoes, Green Beans and Lemon Squares

THE PLAN:

With 5 kids that keep us busy, meal times are an important time of the day for our family to keep connected and have both silly & important conversations that help us learn more about each other and what is going on in all our lives. So enhancing that experience with a wide variety of textures, flavors and healthy elements is important to me. And I use the crockpot whenever I can (modifying recipes if I have to) because it is such a helpful tool to cook food all day long and have it ready to incorporate into delicious and healthy meals.

 

I prep dinner at the same time as I make breakfast - which saves me time at dinner and makes it more likely that I will cook dinner. The dinner hour is just so busy here - and it's when my energy sort of dips. So having everything ready to just be thrown together is huge for me. 

 

TODAY'S CHOICES

For breakfast, on Thursdays I usually make some kind of muffin. Today I want to make Jelly-in-the-Middle muffins with my homemade cinnamon red-hot apple jelly. (It's made with cinnamon red-hots instead of sugar). I will serve cantaloupe slices on the side.

 For dinner, I want to do something "homey" with beef so I'm going to make a classic Meatloaf. I have recipes for a lot of different variations on meatloaf but I'm in the mood for the classic variety. And I have a crock pot recipe that slow cooks it over cut up potatoes. It's really good. As the potatoes cook they soak up the flavors from the meat drippings. Meatloaf pairs really well with green beans for a vegetable .

 

For dessert, I want to make something that contrasts really well with a heavy meat and potatoes entrée. So, I will make buttery, flaky, custardy lemon squares. They are light, fruity, tart and sweet all at the same time.

 

 

 

JELLY IN THE MIDDLE MUFFINS

Here's the recipe:

2 c. flour

1/2 c. white sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 c. milk
1/3 c. vegetable oil
1 egg
any flavor fruit jam or jelly

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 12 muffin cups generously with cooking spray or line with baking cups. In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt; mix well. In a small bowl, combine milk, oil and egg; blend well. Add dry ingredients all at once; stir just until dry ingredients are moistened (batter will be lumpy.) Fill cups 1/3 full – leaving about half the batter in the bowl. Place 1-2 teaspoons jam/jelly on each muffin before baking;  top each one with remaining batter. If desired, sprinkle with finely chopped nuts.  Bake for 16 to 20 minutes or until tops are golden brown. Cool 1 minute before removing from pan. Serve warm but be careful because jelly gets very hot.

MAKING BREAKFAST:

I have made these with lots of different flavors of jelly. Any flavor is really good but my absolute favorite to use is my home-made cinnamon red-hot apple. The trickiest part of making these is making the batter just the right consistency. The muffin needs to be tender enough that it doesn't feel more like a biscuit but firm enough so the jelly doesn't just fall right out of the bottom. This means the batter should be thick but not too thick. Roughly similar to a waffle batter thickness. So after I follow the recipe, I check the thickness by letting a spoonful fall from my mixing spoon. If it's so thin that it pours then I add flour. If it doesn't pour at all because it's too thick, I add more milk.

Once the batter is the right consistency, I use about 2/3 of the batter to fill the muffin tins. You want more batter on bottom than on top - to hold the jelly in.

 

Then it's time to put in the jelly. The original recipe called for a certain amount of jelly in each but I never measure the jelly. I like a lot of jelly in them. But too much jelly makes the muffin unstable. So I use roughly about a Tablespoon in each one. I drop that amount in the center of each batter-filled muffin tin- staying away from the sides or bottom of the tins. Then I take a spoon and drop the rest of the batter on top of the jelly part in each tin. I use the back of a spoon to carefully smooth the batter over all the jelly to seal it inside the batter. The goal is to make the jelly completely surrounded by batter so that it doesn't leak out while it's baking.

 

After they are baked you really have to let them cool for more than one minute - at least 5 minutes. Partly because the jelly gets lava hot and you can't bite into them right away anyway. But also because if you let them cool then they come out of the tins or baking cups better and look prettier.

MEATLOAF ON A BED OF POTATOES
(crockpot recipe)
Here's the recipe:

½ c. minced onion or 1 packet Dry Onion Soup Mix

2 lbs ground beef

2 eggs

¾ c. oats

1 c. ketchup

2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 tsp. salt

Pepper, to taste

MIX and form into loaf, then place on top of:

6 large russet potatoes, cut into slices or cubes

Then pour the following mixture on top:

¾ c. ketchup

1/3 c. brown sugar

1 tsp Dijon

Cook in crockpot on HIGH for 1 hour and then LOW for 6-7 hours.

THIS PART I DID IN THE MORNING AT THE SAME TIME AS I WAS MAKING BREAKFAST:

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I put the ground beef in the microwave to defrost before I started making the muffins. Once the muffins were made and were cooking in the oven, I turned the crockpot on LOW. I scrubbed the potatoes and chopped them into big pieces and put them in the bottom of the crockpot. I didn't peel them. I like them with the peel on in this recipe because the meat juices make the peeling really tender and flavorful. Then I mixed up the meat with the onion soup mix, eggs, oats, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and placed it on the potatoes in the crockpot.

I mixed up the ketchup, brown sugar and Dijon, poured it over the meat and put the lid on.

Meatloaf and potatoes in the crockpot - before cooking

THIS PART I DID AT DINNERTIME:

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The great thing about this recipe is that there really is nothing that has to be done later. It's just done and can be transferred to a platter for serving or served straight from the crockpot.

Meatloaf on Bed of Potatoes Cooked

 

 

 

Fresh green beans are quite different than canned or frozen. Unlike most vegetables, the frozen kind (in my opinion) is the worst. Freezing them just changes their texture in such a way that it makes them almost unpalatable for me. I like canned if they cut French style. But fresh is best.

When I cook fresh green beans, I snip off the ends with kitchen shears, put them in a colander and rinse them. Then I put them in a glass bowl with a little bit of water, cover it with plastic wrap and cook them in the microwave until they are tender. I start at 5 minutes, then check them and cook a minute or 2 more, check again and repeat that until they are done.

 

 

LEMON SQUARES

Here's the recipe:

Crust:
2 c. flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 c. powdered sugar
2 sticks butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing

Filling:
4 eggs
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
2 c. granulated sugar
6 Tbsp. flour
3/4 c. fresh lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 by 13 by 2-inch pan.

Make the crust by combining the flour, salt, and powdered sugar in a large bowl. Cut in the butter to make a crumbly mixture. Press the mixture into the prepared pan. Dip your fingers into a little flour or confectioners' sugar to keep the dough from sticking to your fingers, if necessary. Bake for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the filling, mix the eggs, baking powder, salt, granulated sugar, flour, and lemon juice. Pour this over the baked crust and bake for 25 minutes longer. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired, when the bars are done.  

 

 MAKING DESSERT:

I mixed up and baked the crust while I was getting dinner on the table. After pre-heating the oven, I just threw 2 cubes of butter into the Kitchen Aid and turned it on medium-low. I let the butter get creamy while I got out the table cloth, plates, cups and forks. Then I added the powdered sugar, salt and flour all at once and let it mix until it was crumbly.

Crumbly crust dough

I pressed the dough into a greased 9x13 inch pan and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. While it baked, I finished setting the table, cooked the green beans and mixed up the lemon filling for the Lemon Squares.

 

(Side note: When the crust is done - it doesn't look that much different than when it was put in the oven. It is just slightly puffed up and firmer. It shouldn't be browned because it's going to be in the oven longer and you don't want an overcooked crust.)

 

When the crust was done, I poured the mixed up lemon filling right over the hot crust, put it back in the oven and set the timer for 25 minutes. Then we ate dinner while they were baking.

 

When the timer rang, the lemon part was still too runny so I set the timer for 5 more minutes. I like lemon bars with a consistency between thick jelly and custard. (Some lemon bar recipes are more thick and cake-like.) But you never want the lemon part runny. They should be set and slightly browned on top when done. Like this:

Lemon Squares just out of the oven

After they were out, I let them cool while we cleared the table, cleaned up dinner and washed the dinner dishes. Then I sprinkled them with powdered sugar and cut them into squares for serving.

Lemon Squares after Slightly Cooling and Sprinkling with Powdered Sugar - ready to be cut into squares

 

Jan. 9, 2013: Biscuits with Sausage Gravy and Orange Slices; Ham and Broccoli Crescent Braid, Strawberry Spinach Salad and Toffee Chocolate Vanilla layered Parfaits

Biscuits with Sausage Gravy and Orange Slices



Ham and Broccoli Crescent Braid, Strawberry Spinach Salad and Toffee Chocolate Vanilla layered Parfaits

THE PLAN:

With 5 kids that keep us busy, meal times are an important time of the day for our family to keep connected and have both silly & important conversations that help us learn more about each other and what is going on in all our lives. So enhancing that experience with a wide variety of textures, flavors and healthy elements is important to me.

I prep dinner at the same time as I make breakfast - which saves me time at dinner and makes it more likely that I will cook dinner. The dinner hour is just so busy here - and it's when my energy sort of dips. So having everything ready to just be thrown together is huge for me. 

 

TODAY'S CHOICES:

For breakfast, on Wednesday's I usually do something with biscuits. Mostly because I absolutely love them - they are fluffy, warm and just the right combination of buttery and salty. Today I want to make sausage gravy to serve over them. The first time I ever had biscuits with sausage gravy was at a family reunion we had at a lodge in the Rocky mountains when I was a teenager. My mom had never made the dish and I thought it was the best breakfast I had ever had. It's still one of my favorites and evokes memories of being at that mountain lodge with the smell of pine outside and wood burning in the lodge's stone fireplace.

 

For dinner, the last 2 nights we had chicken in dishes that both had a spicy element - so tonight I want to go completely different. I decided to go with ham and pair it with Swiss cheese in a Ham and Broccoli Crescent Braid. On the side I'll do a simple Strawberry Spinach Salad.

 

For dessert, I want to do a parfait of some sort. I have some Symphony Toffee Almond bars that my family loves. So I think I will layer chocolate pudding with sweetened whipped cream and chopped chocolate toffee bars in Toffee Chocolate Vanilla layered Parfaits. 

BISCUITS AND GRAVY WITH SAUSAGE
Here's the recipe:
2 ¼ c. all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 ¼ tsp. sea salt
5 Tbsp. butter, cold
2 Tbsp. shortening  
1 c. buttermilk
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix 1 ¼ cups of the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt very well. Cut butter into ½ inch pieces and refrigerate along with shortening. In mixer pulse together the flour mixture and the butter and shortening pieces on low speed until crumbles are present. Whisk together buttermilk and the eggs. Add mixture to the flour/butter mixture and mix on low until a dough ball forms.
Add the remaining flour a little at a time until the dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto floured work surface. With floured hands, gently press the dough out into an 11x8 inch rectangle about ¼ to ½ inch thick, dust lightly with flour and gently fold it over in thirds like a letter. Roll or press out into a 6x6 inch square rectangle again about 2 inches thick. Cut the dough into 9 squares (2x2 inches each). Transfer the biscuits to greased baking sheet about ½ inch apart. Or pat dough into a thickness of 1 inch and cut dough into rounds using a 2 ½ inch cutter and place biscuits close together on an ungreased cookie sheet. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let them rest at room temperature for 15 minutes.
Brush tops with melted butter then sprinkle with sea salt. Place baking sheet in the middle rack of hot oven and bake for 12-16 minutes or until lightly browned.

SAUSAGE GRAVY

I don't use a recipe for sausage gravy - this is just the basic way I make it:

In a large skillet, cook a pound of sausage – breaking it into pieces with the side of a fork until it is crumbly. There should be a good amount of fat in the pan. Sprinkle about ¾ cup of flour over the sausage and its fat, letting the flour soak up the fat. Get out a wire whisk, about 2-3 cups of milk and salt and pepper shakers. Holding the whisk in one hand and milk in the other, begin to pour the milk into the saucepan while quickly whisking the sausage-fat-soaked-flour into the milk while you pour. As soon as the milk hits the pan, whisk it into the flour to prevent any lumps forming. Keep pouring until all the milk is incorporated into the flour. Salt and pepper the mixture and keep whisking all the time until a thick gravy forms. Serve over the biscuits.

 

MAKING BREAKFAST:

I tried a lot of biscuit recipes before settling permanently on this one. It makes really fluffy perfect textured biscuits every time. But I don't make them exactly as the recipe calls for. First I turn on the oven, put 2 (un-cracked) eggs in a bowl of very warm water to bring them to room temperature, and measure a cup of milk and add 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar to the milk to sour it as a substitute for buttermilk (which I never have on hand). Then I use my Kitchen Aid and I put a cube of butter in the Kitchen Aid bowl and turn it on medium low. Then I add the baking powder, baking soda and salt to the butter while it's still mixing. Then I add the flour a little at a time and let it mix well until its crumbly. I crack the eggs in, one at a time, until they are well incorporated. Then I pour the soured milk in and only mix long enough to incorporate. If it is too sticky - I add a little more flour. But I let it be pretty sticky. I grease my hands and form 9 balls and place them fairly close together on a greased baking sheet and cook them until they are lightly browned.

I served them with the sausage gravy I made with Hot breakfast sausage and some orange slices on the side and hot chocolate to drink.

HAM AND BROCCOLI CRESCENT BRAID

Here's the recipe:
2 c. cooked ham, chopped
1 c. chopped fresh broccoli
1 small onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. dried parsley
2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 1/2 c. shredded Swiss cheese
2 (8 ounce) cans refrigerated crescent roll dough

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, combine ham, broccoli, onion, parsley, mustard and cheese. Stir well. Unroll crescent roll dough, and arrange flat on a medium baking sheet. Pinch together perforations to form a single sheet of dough. Using a knife or scissors, cut 1 inch wide strips in towards the center, starting on the long sides. There should be a solid strip about 3 inches wide down the center, with the cut strips forming a fringe down each side. Spread the filling along the center strip. Fold the side strips over filling, alternating strips from each side. Pinch or twist to seal. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until deep golden brown.

THIS PART I DID IN THE MORNING AT THE SAME TIME AS I WAS MAKING BREAKFAST:

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In the morning I cubed the ham. I just cut the precooked ham into thick slices (about 1/2- 3/4 inches thick) and then cut each slice lengthwise and crosswise. I stored them in a bowl in the fridge covered with plastic wrap. I chopped the broccoli and then steamed it in the microwave with a little bit of water in a glass bowl covered with plastic wrap, until it was tender but not mushy - it took about 6 minutes. Then I stored it in the fridge the same way. I chopped the Swiss cheese block the same way I chopped the ham, and then chopped the onion and stored them both in sandwich baggies in the fridge. 

THIS PART I DID AT DINNERTIME:
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First I preheated the oven and sprayed a large baking sheet with cooking spray. Then I sprayed the kitchen counter with cooking spray and opened the 2 cans of crescent rolls. I layed them side by side and took my rolling pin and smashed them into a large, wide rectangle. Then I carefully lifted the rectangle, pulling it away from the counter surface from one end and sliding my hand underneath and then transferred it to the greased baking sheet.
I  spread some Dijon mustard along the middle (lengthwise) 1/3 of the rectangle and then sprinkled parsley over it. (I didn't measure the mustard or parsley.) Then I took out the bowl of ham and tossed the broccoli, Swiss cheese cubes and chopped onions in and mixed them all together. I spread the ham mixture over the mustard.
I took a knife and cut a slit from the long edge of the rectangle towards the filling (in the center) about an inch from one of the short ends. I repeated this one inch apart all the way down both of the long sides. Then I folded the strips up over the filling, starting at one end and alternating the strips from each side over each other. I pinched and twisted the dough wherever necessary to hold the filling in and look pretty. Then I baked it for just over 20 minutes until it was golden brown.

 

STRAWBERRY SPINACH SALAD
I took a pint of strawberries and cut off their tops then sliced them lengthwise. I poured a small bag of fresh spinach into a salad bowl and tossed the strawberries in and then poured poppyseed dressing over it and lightly mixed it until the spinach and strawberries were nicely coated with it.

 Toffee Chocolate Vanilla layered Parfaits
I didn't have a recipe for this - I just used stuff I had on hand to make these.
AND THEY WERE YUMMY! 

1. I set out 6 parfait glasses.
2. I coarsely chopped one extra large Toffee Almond Symphony bar with a large knife.
3. I dumped a 2 lb. tub of Cool whip into a medium sized mixing bowl. I added a cup of powdered sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla and mixed it up with an electric hand-held mixture until it was well-whipped.
4. In another bowl, I mixed a 6-serving size package of chocolate pudding with 3 cups of milk for 2 minutes. I let it set for about 3 minutes - just to let thicken it a little bit.
5. I poured about 1/3 cup of the chocolate pudding into the bottom of each glass
6. I scooped some of the sweetened Cool Whip into each cup until I had used all of it and each had about the same amount. I used the back of a spoon to smooth the top of each.
7. I sprinkled the symphony bar pieces over the Cool Whip layer in each cup
8. I divided the remaining chocolate pudding to top each cup.