Good news (and chocolate)

Good News:
Monica and her husband have received some wonderful news regarding their finances. I'm not sure if I'm at liberty to talk specifics yet, so I'll just leave it at that. God is good!

Chocolate:
On Sunday, I made more of the Christmas treats I mentioned last week and wanted to finally share the recipe with you. I modified this from a recipe for "Crockpot Candy", but since I didn't use the Crockpot, I'm at a loss for how to title this. I guess I'll keep it simple...

Erin's Christmas Candy
1 lb. white chocolate (the stuff I used was called "candy coating")
8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate (either chocolate chips or baking chocolate squares)
1 oz. unsweetened chocolate
12 oz. salted peanuts
2 - 2 1/2 cups crushed cinnamon graham crackers*
2 - 2 1/2 cups mini marshmallows

Put all of the chocolate into a double-boiler to melt, or melt it in the microwave. (Or throw it in your crockpot on low, go do something else productive for a few hours, then come back and proceed.) After it is melted and smooth, add the peanuts and graham crackers, and stir well to make sure they are completely coated with chocolate. Then add the marshmallows, and again, stir well to make sure they are coated with chocolate.

Spread the mixture out on cookie sheets lined with foil, and allow to cool. (I put mine in the garage, since it cools more quickly out there.) When the candy has hardened, break it into pieces.
That's it!

*With the graham crackers, I don't crush them as fine as I would for a graham cracker crust - I try to leave them in fairly big chunks.

Other notes about this recipe...

• Last year I tried this with crushed pretzels and caramel. It turned out ok, but the caramel got really hard and it was a workout to eat it. :-) I might get ambitious and try it again this year, using only the pretzels.
• If you want the marshmallows to be more melty (I'm sure this is an official baking term, right?), just throw them into the chocolate before the peanuts and graham crackers. This will give them more time to heat up and get ooey and gooey in the chocolate.
• I used 12 oz of peanuts the first time, and it seemed like too many, so I used less on the second try. Adjust all of this to your own preferences and tastes.
• If you can think of any other variation for this, please let me know. This is so easy to throw together and it got rave reviews last year, so I would love to have lots of different ways to make it.

Mmmmmm. I also made candied popcorn using this recipe, and plan on trying this recipe for caramel corn. I don't know if I'll ever get around to making cookies this year, but even if I don't, I think I'll have plenty of yummy holiday treats!