Homemade Granola Bars

I like granola bars. Unfortunately they have lots of packaging and many have ingredients that I can't eat (lactose, gluten). To fix this predicament I decided to make my own granola bars.

Here's the recipe that I tried out to make these yummy bars:

I did make some changes to the recipe - I left out the chocolate and didn't use as much cinnamon (we had very little left!), but it turned out really good. I'm wondering if they will freeze since I don't think I can eat this many before they go off.

Next time I'll also make them thinner, these are particularly thick!

Neat!

Greg made a tasty treat on Sunday - almond bark.

Part of the process was boiling water and sugar together. It looked really neat:

Homemade Bread

I have been trying for awhile now to make a loaf of bread that's not a dense brick of carbs. A few weeks ago I tried an oatmeal molasses concoction which turned out okay but it still didn't rise enough for my taste (sorry there is no photo).

Today I made a loaf using a recipe that I've had lots of success with in the past to make a garlic and herb braided bread. I didn't include any of the spices so it's just a plain loaf.

It even has the bulge on top that is typical of breads - hooray!

I also made a pumpkin loaf (remember how I told you it was time that pumpkin made its way into everything?) this morning and put it along side the bread to give you a comparison.

So for the bread recipe:

• 4 - 4 1/2 C bread flour (I used multigrain)
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 2 packages of quick rise yeast
• 3/4 C milk
• 1/2 C water
• 1/4 C butter (cubed)
• 1 egg

1. In a large bowl combine 1 1/2 C flour, sugar and both packages of yeast. Whisk to mix
2. In a small saucepan heat the milk, water and cubed butter until it's heated through, but not boiling
3. Add this milk/butter/water mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until moistened
4. Add the egg and beat until smooth
5. Stir in the remaining flour (I sometimes don't need the full 4 1/2 C, and just for for 4 C total) until it forms a smooth dough
6. Knead until smooth
7. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes
8. Grease a 9x5 pan in preparation
9. Punch down and let rise in the pan you are going to cook it in (9x5 loaf pan) for about 25 minutes in a warm location
10. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown
11. Remove from the pan to a wire rack and let cool

Weekend Breakfasts

This weekend was filled with delicious breakfast sandwiches! On Saturday we went to Baked Cafe in New Glasgow and I had a spinach, egg and other goodies on a pretzel. It was very, very yummy.

This inspired Sunday's sandwich breakfast of homemade egg mcmuffin's. We've made them before, but this time we made the english muffins from scratch as well. It turns out that english muffins are particularly easy to make. I followed this recipe.

Weekend Food

Surprise, surprise. A post about food. But really, the vast majority of it was tasty and worthy of pictures!

Greg made tomato basil soup from our super successful
basil plant

It was delicious!

Particularly with the most hearty bread EVER! It was spelt
bread from a local shop, it was filling. 

What's a meal without dessert? These were also intended
for our hike the next day. They sadly were not the finest
cookies I've made. Oh, and they are supposed to be flat.

The cupcakes from Saturday night turned out much better

Weekend Photos

A compilation of photos from this weekend

Wandering around New Glasgow Saturday we found an antique store that's only opened on Saturdays. It has lots of strange and interesting things like these doors used as room dividers:

More doors and an old fellow...Greg thinks it's King Midas

Not sure how this works

Saturday:
Coffee and a dairy free treat at BaKed, New Glasgow's finest

BaKed

After eyeing up old crates like this for a really long time I
finally bought one. It will be incorporated into our wedding!

For now it's a plant and picture holder

Greg bought me flowers, AND supporter cancer research!

Saturday sewing

Sunday breakfast

Lesson planning on a Sunday morning at school

Sunday
After finishing my first hour long run of the season, huzzah!

Sunday
Greg and I will be attempting to grow our own vegetables this
season since we have access to outside. No doubt many posts
will be dedicated to their progress

Sunday: New found beer love

Sunday
Greg made a zucchini loaf, I made bread. Omnomnom

Sunday
I also made naan, to celebrate finishing The Kite Runner
in my English class. Nothing says we're done a novel study
like eating!

Cookies!

I made these cookies a little while ago and I think they are the BEST ginger cookies ever. I was going to make ginger snaps and then decided to go for something more chewy - voila!

I got the recipe from this website, and if you like ginger cookies I suggest you give it a try yourself!

Baking Up A Storm!

I'm not sure why but lately I've been in the mood to bake. We had a couple of bananas that were beyond my ridiculously picky standards, but of course that makes them perfect to be mashed up further and baked.

I found this recipe from a foodgawker.com search and voila! Easy banana-maple muffins!

Bread Maker-ing

I tried to make bread today in our bread maker - it was moderately successful. I think what I made could pass as bread:

It kind of has a bread shape but the top looks more like a blob of cooked dough, which I guess that's just what it is.

It tastes okay - I tried a bit with some butter, so perhaps it's just meant to be sandwich bread. I'll be trying it again, hopefully with better results!

Cupcakes

Upon my leaving of Saint John I was given a few wonderful presents from a friend one of them was a cupcake recipe book. I'm not sure why it took me so long to crack open a book dedicated to cupcake recipes but I only did so last night. 

It's a vegan cupcake book, given my inability to digest milk my friend believed it to be a safe bet. I made the standard vanilla cupcakes and the buttercream icing. I actually used butter in the icing (not in the recipe) because thankfully, I can eat it but it turned out to be a terrible mistake. I got really excited because I could use my electric mixer and the icing turned out looking more like cottage cheese than the smooth icing I was promised.

Greg and I suffered through it and took one for the team, eating our way through the 'cottage cheese' topped cupcakes. 

Given my lack of will power I only made 5 cupcakes, I tried to half the batch and I actually cooked them in these super strong cupcake wrappers (part of the cupcake cookbook present):

I made a much more successful batch of icing today and they turned out looking like what I initially had in mind:

I won't be making the first icing again but I will be adventuring more in the cupcake cookbook!

Mega Muffin!

Since we're moving on Saturday this week has been dedicated to eating all perishable food items we have. We had frozen a few pints of local blueberries with hopes of making jam but since muffins are easier we went with muffins.

There was one monster muffin that came from this batch and of course I couldn't help but take a photo of it and put it on the internet. Maybe it's a sign of a slow week.

Here's the recipe I followed if you would like to try your hand at making a mountainous muffin. I would however, suggest adding a little bit more sugar. I used brown sugar so maybe that's why it wasn't as sweet...there will be fiddling to this recipe in the future.

Greg Turns 26

Hooray for birthdays! I love lots of things about them: family, friends, desserts, presents, decorating, singing Happy Birthday, party hats. So when it was time for Greg's birthday this year I was very excited to participate in a number of those things.

Homemade signs, they are better - right?

Happy Birthday Pumpkin Pie

Presents!!

Dinner at Beatty & the Beastro
*please excuse the terrible lighting choice
of my camera...I couldn't get it right in there!

Beatty & the Beastro decor
(it's like you're eating in someone's house)

Since Greg's favorite dessert is pumpkin pie I tried my hand at making it from scratch. Last weekend you might remember Greg and I went apple picking and stopped by a place to buy pie pumpkins...here is my baking adventure!

I used this pumpkin recipe but my own crust recipe. I used this recipe to find out how to cook the pumpkin to get the yummy, yummy filling.

Sliced in two

After 45 minutes in the oven

Just before they head into the oven

Out of the oven, they really darkened up

Since Greg is well liked in Saint John the woman who runs the market we visit many many times a  week gave him birthday cupcakes from the bakery (also in the market). There were two, so she kind of likes me a bit too. They were very tasty!!

Making Jam - The Second Attempt

Last time I didn't actually blog about the jam that I made. In my first attempt I tried my hand at blueberry jam but it ended up with a consistency closer to sticky cement rather than jam. It tasted good, but you just had to heat it up before you could even think about spreading it on toast. For the first attempt I used this recipe.

So for my second attempt I was definitely going to try a new recipe and found something with lots of instruction and advice. Check out the recipe I used here (while the page is entirely in comic sans I will forgive the author because my jam turned out!).

This jam adventure ended in much, much, much better results. I was able to make 4 jars of strawberry jam and although I initially thought it was too sweet once it set the intense sugar taste faded a bit - thank goodness!

The kitchen set up - lots of pots!

2 cups of crushed strawberries

Cooling and hopefully setting

A little bit lighter looking from a different angle

Close up - the fruit looks like it floated to the top a little bit

A bit blurry, but it set well (hooray!!)

Crazy jam lady (with post-gym hair)

Omnomnom! It was super tasty!

There will be definitely more jam making in my future, perhaps just with less sugar!