A Bit of Spring for Breakfast

We haven't hit the first day of spring, not for another month or so and our days start to grow longer.  But, the weather seems to beg to differ.  Yes, we are in California so there is no such thing as SEASONS (no snow like the east coast but it gets pretty darn cold for my standards), but we have had such wonderful weather that I think Mr. Groundhog's prediction of two extra weeks of winter was a bit off.   Sorry Mr. Phil.  Maybe it's time to step down.

Just the other day I spotted peaches, plums, nectarines, and tulips in the farmers markets! Delicious!  To think I haven't hit all the recipes for winter vegetables yet and I can already incorporate peaches into salads and tulips on the table.  My first stop of the morning, after a nice run through the streets, was to Safeway to pick up some generics, and then I took a chance and tried this Farmer's Fresh Fruit & Vegetable market down the street.  I had passed it on my bike a few times, but never ventured in, always relying on Trader Joe's or the quick fix - Safeway.  But, I think I have been changed for the better.  There was such an array of fresh produce (probably fresher than Safeway but maybe not as close as farmer's markets) and it was significantly cheaper than I had been spending in the grocery stores!  Stocked up on some zucchini, cucumber, peaches, nectarines, bananas, clementines, and good-looking asparagus.  My dad has a thing for the skinny asparagus, but this chunky stemmed sort looked twice as good today.

Next up was Trader Joe's and luckily it wasn't nearly as crowded as the last time I had been there, but it was a hopping place.  Who doesn't love that store after all?  More vegetables (eggplant - a new favorite...maybe attempt an eggplant parmesan?), yogurt heaven, panko breadcrumbs (experiment with veggie chips), iced tea and green tea, and my favorite - milk.  I even picked up a thing of salmon. We shall see how it goes.  I've never actually made fish on my own (if frozen fish sticks doesn't count) and I am not sure how well it will turn out, but with some of those fresh lemons, asparagus or pea pods, and a little brown rice, it's worth a shot.

Last stop was Michael's where I found the cute pastel spring sprinkles to mix into the granola and after a quick walkthrough (ok, maybe a leisurely stroll) through World Cost Plus Market (SO MANY COOL FOODS AND CANDIES!), I was finished and ready to head home.

So as you can see I hit as many different types of stores as possible. I have a secret love of food shopping.  Some call it strange but just roaming the aisles discovering new products I had never seen or even heard up, dreaming up different types of recipes.  The tough part is most foods are prepped for 2+ servings and since there is no one special to share with, let alone cook for my family, I have to be realistic about my recipes and serving sizes.  But a girl can dream.

Anyways, I had held off grocery shopping for a couple weeks and thought with the three day weekend, today would be a perfect day to get is all done.  In the process of market hopping, I decided to experiment with a fun granola recipe to spice up my morning yogurt.  This one is adapted a Fit Foodie Finds favorite snack recipe along with my own little twists.

Ingredients:
- 2 cups oatmeal (Quaker Oats in my case)
- 1 cup nuts (a mix between almonds and walnuts)
- tad bit of cinnamon (for extra flare)
- 2 tbsp ground flax seed
- 1 cup Craisans (any dried fruit will do)
- 1/3 - 1/2 cup Agave Blue Nectar (instead of the honey/olive oil recipe)
- Optional: Fun sprinkles! (notice my spring themed sprinkles? - You can change this for any month or holiday...Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas)

 

Basically any holiday I have listed, stores go above and beyond to stock the shelves with themed products and I am sure you can find any type of sprinkle and more if you search for it.

Remember those Lucky Charms days?  We were only allowed the wonderful sugar treat around St. Patrick's day when the leprechauns made havoc in our rooms and left a box of the cereal on the counter. Each bowl I searched for every marshmallow and usually ended up leaving the cereal bits behind.  Healthy, right?

Ready to Roll:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

2.  Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl 

A food processor or even The Magic Bullet would have been extremely useful in blending the nuts, but a knife and cutting board did the trick.

Add the agave syrup on top and mix together well. 

Stirring, stirring, stirring.  Just keep them oats a stirring, RAWHIDE! 

SPRING!!! Can you feel it? I plan to eat it all up!

Lay the granola mix on the baking sheet and spread it as evenly as you can across the parchment paper.  Place it in the oven and bake for about 25-30 minutes, stirring periodically to get all of it baked evenly. 

This would go perfectly in addition to your favorite yogurt, added with some berries and milk, or just a handful to snack on in the morning or afternoon.  

Spring indeed.  Possibly my favorite time of year and I am so excited for each new day with the sun rising in the east, setting in the west (exactly according to the almanac) and wonderful weather to enjoy life outside!

Fresh Lemon Bars

I was coming back from my run this afternoon and I noticed that the large lemon tree in our backyard was plum FULL of lemons, all ready to be picked.  Now, we live in a historical monument home and with that lovely title comes a great deal of rules.  I am not sure if our landlord allows us to pick the lemons, but I don't see why not? I live here and pay rent, so a few lemons can't hurt.  That is until I find all these new recipes and go citrus crazy.  But, for the moment, I decided to make use of this monumental moment. 


I reached up and picked a few, then searched some of the best recipes for fresh lemons.  Chicken, cheesecake, what about lemon bars?  It does after all have the word "lemon" in it doesn't it? Here's an adapted recipe I found online to test out. 


Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 3/4 eggs
- 1 cup white sugar
- 2 tbsp flour
- 1 1/4 lemons, juiced

Now with my alterations (due to habits and ingredients in my reach):
- 2/3 cup butter, softened
- 1/4 cup splenda
- 1/ 1/3 cups wheat flour
- 2 3/4 egg whites
- 1 cup splenda
- 2 tbsp wheat flour
- 1 1/2 lemons, juiced (just to get the full delicious citrus flavor!)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 Degrees 

2. Mix butter, 2 cups flour, and 1/2 cup flour.  Make sure to soften the butter beforehand.  Of course the house seemed to have two hand mixers and 6-8 of the actual beater utensils, but none of them worked.  I ended up putting the butter in the microwave and warming it up to mix the batter.

 

3. Place the batter into an ungreased 9 x 13 pan 

4. Put the pan in the oven and let the crust bake for about 15 to 20 minutes.

5. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour.  Whisk in the eggs and lemon juice. 

6. Once the crust has browned, take it out of the oven and pour the topping mix over the crust. 

7. Back into the oven the pan goes, this time for about 15-20 minutes.

8. Once finished, cut into uniform 2 inch squares and they are ready to serve!

Overall: It's definitely a different style mix, chewier texture (probably due to brown sugar, which seems to be a continuous theme & use of egg whites versus real eggs), but sweet tangy topping.  Perfect success. 

Raspberry Oat Crumble Bars

This afternoon, I was invited to a BBQ for work (yes, a BBQ in February - this is California after all) and I was brainstorming ideas for a tasty treat.  Cupcakes and cookie bars are favorites, but I thought I would try something new. How about a Raspberry Oat Crumble Bar?

I saw this recipe on yet another food blog and decided it would be perfect - a little taste of summer in mid-February.   This particular recipe was adapted from a Gourmet recipe, which included coconut, something I didn't notice until I had completed the mix,  so that's a potential add-in for the next batch.

Checking out the ingredients
1 1/4 cups flour

1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
5 oz (10 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 tablespoon milk
1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
3/4 cup raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Start off mixing the flour, brown sugar, and salt.  Like my innovative mixing bowl? For a house with 22 people, you would think we would have a few more mixing bowls.  Not so fast. 

Mix the dry ingredients and then add in the cubes of butter, mixing it until a dough starts to form. 

It was recommended to use a food processor, but seeing as I barely could find a decent mixing bowl to use, I knew we weren't going to have a food processor.  Hand mixers, a pastry cutter or human muscles will work just fine as well. 

Add in the milk and continue to mix

Slowly starting to form a pebble-like batter

VIOLA! That looks better. It's actually starting to form together

Add in the oats and knead the dough until the oats are well incorporated.

Remove about 1/2 cup of the batter and set it aside.  Place the remaining amount in a pan (this one is 9x13).  *Before you add the dough, I recommend either buttering the pan or adding parchment paper for an easy removal process

SPREAD the LOVE

Warming the jar of jam up for about 20 seconds helps it spread evenly across the batter. You also don't necessarily have to use raspberry...pick your favorite or create something unique!

Once the jam has been evenly spread on top of the jam, crumble the remaining batter on top. 

Set the pan in the oven for about 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown. 

Remove the pan and let the bars cool completely on a rack or the lovely kitchen counter.  Then you may lift the bars out (via the handy wax or parchment paper), divide, and demolish. 

Overall a sweet, tangy taste from the jam, but I was slightly disappointed with its chewier and denser consistency - probably due to the use of wheat flour.  At least it will be more filling :) I will see if they taste any different after cooling off and divided up.

When we arrived, Michelle and Nick, our wonderful hosts had a great spread set out - guacamole (an original mix with chunks of avocado, tomato, and possibly onion), tortilla chips, and salsa.  Nick was busy at the grill cooking up some delicious chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled veggies - the whole spread! Inside, Michelle had made up some BBQ pulled pork in a crock pot and Ghiradelli brownies (still gooey and dangerous). 

Nick & Michelle revving up the grill

Pulled Pork...delish

Nash & Lauren eating their way through the massive amount of food set up for us.  We loved it (I mean, not having to cook, that's great) but are now stuffed to the brim!

Perfectly seasoned chicken :)

Mmmmmmmm gooey and delicious

Good news! The bars were a HIT :)

Tip 1: Use white flour for a flakier taste.

Tip 2: Use a smaller pan that consolidates the dough for a thicker crust. I had decided to add more oats on top in order to cover the entire bar, but would like to leave a little more space to let the jam shine through.  So, morale of the story - use less batter on top and transfer it to the bottom crust.

Tip 3: Top a slice with a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a full dessert delight.

Enjoy!

Super Bowl XLV

So hopefully I will have many more Super Bowl and sports game tailgate posts for years to come.  I didn't have a huge part in this year's festivities as we had just finished a half-marathon and I really didn't have much energy or time to commit to the preparations.  Actually, I had flown home for the weekend so I was sort of living the entire 72 hours in a daze.  The Super Bowl has to be one of the biggest snacking days of the year, close behind the holidays of course.  My mom was the top chef and creator of the menu and I have to say, she did a fabulous job as always!

Our tailgate parties are always full of fun, good food, and themed goodies.  It was probably a mix between outsourced food and homemade treats, along with some additions from our guests.  My dad actually, usually Mr. Anti-balloons, surprised us with some Giants, Patriots, and footballs.

A well-positioned balloon for the win :)  

Togo's Sandwich platter (absolutely DELISH and reasonably priced - a new take on the "Big Sandwich" we used to have), chips in a football bowl and perfectly themed plates. 

Bibb Salad by Marla Thorton

 Some of the dishes donated to the spread included a fabulous salad by Marla (Bibb lettuce, candied pecans, avocado, blue cheese, cara cara oranges, grapefruit, English cucumbers, and orange vineagrette!)

My selections :) A little indulgence post-race...Togo's italian combo sandwich, salad, BBQ chips, fruit salad

Spinach dip by Madre (A Heritage cookbook recipe), veggie platter (cucumbers, peppers, asparagus, carrots, etc)

The finale of sweets...

Our selection of sweets atop a football field ceramic dish - chocolate chip cookie bars, sugar cookie helmets & footballs (my favorite), cake brownies, and the store-bought two-bite brownies

Overall, a very successful game, lots of great commercials (check them out at Hulu's Adzone), great company, and delicious food!  For the next tailgating party I am dreaming of making these lovely creations.

(http://cupcakesandcashmere.com/superbowl-snack-brownie-burgers/)