Cocoanutty Larabars

Let's face it. Dates are a superfood. They are full of fiber, iron, potassium, and the list goes on. Add some cashews with their good fats and protein and you have a superfood that kicks other superfood butts!

That's why Larabars rock! The sweet flavor brings my kids running for them, but there aren't any sweeteners, just yummy sweet dates. So when I ran across a recipe for homemade Larabars on Pinterest I had to try them. So now I find myself making a batch at least once a week and sometimes twice if the kids have friends over.

The original recipe is for cookie dough bars on Oh She Glows blog. This has been a great base to play with flavors, but I can't use the chocolate chips for my middle child so I had to change that part. So I want to share my most recent flavor I like to call Cocoanutty.

11/2 cups raw cashews
1 cup dates
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoon cocoa powder
1/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

Pulse the cashews in a food processor a few times to get them started, add dates then pulse until they are mixed well and a sticky ball. Add the vanilla, cocoa powder, and coconut in and pulse a little more to blend it all together. 

Put parchment paper on the bottom of a bread pan and push the ball of yummy goodness out in a thin layer, then place pan in freezer. The original blog says to leave in the freezer 15 minutes, but I never remember and end up leaving it for 2 hours without a problem. I just wrap in wax paper for the kids' lunch boxes.

So there is my current favorite flavor. I may post more, especially since I'm thinking I need to bring some favorite fall flavors into the mix.

Butternut squash

In my quest to provide foods without sugar in them I decided to make butternut squash without the traditional cinnamon and sugar on it. So what is the opposite of sweet? Well, in my head it is spice, so here is a simple recipe for butternut squash with a kick.

1 pound of cubed butternut squash
Butter
~1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
~1/8 teaspoon red chilli powder

Cook the squash in a pan with the butter and spices on medium. Stir occasionally, and cover to trap some of the steam. Squash is done when it is soft but still together in cubes.

My family liked this a lot, except my one child who hates anything he even thinks might have spice to it.

Chilli Verde

We've all done it. You see something on Pinterest and think what a lovely idea it is, but then you go back later to find out you forgot to pin it! You frantically search your boards. Maybe you labeled it wrong..  Nope. Ok you saw it a few days ago, a week at the most, so look over you pin list and go back two weeks... Nope. Ah. Search all of Pinterest... BAHAHAHA! Did you really think that would work?!

Well, that happened to me today. Luckily I looked at the source website for the pin at the time and had bought a few of the veggies on the list of the recipe I wanted to try. I can tell you it was a Pork Chilli Verde, it was not a crock pot recipe, and it was from scratch. So I think, hey I got this. I can figure it out on my own. So I pull out my crock pot (because I have stuff to do) and I get to working.

I gather the following:
5-6 tomatillo
1 pablano pepper
1 jalapeno pepper
Cilantro
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2.5 pound pork shoulder
Salt and pepper

I put the pork shoulder in the crock pot on high. I roast the peppers and tomatillo under the broiler, then put them in the blender with the garlic and a handful cilantro to blend well and pour over the pork shoulder.

I then went to pick up the kids from school and have fun for the afternoon.

When we came home three hours later I used two forks to pull the pork and put it all back in the sauce to sit on warm for another hour.

We served the Chilli Verde on whole wheat tortillas with cheese and sour cream. And all in all I'd call it a success. I think I should have put more garlic and salt in the sauce, and if you like spicy foods add another jalapeno or habenero, but while 3 of us love spicy foods we have a 1 year old and another child that don't so we keep it flavorful, but not too spicy and this fit the bill.

Reviving this blog

So, in the years that I have left this blog things have changed and now is the place to keep track of our hectic life. In an attempt to learn better methods of running our house I have turned to Pinterest. Yeah, I know this is just sucking up more of my time, but it is helping. I have used several things on there, but I really want to keep track of the things that work in our life and what doesn't.

So here is to new beginnings!

Scrumptious Soft Whole Wheat Bread

Really, scrumptious is the only word I can possibly come up with for this bread. I made the Soft Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread from the HBin5 Book and it was incredibly soft, nicely sweet, and just plain yummy. I made the bread on a Saturday and ended up having to make two loaves because the first was gone within no time, and we just had to have some with dinner.

My husband did point out that he was unsure he would use this bread for sandwiches as it is so soft (yes, seriously, soft wheat bread) and he didn't know if the bread would hold up to what he would want on a sandwich. I tended to agree with him, some. Although a PB&J would probably go well with the bread since there is not much weight to it, but there would probably be some crumbs in your peanut butter as you swipe your knife across the bread.


You can see the beautifully browned crust and honey colored crumb. This is truly a favorite bread that will be made repeatedly (in between the other breads I'm doing). The lovely thing is that this book has the recipe to make this dough into hot dog and hamburger buns. I did not make those this time, but as summer gets here and we start using the grill I plan to make those buns and post them here, along with whatever screw-up I happen to make along the way!

Another use for the Chocolate Espresso Bread

The next step in this cooking adventure, was to take the Chocolate Espresso Bread Dough that I made (that turned out too bitter to eat) and convert it into Chocolate Tangerine Bars. It was my hope to fix the lack of sweetness by adding more milk chocolate chips (the recipe called for more bitter sweet) and hoping that the tangerine helped tone down the bitterness. Of course, as is my fashion to do these things, I discovered that the recipe called for dried cranberries, which I did not have. So I embarked, cranberry-less on with the bars.

I took the rather wet dough (this dough is wetter and stickier than most of the bread recipes in the book) and worked in the chocolate chips and tangerine zest. Again, it looked and smelled pretty good, and my hopes were high again. So I cooked the bars and set them out to cool. After cutting them into the bar shapes my family hesitantly took a bar each and ate.


The result of the bar was mixed. It was definitely better with the sweeter milk chocolate chips and tangerine zest, but there was still an underlying bitterness to the bar that couldn't be masked. This bar has great potential, since the fact that it is not a sweet bread makes this bar have a nice amount of sweetness without feeling like you are eating a dessert. With the correct type of chocolate in the dough originally, this could very well become a nice Saturday afternoon treat that I would feel comfortable letting my family have, in lieu of some sweet treat that will hype up the kids for a while. Despite all this, my young son ate a couple of bars, despite everyone else having one, and was even caught trying to sneak one off the counter a couple of hours later. So it was definitely not a total loss as quite a bit was eaten, but I should divulge that my son is a huge bread addict (like his parents) and is not very picky when it comes to his bread.

Explaining the Bread in 5 Minutes a Day Method

I'm going to take a quick break in here to explain more fully the method that is behind the "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" and "Healthy Breads in Five Minutes a Day". I know that some may be wandering how making bread at home could possibly go hand-in-hand with the lazy mom way. So I'll try to sum it up here.

The method behind these books is that you spend a few minutes mixing up a batch of dough that can make about 3-4 loaves. This dough is a no-knead dough, meaning that it is mixed up well and then just set aside to rise. After the initial 2 hour rise, you can then just move the dough to the fridge for later use. In fact, the dough tends to develop some wonderful sour dough notes the longer it is left in the fridge, so it is suggested in the book (and by me) that if you can let it sit overnight before using it, you will get better flavor. However, it still tastes fantastic if you can't do that (which we frequently can't because... well we love bread).

The dough for the breads tends to be wetter than most other bread doughs, and can be a little off putting for those that are already adept at bread baking. Once you get used to this, though, bread baking is made simple, and trust me as someone who has tried to learn to just "pull together" a loaf of bread and figure out the science behind it (with plenty of fails) I'm glad I have a simple method that works so well.

Once you are ready to use your dough, you pull out what you need from the refrigerator, make a dough ball, and set it on the counter to rest, meanwhile you heat up the oven with your stone in it. Once an appropriate amount of time has passed you slit the top of the dough and slide it on top of your baking stone, pour some water in a roasting pan (this makes the crispy, chewy crust) and bake for the amount of time your particular dough and shape require.

See, pretty simple. You spent maybe 15 minutes (and that's with an almost 5 year old helping) mixing everything together so that you can have 3-4 loaves over the next week and an additional minute or two shaping out your dough before letting it rest and bake. Yes, there is a lot of "sitting on the counter" time, but that doesn't really require much attention on your part. Now, this is a general overview of bread baking with this method, and there are many variations depending on dough type and shape. Also, there are some great ways to utilize many of the dough recipes for other kinds of treats (like doughnuts). So join along if you will and post on your trials and successes, or just watch me as I make delicious breads and occasionally fumble around the kitchen a little.