Purple Zone Good Eats:  Each week there’s lots of great food at THE PURPLE ZONE, Ridgeview’s tailgate section during Friday night football.  The best way to get in on these dishes is to load up a plate yourself and watch The Wolfpack dominate the gridiron.  If you missed it though, here are the recipes that are voted the best by our refined Ridgeview palates: 

Derek Fugitt’s S’mores Bars!

Ingredients:

Graham Cracker Layer:
2 cups of graham cracker crumbs (About 10 cracker sheets) I use Honeymaid
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg white

Chocolate layer:
1 1/2 cups melted milk chocolate chips

Marshmallow layer:
3/4 cup marshmallow creme
about half a bag of mini marshmallows

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350°.  Line a 9×9 baking pan with a foil sling and spray generously with cooking spray.  You must not skip this step or you will never get your bars out of your pan.

Crush graham crackers into fine crumbs using a food processor.  Place them in a large bowl.  Add the sugar, melted butter, and egg white and mix together until well combined.  Press into the bottom of your prepared pan.  Bake for 10 minutes and remove from the oven and cool completely.

When graham cracker layer is cool, melt your chocolate chips either in the microwave (30 seconds at a time, stirring in between, careful not to burn) or in a double broiler.  Once chocolate is melted, mix well, and spread over the top of the graham cracker layer.  Place pan in the refrigerator, and cool completely until the chocolate has hardened.

Once chocolate has hardened, turn your oven up to the broiler setting and put your oven rack in the highest position.  Spread a thin layer of marshmallow creme over the top of the chocolate.  This is the “glue” that will hold your marshmallows in place.  Then neatly and evenly place the marshmallows as close together as possible over the entire pan leaving as few gaps as possible.  This part takes patience if you want them to look pretty. (Or you can do what I did and just dump the marshmallows on top 😊)

Place the pan under the broiler on the top rack and leave the oven door cracked open and watch the marshmallows toast.  This will take under a minute.  Watch the whole time and remove as soon as the tops are golden.

Put the pan back into the fridge until completely cool and then slice and serve.  This recipe can easily be doubled and put into a 9×13 inch pan.

Enjoy!