M&Ms Archives - Over The Top Mommy

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Finding Dory Snack Mix With M&M’s®

June 8, 2016 / Food, Let's Eat!

I love to make fun snacks. It’s even more “fun” if they’re something I can quickly throw together that tastes good and doesn’t make too much of a mess. Also, snacks with M&M’s® earn bonus points in my book! With Disney-Pixar’s “Finding Dory” in the front of my mind (since it’s about to be released) I made a batch of this “Finding Dory Snack Mix” the other day. Before we go any further though, have you watched the trailer yet?

When I was at the store the other day, a box of M&M’s® landed in my shopping basket, which isn’t a rare occurrence, considering they’re like one of my favorite candies. Then, I came across these adorable “Finding Dory” sprinkles. How could I not do something with these? So, I bought them both! Once I was home, I almost immediately opened the box of M&M’s® and starting to separate out the “Dorys” and the “Nemos”. You know all the blue and orange ones? (Do you ever do that?) I actually ended up sorting all of the candies and finally made a big heart!

Since my mind is pretty much always snack-focused, I popped a couple bags of popcorn in the microwave and separated out any un-popped kernels.In my cupboard I found some pretzels and some cute yellow, green, and blue sprinkles. In my opinion, sprinkles are magical! Finally, I grabbed a large bowl and started to combine the ingredients. First the popcorn and the pretzels, followed by the M&M’s®. Then the sprinkles. I saved the little “Finding Dory” candies for last so they’d land right on top! I love how cute the snack mix turned out! I love how the popcorn, pretzels and M&M’s® taste together. It’s the perfect combination of salty and sweet. For some reason, I always have cute little snack boxes in my stash, so I had to serve them in a coordinating box! I’m hoping they’ll help me to speak “Whale”! Yep, it’s all about “Finding Dory”!

Do you have a “go-to” snack that you make with M&M’s®? If so, share it with me!

This is not a sponsored post. I just love M&M’s®! All opinions are 100% my own!

Heart-Shaped Hand Pies Filled with Chocolate and M&M’s® Strawberry

February 1, 2016 / Food, Recipes

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SendSweetness #CollectiveBias

Valentine’s Day is my most favorite holiday of the year! Forget the roses, I get most excited about all of the sentimental things like giving Valentine cards! Also, I don’t know about you but I can never get enough of Valentine treats! This year, I found these M&M’s® Strawberry at Walmart, just in time for the Valentine season! They’re light pink, hot pink, and red! I love M&M’s® and get a little giddy whenever I get to try new flavors. I like to go all out on Valentine’s Day and what most excites me most about the day is getting to celebrate love and friendship with not only my family, but also with my students and coworkers at work! For our Valentine’s Day celebration at work, I try to bring something special for close friends who may not have “a special Valentine” at home to shower them with surprises. It’s nice to let them know that someone is thinking of them on a day that’s so heavily focused on love and friendship. There’s one particular friend at work that I wanted to buy something extra special for because she lives alone and has no one who buys gifts or cards for her anymore. So, I got her a DOVE® Milk Chocolate Truffle heart tin. On the Valentine’s aisle, I also found some American Greetings® Valentine’s cards that will be perfect to give to some of my other coworkers.I love to create fun recipes for holidays and I decided to bake some heart-shaped Valentine hand pies, filled with chocolate and M&M’s® Strawberry! Just wait until you taste this M&M’s® flavor! They are delicious!I’m obsessed with anything cute and small that you can easily grab to snack on, so I was excited to make hand pies for Valentine’s Day treats to “hand out” out to others. I had to make a batch to test out for myself first though. They were so delicious and pair well with coffee or milk! They were also so simple to make and another “plus” about hand pies is there are no utensils required! I can’t wait to bring them along to work with me for our Valentine’s celebration, along with my other goodies! My co-workers are sure lucky to have me, don’t you think?

Follow this recipe to make a batch of your own: These are the ingredients and supplies you’ll need:

1 box of store-bought pie crust (they usually come 2 in a box)
1 jar of chocolate spread of your choice
1 bag of M&M’s® Strawberry
1 egg (just the egg white)
flour (to spread out on the cutting board or countertop)
1 lollipop stick
parchment paper (for baking)

Instructions for preparing the hand pies:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.
Lightly flour the bread board or countertop where you’ll be working. Next, roll out the pie crust.
Use a heart cookie cutter to cut out two hearts for each hand pie that you’re making.
Cover your baking sheet with parchment paper and set the bottom heart pie piece on the baking sheet. Leave ample space between each one.
Spoon a small amount of the chocolate spread into the center of each heart. Don’t use too much because it will squeeze and leak out when you bake them.
Place 2 or 3 M&M’s® strawberry candies on top of the chocolate spread inside of the pie.
Place the top piece of heart-shaped pie crust dough on top and gently push edges together with your fingers.
Use the end of a lollipop stick (or something similar) to seal the edges. Use the stick to push in all around the heart.
Brush the top of each pie very lightly with egg whites.
Place into oven and bake for 9-12 minutes. I suggest keeping a close eye on them so they don’t burn.
When they look golden brown, remove them from the oven and place on a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

How do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? Do you celebrate with your friends and/or coworkers, as well as your own family? Hopefully your Valentine’s celebration this year will include M&M’s® Strawberry, too!

Right now, you can save $1.00 on ANY TWO (2) M&M’s(R) Brand Chocolate Candies, 8oz or larger. Click here to grab the coupon.

M&M’s® Crispy Are Back! Best Comeback EVER!

February 23, 2015 / Food, Let's Eat!

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #CrispyIsBack #CollectiveBias

Let’s talk about one of my favorite subjects…M&M’s®! I’m probably one of the biggest fans of these delicious chocolate candies! I love all things M&M’s® and always hurry to try any and all of the new flavors that come out. They are my favorite go-to snack, a movie theater necessity (as a mix-in for my popcorn, of course) and something I love to incorporate into any special occasion and holiday!

It was such exciting news to hear that M&M’s® Crispy were coming back! I have no idea how I missed M&M’s® Crispy the first time when they were around in the 90’s though? Did you try them when they were last available? Watch this adorable M&M’s® “Fans” Commercial sharing the big announcement!

As soon as started seeing the tweets and articles about them and after I watched this, I headed straight over to Walmart to grab my very own stash of M&M’s® Crispy! I may have missed them in the 90s but I was determined not to let that happen again!

I found the bright green “Share Size” bags in the checkout aisles! They’re perfect for sharing with a friend or someone fun in your life! M&M’s® Crispy contain only 180 calories per serving. They are also available in a big bag in the candy/baking aisle. Whatever the case, I stocked up on a bunch of the share-size bags, just in case they ran out. I’m sure once the word gets out to everyone, they’re going to be flying off the shelves!

M&M’s® are something I grew up loving as a child. Now that I’m a mom, there’s an even greater significance behind them. My daughter’s name is “Emily” and early on, we started calling her “M & M” for short. At age 3, she even made a connection between her nickname and the candies and it just sort of stuck. She, too, has grown up loving M&M’s® just as much as I do. Our love for M&M’s® runs deep. I can’t think of a more perfect person to share my new M&M’s® Crispy with! Since we try to set aside some quiet time after school each day to read, I think the next time we do so, I’ll break out one of my share-size bags to share with her while we read.

Of course, with the delicious crunch inside each one, I’m not sure how “quiet” our reading time will actually be, but I’m OK with that! (and I’m sure she will be too).

I also plan on stashing a few bags in my purse to take to my classroom. Sometimes I need a pick-me-up right around 1 o’clock in the afternoon, which happens to be my last hour of teaching each day. It’s going to be a little tricky to eat them during class time without my students hearing the crunch. Oh well, I’ll figure out a way.

Have YOU gotten a chance to try M&M’s® Crispy yet? If not, guess what I’m going to tell you to go do…like right now? You guessed it! (Go grab some of your own!)

See more great M&M’s® Crispy recipe and party ideas on the M&M’s® Crispy social hub where you can also download a coupon to save on your M&M’s® purchase.

Happy 100th Birthday, Morton Salt Girl! #MortonSaltGirl100

September 29, 2014 / Celebrations, Food, Parties, Product Reviews

Disclosure: I received a free party pack of products from MomSelect and Morton to host a MommyParty! No monetary compensation was received. All opinions are 100% my own. I grew up with Morton Salt in our house. My mom used it for cooking and baking and the Morton Salt Girl was just an American Icon that I always recognized. Now that I’m a mom, I love sharing things from my childhood with my own daughter. Everytime we bake or make a recipe for a meal, we use Morton Salt. She even knows which salt to grab when we’re at the store doing grocery shopping. She’ll even say “the salt with the girl on it”, reach for the Morton Salt, and toss it into our shopping cart.

Did you know that the Morton Salt Girl turned 100 this year? Yep, she first appeared on the Morton’s Salt package back in 1914. (The company actually established itself in Chicago in 1848.) She sure does look good for being 100 years old, don’t you think?

When I was presented with an opportunity to throw a “Morton Salt Girl 100th Birthday” Celebration MommyParty, I was excited! I’m always up for a party and celebrating something like that is so much fun. My own daughter also gets really into it. She loves a fun theme. So, I decided to invite over a couple of my girlfriends for a casual girls’ night one weekend. One of them brought her daughter over to hang out with mine. I let my daughter plan some fun activities to do at the party with her friend. While we relaxed on the patio with some drinks and appetizers, the little girls had some birthday celebration fun of their own.

I set out some special snacks for the girls to munch on, which included these adorable, personalized M&Ms and some (salted) popcorn. The little girls ended up combining the 2 to make one of my most favorite mixes…popcorn and M&Ms! It’s like my movie theater go-to! They brought us each our own little bowl to enjoy.

The girls loved drawing and painting that night and were even drawing the Morton Salt Girl. Although I grabbed a snapshot of this “works in progress”, she didn’t want me to post pictures of the finished products because she didn’t like how it turned out. Honestly, it was adorable!

They used the die cuts included in my Morton Salt party kit as game pieces and played quite a few games of “Morton Salt Girl Tic Tac Toe” outside in the front yard, on their big, giant pillows. I love their creativity!

Later on, the girls informed us that they had plans to dress up like the Morton Salt Girl and wanted me to take their pictures. It was their Morton Salt Girl Photo Booth. Looking at these pictures makes me giggle because both of the girls have pretty long hair and they worked really hard to make it look short, just like the picture of the Morton Salt Girl. Their favorite part about the photo booth setup was getting to use the special Morton Salt Umbrella! What do you think? I’d say they “Nailed it!”, wouldn’t you?

We had such a fun time getting together for a little “girl time” and watching our girls be creative while we “big girls” caught up with each others’ hectic lives. Happy 100th Birthday, Morton Salt Girl! I only hope I look as good as you do when I’M 100!

To learn more about Morton and The Morton Salt girl, click here.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

March 2, 2014 / Celebrations

I have always loved to read. I even used to carry a book around with me everywhere I went, when I was a kid. I’m fortunate enough to teach 1st grade and have the opportunity to read so many fun books as read alouds, on a daily basis. One of my favorite authors to read is Dr. Seuss! His books are filled with so many fun adventures. His eclectic illustrations also allow your imagination take over. when you’re reading his stories. My 1st grade students love when I read one of his books, like “The Cat in the Hat” or “Green Eggs and Ham” because of the repetition and the rhyming
We are big readers in our home and absolutely LOVE Dr. Seuss books! We also love having an occasion to tie in food with! So, in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday, we decided to make a special snack to munch on while reading some favorite books by Dr. Seuss! Emi isn’t a big fan of scrambled eggs or even of ham, so we put a twist on “Green Eggs and Ham” and made “Green Eggs and Popcorn!” It’s so easy to make and hard to resist grabbing handful after handful! We use this basic recipe and adapt it for any occasion and/or holiday. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
*1 bag of Wilton white candy melts
*2 bags of microwave popcorn
*green sprinkles
*green M&Ms
*vegetable oil
Directions to make “green eggs”
1)Place a piece of parchment paper on the counter
2)Get a small bowl of green M&Ms ready
3)Pour half a bag of white candy melts into a bowl, microwave 30 seconds, remove, stir and place back in for 25 seconds. Remove the bowl from the microwave again, stirring and add a little bit of vegetable oil and stir again. Allow them to sit and cool for about a minute.
4)Using a teaspoon, make piles of the candy melts on the parchment paper and place one green M&M in the center of each one. Allow to dry.
Directions for popcorn
1)Microwave popcorn according to directions on the bag. After bag is popped and cooled, pour popcorn into a big bowl, separating unpopped kernels and throwing them into the trash.
2)Prepare other half of the bag of white candy melts.
3)Pour melted candy melts into bowl of popcorn and mix together with spoons or your hands.
4)Shake in some green sprinkles.
5)Place “green eggs” in bowl with the popcorn and eat!