Cooking with Joe - no bake butterscotch/pretzel thingies

Back from a quick trip to San Francisco – youngest son got married (finally!). Made an appointment for the countertop fabricators to come out, can’t do it for a few weeks but hopefully we should have the kitchen done soon, still on the details. We put some crown molding up in the front room, and B wants to continue that around into the kitchen, so it’s off to Lowe’s with the hope that our style is still sold and buy a bunch more. It’s the exact fitting that takes so long – with all the long runs cutting something a few millimeters short results in an unusable piece, so it takes time to get it all cut properly and installed.

I told Blond Duck that I would put up something to match her no bake peanut butter oatmeal cookies, these are a little sweeter but still pretty good.

Before we went I made some treats, recipe found at Mamamia who puts up a lot of easy things to make. The description sounded OK – pretzels, peanuts and butterscotch.

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 tablespoons butter, melted
2 cups crushed pretzels (about 6-1/2 ounces)
1 (11 ounce package--about 2 cups) butterscotch-flavored pieces
1/4 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup coarsely crushed pretzels
1/2 cup chopped peanuts

1. Line a 13x9x2-inch pan with foil. Lightly coat the foil with cooking spray; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, stir together powdered sugar, peanut butter, and melted butter. Stir in 2 cups crushed pretzels. Press mixture firmly into the bottom of prepared pan.

2. In a heavy medium saucepan, combine butterscotch pieces and whipping cream. Stir over low heat until pieces are just melted. – I used a microwave safe bowl, on for 30 seconds and stirred, when it was all soft enough to mix up smooth I stopped heating and spread it.

3. Carefully spoon and spread butterscotch mixture over crumb mixture in pan. Sprinkle 1/2 cup coarsely crushed pretzels and the peanuts evenly over butterscotch mixture; press gently. I just used peanuts, figured there were enough pretzels in the bottom.

4. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours. Cut into bars to serve. Store in refrigerator for up to 1 week.
They came out pretty good, fast, and easy enough to show my granddaughter how to make, so I think this will be on my list for the next time we get together with her. Now on to the Duck’s peanut butter things.