Chanukah gelt always seems like a good idea at the beginning of December, but these days, the chocolate just doesn’t seem worth fighting with the foil to eat. Similar to Rhea Yablon Kennedy’s experience, we wanted to find another way to use up our leftovers. When my roomies came back from a trip to Ohio they were inspired to make Buckeyes – the unofficial candy of the state of Ohio. Buckeyes are a tree nut and the candies do resemble the naturally occurring buckeye. Rachel, who hails from Cincinnati, referenced the Isaac M. Wise Temple Sisterhood cookbook for recipes. Not 1, but 2 recipes can be found (pages 113 and 114 for those of you who have the 2001 edition of the cookbook). The Hazon office sure enjoyed these tasty treats…Buckeyes are basically peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate.

2 cups of peanut butter (chunky or smooth)

1/4 lbs. butter

2 cups confectioners’ sugar

dash salt

1 tsp. vanilla extract

12 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips/chanukah gelt

1 tsp. vegetable oil

In a large bowl, cream together peanut butter, butter, sugar, salt and vanilla. Place bowl in refrigerator for 1 hour or until easy to handle. Form marble-size balls, place on waxed paper covered cookie sheet and refrigerate for 2 hours or until firm. In a double boiler, melt chocolate and oil together, stirring until well combined. Dip chilled balls into chocolate mixture to almost cover, immediately return to cookie sheet.If chocolate is leftover, check out what you have in your pantry. We found shredded coconut and almonds and made what we were calling bird’s nests by throwing those ingredients into the melted chocolate and spooning them out onto the cookie sheet. However you enjoy it, this is a great way to reuse and recycle leftover chocolate. Now, anybody got any good ideas for the foil?

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