Homemade Granola

I love granola. I saw Barefoot Contessa make granola that she packaged and gave to her neighbors as holiday gifts (I Tivo all of her episodes). This could not be easier. I'm going to give you the recipe with the ingredients that she used, but you could add anything you want really. It would be a nice gift for co-workers....who knows, maybe I'll bring some.

Homemade Granola:
4 cups old fashioned oats
2 cups sliced almonds
1 cup shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups dried cherries (if the dried cherries are big, just chop them up a little)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup honey
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Directions:
1. Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl.
2. Add the oil & honey....if you put the oil in the measuring cup before the honey, the honey will slide ride out.
3. Mix well and bake on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.
4. Stir the mixture about halfway through to make sure it all gets browned.
5. Let cool and enjoy!

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

These cookies literally only take 5 minutes to assemble and only 12 minutes to bake. They are really easy and good, so you should make them tonight.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg (lightly beaten)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix sugar, egg, peanut butter, baking soda, and salt.
3. Stir in chocolate chips.
4. Roll the dough into balls, about 1 inch in diameter.
5. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes, or until golden brown.
6. Depending on the size of your balls, this recipe makes between 10 - 12 cookies.

I'm Pretty Good, Huh?

This morning I woke up early and surprised Jason by making homemade cinnamon rolls. At Jason's old job, they had a cafeteria for the employees. Everyone morning this old woman would get up at the crack of dawn and make cinnamon rolls by hand. She rolled out the dough with her knuckles and made icing from her tears. Ok, ok, I'm kidding about that part. They were probably frozen and the old lady just warmed them up.

I found this recipe to make cinnamon rolls using frozen bread dough. Surprisingly enough, my Kroger had frozen bread dough. The package comes with four long oval pieces of bread dough. You have to let it thaw pretty much overnight. The dough didn't roll out very easily. It kept springing back together, but they tasted good and I was able to make a roll out of them, so I don't guess it matters too much.

(Stacy -- Before you get started, realize that these have to rise for 1 1/2 hours before you can bake them. I don't want another banana pudding episode!)

Since I have 3 more loaves of frozen bread dough in the freezer, I'll probably be making these again.

Easy Cinnamon Rolls:
1 loaf frozen bread dough, thawed
2 Tablespoons melted butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (I used pecans)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup sifted confectioner's sugar
1 Tablespoon milk
Dash of vanilla extract
Dash of Jack Daniels (this is totally optional...just my way of saying "Good Morning")


Directions:
1. Roll out thawed dough into a rectangle shape (about 18x6 if you can).
2. Brush with melted butter.
3. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and chopped nuts and sprinkle over dough.
4. Starting at the long edge, carefully roll up the dough into a jelly roll shape.
5. Moisten the edges and seal with melted butter.
6. Cut the roll into 20 slices (somehow I only got 14....I guess I slice big).
7. Place rolls into a lightly greased casserole dish or greased cake pans.
8. Leave the rolls on the counter and let rise for about 1 1/2 hours, or until they have doubled in size.
9. Pour the cream over the rolls and bake at 350 degrees fro 25 minutes.
10. To make the icing, combine confectioner's sugar, milk, vanilla, and Jack Daniels. If you like your icing thick, add a little more sugar. If you like it thin, add a little more milk (or Jack).
11. Drizzle icing over rolls while they are still warm.

This picture sucks, but this is what they look like before they are cooked. Sad huh?


This is what they look like after the have cooked. Delicious, yes?

Happy Birthday Kyle

Well, today is my birthday and I'm STILL feeding Jason.....what's wrong with this picture, shouldn't he be cooking for me today? Just kidding, we're going out to dinner tonight, so all is well. I found this recipe the other day and couldn't wait to try it, so this is sort of like my birthday cake.

This recipe is for Oatmeal Cake....something I've never heard of. It's really good. You can justify all the sugar in this cake by thinking about all the oats...it totally balances out.

Oatmeal Cake:
1 cup quick cooking oats
1 stick butter
1 1/4 cups boiling water
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

*** The recipe doesn't call for this, but I added the following:
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter chips

For the Icing:
1/2 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup evaporate milk
Powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Mix boiling water, oats, and butter & let stand for 15 minutes.
2. Add remaining ingredients together in a bowl.
3. Add oatmeal mixture to the bowl and mix well.
4. Bake in an 8 x 11 casserole dish at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
5. For icing, melt ingredients (except powdered sugar) together in saucepan and cool.
6. Add powered sugar until thick enough to pour over cake. (just eyeball it -- about 1/2 cup).
7. Poke holes in the hot cake with a toothpick and pour icing over cake while still hot!

Here's what it looks like before you stick in the oven.


Here's what we've got when it comes out of the oven.

Then you pour your icing on top and it looks like this....

Pumpkin Cake

Our friend Sharla came over yesterday and made her world famous Pumpkin Cake. It was so good and it made the entire house smell like Fall. Jason took one bite and said, "It's not terrible." That's exactly what you want to hear after you've baked something. Then he grabbed four Laffy Taffys and watched Sharla and I sample her cake.

It's really easy, and relatively fat free, because there is no eggs or oil, yet the cake is very moist!!

Pumpkin Cake:
1 box spice cake mix
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/3 cup water

Directions:
1. Mix all ingredients together
2. Bake at 350 degrees until a toothpick comes out clean (start checking after 15 minutes)

*This recipe will make around 12-18 muffins or about 6 loaves of bread (see picture).

Pistachio Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Tonight, Jason made these awesome cookies! We love pistachios, and of course we love cookies, but we never thought of combining the two until we found this recipe. It makes a ton of cookies ---6 dozen to be exact.


Pistachio Chocolate Chunk Cookies:
1 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of milk
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of kosher salt (regular salt will suffice)
1 1/2 cups of coarsely chopped pistachios, raw and unsalted
1 1/2 cups of chocolate chunks

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Cream the butter and sugars together on high speed for three minutes
3. Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla and beat for 3 minutes, (scrape down the sides of the bowl)
4. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt
5. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture slowly
6. Fold in the pistachios and chocolate chunks
7. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls onto parchment lined cookie sheets
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to set up on the cookie sheets before moving to a baking rack to cool completely.

ABC Bread (Almond, Banana, & Coconut)

I love to bake on the weekends if I have time. This morning, I got up, made some coffee, turned on some music (click here to listen to my "Baking Mix") and I decided to bake something for Jason. I found this recipe from a new blog that I just discovered. Jason doesn't love bananas, and neither do I, but this recipe sounded really good. After he tried a bite, he agreed that even though this recipe has 4 bananas in it, you don't really taste it (same goes for the coconut, it's there, but just a hint).

Almond Banana Coconut Bread:
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
4 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 2 cups)
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut, toasted
3/4 cup almonds (slivered or chopped), toasted

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. To toast almonds, place in skillet on medium low heat, when you smell them, they're ready

3. Continue the same process with coconut -- the coconut will toast much faster and can easily burn, so watch it!!

4. In a mixing bowl, sift flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda

5. In a mixer, blend butter until smooth and creamy

6. Add sugars and mix on medium speed for a couple of minutes

7. Add eggs and beat well

8. Add vanilla and coconut milk

9. Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mix just until the flour is all mixed in

10. Stir in the toasted almonds & coconut by hand

11. Place in baking dishes for 40-45 minutes......let cool for 10 minutes before serving

Four perfect loaves every time!! I bet you're thinking....."Wow, cool pan Kyle!! Where can I get one?" Well, here's the link to get your own. I love this pan because you can get more loaves baked at the same time and it's just easier to deal with than four individual loaf pans. Don't forget, several holidays are just around the corner and this bread would be a great gift for people you don't want to spend money on!