Thursday, September 19, 2013

Irish Potatoes

Tonight my husband was off at a fraternity meeting so I had the whole evening to myself. Eat all the dinners early!



And then since we're off work tomorrow I am required by law to stay up past my bedtime, which means I got hungry again, hours after dinner happened, which means digging in the fridge.


(This story is going somewhere, I promise.)

I put together a bunch of weird random things, threw them in the microwave to melt together, and then ate them with some leftover nacho chips. And I'm sitting here at my desk, drinking my favorite beer, eating my random-stuff-pulled-out-of-the-fridge-and-microwaved-together with my tortilla chips, and I'm thinking to myself, "Who does this??? Who pulls random stuff out of the refrigerator and microwaves it together into a mush and just eats it with Tostitos Scoops like it's normal and not 'random stuff from the fridge'? Isn't that what college students do? I'm 35 years old! I'm a grown woman!  What the **** am I doing?"

*munch*munch*munch*

"Well. It is pretty good, actually."

*munch*

"It's queso dip."


There you have it.  When a teenager pulls random stuff out of the fridge and microwaves it for dinner, they get chicken ramen with grape jelly and cream cheese.  When I pull random stuff out of the fridge and microwave it for dinner, I get queso dip.

And it was pretty good.

In the spirit of pull-random-stuff-out-of-the-fridge-and-eat-it, I present to you Irish Potatoes.

There's no potato in them.

Ingredients
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
4 oz (1/2 package) cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla
2½ cups powdered sugar
2½ cups flaked/shredded coconut
3 tablespoons cinnamon*

1) Combine the butter & cream cheese with a mixer, stopping frequently to scrape down the bowl, until well-combined and pretty soft.
2) Mix in the vanilla.
3) Pour in the powdered sugar and mix on low until well combined.
4) Next mix in the coconut.
5) Get out a flat surface like a small cookie sheet or a large food storage container. Grease your hands, and roll the mixture into small, half-dollar sized balls. Place them on the cookie sheet.
6) Chill the balls in the freezer for 10 minutes, or in the refrigerator for an hour. You want them cold and firm, but not rock solid. Just firm.
7) Put the cinnamon in a baggie or a bowl. Remove the candies from the freezer/fridge, and either roll them in the cinnamon or put them in the baggie and shake them to coat.
8) Store covered in the fridge.


This is definitely not a fancy candy. This is "I'm craving something sweet but I don't want to have to work too hard to get it." This is "I need something fun to do with the kids that will give keep them occupied and isn't too complicated." This is "oh crud, it's 8 o'clock at night and I'm supposed to bring something for the party at work tomorrow."

Not fancy. But still good! Yeah, still good.  Nomnomnom...

Note: Some people find these too cinnamony and they use half cinnamon, half sugar. Or half cinnamon, half unsweetened cocoa powder. However, traditionally they're made with all cinnamon. Personally I don't find them too cinnamony at all, and trust me I'd complain if they were.



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