Today I wanted to introduce you to a new thing I’m trying out for the blog. Something I’m (not so) cleverly calling “Recipes of Future Past”. Those of you who are comic book fans may recognize that as an homage to an awesome comic book story called “Days of Future Past“.
These are all recipes I made and took pictures of before I started the blog. So there’s generally no recipe to refer to, no detailed description, just a couple of pictures and some thoughts. Some of them I would definitely like to try again, though. So they could be called “Recipes of Past & Future”, but I couldn’t resist the homage. And while these recipes don’t involve superheroes or time travel, they are fun and a peek into the past.
This first one is something called Super Treat Bars. Imagine a chocolate chip bar cookie with M&M’s and caramels. They’re kind of ridiculous. I remember making these growing up. I particularly remember we made them in order to help us stay up late one night and watch something cool on TV. I believe part of that evening’s food preparations also included Sugar Daddies candy and Ice Tea Cooler. (Ice Tea Cooler belongs in the realm of awesome Central PA snackitude.) We were seriously going for the sugar and caffeine express.
Another creation made for TV watching that I clearly remember was cinnamon sugar popcorn. We made popcorn in the popcorn popper, back before the days of microwave popcorn. Then we melted some butter and poured it over the popcorn, which helped to make the surface more adherent. Then we mixed some cinnamon and sugar and poured it over the popcorn. Yum. Those were the days.
The cinnamon sugar popcorn was normally consumed on Saturday afternoons while watching Doctor Who on PBS. For those that don’t know, those years were nothing like the current fancy Doctor Who. These were the Tom Baker years, when the BBC had no special effects budget to speak of. When, for instance, one episode featured a creature that amounted to basically a guy (maybe two?) walking around in what looked like a giant garbage bag. I’m not making this stuff up.
By the way, when I say “we” in this whole story, I’m referring to my brother and I. We were (and still are) the best of friends, and we did everything together. That included making ridiculous recipes and watching ridiculous TV.
In any case, the cookies. I know we didn’t make up the idea or the name, I know we got the recipe from somewhere, I just don’t remember where from. When I started thinking about them again not too long ago, I didn’t have a recipe to fall back on. I searched for them in vain, but I couldn’t find the recipe. I really wanted to make them, so I just had to recreate the recipe. There isn’t much to them. As I said, they’re basically chocolate chip bar cookies with M&M’s and caramels. Simple, sure. But when we were younger, we thought they were the coolest thing ever.
It was a while ago now when I recreated them, so I don’t remember exactly what I did. What I believe I did was go with a chocolate chip cookie bar recipe, and then just added in the other ingredients. I might have also found a recipe that had one or the other extra ingredients, or maybe some different ones and adapted them from there. They should be pretty easy to make.
And as far as taste, I remember them to be exactly as ridiculous as you would expect them to be. In a good way.
So after this trip down nostalgia lane, does anyone else remember these? Do you have the recipe or at least remember where the recipe came from? Or what about your favorite childhood recipes and the circumstances that made them so? Let me know!
Needs Baked 