Breakfast Bars

The Beats! 

So I've been thinking for a while now about just coming clean, fessing up, and posting all the songs/artists that I hate to admit I like but in truth I love ... you know, the ones where you joke around about the song because "it's so bad that it's almost good" when really you're apologizing to the artist under your breath because really you're obsessed with it?  Or when you run to your computer to make sure that no one clicks the "25 Top Played" playlist to find that, "Wait ... You have listened to a Justin Bieber song one hundred times?!?".  Or you just laugh when the song comes up on your iPod's shuffle and quickly blame it on the time in college when you had unlimited access to the music of everyone in the dorm, so you weren't going to be picky.  Maybe none of you have this problem, but I know there are dudes out there that have a JLo cd hidden under their seat ... yeah, just because your windows are rolled up, I can STILL hear what you are lip synching, sir, and I know for a FACT that I have friends that like Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA, which I still can't quite believe possible.  Anyway, I found a way to bare my musical soul to the world without full disclosure, when I was thinking about my hometown last week (I always get nostalgic for Sheridan during Rodeo Week).  I always make sure to listen to a local radio station at least once when I'm home, and am blown away by their musical selections.  The last time I was home they were playing Tubthumping by Chumbawamba.  Whaaaaat?! I'm not kidding.  This is a true case of "it's so bad it's almost good" (except this time I'm not lying, it's just  ... not ... good).  It's 2011 and this song came out in 1997 ... and that is why I love my hometown.  So with that, I can successfully (at least I hope) leave you guessing - if you can make it through the playlist, that is - as to what I actually love and that which I can't believe is still playing on the radio in Wyoming.  Clever?  I wish but probably not, because you probably lost respect and stopped reading the second I mentioned Justin Bieber ...

  

The Treats!  

   
Ok, I wrote way too much about my beats so I'll be short here.  Just a few adjustments/recommendations before getting started...  This recipe is extremely easy and open to modifications.  I'm allergic to peanuts so I substituted in a cup of natural almonds (which I roughly chopped to make a bit smaller).  Also, seeds can be hard to find or expensive, so in this case I just used a cup of sunflower seeds instead of a mix.  I've made them several times and used dried apricots, cherries, craisins, etc.  I'm sure they'd also be tasty with other dried fruits, nuts, seeds, whatever, maybe even a layer of chocolate melted on top ... Easy to make, easy to bake, easy to eat.  The perfect trifecta.  And for all the freaks like me that have strange food allergies, this recipe allows you to know exactly what's going into your granola bar, so when you blow up, can't breathe, and have a neanderthal brow it's your own fault.  

 

Breakfast Bars 
(makes 16)              

From Nigella Express
 

What you'll need ...

14- ounce can condensed milk

2 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant)
1 cup shredded coconut (I used sweetened)
1 cup dried cranberries
1 cup mixed seeds - pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, etc.
1 cup natural unsalted peanuts (I used almonds)




Preheat oven to 250 degrees and oil a 9x13 inch pan (or something close).  Warm the condensed milk in a large pan.








Meanwhile, mix all the other ingredients together and add the warmed condensed milk, using a rubber spatula to fold and distribute.  
"Fold and distribute?"  Sounds like an engineer wrote this. 







Spread the mixture into the oiled pan and press down with a spatula (I sprayed mine with PAM to keep the mixture from sticking to the spatula itself) to make the surface even. 









Bake for 1 hour, remove, and after about 15 minutes, cut into four across and four down, to make 16 chunky bars.  Let cool completely.  These save well, so stash them in a tin and grab one whenever you want.

Fruit Pizza

The Beats! 

Hokay, so ... I've always been a big Natalie Merchant fan.  If we were playing the game "If you could have any fill in the blank (in this case we're using voice) you wanted, whose would you choose?",  I would choose Natalie Merchant's voice.  It's soft, and deep, and almost haunting.  Which is why I used her for the soundtrack to one of my High School English presentations.  Maybe they will listen to her instead of me, right?  Last year she released her first album in several years and I fell in love with it's odd lyrics and sound.  In Leave Your Sleep, Merchant has adapted children's rhymes and lullabies, some well over a hundred years old, into songs.  Some of the included poets are Robert Graves, Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Robert Louis Stevenson (I don't really know my poets, but these guys sound important).  Bleezer's IceCream is one of my favorites (you can't really go wrong singing about ice cream) as well as The Adventures of Isabel (it reminds me of one of my favorite friends that I don't get to see often enough).  Since buying the album I've decided that if I ever have kids this is what they will spend the first year of their life listening to ... I figure we can transition into Weezy and the gang later at a more appropriate age, around year 3 or so. 

   

 

The Treats!  

    

Fruit pizza screams summer to me.  Well maybe not screams,  but it implies summer to me.  And since Seattle seems to be struggling with the concept of summer I thought it might like a subtle reminder.  I made this yesterday and this morning it's ... gray, windy, chilly, and looking like October.  Ohhh well, it's a fun, easy, and quick recipe anyway.  I only ran into one road block when I realized I had used up all my baking soda in an attempt to absorb some of the smell wafting from my soggy mountaineering boots after too many trips into the snow covered peaks.  This came with the realization that no kitchen goddess would ever use the last of her baking soda to try to erase a stench from mountaineering boots.  Fail.  I substituted in 3 times the amount with baking powder but I think it led to a slightly crispier cookie that I would have avoided otherwise.  And my boots still smell.  But it's probably not good to talk too much about bad smells when you're introducing a recipe so ... you have a couple of choices here.  You can make one big pizza or like I did, split them up into "individual" pizzas.  I ended up making four plate sized cookies, which might be a little much when you're talking about a dessert ... but not really.  The most important part is to have fun decorating with fruit.  If you're a nerd like me, it becomes like Tessellations, one of those math games where you must fit the geometrical shapes together.  Maybe that's the enginerd side of me coming out.  The point is, make it pretty.  Ok, go.

Fruit Pizza   (makes 6+ servings)              

From a variety of sources combined ...

What you'll need ...

Dough:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-porpoise flour
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Icing:
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

Toppings:
Several cups of fresh, sliced fruit - kiwi, berries, peaches, etc.
1/2 cup apricot or apply jelly (for glaze, opt.)
1 Tablespoon of water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, cream together butter and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth.  Mix in egg.  Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt; stir into creamed mixture until just blended.  I also added a tiny bit of almond extract.  Press dough into ungreased pizza pan (although in retrospect, I would recommend greasing it).

Bake in preheated oven 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.  Cool (this is a command, i'm not just saying "cool").  In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla until light.  Spread on cooled crust.

Arrange desired fruit on top of filling.  If you want a nice shine on your fruit, heat 1/2 cup jelly with 1 Tablespoon of water until almost boiling, stir, and glaze onto fruit with pastry brush.  I prefer using apple jelly to apricot jam so you don't have to filter out the apricot chunks.  Chill (you and the fruit pizza) until ready to serve.

Apple Streusel Cake with Almonds

The Beats! 

It's only been two years since I graduated from Montana State University, and sometimes I can't figure out whether the time has passed in a flash or in what I call metric time, when it feels like there are 100 seconds to a minute and 100 minutes to an hour (i.e. the clock hand just isn't moving).  Regardless of my perception of time, so much has changed.  My friends and family are on their own life adventures, traveling, trying new careers, getting married ... pretty exciting stuff.  This weekend is one of my favorite girlfriend's bachelorette party and even though I can't go, it's made me stop and think about our friendship.  We, along with our third partner in crime, were inseparable by the end of our senior year.  The stress of being a midst the final classes in our engineering education was overwhelming, so we countered that and general life drama with plenty of frozen yogurt dates, high heel & sweatpants parties, and late night debauchery downtown.  I'll always remember having a rough day, telling one friend (who threw me in her truck and made a phone call) and doing a drive by kidnapping of our third (the bride-to-be) who was supposed to be working on a computer programming assignment.  Three pitchers later, that didn't matter anymore (well at that point, nothing seemed to matter anymore, haha) but her lack of hesitation to help a friend over homework wasn't lost on me.  This hasn't been about "the beats" at all I guess, but this playlist has a bunch of the songs that remind me of our good times ... and if John Denver seems to stick out, well, so did we when we had our karaoke debut with Country Roads...



  

The Treats!  

   

This is the dish that I made for her bridal shower, but I can't report on the results because, unfortunately, I didn't make it to that either (this is getting embarrassing).  I think I would have heard if it poisoned someone, although my friends are probably too nice to admit it, so we're going to go ahead with it.  Plus, it's just fun to say "apple streusel" really fast over and over again.  It's incredible easy and quick to put together and coming from Cooking Light, it's probably more "healthy" than anything else I've put on this site so far ...  

Apple Streusel Cake with Almonds   (makes 9 servings)              

From Cooking Light Complete Cookbook

What you'll need ...

Streusel:
2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 Tablespoon butter
2 Tablespoons sliced almonds


Cake:
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (2 oz.) 1/3 fat cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4  teaspoon salt
3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
Cooking spray
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced crisp apple (about 3/4 pound)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  To prepare streusel, combine first three ingredients in a medium bowl; cut in 1 Tablespoon butter with a pastry blender or two knives until mixture resembles coarse meal.  Stir in almonds.


To prepare cake, beat granulated sugar, cream cheese, and 1/4 cup butter in a large bowl with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.  Add extracts (vanilla and almond) and egg, beating well.





Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups, level with a knife.  Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl, stirring well with a whisk.  Add flour mixture and buttermilk alternatively to egg mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

Pour batter into a 9-inch round cake pan coated with cooking spray; sharply tap pan once on counter to remove air bubbles (BAM!).  Arrange apple slices (I used two big apples, because my theory is always the more the merrier) over batter; sprinkle with streusel.  

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes of wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool completely on wire rack.  Cut into wedges.  Apple streusel, applestreusel, applesussel!!