Granola Bars

I once made the most killer granola bars, ever. 

We had a granola bar addiction in our apartment all year.

Always on a quest to make the best kind. Because, well the store kind are packed with weird ingredients and half them contain nuts. No can do for me.


Last night I tried to make granola bars half as good as the ones I made last semester, that I clearly didn't write down how I made them.


Chocolate Chip-Craisin Granola Bars

Ingredients:
2 cups rolled oats
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon whole wheat pastry flour (or 1 cup regular flour)
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup craisins
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon 
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup yogurt (I used honey-Greek yogurt)
1 cup pumpkin
2 teaspoons vanilla


Directions:
 1. Preheat the oven to 350 and line a 9x13 pan with parchment paper.
2. Mix oats through cinnamon together.
3. Add the beaten egg, yogurt, pumpkin and vanilla. Mix until combined.
4. Spread in pan and bake 15-20 minutes (or 20-25 if you prefer crispy bars)

Coconut White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I stumbled across these from Two Peas and Their Pod and knew I just had to make them. 

Well quite frankly anything with coconut has to be made.

Saturday it was gloomy and rainy, what better to do than make cookies.

And today  I am going to melt as I bask by the pool in the record high heat.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
3.4 oz. package Coconut Creme instant pudding mix
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
2 cups white chocolate chips

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 and line pan with parchment paper.
2.Beat together eggs and sugars until creamy
3.Add the pudding, eggs and vanilla, mix until combined.
4. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda and salt together.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the  wet and mix until combined.
6. Add the coconut and white chocolate chips.
7.Drop rounded tablespoons onto the baking sheets and bake for 9-11 minutes, or until sides are slightly golden.
8. Cool completely on a cooling rack after sitting for 2 minutes on the baking sheet.

They are perfectly studded with coconut and white chocolate chips in every bite. Yum.

Muffin Monday

Banana Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins
adapted from "Canalfront Cuisine" aka Bryan's pre-school cook book

makes 22

Ingredients:

3 Mashed Bananas

 1 cup sugar
1/2 cup margarine, melted and cooled
1/4 cup milk (any kind will do, I used 2%)
2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup oats
1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a muffin tray or spray with nonstick spray.

2. Melt butter and cool

3. Beat mashed bananas, sugar, margarine (melted and cooled), milk and eggs until combined.

4. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Beat until combined.

5. Stir in oats and chocolate.

6. Fill muffin tin and baked for 20-22 minutes.

 

A Break From Food

On temporarily. Naturally I cannot break from the kitchen for long. But, I do have an odd obsession with crafting. Crafting and cooking is all I need to be happy. Clearly it's the simple things in life.

I came across this back in March during school and fell in love. It was the first project I wanted to tackle upon returning home for the summer.

How cool is that?? (The middle part is a mirror if you can't quite make it out)

So the other night after dinner with Tess and my mother, we needed something to do. What better than to make the Starburst mirror? So, Tess, me and my giant fat lip (allergic reaction to..who knows, with me the possibilities are endless) were off to Joann's, Target and the Dollar Store (after calling and asking if they had silverware, then buying a 14 packages of silverware)

First stop was Target for a plate, then JoAnn's for a mirror, which they didn't have so we decided to improvise and buy different sizes and shapes of little mirrors and make a mosaic, and instead of beads we picked up some colored rocks instead then headed to the Dollar Store for the silverware.

It's kind of a tedious task, definitely helps with two people. I'm not crazy about the lengths of all the spoons, some got glued in a bit too far but it's okay I think it still looks good. I can't wait to hang it up in our apartment! Wee!!


The instructions can be found here


Also, mom if you're reading this, which I know you are, I want need these :) :)

Pretzels

Every holiday my mother sets up shop in the dining room and whips up several pairs of puffy painted socks to send out all over the state of New York and to Nebraska. Along with these socks that we all wait ever so patiently for we also receive pretzels. These started as an addiction for all of us a few years ago when neighbor brought them over as part of our Christmas gift. We were hooked from the sweet and salty bite they provide.

They couldn't be more simple to make. And are highly addictive.

Pretzels

makes 24

Ingredients:

24 square pretzels

24 Hugs, unwrapped

24 m&m's

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 200.

2. Unwrap Hugs.

3. Lay out pretzels on baking sheet and each with a hug. 

4. Bake for 6 minutes.

5. Immediately place an m&m on top of each hug.

6. Let cool and enjoy!

Kiss Cookies

If I could live off cookies, it would be these. Not only because they are delicious, but because of all the memories attached to these little guys. The recipe was given to my mom from a family friend and since what feels like forever, kiss cookies have always been served on the Christmas cookie tray. That adds to the specialty of these, they only come out at Christmas. Except for the special occasion here and there. Like 2 years ago (I can't believe it's already been 2 years!) when I had the honor of being in Cousin's wedding and we had her bridal shower at our house, obviously kiss cookies were served, because kiss cookies are our cookies. I couldn't tell you how or why they became "our" cookies, but they are, making them more special than any other Christmas cookie that's put out.

Even though Cousin (she really does have a real name, but cousin is here real name to me, so cousin she will be) lives 6 hours away from me and is 6 years older than me, when we're together it doesn't seem we've been apart for as long as we have nor that she has a big kid job and is married and I'm never growing up or leaving college (sorry, mom) we still go about just where we left off.

This weekend we're having an Engagement party for another cousin and as my mom and I were deciding menus and what would be made, it only seemed fitting that kiss cookies were served along side the cake.

The most tedious task of the cookies is 1. waiting patiently for the dough to harden, the kisses to freeze and 2. unwrapping all the dang kisses!

Kiss Cookies (aka bon-bon cookies)

makes about 40


Ingredients:
1 cup softened butter
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cup flour

1 bag Hershey's kisses

Directions:
1. Unwrap kisses, set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar.
3. Add vanilla.
4. Slowly add the flour.
5. Form a large ball, wrap in wax paper. Refrigerate 1/2 hour.*
6. Use 1 teaspoon dough with 1 kiss, roll in a ball until kiss is covered by dough.
7. Place balls on cookie sheet and freeze for 20 minutes.
8. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.
9. Dip in frosting when cool. (confectioner's sugar and milk)

*It's okay if your dough looks like this..just mush it together and you'll get a ball!

The final product..

 

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

Let's face it, every blog needs a chocolate chip cookie recipe. At school, it's kind of embarrassing how often we want to make chocolate chip cookies/ how much we actually do make chocolate chip cookies, often just for the dough. Over the next few days there's going to be an influx of recipes and posts (yippee!) because it's going to be a crazy few days with a lot of people and a lot of food circulating through this house.

I have a new job, and that's to make muffins on Sundays for my mother to bring to her meetings Monday morning, so I made these. I have another job, a temporary one, to make cookies for the Engagement shower this weekend, as I was shuffling through cookie recipes I found a million and two for chocolate chip cookies, too boring though. But, one had sour cream, something we don't usually have in the house and my muffins from Sunday had sour cream in them too. That being said, I put two and two together thinking I should really use up the sour cream before it goes bad. Really, I just needed an excuse to bake. And maybe procrastinate in choosing the cookies I'm going to make for the weekend.

Best Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

from Let's Dish
makes about 45 cookies (using a melon baller)

I halved the recipe (on her site is the full recipe)

Ingredients:

 1 cup butter, softened

1 1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 tablespoon vanilla

2 eggs

1/8 cup sour cream

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 3/4 cup flour

2 cups chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cream the butter and sugars on high speed (she says for 5 minutes, that's just waaaay too long for me to sit with the hand mixture, maybe if I had a Cuisinart, hint hint)
3. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat (she says for 3 minutes, I did it for probably 1 until my arm got tired)
4. Stir in sour cream
5. Add salt, baking soda, baking powder and mix.
6. Blend in flour 1 cup at a time, or you'll have a giant mess on your hands 
7. Stir in chocolate chips.
8. Place on ungreased baking sheet (whatever size you desire, I used a melon baller)
9. bake 9-11 minutes or until just brown around the edges.