Fudge

I thought I better start off with a disclaimer that most of the recipes I'll be using this week are probably not going to be the most healthy (you may have noticed yesterday's was called "Butter Cake"...). For a great blog full of healthy and tasty recipes, you may want to pop over to my friend Sarah's cooking blog: Heart-y Helpings.

Today I made fudge. Fudge reminds me of my friend Kristen. We had a tradition of going to the Victorian Country Christmas every December with our moms and one of our missions was to make sure we got as many samples from the Seattle's Fudge booth as possible. Yum!

I followed a really simple recipe I found in my Hershey's Recipe Collection cookbook that my sister Debbie gave me as a wedding gift. It was super easy and although I haven't tried it yet, I have no doubts that it will be delicious!

Festive Fudge:

3 cups (1.5 pkgs) Chocolate Chips

1 can (14 oz) Sweetened Condensed Milk

Dash of Salt

1/2 to 1 cup chopped nuts (optional *I actually put in coconut instead for this batch)

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1) Line 8 or 9 inch square pan with wax paper

2) Melt chocolate chips with sweetened condensed milk and salt in heavy saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat; stir in nuts, if desired, and vanilla. Spread evenly in prepared pan.

3) Refrigerate 2 hours or until firm. Turn fudge onto cutting board; peel off paper and cut into squares. Store covered in refrigerator.

Kristen and my favorite game was to play dress-up and dance around the living room. I think Karen dressed us up for this particular photo. Also of note is that my necklace is a perfume bottle--how great is that?