Caramel Apple Crunch

I'm a big fan of the old Snickers Salad with Granny Smith apples, frozen Snickers bars, and Cool Whip, so when I heard someone say the other day that they love Snickers bars melted over apples, I thought, "I can SO do that!" I went out on Saturday night after dinner time to our school's auction on Saturday night, so I made a small little pan as a special treat for my girls to snack on while they watched a movie. Of course, I had to try a taste, and it.was.GOOD.

Here's how I did it,

Ingredients -

2 Granny Smith Apples
1 Snickers bar

Directions -

Chop ingredients. Gentle combine in a mixing bowl. Transfer to a baking dish. Bake in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes or until melted. Top with ice cream and caramel sauce, if you wish!

Peeps, could it be any easier???

See more recipes at beautyandbedlam.com.

The Sodastream Experiment and Flavor Review

 

I've mentioned before that I exclude soda from our grocery budget. That's because we drink A LOT ( ie way TOO MUCH)  of pop. In an attempt to be more sustainably frugal (and healthy,) we made a big purchase this past week! We bought a Sodastream Genesis. After a lot of research on models, prices and reviews, I decided to buy the Genesis because it is the most inexpensive model that Bed, Bath and Beyond carries. I bought it with a coupon, of course.

Plenty of naysayers said that it wasn't worth the initial investment. My initial investment for the Genesis, a carbonation cartridge, 1 reusable bottle, 12 soda sample flavors, 3 seltzer water flavors, and one bottle of ENERGY mix was almost exactly $100. (Again, all purchased with a coupon.) After we'd tried a few flavors, we went back and bought 2 new flavors, 2 travel bottles and 2 regular sized bottles for an additional $37. We should be good to go for awhile!

Ok, so let's be real here. I was previously spending anywhere from $10-$12 a week on pop for my husband and I to have at the house to take to work. I figure if we can come in on Sodastream for less than $520 this year, we will have made a good investment. So far, we're "in" $137. My plan is to keep track of our Sodastream purchases for the next 6 months in order to average out our potential savings.  Stay tuned on that one.

While we're at it, here's a quick review of the flavors we've tried!

ENERGY - My favorite. 35 calories. 80 mg of caffeine. My husband says it tastes like Monster. It tastes close enough to Red Bull for me. I've happily swapped my morning Diet Coke for this, and I have been drinking seltzer during the day.

Orange - I think this is our other "favorite" so far!

Root Beer - Very Good

Diet Root Beer- Pretty Darn Good

Diet Cream Soda - STRONG, but good. Maybe more caramel y than vanilla

Sprite - Very good

Orange My Water - Very good, if you like seltzer

Raspberry My Water - Very good, if you like seltzer

Cherry Cola - Our least favorite. It's a little weird.

And that's it! I'll update as we go!

(Photo from www.sodastreamusa.com.)