I’m Melllllltttttttiiiinnnnngggg…

Why yes, it is that hot here in Ohio. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about how I’m melting all kinds of stuff in my microwave!

My Frigidaire over-the-range microwave has all sorts of buttons that do cool things, but the one I’m currently obsessed with is the melt/soften button.

It gives you the option to melt butter or chocolate, or to soften cream cheese or ice cream. Which, coincidentally, covers all four main food groups.

I discovered the beauty of softening cream cheese when I made taco dip for a baby shower a few months ago. I had always “softened” my cream cheese by smooshing it around in the foil pouch before unwrapping it, but that day I gave the button a try. I was surprised by what a difference it makes – it blended together with the sour cream so well, and there were no cream cheese chunks, just creamy smoothness.

I just tried out the other soften option – ice cream – the other night. Kate and Andy wanted some ice cream (I didn’t have any, I swear! I only ate a couple bites out of the carton to test the melty-ness. And also what was left of Kate’s. *ahem*), and the new half-gallon carton was frozen solid. I put the whole thing in the microwave and hit the “soften ice cream” button twice to indicate that it was a half-gallon, not a pint. Had I been using the timer alone, I would have set it for 10 seconds, so imagine my surprise when the timer started counting down from 2.5 minutes. I thought for sure I was going to have ice cream soup on my hands. Speaking of my hands, I practically had to sit on them to keep from pressing “stop.” But I decided to let the microwave do its thing, and I was glad I did – the ice cream was perfectly softened. Not too much, not too little.

From this experiment I learned two things. 1) the microwave is smarter than I am; and 2) soft, creamy ice cream is freaking good. I had no idea! Apparently I’ve always scarfed it down so fast that I haven’t given it time to get to the proper consistency.

Finally, the “melt” button. I’ve been using it to melt butter for a while now, and it works perfectly, but I had been wanting to try out its chocolate-melting skills. I googled “melted chocolate chip cookies” and came up with this recipe for chocolate chocolate chip cookies. I had to be able to give an honest review of this feature, you know! I made them for you! But since you weren’t there, I ate them all.

Anyway, when I took the chocolate chips out of the microwave, they still looked like chocolate chips. I was slightly confused. But when I stirred them up, I found that they were perfectly melted, and not the slightest bit scorched. Very impressive.

I still can’t believe how many features this microwave has. It’s pretty amazing, really. It can do it all – from melting chocolate to steaming ears of corn – with the touch of a button. Even I can’t screw it up.

Most of the time.

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I wrote this review while participating in a Test Drive Campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Frigidaire and received a Frigidaire Range/Microwave to facilitate my review.

P.S. we have a totally unrelated and awesome giveaway that your kids will love going on over HERE so check it out!!

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Peanut Butter Rice Krispies Treats Ice Cream Sandwiches!

For some reason, the wonderful ladies at TheMotherhood.com selected me to be one of their Rice Krispies challengers!  I guess they didn’t realize that I am, UMMMM a bit of a fail in the kitchen but I loooooves me some Rice Krispie Treat so I accepted the challenge anyway!   Plus, they provided the ingredients for free and gave me a little compensation for my time, which I SO appreciate!  My fellow challengers and I each received a clue in the mail (along with a box of Rice Krispies and some marshmallows) and then we had to find each other on Twitter to put all our clues together to find our theme.  Here was my clue:

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After my challengers and I put our heads together, we discovered our theme for the contest: “Fourth of July’s “cooler” when kids help create Rice Krispies treats recipes.”

Sooo, the challenge would be to create Rice Krispies treats with a frozen ingredient (the “cooler” part) and to have my kids help me create the recipe!  Sophie’s not quite old enough to get that yet so I had Joshua help me.  I couldn’t think of anything frozen that I could possibly want in my Rice Krispie treats except for ice cream. So I decided on ice cream and I let Joshua help me pick the other ingredients.  He decided on peanut butter and M&M’s.  SO yesterday we set out to create Peanut Butter M&M Rice Krispie Treats Ice Cream Sandwiches!  Is that a long name or what??

Here’s the recipe:

3 tbs. butter

About 30 big marshmallows

1/2 cup peanut butter

4 cups Rice Krispies cereal

1/2 large bag of M&Ms

1 pint chocolate ice cream

Combine butter and marshmallows in microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave on high about 45 seconds or until melted.  Stir until smooth, then stir in peanut butter.

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(Peanut butter, butter, and marshmallows all stirred together. It smelled so good!)

Stir in Rice Krispies cereal` and M&Ms until well mixed.  Using a buttered spatula or wax paper, press into 9 x 13 pan and let cool 10 minutes.  When cool, cut into 4 x3 inch rectangles.  Spread 1 scoop chocolate ice cream on one rectangle and top with another rectangle to make an ice cream sandwich.  ENJOY!

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My little helper!!

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Not too pretty, but VERY tasty!

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Ready to dig in!

Now I must say that these were very, VERY tasty. Super-rich too, I definitely needed a glass of milk with mine. However, I don’t think I would use the M&Ms again. They cracked and melted when being stirred and the treats just didn’t turn out very pretty. But that was the ingredient my Joshua wanted, so that’s what we went with! And they were super-yummy.

Thanks to Rice Krispies and the Motherhood for making me a Rice Krispies Ambassador!  It was a fun challenge – and I loved having my son’s help.  It made me realize that I need to involve him in the kitchen more.

What’s YOUR favorite way to eat a Rice Krispies treat?

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