Chewiest Granola Bars

After finding this recipe on Pinterest (follow me!), I will never buy the bars in the store again. These were far too easy to make, and taste better and fresher than anything in the store. Plus, I know what's in these, and it's not glycerin, artificial flavors and preservatives. It's all stuff I happily store in my pantry. Hubby, kiddo and I all love them! I'll be making these weekly.

Chewiest Granola Bars

1/4 cup butter
3 Tbsp honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups quick cooking oats
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mini chocolate chips

Melt butter, honey and brown sugar together over medium heat until it boiling. Reduce heat and cook 2 minutes. Add vanilla and stir.

While melting, stir oats and rice cereal together in a large bowl.

Add liquid to dry ingredients and mix well to moisten.

Pour into small non-stick jelly roll pan (about 12x8x1) and press out to be about 3/4 inch in thickness. If you don't have a small enough pan, mold the mixture to one side, pressing at all angles to ensure compaction.

Press in mini chocolate chips.

Cool on a countertop at room temperature for two hours or until the chocolate chips are set before cutting into bars.

Wrap in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

Adapted from this recipe.

Pizza Crust

Good pizza crust takes time, but it's worth it. My favorite recipe comes from Deborah Madison's, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. Homemade pizza crust might sound intimidating, but it's actually quite simple.

Ingredients

Dough

• 1 1/2 c warm water
• 2 tsp active dry yeast
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp salt **
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 3 c all purpose white flour
• 1/4 c (or so) of cornmeal to dust your pan (can also use flour)

**If I add salt it's only a pinch -- otherwise, I completely omit salt or add other seasonings like rosemary and garlic powder or some Mrs. Dash table seasoning.

First things first, prime your yeast. In a large bowl, combine a 1/2 c warm water with the yeast. Let sit until frothy (about 10 minutes).

Add the remaining water, oil and salt/seasoning. Incorporate the wheat flour followed by enough white flour to form a shaggy dough.  Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface and begin kneading until smooth, adding more flour as needed to prevent sticking. If you want a crisper crust, allow the dough to stay a little tacky.

Oil a clean bowl. Place the dough in the bowl and turn once to coat. Cover the bowl with a towel and set aside until the dough has doubled in size (40-60 minutes). When the dough has risen, you can divide it into two pieces for two 12 inch pizzas or four pieces for 10 inch pizzas. After you've divided the dough, shape each piece into a ball and allow to rest for an additional 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

When the dough is ready, you can either shape it with your hands or a rolling pin. I'm not very sufficient with my hands so I use a rolling pin. I cook my pizza on a round metal pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray then dusted with cornmeal. Transfer the rolled out dough to your pan and let it rest for 5-10 minutes. Add desired toppings. Bake for about 10 minutes or until crust looks lightly browned.

Enjoy!

 

Ooey, Gooey, Rich Marshmallow Brownies

Story is, hubby never asks for sweets. He doesn't..."like"...sweets. What is that? So tonight, when he asked for brownies, and I didn't have a mix on hand, I had to find a recipe fast. This rare occasion that he wants a sweet (and thereby, I get a sweet, guilt-free, instead of eating a scoop of ice cream alone in a corner like I'm on some sugar binge), well, it couldn't go unfulfilled.

I found this recipe on my Pinterest for Marshmallow Brownies (source). It's a quick and easy recipe that turned out ooey, gooey, super rich. Delicious. And hubby? He had two. 

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 9 oz. bittersweet chocolate
• ½ cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp. salt
• mini chocolate chips
• mini marshmallows

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Grease a 9x9 baking pan.
Combine the butter and chocolate and melt them in a bowl in the microwave at 50% power.
Stir in the sugar, eggs and vanilla until incorporated.
Stir in the flour and salt until just combined.
Pour batter in the pan and layer marshmallows on top.
Bake for 20-25 minutes. 

Picture wall: hang it in less than an hour!

I wanted a fun, new arrangement for pictures at the house, and found lots of inspiration on Pinterest (follow me!).I found what would be the perfect arrangement behind the couch, displaying all of the pictures of our family our kid. (Definitely made me realize I need more photos of the husband and myself...)

I set up my arrangement on the floor, took a photo so I would remember the arrangement...then piled all the pictures by the end table for about a month. I just didn't know HOW to do it! And do it right! And make it straight! And not put a dozen extra holes in the wall!

But recently, while the husband was destroying our basement (that's another post altogether), I decided I was going to be handy as well. I laid my pictures out again, and picked up some tools including:

Hammer
Painter's tape
Tape measure
Pencil
Nails
Ruler
Small and large level



And got to work. I marked 60" from the floor, since that's about standard for where you want the center of the picture to hang for eye-level. I held a picture up, centered on the 60" mark, and marked the bottom edge of that frame. That's about where I wanted the bottom line. From there, I ran painter's tape level along that line.

I also measured the length of the entire picture span, including 2" gaps between each picture. I centered that behind the couch, and marked my end points. This is where the line of frames would begin, and end.

Start hanging! I always hated hanging pictures because I always found it so hard to mark the spot where the nail should go, and actually get it right. And if there are TWO hangers?? Come on! But I found this little trick on Pinterest and it changed my world:

I'm sorry I don't have in-action pics, it was just me hanging these!

I placed the frame facedown, held painters tape sticky side out against the back, where the hanger is. I used a nail to poke a hole exactly where the hanger is in the tape.

Carefully holding the tape in place with the frame, I held the frame up, level against the bottom line, and pressed the tape to the wall. It wasn't always pretty, but it did the trick. I nailed through the tape in the place I marked, peeled the tape, and hung my frame. Perfect!

Making progress! 

I marked a 2"gap, did it again, and hung the next one. Took me about an hour start to finish with seven frames. Check it out!

Banana Bread (aka Thank you, Facebook!)

I recently posed a question to my Facebook friends: How the heck do you get banana bread out of the pan without falling apart? I felt like I'd tried everything, but I still lost half of the bread to crumbs. What was I doing wrong?

I got lots of answers, the pan material, pan shape, recipe, lining of the pan or coating, etc. This week, I decided to try them all.

And guess what? It worked. Yes, the angels sang and the heavens shined upon me as this beautiful banana bread loaf slid out of the pan. Glory be.

To recap, I had been using:

•  an old Food Network Magazine recipe
• a glass pan with round corners
• butter
• waiting either really long, or really short to remove from the pan

 When I tried it this time, I used:

• Alton Brown's banana bread recipe (below)
• a metal, non-stick pan with straight sides and crisp corners
• PAM with flour
• wait exactly 10 minutes

It was just amazing, after so many wasted loafs and frustrating baking times, it worked! I'd made a beautiful bread, that didn't sink, that didn't crumble and that tasted fabulous. I was so pleased. I'll be using this recipe from here on out, for sure!

Banana Bread (Alton Brown for Food Network)

1 cup granulated sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 large eggs
3 ripe bananas
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Coat a 9 x 5 x 3 inch loaf pan with PAM and flour.

Cream the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

In a small bowl, mash the bananas with a fork. Mix in the milk and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add the banana mixture to the creamed mixture and stir until combined. Add dry ingredients, mixing just until flour disappears.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool on a rack for 15 minutes. Remove bread from pan, invert onto rack and cool completely before slicing.

Washi Tape

First, you might be wondering "what exactly is washi tape?" Washi tape originated in Japan. Washi is actually a type of paper that is made using fibers from the bark of the gampi tree. The tape reminds me of a combination of masking and painters tape. It comes in fantastic colors and designs and is easily removable.

Our apartment has some less than attractive features. Today we're highlighting the light switch covers. They're old and ugly. That about sums it up. I'm going to use washi tape to add some pizzazz.

Here is what we are working with:

Use the side of the plate or any markings on the plate to line up your tape.

 When you get to a corner, cut the the corners of the tape with a scissors (above) so it can fold over neatly as shown below:

You'll be taping right over the switch openings. Very carefully, cut an "X" in the opening to create four flaps that you can fold inwards.

Mount your plate and enjoy!

(Of course this pattern has cats on it... did you expect anything different?)

Smores Mini-Cups

These just turned out so cute! I love all things chocolate-graham cracker-marshmallow. The ooey gooey fire-roasted sweetness is certainly the key to my heart. And mini-sized means I can eat more than one! These are great for parties, too, I brought them to work recently.

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 package of graham crackers (just one of the "sleeves" in a box)
1/3 cup powdered sugar (optional)
Milk chocolate chips
1 package of mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Crush graham crackers. I either put them in a plastic zipper bag and run a rolling pin over them, or toss them in the magic bullet and let it do its...err...magic. Both work well to get the fine pieces that you need, one just requires more work.
Mix graham crackers with melted butter and powdered sugar. I leave this optional because I keep on scaling back the sugar, but don't really think it's necessary unless you really like the sweet flavor. Try it with your first batch, but know it works well without.
Press into cups of a mini muffin pan. No liners, no grease, just smoosh that in there. Be sure to leave the shape of the cup, this involves a lot of cute little mini muffin cup work.
Bake 4-5 minutes, just long enough to toughen those babies up, they might look like the butter in them is bubbling.
As soon as they are out of the oven, sprinkle your preferred combination of chips and marshmallows into each cup. I like to mix them up, you could layer chips, then marshmallows, then chips. I just like to make sure there's a little marshmallow and a little chip on top.
Put back in the oven on the top rack for another minute or so, just long enough to melt some chocolate and brown the top of the marshmallows.
These are fabulous warm, but good anytime! Enjoy!