Melting Marshmallow Madness

Sometimes life just works out at Chez Boeckman-Walker to give me an extra bit of time in the evening. As surprising as it may seem, Gentle Reader, I'm often at a loss for what to do with this time because, to be honest, I've already done a helluva lot in my day and am never sure if I should start in on something that might consume my entire night or if I should just waste that time by, say, bopping around aimlessly online. In other words, I'm not terribly good at unwinding.

Monday gifted me with another of these unexpected chunks of evening time, so I went back into my kitchen to follow up on the creamy chicken and spinach dish I'd made for supper. I plucked a recipe from my "To Attempt and FUBAR" pile (another from Weight Watchers' Simply the Best book, which is now waiting for a new owner at the local HPB), gathered my ingredients for my mise en place and got to cookin'.

More Cereal Treats
Even though I have a big-ass bag of generic Rice Krispies sitting on my counter, waiting for a home in the pantry or elsewhere, I oh so wisely elected to make a pan of gooey treats using cornflakes. But this recipe did allow me to free up a little bit of space in the pantry because I had to use half a bag of marshmallows--not the miniature ones--and those puppies are space hogs.

Marshmallow-Fruit Squares4 t reduced-calorie margarine
20 marshmallows
2 C cornflakes
24 dried apricot halves, chopped
1/2 C unsalted sunflower seeds
1/4 C sliced unblanched almonds
4 pitted dates, chopped
2 T sesame seeds
1/4 t vanilla extract

1. Prep a 10" x 6" baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
   
2. In a large nonstick saucepan over low heat, melt the margarine, then add the marshmallows. Let the goo cook, stirring constantly, until the marshmallows are melted (about 5 min.).
   
3. Remove the goo from the heat. Stir in the cornflakes, apricots, sunflower seeds, almonds, dates, sesame seeds and vanilla.
   
4. With moistened hands, press the mixture evenly into the pan. Cover the pan and refrigerate at least 30 min.

Nutritional Info
Calories: 145
Fat: 6 g
Saturated fat: 1 g
Protein: 3 g
Carbs: 22 g
Fiber: 1 g
Na: 69 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
A spontaneous culinary misadventure requires spontaneous substitutions. Hold on to your hat, Gentle Reader!

• Since the recipe required so little butter, I just got out the Promise. Spooning out four teaspoons from the tub is easier than calculating and cutting that much from a stick of low-fat butter. Yes, Gentle Reader, I really am that lazy.
  
• I didn't have any apricot halves, but I did have a bag of dried and diced mixed fruit. Since I had no idea of the volume of 24 dried apricot halves that had been chopped, I guessed and put in half a cup of the dried mixed fruit.
  
• I thought I had some sliced or slivered almonds in my Bad Batz Maru metal lunchbox of nuts. I was wrong. I did have some chopped walnuts of indeterminate age, so I threw in a fourth of a cup of those.
  
• My sunflower seeds were lightly salted. Oh! I'm a horrible person!
  
• I only used a tablespoon of sesame seeds 'cuz that's all I had, folks.

Just a tip if you opt to make these yourself, Gentle Reader: Make sure you use a nonstick saucepan. I used my 3-quart copper-bottom pan, which is not nonstick, and...well, I'm sure you can guess how well that turned out. The boys and I practically removed our fingernails trying to scrape the leftover goo from the pan. In fact, I think most of the sesame seeds wound up down the drain after I washed the pan because they stuck to the sides of the pot, not to the cornflakes, nuts, dried fruit or other ingredients. But, hey, if I weren't so bloody brilliant, I couldn't call myself The Faudie, now could I?

I also recommend using mixed fruit, if your available assortment of dried, diced mixed fruit is to your liking. I think my substitution added more color to the finished product. Apricots, nuts and cornflakes, in my opinion, make for a very Whitey McWhitey kind of treat. Then again, this recipe is from a Canuck....


Okay, sorry, couldn't help myself. I love that bit from MST3K. But if you want to see what I mean about the mixed fruit adding some color, here ya go, Gentle Reader:

As for the taste.... I wish I could report these babies were just the best thing ever, but to me they were passable. The husband seemed to enjoy them a lot, but I think he's pretty easy to please. But the making 'o the marshmallow-fruit squares allowed me to pass some unexpected free time on a Monday without getting swept up in a long-ass project that sucked away my entire evening. That's a victory, right?