Easy No Bake Oatmeal Cookies

Update for you all... I have started crafting.... again. When I first moved into my apartment I would craft ALL the time, I love taking something that starts out plain and ordinary and making it into something extraordinary. The only problem is, I started to run out of room for all my projects. I mean how many hurricane vases can fit in a one bedroom? (I have five) However, I really miss it. I miss the feeling of accomplishment you get after finishing a particularly tricky project, I miss the satisfaction that comes from knowing how much money you saved by making over a thrift store find instead of buying something at pottery barn (or Anthropologie, I LOVE Anthropologie!) So, the other day I had an epiphany.. why not craft stuff that I can either give as gifts or rotate in and out of my apartment decor with the different seasons?! All that being said, I may share some of my crafts on here. Don't get me wrong cooking and baking will definitely still be my main focus (nothing can take their place), I just might add a few crafty projects every once in a while.

And speaking of cooking and baking, I have a NO BAKE recipe to share with you all today. It's different from the usual no-bake cookie recipe in that it does not use chocolate OR peanut butter. I know, crazy, right?! I had some dried blueberries that my lovely mother had picked up for me on a recent grocery trip, so I decided to try and make a cookie using these. I found a basic recipe on Cooks.com and changed it up to make it healthier and use the ingredients I had on hand. They turned out pretty well. Really tasty, but if you don't chill them long enough they will fall apart. Make them the night before, chill them over night and you should be good to go. The oats add texture and are the basis for the cookie. I added in oat bran to up the fiber content and stirred in extra coconut in place of nuts. While you could use raisins in these cookies, I highly recommend trying them with blueberries, they give a great fruity flavor that adds to the whole cookie experience :)

No Bake Oatmeal Blueberry Cookies

Adapted from cooks.com

3 cups quick cooking oats

1 1/3 cup flaked coconut

3/4 cup oat bran

3/4 cup dried blueberries (or raisins)

1 1/3 cups sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk (I used rice milk, if you haven't tried it, you should, it's AMAZING)

1 stick butter, cut into pieces

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix together first five ingredients.

Cook sugar, milk and butter over medium heat, stirring constantly. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Add the vanilla.

Pour over all other ingredients and stir until well mixed. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper to cool.

Happy Monday!

Linking up to Tasty Tuesdays!

Oatmeal Cookie Coffee Cake

Oatmeal Cookies make me happy. They are thick, chewy, and feel healthy enough to eat two. This coffee cake recipe takes the great aspects of an oatmeal cookie and makes them breakfast appropriate. The cake is moist and sweet, and just decadent enough to make it my new weekend breakfast favorite. Almonds, oats, raisins, brown sugar, delicious! I used almond milk to ratchet up the almondy flavor (cause I love it) and it turned out super. Hope you all enjoy!

Oatmeal Cookie Coffee Cake

from Baking Bites

2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup oats (regular or quick cooking)

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1 cup almond milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla extract

Filling/Topping

1/4 cup flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

2/3 cup raisins

1/3 cup toasted almonds, chopped

Preheat the oven to 350F.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together flour, quick cooking oatmeal, baking powder and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in 1/3 of the flour mixture, followed by half of the almond milk, lemon juice, and the vanilla.

Then, blend in add half of the remaining flour, the rest of the buttermilk, and finally the last of the flour. Set aside to prepare topping.

For the topping, combine flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in a medium mixing bowl and stir well. Rub butter into the mixture with your fingertips (or use cold butter and grate into the mixture using a cheese grater) until mixture resembles coarse sand.

Pour half of the batter into a 9-inch springform pan. Top with half of the topping mixture.

Evenly sprinkle raisins and almonds in a single layer. Pour remaining batter on top and spread carefully to the sides of the pan.

Sprinkle all remaining topping over the batter.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Allow cake to cool on a wire rack until it is room temperature before running a knife around the edge and removing the springform. Store in an airtight container.

Serves 10.

Recipe Swap!

Cookie Brittle Revisited

Remember this post about easy peasy cookie brittle? Well, for employee gifts at work this year I tried a few variations on the original that I would like to share with you! First version.... Mint Chip Cookie Brittle.

All I did was switch out chocolate chips for a mix of dark chocolate chips and mint chips. The other type I made involved the addition of dried cranberries and white chocolate chips.

This was my fave! Something about cranberries puts me in the holiday spirit... They just seem so jolly! The lovely thing about this brittle recipe is you could really mix in whatever goodie you have in the cupboard. If it works in a cookie, it should work as Cookie Brittle, nuts, peanut butter, coconut, raisins, oats... other ideas?

Cookie Brittle Two (or more) Ways

1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

1 1/4 cups mix-ins (cranberries, white chocolate, mint chips, whatever!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie pan with parchment paper. Mix the butter and vanilla together.

Add in the flour, sugar, salt and whatever add ins you want, using your hands or a wooden spoon mix it all together until well combined.

The dough will be fairly dry and crumbly. Dump the dough onto lined cookie sheet.

Press it into a thin layer using your hands. Mine didn't completely fill the cookie tray. The thinner you press it, the crispier it will be and the quicker it will cook, so adjust accordingly.

Bake for 20 minutes, check, if edges are lightly brown and center is set, remove from oven. Allow to cool COMPLETELY (this is probably the hardest part, I put the whole tray in the fridge to speed up the process ☺).

Break up into pieces, give gifts!

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!

Irish Soda Bread Muffins

Good Morning! Happy Sunday! I love Irish Soda Bread. When I was living in co-op housing during college, our cook could make a GREAT Irish Soda bread, and ever since then I have been searching for a comprable recipe. I wanted a bread that was fluffy, and full of raisins. Raisins are one of my favorite ingredients and when incorporated into the bread they become moist and delicious. The original recipe called for currants but I only had raisins and prunes so I chopped up the prunes and added them in with the raisins. Making this recipe literally took me 10 minutes. It is super quick and makes a great weekend morning breakfast, especially when topped with a bit of butter and some jam or honey. I made 12 regualr size muffins and 12 mini muffins because I only have one regular size muffin tin. These are best eaten warm so if you don't eat them right away, be sure to heat them up in the microwave before enjoying later! Leftovers (if you have any!) can be frozen and reheated.

Irish Soda Bread Muffins

Adapted from www.RecipeGirl.com

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 Tbsp granulated sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup butter

1 cup buttermilk (I used low fat)

1 large egg, beaten

3/4 cup raisins or other fruit

Process

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease small muffin tins or large muffin tins.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

With pastry cutter or two knives used scissors fashion, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add in raisins.

In a small bowl or cup, stir together buttermilk and egg until blended.

Add buttermilk mixture to dry ingredients and stir to combine.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups. Bake 20 to 25 minutes (longer for the larger muffins), or until cake tester inserted in center of one muffin comes out clean.

Remove muffin tin or tins to wire rack. Cool 5 minutes before removing muffins from cups; finish cooling on rack. Serve warm or cool completely and store muffins in an airtight container at room temperature.

Yield: 12 regular- sized muffins plus 12 mini muffins

Have a beautiful rest of your weekend!

Granola Bars

Hello! Happy Tuesday... My weekend was a little stressful because my grandma is having health problems :( But Jose is here so that helps me de-stress! This morning my parents had to go to the hospital with my grandma and since when I get stressed, I bake, that is what I did. I decided to make a recipe I found on Lynn's Kitchen Adventures blog for homemade granola bars. I figured that if we are going to be spending a lot of time at the hospital, it would be nice to have something healthy and portable on hand to take with us as hospital snack food is not the best! I made the bars exactly like she says in her recipe except I only put in two cups oats and I added in 1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds. I also added dried cranberries and chocolate chips. They turned out pretty yummy and definitely better than any store bought variety! Cheaper too! Sorry about the lack of good pictures but I've been so busy I didn't have time to upload them all. I hope you all have a good week. Keep us in your prayers, especially grammy!

Cranberry Chocolate Granola Bars

Courtesy of Lynn's Kitchen Adventures

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tblsp honey

2 tblsp corn syrup (I used light)

2 cups quick cooking oats

1/3 sunflower seeds

About 1/3 cup cranberries (I didn't actually measure, I just put in a handful)

Sprinkle of chocolate chips (I didn't actually measure these either)

Grease an 8x8 inch pan. In a sauce pan, combine the butter, brown sugar, honey, and corn syrup. Stir constantly over medium heat until butter melts, sugar dissolves, and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and add oats, cranberries, sunflower seeds, and chocolate chips. Stir well until oats are well coated. Spread mixture into 8x8 pan. Bake for 22 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool 5 minutes and cut into bars (this is a little tricky cause the bar will stick to the knife so clean the knife often). Let cool one hour more in pan and then remove bars from the pan (they won't be completely cooled yet but at this point it is easiest to get them out).

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!

Beat the Blues Granola

This weekend my friend Ronda's dad was put in the hospital, she had also had quite a stressful week. So I thought, what makes me feel better when I'm sad? Delicious baked goods! I wanted to do something healthy as she has been working on eating healthy. So I decided to whip up a batch of homemade granola. The perfect way to start the day off and one of my all time favorite foods! I headed off to Winco to get ingredients. While there I snapped this photo... I just couldn't resist... I mean a WHOLE chicken in a can!?!?

Anywho, back to the granola making... The great thing about this granola is that you can customize it according to what sounds good to you. I was perusing the dried fruits and decided to do cranberries, apples, coconut and raisins. However, once I got back home I decided it would be better to leave out the coconut and raisins, add in some almonds, a splash of vanilla and a few tablespoons of peanut butter. I was going to call it Vanilla, Apple, Almond, Cranberry Granola, but that is way to long so I settled on "Beat the Blues Granola" and it is gooood, like really really good! And easy, so easy that I will never buy store bought granola again! I think it would also be great with dried apricots and maybe pecans? The possibilities are really endless! I also decided not to slice the almonds but rather I chopped them in large chunks and it turned out to be a great addition to the texture of the granola. To finish it off I put it in pretty jars, tied it up with a ribbon, and voila! A yummy, healthy gift! And it freezes well so if you make a big batch you can put it in a tupperware or ziplock bag to pull out as needed. The recipe below is based on a great granola recipe from everybodylikessandwiches.com. Feel free to customize it however and let me know if you hit upon a particularly genius combination! The amounts of ingredients are an estimate because I just kind of threw it together.

Happy Baking!

Liz

Beat the Blues Granola

adapted from everybodylikessandwiches.com

4½ Cups Oats

1¼ Cup Chopped Almonds

3 Tbsp. Brown Sugar

Pinch of Salt

Pinch of Cinnamon

1 Tbsp. White Sugar

⅓ Cup Vegetable Oil

⅓ Cup Honey

2-3 Tbsp. Peanut Butter (more peanut butter = more peanut butter flavor)

5 Tsp. Vanilla Extract

2 Cups Dried Cranberries

1 Cup Diced Dried Apples

Preheat oven to 300℉. Mix oats, almonds, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon.

In a saucepan over medium heat, add oil, honey, and sugar. Stir until the mixture just begins to bubble. Remove from heat and stir in peanut butter and vanilla.

Once the PB melts, pour the mixture over the oats and stir well until mixed.

Spread the granola out on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for about ten minutes, then use a spatula to flip it over. Cook for another five minutes, take out and stir/flip again add in apples and cranberries and cook until lightly golden brown (this doesn't take too long so watch it closely!).

Remove from oven, allow to cool completely and enjoy!