For today’s installment of ‘What I Tasted Tuesday’ I bring you two ideas!  One healthy and delicious while the other is pretty much ‘garbage’ but a five-finger-lickin, heavenly delicious, holiday treat!

I have heard rave reviews about Spaghetti Squash and the potential for this vegetable, but I had never cooked with it before.  Last week I purchased one at the store for only 95 cents a pound, and there it sat, in my fridge for a week.  Determined to not let it go to waste, when I had Saturday night to myself I decided what better time than now to cook up the meal!

I apologize for the lack of pictures, it really wasn’t my plan to post this.  However, the meal was so incredibly delicious and uber healthy (!!) I really wanted to share it with you!  For the most part, I followed this spaghetti squash recipe I found on allrecipes.com - but I decided to substitute a few different veggies.

Baking the spaghetti squash wasn’t hard, but I don’t think I initially baked it long enough.  I was absolutely AMAZED at how much ‘spaghetti’ came from this vegetable!

I sauteed up some veggies: portabella mushrooms, green peppers, zucchini, red onion, and then added some canned tomatoes that were seasoned with basil, garlic and onion.  Once the squash was ready and magically turned into vegetable spaghetti I mixed the sauteed veggies on top, added some green olives and feta cheese, sprinkled it with parmesan and TA-DAAAA!!

 
I must apologize for two things - 1. the picture quality.  I snapped this shot with my phone.  And 2. the fact that half the meal was gone before I thought to take a photo!  It was just THAT GOOD!  

Now for the ‘Part 2’ of this post!  The heavenly delicious ‘garbage’ I made!  I have heard this dessert slash snack referred to as many things: puppy chow, garbage, trash, and even white trash.  I am not sure why all of the names make it sound gross because this stuff is awesome!  (Maybe the original creator used the Greenland/ Iceland PR strategy… you know, Greenland really has ice and Iceland is actually green.  Apparently it helps with tourism and keeps people from showing up at your house!  But this way, you can keep the Trash all to yourself - no one is actually going to want to eat something that you call “Puppy Chow” right?)

Before making this batch of Trash I googled for quite a while looking for the same recipe my grandfather used to use.  He was quite the baker, especially around the holidays.  This was my favorite but it was right up there with his homemade peanut brittle!  Shockingly I could not find his simple recipe online.  Then I remembered when I was a kid he made me write it down on one of his recipe cards so I would never lose it.  Believe it or not, I still had the handwritten recipe stuck in a cookbook!  It was kind of a heart warming feeling thinking he was looking down on my, proud that I was using his recipe and not a random one from the internet!  And now, I am going to share it with you!

- 12 oz of chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate but it’s your call what kind)
- 1 cup of peanut butter (creamy of course!)
- 1 stick of butter
- 2 boxes of chex cereal (not the cinnamon or honey - just the plain - ALSO - the boxes of chex I purchased were 16 oz boxes but we only used about one and a half boxes and this made PLENTY)
- and as much confectioners sugar as you think you need!

While making this as an adult, as opposed to being the kid helping the adult, I learned that yes, this is actually a two person job.  You will need that partner in crime to help you with the mixing and the shaking!

To start, just mix the chocolate, peanut butter, and butter in a large pot (or in my case a wok) until they melt.

This is when it starts to look heavenly!  

Once it is a blended up chocolatey, peanut buttery mess, start adding the chex cereal.  I actually thought about mailing a jar of this to Jess, my best friend from high school, because chex are gluten free!  So this is a holiday treat she can enjoy!

Now that it is all mixed and the tiny chex are covered in chocolate the fun begins!  My roommate jumped on board with the trash bag!  Ooooooh - maybe THIS is why it is called “Trash!”  We poured it all in the bag, said a little “don’t fail us now target brand trash bag” prayer and began mixing it up with a few cups of confectioners sugar!

And there ya go!  A bag full of the most delicious trash you will ever eat!!

That night we were having our annual progressive dinner so I decided to make up individual mason jars of trash to give to everyone.  We had PLENTY of trash to go around.  We filled up one for each house plus one for my neighbor, and still had a whole bowl left for ourselves.  You could easily cut this recipe in half and only use one box of chex cereal.

I used some of my newly acquired photoshop skills to make some cute topper labels and some left over ribbon from my new wreath (you will see that tomorrow!) to make some cute hostess gifts!

So what do you think?  Gonna give both recipes a shot?  Do you have any favorite holiday treat recipes?  Share them with me!  I’d love to try them!

** The original idea behind ‘What I Tasted Tuesday’ was that I would post healthy, paleo recipes.  The first one, the spaghetti squash with veggies is definitely paleo, healthy, primal, low carb, whatever you want to call it.  I HIGHLY recommend that recipe.  The second, well yes, it is trash.  I read a comment on a paleo blog last week though about all the ‘replacements’ people try to make this time of year and how most of the time paleo desserts just don’t taste like desserts at all.  She threw it at her readers that if you are going to stray for just a cookie or two, you might as well do it for something you love.  Hence the reason I brought you one of my favorite holiday treats today.  No, it’s not healthy, and no, I don’t recommend you making it every week.  But just like your birthday, you don’t pass up that piece of cake. A few handfuls of trash at christmas time isn’t going to kill you…. right?