S'Mores Granola Bars

Granola bars are my favorite grab and go snack and you really can't get any easier than this recipe. I love the Quaker Chewy S'mores Granola Bars, so I tweaked the recipe to be as s'mores like as possible. I used Kraft mini marshmallows, they taste like the marshmallows in Lucky Charms, or the kind that come in those little packets of hot cocoa, so they were perfect for these bars. The finished product was quite similar to the Quaker bars, but a bit chewier and more chocolaty tasting. Definitely a keeper. 

No bake S'mores Granola Bars

Adapted From laurenslatest.com

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups quick cooking oats {not rolled oats!}
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips, plus more for topping

1/2 cup mini marshmallows, plus more for topping

Mix together Rice Krispies, oats, 1/2 cup marshmallows, and mini chocolate chips (if you want them with less chocolate flavor, leave out the chips till the end). Set aside.

 In a small pot, melt butter, honey, and brown sugar together over medium high heat until it starts to bubble. Reduce heat and cook for another two minutes. Stir in the vanilla. 

Remove from heat and pour over oat/rice mixture. Mix well ensuring that all ingredients are moistened. Line a small jelly roll pan (12x8x1) with aluminum foil.

 Pour mixture into lined pan. Pack it in really tightly or the bars won't set and will fall apart when cooled.  

Sprinkle the top with more chocolate chips and mini marshmallows. Let cool, then cut into bars.

 Have a sweet day! 

Chocolate Honey Walnut Cake

Hello, happy Tuesday! Today I'm sharing a recipe from a cookbook my Aunt sent me for Christmas. It's the first recipe I've ever come across that combines honey and chocolate. Turns out it's a fantastic combo! No sugar is added except for the honey, and the chocolate flavor is rich and dark. I took the intensity a step further, because I believe chocolate cake must have frosting, and added a dark chocolate honey ganache. Then I sprinkled on some walnuts for crunch. Perfect finishing touch in my humble opinion. If you are not a fan of dark chocolate, this cake isn't for you, but if you are.... oh man. It is fabulous!

Here is an excerpt from Mollie Katzen's website that provides some good insight into making a honeycake:

"Baking cakes with honey can be tricky, because it is much heavier and, of course, wetter than sugar, so one has to take extra care that the texture of the finished product be light enough and has "enough crumb." To achieve this, we whip the honey separately at high speed with an electric mixer, until it is opaque. Two minutes is usually enough time. This incorporates air into the honey, increasing its volume, and drying it out some, so it can make a good cake. Please don't skip or skimp on this step"

Point taken, follow the instructions for this one!

Chocolate Honey Walnut Cake

from Mollie Katzen's Recipes "Desserts"

Nonstick spray for the pan

1/2 cup canola oil or softened butter

1 ounce (1 square) unsweetened chocolate

3/4 cup light-colored honey

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°F (325°F for glass pan). Spray a medium-sized loaf pan with nonstick spray.

Melt the butter an chocolate together over low heat. If using oil, melt the chocolate alone, then remove from heat and stir in the oil.

Place the honey in a medium-sized bowl, and beat at high speed with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes or until it reaches an opaque frothy consistency. Add the eggs one a at time, beating well after each. Stir in the vanilla.

Sift together the dry ingredients in to a separate medium size bowl.

Beat the melted chocolate mixture into the honey-egg mixture.

Fold in the dry ingredients, 1/2 cup pecans (set other 1/4 cup aside) and chocolate chips, and stir until well combined.

Spread into the prepared pan.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a knife inserted all the way into the center comes out clean. Cool before glazing and slicing (seriously or else you will have crumble cake).

Chocolate Honey Glaze

Adapted from Nigella Lawson

1/8 cup water

1/4 cup honey

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 cup confectioners' sugar

Mix all ingredients together, pour over cooled cake.

Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup walnuts.

I would love to know your favorite unusual flavor combos, let me know in the comments!

Tasty Tuesday!

Weekend Wrap Up at Tater Tots and Jello

THE Granola to END all Granolas AKA Maple Nut Granola

Halloween is over... candy is on sale.... I may have indulged a bit too much.... How about a healthy(er) recipe today? I love starting my day off with a bowl of granola. I have tried MANY different recipes, all delicious, but the other evening I hit a combination that transformed my granola into an ADDICTING, CANT GET ENOUGH OF IT, ANY time of day snack! I found myself reaching for granola breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and a heck of a lot in between too). I guess that eating it for every meal may cancel out the healthiness, but this granola is so good, I really didn't care. It combines the essential fall flavors of maple and brown sugar with creamy peanut butter. At first, this may seem a strange combination. But let me tell you, it WORKS! I have been eating this granola on fruit, with milk, in yogurt, on my ice cream, but mostly just by the fist full! It is crunchy and clumpy, which for me is an essential for a great granola. Feel free to mix in whatever your heart desires, but I recommend you just try it as is. You may decide, as I did, that this granola is simply perfection!

2 cups rice krispies

2 cups old fashioned oats

1/3 cup peanut butter

1/3 cup maple syrup

4 tablespoons water

1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

3-4 tablespoons honey (depends how sweet you want it)

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together rice crispies and oats.

In a heavy bottom sauce pan, mix together peanut butter, maple syrup, water and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved.

Pour liquid ingredients over oats and krispies, stirring to coat. Empty bowl onto baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Spread granola out into a thick layer. Drizzle with honey and sprinkle with remaining brown sugar. Bake in preheated oven for 8 minutes. Gently flip/stir granola (I use a large rubber spatula and flip it over bit by bit so as not to break up the clumps). Cook for another 6 or 7 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from oven, allow to cool completely. Gently break into bite sized clumps.

*Note: Ok, so looking back at the ingredients I used, I realize that this granola has quite a bit of sweetness. But that's probably a good thing since, thanks to Halloween, my sugar intake has been pretty high. I don't wanna quit the sugar habit cold turkey. So this granola will keep me from going into candy withdrawl :)

Crunch, savor, enjoy.

Magazine/Cookbook Monday: No bake Honey Granola Crunch Bites

Yesterday it was officially too hot to cook… even for me! On Sundays I usually try and bake something that I can take with me to work for breakfast during the week, but that wasn’t happening thanks to the heat. I was browsing through my saved recipe binder (because if you recall, I am trying to make a recipe I have saved from a magazine or cookbook at least once a week), and I came across an old Martha Stewart recipe from Everyday Food magazine. It looked super easy and I had everything on hand except crisp rice cereal (aka Rice Krispys), so I just used crushed up Honey Nut Chex. After mixing everything up and poppin the balls in the fridge for fifteen minutes, I had an easy, high protein take to work snack. I love that they are in little muffin wrappers, which not only makes them look cute, but also makes it easy to eat without getting sticky hands! They firm up really well if you leave them overnight, and are a nice cold treat in the morning. They were a tad sweet for my taste because I didn't use natural peanut butter, I used Jiff Creamy. Next time I will make sure to use natural (unsweetened) peanut butter. For a variation I want to try making them with flax seed mixed in for extra nutrient power… or maybe some oat bran… make them a bit healthier. Maybe cut down on the honey as well. This recipe is definitely a keeper and with a few tweaks may become my new favorite no bake snack!

No Bake Honey Granola Crunch Bites

Adapted from Everyday Food, April 2007

Ingredients

Makes 24

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup natural peanut butter

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 cup Honey Nut Chex (crumbled)

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1/4 cup dried fruit

Directions

In a small saucepan over medium, heat honey, peanut butter, and butter. Stir until loosened and smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat; stir in cereal, oats, and dried fruit. Drop mixture by the tablespoon into mini paper cupcake or candy liners. Place on a rimmed baking sheet, and refrigerate until set, about 15 minutes. To store, refrigerate in an airtight container up to 1 week.

If you made a recipe from a cookbook/magazine/torn out recipe stash feel free to post a link to it or tell me about it in the comments… I love new recipes! Have a wonderful week, stay cool!

Creamy Breakfast Quinoa

Healthy, hearty, delicious, filling.... all words that describe my breakfast today! I am the newest member of the quinoa fan club. I have been hearing a lot about this healthy little grain lately and decided to give it a try myself. It was a good choice! It has a wholesome, nutty flavor and is surprisingly fluffy and creamy with a slight crunch. Easy, too, just add milk and sugar and cook for about 15 minutes! I topped off my bowl with a bit of granola, a handful of blueberries, a chopped nectarine and a drizzle of honey. Wholesome goodness in a bowl! Enjoy!

Creamy Breakfast Quinoa

Ingredients

Makes 2 servings

1 cup quinoa

1 1/2 cups water

~1/2 cup milk (I used plain soy)

2-3 tbsp (to taste) brown sugar

Handful of blueberries

Chopped nectarine

1/4 cup granola

Honey

Place quinoa in a colander and rinse until water runs almost clear (DON'T skip this step, it will have a soapy aftertaste if not well rinsed). Put quinoa in a heavy bottomed sauce pan and cover with 1 1/2 cups water. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium low and simmer, covered for about 15 minutes or until water is absorbed. Remove from heat, let sit covered for 5 minutes, remove cover and fluff with a fork. (This is your basic quinoa, now we start adding!). Add in 1/2 cup milk and brown sugar. Return to heat over medium low, stirring until majority of milk is absorbed (taste at this point to make sure it is sweet enough, if not add more brown sugar or honey). Remove from heat, spoon into bowl. Top with blueberries, nectarine, granola, and honey. Sit back and bask in the glory of a healthy breakfast ☺

Have a wonderful day!

Whisked Away Wednesday: Wildflower Honey Cookies

These are so great! I have been looking for a good recipe to use the honey I bought at a farm stand a few weeks ago. I was planning to make granola, but when I happened upon this recipe in one of the awesome used cookie cookbooks I picked up at the library resale, it looked too delicious not to try! AND I got to utilize my new flour sifter. Sifting the dry ingredients in a cookie recipe produces a lighter cookie and is an important step. If you don't have a sifter you can use a strainer to sift. These cookies turned out soft, sweet, and with a light caramely flavor (thanks to the wildflower honey, I believe). I am sure they would be good with regular honey as well. I switched out some of the raisins for dried cherries and cranberries for a bit of variety.

Wildflower Honey Cookies

Ingredients

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup soft butter

3/4 cup honey (preferably wildflower)

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups raw oats

1 1/2 cup raisins or other dried fruit

Cream together sugar, butter, honey and egg until well blended and smoooth.

Sift together flour, salt, cinnamon and soda and add to the honey mix.

Add oats and raisins.

Drop by generous teaspoonfuls onto parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for about 10 minutes (depending on your oven) until cookies are lightly browned. Cool on a cooling rack.

Have a happy Wednesday!

The Great Granola Experiment

Happy Weekend!! This past weekend, I made granola LOTS of granola! . A while ago I posted about my "Beat the Blues" Granola, and while that granola is delicious, I felt like it was lacking a certain something. Upon further thought, I realized what I wanted was a really, really, clumpy granola. The kind you can buy at the bakery that is broken up into chunks and sooo good to munch as a snack, even without milk or yogurt. I have always had a love of clumps in my cereal. When eating Honey Bunches of Oats, I pick through and eat just the bunches. Raisin Bran Crunch? I search out the crunchies. So, I thought to myself, why not make a granola that is mostly clumps with some small oats thrown in there?

Well, I was at Whole Foods a few days ago browsing the bulk section for dried fruits, when I saw that they have a HUGE selection of bulk granola! And on every bin the ingredients are listed. I was able to look at all different types of granola and asses their relative "clumpiness." What I was looking for is a ratio of about 2/3 clumps to 1/3 "loose" (single pieces of oats, nuts, the non-clumps basically). I was immediatley drawn to the beautiful clumpiness of one of these called Aunt Maple's Crunchy Granola (made by grizzlies granola). I studied the ingredients in hopes of discovering what gives it its special clumpy powers. I noticed that the ingredients included maple syrup, sunflower oil, honey, and crunchy almond butter. Basically a grande mix of sticky stuff. Ah ha! I thought that must be it! LOTS of sticky goo to hold it together. So from there I went about my sticky quest buying up every substance I thought might work as a good "binder". I got maple syrup, sunflower oil, honey, and crunchy peanut butter (I think it has more flavor). I arrived home with my loot and commenced the search for a crunchy lumpy recipe. I found TONS of blogs with posts dedicated to recipe's claiming to produce the clumpiest granola imaginable. How to choose??? I continued my research by looking at ingredient lists for every crunchy looking granola I could find, and let me say, I spent a LOT of time browsing the granola selections at Whole Foods, trader joes, New Seasons, and even at good old Winco which has a pretty clumptastic granola they sell in their bakery. I finally decided to try two blog recipe's which use ingredients that commonly pop up on the crunchiest looking granola labels, and for the third batch I decided to use a combination of all the sticky stuff I had bought and just wing it. Thus, the great granola experiment commenced. My plan was to make all three recipes and decide from the results which reigns supreme as the Most Clumptastic Granola. I did tweak the first two recipe's a bit, and I halved them as I was making THREE batches of granola, so I included the links in case you would like to try out the original recipe's for yourself.

Recipe #1

This recipe comes courtesy of Regina Ray's blog. I chose this recipe due to #1 it's simplicity, #2 the use of peanut butter, honey, and olive oil as "binders" (olive oil seemed unusual, which intrigued me...) and reason #3 She seems to share my desire for a good clumpy granola.

Here is the recipe as I used it:

Batch One

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats

3/4 cup mixed nuts, lightly salted.

The original recipe doesn't specify type of nut, so I used dry roasted sunflower seeds (for the salty part), raw flax seeds, and raw coarsly chopped almonds

1/4 cup honey

3 heaping tablespoons crunchy peanut butter

1 tbsp olive oil

Procedure

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Chop lightly salted nuts into chunks (I would recommend just chopping the almonds while leaving the smaller seeds whole.) On stove, melt peanut butter, honey, and olive oil (little hint, measure out olive oil first and the peanut butter won't stick to the tablespoon). Stir until mixture is thinned and liquidy.

Pour on top of oats and nuts and mix thoroughly to coat.

Layer on baking sheet and bake 10-14 minutes until granola is golden brown. Let cool completely, break into pieces and store in an air-tight container.

Assesment

This was pretty clumpy! The ratio was about 2/3 clumps to 1/3 non clumps (oat and nut pieces not bound together) The clumps break up pretty easily and it is a very crisp granola. As you can see, the recipe does not call for any fruit. I like this because I have found that with drier granolas, baking them with dried fruit produces SUPER dried out fruit that is chewy and lacks flavor. All in all, this is a great, basic, clumpy granola. I like the simplicity of it's ingredients and think that this is one I will use as a "base" recipe. I plan on making it again using a splash of vanilla, almond butter, and adding in dried strawberries after baking.

Recipe #2

This is from a blog called Cake and Commerce. I chose this one because of it's unusual baking technique and because the auther commented that she had tried out 5 different recipes to find a good clump, and this was her winner. The recipe is vague regarding exact amounts and ingredients to use as the author wants to keep her version a secret (which I completely understand!).

Here is her original ingredient list:

Dry Ingredients:

5 parts rolled oats (do not use instant)

1 part seed(s) of your choice (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower etc)

1 part coconut, shredded unsweetened

2 parts nuts of your choice

Pinch of salt

.1 part sweet spice (cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, cardamom etc)

Wet Ingredients

2 parts natural invert sugar (maple, honey, agave etc in combination or alone)

1.5 parts sunflower oil (less if you want to omit fat. Can substitute coconut oil)

1.5 parts water (ONLY if you want clumpy granola)

.5 parts (or less) Vanilla (or other flavoring such as almond, liqueur, juice etc)

Fruit

5 parts (equal to oat by weight) dried fruit of your choosing (including raisins, if desired. If you like a less fruity granola, reduce by half)

Due to the inspecifity of this list, I was free to use the ingredients I thought would produce the tastiest, biggest clumps. Please forgive my measurements as it was a bit difficult to come up with ratios since I was halving the recipe and I am overly perfectionistic. It actually took me a good ten minutes to sit down and figure out, mathematically, how to halve the recipe. I based my measurements on a recipe where 5 parts rolled oats is = to 2 cups rolled oats (I am no math wiz, but I am borderline OCD so I figured it out down to the nearest tablespoon). I figured if I was gonna conduct a scientific experiment, I better be EXACT. In retrospect, I think it would have been just as succesful if I had estimated.

My calculations.... did I mention the OCD? ya....

My Version

(seriously, dont be scared, you really dont have to be this exact, I'm sure you could just round, like I said, I am a suuuper perfectionist, it's annoying)

Ingredients

2 cups rolled oats (dont used instant)

6 1/2 tbsp sunflower and flax seed mixture

6 1/2 tbsp shredded, unsweetened coconut

3/4 cup + 1tbsp almonds (roughly chopped)

pinch salt (you cant calculate a pinch)

1/2 tbsp cinnamon

3/4 cup + 1 tbsp combination of maple syrup and honey

9 1/2 tbsp sunflower oil

9 1/2 tbsp water

2 tbsp Vanilla

1 cup raisins and dried cranberries

Procedure

Preheat oven to 275 F.

Combine dry ingredients.

Warm wet ingredients on stove, stir until liquidy. Add to dry ingredients, stir until mixed.

The next part seemed a little wierd to me but it worked out well.Spread granola out on baking sheet lined with parchment. Place another piece of parchment on top, apply pressure with your hands to granola to press down. Place another baking sheet on top, press down, place heavy casserole pan on top of that and put it in the oven for 15 minutes. Luckily the original author showed a picture of this process. So, I will to :)

After 15 minutes, remove top piece of parchment and baking pan. Allow to bake until golden, about 40-50 minutes (mine got a little over golden as I got sucked into a particularly intense Iron Chef episode). Remove from oven and allow to cool. Break up and store in an airtight container.

This recipe turned out really flavorful. It had a good clumps to loose ratio as well. It was much more labor intensive (due mostly to my extreme calculations) and I let it cook too long so it was a bit burned on the edges and darker than I would've liked. The recipe is much wetter than the previous one which increases the cooking time quite a bit. At the end it was definitely more flavorful, but also less crunchy (due to the larger amount of liquid ingredients used).It had a chewier clump than the previous recipe. I am going to have to make this one again without burning it to give it a fair assesment. But, I would say granola one has the slight edge so far.

*I was originally skeptical about this recipe's addition of the dried fruit before cooking as I thought it would come out over dried. However, the extra liquidiness was absorbed and the raisins and cranberries plumped up beautifully. Lesson learned!

Recipe #3

Ok so the third recipe I came up with.For the third recipe, I decided to use a combination of the elements that were particullary succesful from the previous two recipes and utilize all the sticky stuff possible. Once I decided on the ingredients, I crossed my fingers and started mixing. I used molasses as the main binder in this recipe as I really like the flavor it imparts. When I pulled the granola out of the oven, I was ecstatic! It had perfectly clumpy clumps and smelled AMAZING. I couldn't wait to try it and see if the flavor was everything I was hoping it would be. To get it to cool off faster, I decided to stick the tray out on my portch as it was pretty cool outside. Right as I was going out the door, disaster struck!

I tripped and the pan flipped out of my hands and ALL over my portch. NOOOO, my granola!!!! It was now all over the portch and crumbling down theough the cracks onto my neighbors portch! I almost cried! What was I to do? It was 11:00 at night and I wanted my granola!! There was no help for it, I had to start all over again. So after a brief period of mourning/cleaning/introducing myself to my neighbor and apologizing, I tried again. This time it again came out beautifully and I am THRILLED with my new recipe. Here it is:

Winning Granola Combo

Ingredients

2 1/3 cups old fashioned oats

2/3 cup steel cut oats

3/4 cup coarsely copped almonds

3/4 cup flax seeds and sunflower seeds

Pinch of salt1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tbsp molasses (I used mild flavor)

2 1/2 tbsp honey

2 tbsp maple syrup

3 heaping tbsp peanut butter

2 tbsp water

1/2 tbsp oil

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 325.

Mix together wet ingredients.

Over medium heat, melt liquid ingredients until runny.

Pour over dry ingredients, mixing well.

Spread granola out on parchment lined baking sheet. Cook in oven for 20 minutes. After about 20 minutes, or when the granola turns light golden brown, turn oven off, open the oven door a bit to vent and allow granola to cool for another 20 minutes. If it looks like it is getting too brown, pull it out and let it continue to dry completely.

When completely cooled. Gently break into clumps (you pick the size!) and store in an airtight container.

This recipe has both of my favorite elements from the previous two recipes (the crispy clumps of the first recipe and a yummy flavor similar to the second recipe). I liked the flavor for this recipe better than either of the previous two, it is peanutty and sweet with a great hint of carmally molasses and brown sugar with maple undertones. The clump ratio is at a perfect balance of 1/3 loose to 2/3 clumps. I hope you enjoy it as much as I am, and happy baking!