Now before you go thinking, “Wait a minute! She said they were eating healthy!” let me just say that we actually made these at Christmas, but for some reason, I never posted about it. However, since my last blog post featured Christopher, I thought it was only fair to blog this time about a yummy treat that Elizabeth made together. Sometimes the best way to quell sibling rivalry is to avoid it altogether!
I make a lot of treats around the Christmas season. At my parents’ house, we don’t do a big, fancy, sit-down dinner on Christmas Day. We just have nibbles. Chips and dips and barbecue sausages and truffles and chicken salad sandwiches and all sorts of little finger foods that we don’t indulge in at any other time. I always take the favorites from years past, but I try to bring something new.
This year, I decided to make turtles. I remembered that my friend Carla told me about making these impossibly easy turtles once, so I texted her to get the recipe. While I wouldn’t really consider this a recipe – because you don’t really make any of the components – I needed to know her method. I know these aren’t a new thing. I could’ve looked on Pinterest to find out how to make them, but it gave me an excuse to talk to my friend!
Carla and I have been friends since second grade. I’ve had the same best friends, Kathy (since kindergarten), Carla, and Kim (since sophomore year), for most of my life. Even though I’ve moved a little farther away from our hometown than they have, they are still my very best friends. We text and Facebook and occasionally actually see each other. I have made friends where I live, but it comes to sharing good or bad or exciting news, these three are who I call. When I’m upset about something, they are my sounding board. They are my best friends.
Carla and I rarely go more than a day or two without texting. When I asked her how to make her turtles, we had two other conversations going on about other things at the same time. So mixed in with the directions are other non-related statements:
“Lay out all the pretzels on parchment.”
“I can’t believe she did that!”
“I know. And then put a Rolo on top of each pretzel. Unwrapping them will take forever. And then what did he say?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. So what do I set the oven on?”
“325, I think. When do you go back to school after the holidays?”
Luckily, we both know how to decipher each other’s crazy overlapping conversations!
I enlisted Elizabeth’s help in “skinning” the Rolos, as she called it. It was an excuse to make her get up early – which she didn’t do a lot of over the holidays! She’s a night owl when school’s out. She dragged herself into the kitchen and sat at the table to help.
See how happy she was to help place the pretzels on the parchment? (Sarcasm implied)
Then after they came out the oven, she pressed a pecan half into each melted Rolo.
And that’s it! Really! If I didn’t suffer from Food OCD, it would’ve taken even less time. I had to have straight rows of pretzels – mostly so I could count them. I don’t know why. It’s weird.
Rolo Pretzel Turtles
- Pretzels
- Rolos, unwrapped
- Pecan halves
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
Lay pretzels on a large parchment-covered baking sheet. Top each pretzel with a Rolo.
Bake for 4-5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and press a pecan into each melted Rolo.
Well Duh #1: Yes, that’s it.
Well Duh #2: The Rolos will look shiny, like in the picture above. They won’t look runny or melted. In fact, you probably won’t think they’re soft enough until you press a pecan half in.
Well Duh #3: I didn’t put amounts with the ingredients because you can just make as many as you want – until you run out of one of the ingredients. I made 60 on one pan. Seriously. 60 turtles in under 10 minutes. Incredibly easy!
Well Duh #4: You can certainly toast the pecan first. I just didn’t.
I can thank Carla, not only for the recipe, but this even sweeter end result:
These are so good. Addictingly so. I had to box them up and hide them so they would last until we took them to my parents’ house on Christmas Day! They will now be a favorite that I take every year!
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