Money Saving Monday: Toffee Bars

One great and simple way to save money is to make homemade gifts for your friends and neighbors. This recipe is super simple and sooo inexpensive. I love it because it's so simple you can probably make it with ingredients that are in your pantry. This is the first time I've made this recipe, but I've heard about it for years and how wonderful it is...but the whole "using saltines to make Christmas cookies" wierded me out. But really, truly this recipe is going to the very top of my list of faves. I also made over 60 bars in less than 45 minutes which is also really great. Baking isn't one of my favorite activities so if you'll notice none of my Christmas goodies involve much baking at all!

I made three pans of these: one with chopped walnuts, one with chopped pistacios, and one without nuts. They're all good. I'm pretty sure I've tightened my jeans this week with the sampling of my baked goods.

Toffee Bars

40 saltine crackers

1 cup butter (REAL butter only here folks)

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups chocolate chips

1/2 cups chopped nuts of your choice (optional)

Line a jelly roll pan with foil or parchment paper. Place the saltines on the sheet, covering the bottom of the pan. In a small saucepan bring the butter & brown sugar to a boil, stirring occasionally for three minutes. Pour the butter mixture over the crackers and bake at 350 for five minutes. (The caramel will be bubbling and the saltines will be floating). Remove from the oven and sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top and spread them as they melt. Then sprinkle the nuts over the top of the chocolate. Cut into bars with a pizza cutter before they cool.

I always have a hard time getting melted chocolate chips to harden so I just cut the bars and stuck the whole pan in the freezer and it hardened right up.

Enjoy! (Or don't. Maybe it would be better if you just passed these right out to your unsuspecting neighbors and never tried them yourself. You'd probably save yourself a couple pounds off of your New Year's Resolution.)