Giant Rice Krispies TreatI had a pretty good childhood growing up. I'll admit it. My mom baked us zillions of cookies all the time. Dad had a great job. We were always fed, clothed and had more toys then some local toy stores. I always thought we were extremely average, though looking back now I think I could replace that word with "fortunate." Still, I never miss a chance to tell my mom how deprived we were as kids. Shocking as this may be, my mom never made us Rice Krispies Treats. GASP!

Last night I was talking to my mom on the phone and mentioned this. She basically confirmed it by saying she "might" have made it once with us. But that didn't sound very reassuring to me. So based on my horribly deprived childhood and the fact that I saw neat activity in a National Geographic for Kids magazine, I set out to have a great bonding/cooking experience with my kids. But that soon turned into me flying solo in a kitchen.

The key is using cookie cutters to cut out shapes. So my 4 year old picked out a bunch of cookie cutters then quickly vanished to see what Diego was doing on TV. I followed the easy directions on the box and yes, actually used the microwave directions rather then the old fashioned stove top. Butter and marshmallows melted no problem and I stirred that sticky mix. Then I added food coloring. The picture used pink and red (it was for heart-shaped treats in honor of Valentine's Day). I added green, which looked kinda nasty, so then I mixed in red. Which made things worse. Now I had a green and red sticky mess. Sigh.

Then I spread the mixture out on wax paper, slapped in the cookie cutters like a puzzle and put the whole thing in the fridge to cool. In hindsight, I probably should've used the cookie cutters to cut out shapes, rather then keep them set in the treats like a mold. The end results were, well, tasty but let's say a little visually challenging.

Here's the first batch which consisted of an elephant, duck, bird and snake. See if you can match the treat to the cookie cutter!

Rice Krispies Treats Round 1

A close-up of the first few abominations:

Round 1 Closeup

The second batch (a seahorse, dinosaur and turtle)
came out a bit better and should be easier to see the matches.

Rice Krispies Treats Round 2

Ready for their close-up:

Round 2 Closeup

So have I learned anything from this ordeal? Yes. My mother really should've made us Rice Krispies Treats a lot more when I was a kid...

COUPON TIME:

Too bad I can't find any coupons for the Culinary Institute, 'cause I certainly could use them myself! So here's a few cooking ones instead:

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