Magic Cookie Bars

After posting homemade sweetened condensed milk, I figured I ought to add the recipe that inspired it in the first place!  So here is one of my husband's all time favorite desserts, and fortunately it's one of my favorites too! 

Magic Cookie Bars
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
2 TBLS sugar
1-1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (pecans are my favorite-though my husband doesn't like nuts, so half of the batch has nuts and half doesn't)
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
1 can sweetened condensed milk (or 3/4 -1 cup of homemade sweetened condensed milk)

In 9x13 pan melt butter.  Add cracker crumbs and sugar-stirring together with a fork and then pressing down for your crust.  Top crust evenly with chocolate chips, nuts, & coconut.  Pour milk evenly on top.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. 

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk

I wanted to make one of my husband's favorite treats-"Magic Cookie Bars", but as usual did not have one of the key ingredients-Sweetened Condensed Milk.  I am just too cheap to keep that on hand especially since it is not a need, but always a desire for a yummier desire that isn't good for the waistline.
I went searching-I figure if it is sold at a store, it had to be made from scratch at some point.  What I didn't know is that it would be so incredibly simple and very delicious!  I will never buy the can again!

Homemade Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/4 cup boiling water
3 TBLS butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup powdered milk

Using an electric mixer or a small blender (I use my magic bullet), blend together water, sugar, butter, and vanilla.  Add powdered milk and blend until thickish.  If there are leftovers, they are good in the fridge for at least 2 weeks (I won't admit how long I had the leftovers and then made chocolate sauce with them-oh man that was yummy too!).

Homemade Spaghettios

Yup, that's what I mean-homemade spaghettios-those nasty fake pasta things in a can that are actually quite gross.  My kids LOVE them and I don't buy them anymore.  I only ever bought them a few times on sale or they had them at their Grandmas house with other cousins that loved them.  So it was my sons night to help me make dinner.  He wanted to make spaghettios-so I went on a search for a recipe.  I found several and liked 2 recipes-things from both.  So I came up with my own and. . . it was delicious!  I not only had seconds, but third helpings (we must realize that my first helping was very small in anticipation that I wouldn't care for this meal).  We also didn't use little round "o"  pasta, but instead found this alphabet letters pasta at Winco-likely intended for soups because it is very small in size, but it worked out great actually, I mean how can you go wrong with a meal made for kids and alphabet letters?

Homemade Spaghettios
15 oz can tomato sauce
1/2 can of water (using the tomato sauce can-rinsing out all the tomato while adding the water)
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder (or 2 minced garlic cloves)
1/4 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder (or red pepper flakes)
2 tsp oregano
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4-1/2 tsp pepper
1 TBLS butter
1 can V-8 (totally optional-just to add more nutrition and good flavor-I only did this when I re-heated the leftovers and it was delicious)
1-2 cups cheese (whatever kinds you want to use-I used about 1/4 cup parmesaen (the real kind that you actually grate, you could use the other kind, but it will be grainy), and 1 1/2 cups mozzerella because I had some I needed to use) 
1-1 1/2 cups dry pasta (cook while making the sauce)

Mix all the ingredients except cheese and pasta together.  If you don't have all the ingredients, you are probably fine-it will likely taste better than the canned stuff no matter what.  The sauce should taste strong to you because once you add the pasta it will tone down the flavor quite a bit.
While sauce is heating up, cook dry pasta according to package directions.  Bring tomato mixture to a simmer and then slowly add cheese.  Add cooked pasta until desired amount (we like a lot of pasta-so if you want it more saucy, probably stick with 1 cup of pasta).  Serve and enjoy!