Summer Squash Casserole

Another tasty recipe given to me by my mother-n-law who was born and raised in North Carolina. I love yellow squash but I love it even more in this casserole. Summer is all about squash and this is a delish dish to make. When I went to the grocery store this week I was happy to see that the squash was on sale for .99 cents a pound so I had to make this for my family.

Ingredients:

2-3 pounds of yellow squash, cut up

2 carrots, grated

1 onion, diced

2 cans of cream of chicken soup

tub of sour cream

1 box of chicken flavored stuffing

1 stick of butter

Directions:

In a large pot of boiling water, add your squash, carrots and onions and cook at a boil for 8 minutes. Drain water well from veggies and put into a large mixing bowl. With a hand blender, blend all veggies together, I like it well blended but a little chunky. Add the sour cream and cream of chicken soup. With a spoon, mix well. Add a pinch or two of salt and a few dashes of pepper. In a separate microwavable bowl, melt a stick of butter and then add your package of stuffing to it and mix well. Take half of the stuffing mix and mix into the veggie mix. Put veggies into a large baking dish or two small baking dishes and top the remaining stuffing on top, cover with foil and bake at 350 degree for 35-40 minutes.

Cake Ball Lollipops

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They are everywhere, Starbucks, A.J.'s Fine Foods even Saks Fifth Avenue even sells them for $35.00 for six of them. Not sure exactly when cake balls really became popular but I had to try them out after my beefer (aka best friend because I don't like to openly admit that I actually love this girl) Jaime posted a recipe she saw online for cake balls on Facebook.

Went to a super fun graduation party last night so I decided to make some for the girls who were all coming. I made 50. Took about 4 hours.

Because it was my first time, I now know what to do and what not to do. Like freezing the balls before dipping them in hot melted chocolate. And once they are complete don't refrigerate them but freeze them to prevent them from melting.

If you want to get creative I suggest trying these. They are cute and fun and anyone with a sweet tooth should have fun eating one!

For this recipe, I used the following:

• Red Velvet Cake (from a box)
• Vanilla Frosting (room temp)
• 2 packages of Melt Away Chocolate (from Party City) these chocolates are used for chocolate molds. Get two different colors, I used milk chocolate brown and red chocolate vanilla.
• 1 package of white chocolate chips
• lollipop sticks (you can purse at Party Stores or Michaels/Joanns)
• candy cover bags/ribbons if you want to go all out

Follow instructions on cake box. Once cake has cooled, I take the cake and pulse it in my food processor and then pour into a LARGE mixing bowl. Once all the cake has crumbled up well, add 1/2 to 3/4 cup of the vanilla frosting and mix well. I then take a cookie scoop and scoop out the mix and roll into a ball and place on a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper. I suggest using a cookie scoop because then all your balls will be the same size. Once all the balls are rolled up and placed on the sheet, add the lollipop stick in the center of each ball and place into the freezer for at least 30 minutes. If you don't chill your balls they WILL come apart when you dip them into the melted chocolate and the lollipop stick will not hold. Trust me, I learned from personal experience.

Once the balls have chilled out in the freezer, take your Melt Away Chocolate and melt in the microwave in a plastic bowl. Dip each ball into the chocolate and place onto a new cookie sheet with wax paper. If you place the balls back onto the cookie sheet that you pulled out from the freezer, your chocolate will crack, again, from personal experience. Dip all balls into the chocolate. You can melt other chocolate colors for that cute drizzle and if you do, take a zip-lock back with a few chocolate Melt Aways and microwave for 20-30 seconds then take scissors and cut the corner of the bag, small cut and you can use it to pipe the chocolate onto the balls.

I placed the balls back into the freezer for an hour before I placed into plastic bags and tired a ribbon around it since I was taking these to a party.