Granola Clusters

Raise your hand if you're still keeping up with your New Year's resolution. Be honest, now. I have to admit that I got a slow start to mine but I'm still going. After all these years I've finally added the "eating healthy" resolution to my life. It's all part of making a better, happier me. I adapted this recipe from Cookies and Cups after needing more healthy snack and dessert options. Nothing is worse than working out or doing really good with your daily diet and feeling like you ruined everything with an unhealthy snack. Enter GRANOLA CLUSTERS! These little clusters are perfectly crunchy and just sweet enough and fill you up quicker than other junk food snacks! My favorite part was that even though there are quite a bit of ingredients, this recipe is so customizable that you could mix and match the ingredients with things that you have. Here's to us and our New Year's Resolutions!

What You'll Need:

2 1/2 cups oats (not instant)

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup dried cherries

1 cup flaked coconut

2 cups corn flakes (lightly crushed)

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 chopped walnuts

1 beaten egg white

What To Do:

1. Preheat your oven to 300 degrees.

2. Line a large cookie sheet with non-stick foil or parchment paper and set aside.

3. In a large bowl mix all of your ingredients together. It's sort of a running joke between Mike and I that I never mix things in large enough bowls. So, my friends, use a LARGE bowl because there are a lot of ingredients.

*Spray your measuring cup with a little cooking spray in order to get all of the honey out of it.

4. Put the mixture on you cookie sheet and spread it around evenly.

5. Bake the granola for 25 minutes then turn off your oven but keep your granola in there until the oven cools. This was a great tip from Shelly (author of Cookies and Cups) that makes all the difference in how crunchy your granola gets.

**Her blog also has good tips on how to get less crunchy granola if that's not really your thing.

***As I mentioned, there are a lot of things that would go great in these. I happened to only have walnuts and dried cherries, because I love to snack on them, but cranberries, raisins, almonds, chocolate chips, or a mix of all of these would be a great addition. 

6. Once it's cooled start to break off pieces. The bottom will form a sort of crust that keeps everything together and is insanely delicious.

7. Save the mix in a air-tight container and enjoy throughout your day!

Spreads & Other Snacks for "Grown Ups"

I dedicate this post to World Market and my fellow foodies who go shopping when they're hungry. There's no denying it, and I applaud you for it because this is when I find some of my favorite snacks. Mike and I went to World Market today to look around and came out with some great stuff - including a much needed lamp shade. But food-wise we scored some new snacks too. We ended up with some Scottish strawberry champagne preserve, Cafe Du Monde beignet mix, two plates, and a little dipping dish - all for just over $26! We decided to wait on the beignets (as hard as it was) and picked up a baguette to try the preserves instead.

I was really excited to try this because the cashier lady said it was one of her favorites. Really, at that point I was so hungry I would have tried it regardless. 

My new little dish :)

I washed some grapes I had in the fridge and decided to see what else we could snack on. I had some dried cranberries leftover from my Cranberry Orange Scones so I took them out too. All we had to buy was a "rustic sweet baguette" loaf. It must have been destiny (or at least luck) because we got the last fresh loaf.

We sat down on the couch (turned on the television) and got ready to try our little snack feast. The preserves were so delicious but they were definitely on the sweet side. We needed something to cut down on the sweetness so I brought out some brie (the Laughing Cow brand) that I had in my fridge. I put some cheese on a piece of bread then some preserves - foodie heaven, let me tell you!! The brie made it really creamy. I absolutely love strawberry jam and this one is definitely a keeper. It had a slightly stronger taste and a more intense flavor. I loved it!

     

                                                                                                                                                                                    

Oh, here's a little extra info about the difference between jelly, jam, and preserves - for anyone, like me, who didn't know until today. According to TLC Cooking,

• In jelly the fruit comes in the form of fruit juice
• In jam the fruit comes in the form of fruit pulp or crushed fruit
• In preserves the fruit comes in the form of chunks

After snacking on this for a while we decided we wanted a more savory spread - but that's one thing I didn't have laying around in my fridge.... so we made a pesto butter. It was so simple to make. 

What You'll Need:

1/2 a stick of butter

3 tsp of pesto

salt and garlic powder to taste

Make sure the butter is room temp and mix your pesto in. Add your seasonings to taste. When it's how you want it, put in in the fridge for 10 minutes. We use this pesto for everything. I've mixed it into pastas and put it on chicken. I always have a jar of this in my fridge.

When the butter was chilled, we cut some more bread and sat back down. I have to say the mix between the savory pesto and the sweet preserves was unbelievable! All together it was an awesome snack that's so much better than your average bowl of chips. You could definitely serve these as snacks for guests or as a date night snack for a night in. Either way I love you enough to share this simple snack with you! Enjoy!

Cranberry Orange Scones

For the past couple of weeks it's been quite obvious that I'm on the lookout for fall. I've been sort of rushing it by making warm dishes and baking... which must mean that I'm desperate because I'm not much of a baker. One thing that I was dying to try to make for the first time was scones - but a very specific type. I wanted to make the kind that they have at my school, the ones that I'm borderline addicted to and go amazing with 50 cent coffee, not nasty 50 cent coffee, but the kind of 50 cent coffee I look forward to and will go across campus to get whether I'm running late or not. That last statement is very, very true. Anyway my school has cranberry scones for a dollar that are responsible for turning me into a scone lover. Not to throw any "major coffee companies" (cough cough) under the bus but all I've ever had are dry scones which never made me a fan. I finally worked up the energy, I mean courage, to try to make them myself.

What You'll Need:

4 C + 1/4 C flour

1/4 C sugar

2 Tbl baking powder

2 tsp salt

1 Tbl orange zest

3/4 C cold diced butter

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 C cream

1 C dried cranberries

1 egg beaten w/ 2 Tbl water

1/2 C confectioners sugar + 2 T

4 tsp orange juice

Start by preheating your oven to 400. In a large bowl mix the the 4 cups of flour, the sugar, baking powder, salt and orange zest. Add your diced butter. According to Ina Garten, this should be done in a mixer but I don't have one because they're freaking expensive. I know, I know I'm probably breaking some sort of baking rule again. I just used a dough cutter to roughly mix (more like incorporate) the butter throughout. You'll want the butter to be crumbly. The dough cutter did a fabulous job.

In a separate bowl, mix your cranberries with the 1/4 cup of flour and toss together. Add these to the big bowl.

Lightly beat 4 eggs together with the cream. Add this to the big bowl. The reason that I added this after the cranberries is because I figured the cranberries would mix easier in flour than the dough so I did that first. I ended up being right.

When everything is carefully mixed, it's time to get messy! Roll the dough into a ball. Flour a large surface and a rolling pin so you can roll out the dough. Roll it out until it's 3/4 of an inch thick.

Line two cookie sheets with parchment foil. I thought I would only need one tray but I wasn't sure how they would bake so I spaced them out and ended up using to cookie sheets.

 

Use a biscuit cutter or anything that's around 3" in diameter to cut out your scones. I don't own a biscuit cutter so I used a normal plastic cup. It worked just fine. 

Keep rolling out the scones until all of the dough is done. This batch should make about 14-16 scones. Of course I got 17.

Make a quick egg wash (one egg with water) and lightly brush the tops of the scones. After this step sprinkle sugar on the top of your scones and bake in the oven for 20 minutes, until they're golden brown. I literally used the last granule of sugar for the dough so I didn't have any extra but I wouldn't recommend skipping this step.

When the scones are done put them on a cooling rack. While you wait, make can make your glaze - yum!! This is the easiest thing to make too. Start by mixing your confectioners sugar and orange juice. If it's not the consistency you like add more of whatever you need. I eventually gave up when it wasn't as thick as I wanted. Confectioners sugar isn't my favorite taste so adding more to make it thicker wasn't my idea of good eats. What I didn't realized was that it wouldn't really make a difference because the scones were phenomenal already! When it's how you want it drizzle it over your cooled scones.

Foodie heaven!

 I would have eaten more as soon as they were done but considering I started making these around 9 pm, and the true test was how they would taste with coffee, I only had one.

The next morning I couldn't wait to try my little meal (when you're in college this is considered a meal) and in true everyday fashion, I was running really late. I'm talking about and hour and a half late to get on the road to my parents' house. But it was so worth it! They were exactly what I wanted! I have to admit that I might prefer them with my Dunkin Donuts brand coffee a little more than the 50 cent coffee but could you blame me? The centers were perfectly cooked (baked?) and they actually had a hint of orange. I wasn't sure if they would be too orangy. I was nervous because I didn't use a lot of sugar either when making these so I was afraid they wouldn't be sweet enough but the cranberries add the perfect amount of sweetness. It was definitely the best breakfast I've had in a while. Even as a snack, I can't resist them. I don't think you'll be able to either!