granola bars

I have found it hard to make a tasty but easy granola bar. I think I've finally found a recipe I like, and wanted to share, since so many of my taste testers liked it too. :-)

Ingredients

4 cups rolled oats
3 cups almond flour (we get ours at Trader Joe's under the name "Almond Meal")
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup raisins, chocolate chips, or chopped walnuts (optional)
1 cup honey
1 cup coconut oil
2 egg yolks
4 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease (2) 9 x 13 inch baking pans
2. Melt the coconut oil if needed. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, almond flour, cinnamon, salt & optional ingredients (raisins, choc chips or walnuts). Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg yolks, oil & vanilla. Mix well with your hands or use a stand mixer for the whole process.
3. Pat the mixture evenly into your two prepared pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges. Do not overbake! Cool thoroughly before cutting into bars.

A note to my taste testers this weekend: I was able to cut the sugar entirely & just go with the honey and still have sweet results. It's not too sweet anymore, so I really wouldn't suggest cutting down the honey at all, unless you're super sensitive to sweets. If you want the granola bar sweeter, add 1/2 cup of sugar to achieve a more store-bought kind of taste, like what I brought with me.

A note about gluten-free oats: I tagged this post with the GF label because oats are one of those controversial GF items - are they or aren't they? I've heard that they are usually contaminated during processing & I've heard an alternate theory that if they are grown too close to wheat, they will be contaminated with gluten from the wheat (cross-pollination I guess?). At any rate, there are GF oats widely available, so as far as I'm concerned, this recipe still fits the label.

And finally, a note about the eggs: my recipe contains only the egg yolks because my youngest daughter can't have egg whites. The original recipe I worked off of called for 2 whole eggs, so there's no reason for non-sensitive people to waste their egg whites. In fact, your bars will probably hold together even better than mine. :-)

power balls

I've played around with this recipe for quite some time and the more I make these, the more I love them. They are high in protein, as low in sugar as you'd like, easy, and very versatile. There are so many options in the ingredients that you can use whatever you have on hand and they will still turn out great. You don't have to cook them, you can mix them all in one bowl, most sick pregnant mamas can handle them, and you can hide things in there that you want your kids to have. What's not to like?

Ingredients

1 cup of any or all of the following:

nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds, cashews, whatever you have on hand)
seeds (sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds)
shredded unsweetened coconut
dried fruit

1/2 cup grain (wheat germ, dry oats, puffed rice cereal, granola, not plain flour...only use what you would take a bite of straight)

1 cup nut butter

honey, 3 Tbls. to start

optional: health food additions (bee pollen, 2 tsp. raw butter, probiotic powder, 2 tsp. wheat germ oil, 2 tsp. flax seed oil, blackstrap molasses)

optional: cocoa powder and/or chocolate chips

Directions

In your food processor, finely process any large nuts, seeds, & dried fruit. If you don't have a food processor, you can finely chop them, it will just extend the preparation time. Grind the flax seeds, if using, in a separate grinder. (Grinding the flax seeds before using them allows your body to digest them more fully.)

In a large mixing bowl (your counter-top mixer if you have one), use a wooden spoon (or mixer paddle on a counter-top mixer) to mix together the chopped nuts, seeds & fruit, grain, nut butter, honey & any of the optional ingredients.

Test for sweetness. Add more honey if desired.

You should have a "dough" that will cling together on its own. If not, add a little more honey and/or nut butter to achieve this consistency.

Roll into balls, about 1-inch in diameter, and store in the refrigerator.

5-minute shortbreads

I am in love with my new method of cutting in butter using my large-capacity food processor. We were invited to a potluck today in which each family was to provide their own lunch, but to bring a dessert. I enjoy potlucks quite a bit, but when every family brings a dessert, I quickly suffer from sweets overload. I considered cutting up a big watermelon, but since it was my first potluck with these folks, I thought shortbreads would make a better first impression. :-)

Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

2 1/2 cups flour
2 sticks butter (not margarine)
6 tbls. granulated sugar

DIRECTIONS

Put all the ingredients in the food processor. Pulse several times until the mixture looks like crumbs. Turn on a low steady speed until the dough begins to cling together. Turn on a medium steady speed until you have a nice looking shortbread dough. Start to finish time in the food processor? About 2 minutes.

I hate hate hate rolling things out. (Really it's just the cleaning part before and after that I hate so much.) So, I shaped mine into 4 equal shortbread logs. They ended up about the same diameter as the long cookie dough packages you'd find in the dairy section, but about half the length.

Cut these into rounds to make cookies. Refrigerating for 2-24 hours first will make for more uniform cookies. However, they will also cut just fine right out of the food processor. I cut one log for after dinner and refrigerated the other three logs to cut this morning for our potluck.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes or until you see the first edge of the smallest cookie turn brown.

Shortbreads are so forgiving and hard to mess up that I'm always surprised they aren't a staple in everyone's dessert repertoire. But they always seem to garner such surprised and happy reactions at potlucks, I have to assume they are not. We'll see how the response goes today!

Happy shortbreading!

quick tip: pie crust & biscuit shortcuts

If you're tempted to skip desserts or meals with pie crusts or biscuits because of the work involved in hand-making these items, try this tip. Instead of cutting in the butter, melt it and mix it in instead.

Pie crusts and biscuits made this way won't be as flaky as if you cut in the butter the traditional way, but they are definitely acceptable for a usual weeknight dinner or dessert. And of course, making them from scratch is much healthier than buying the chemical-laden convenience options in the grocery store.

And a tip on pie crusts wouldn't be complete without a reminder to double, triple or even quadruple your pie crust recipe whenever you make it. Even if you don't have time to roll out the pastry, you can always store it in a ball in the freezer to pull out at your convenience.

The recipe I use calls for only butter (no trans-fats) & is very simple. It is:

2 cup flour
2/3 cup butter (this equals 1 stick plus ~3 Tbls. of another)
1/4 tsp. salt
4-5 Tbls. water

I like to make the pastry a little on the wet side so that it can soak in more flour when I roll it out without becoming too tough.

If you have a large-capacity food processor, you can use cold butter and let your machine cut it in for you. Just cut the butter into chunks an inch or so in size, put them in your processor with the flour & salt, and pulse until your mixture looks like tiny crumbs. Add the water slowly, tablespoon by tablespoon, until it forms a dough ball. You then roll out as usual. This method is so easy, you can make crust or biscuit dough in under 5 minutes, almost as long as it takes to get one of those biscuit roll packages to "pop!"

Peanut Butter Bananas

Here's another breakfast or late-night snack idea. It couldn't be simpler -- so simple, in fact, that you might overlook it in search of something more exotic. Don't! No whole-foods, sugar-free snack will so successfully tame a sweets craving as this one. Definitely try it before you toss it aside.

Ingredients
Bananas*
Natural peanut butter, no sugar added
Unsweetened shredded coconut

*Bananas should be firm, not over-ripe, and preferably yellow but still green on the edges. If you have them, use bananas that have been chilled in the refrigerator for this recipe.

Directions
Cut bananas into three even sections. Then, cut each section in half and place each half section on a plate. (3 minutes hands-on prep)
Spread each piece with peanut butter. (3 minutes hands-on prep)
Top each piece with shredded coconut. (1 minute hands-on prep)

Sweet & Salty Apple Salad

I've decided to expand the original scope of Supper In Seconds to include breakfast foods, late-night snacks & desserts, that can all be prepared in 10 minutes of less.

The Sweet & Salty Apple Salad actually can be served for any of those purposes. It is especially great as a late-night snack when you're looking for something sweet and crunchy. It also fits the bill for a breakfast when you want something that will stick with you longer than a bagel. And although it might not be everyone's idea of "dessert," it's nice to have options for sweet after dinner treats that do not have sugar as an ingredient.

Ingredients
1 apple, roughly chopped
1 oz. sharp cheese (cheddar, parmesan, swiss, asiago), shredded or diced
1 handful nuts

Directions
Combine in a bowl. Enjoy. (2 minutes hands-on prep)