Day 80 - Brown Butter Pantry Bars

       I know, weird title, but I couldn't think of what else to call them because this is truly a recipe from scratch.  Not that all of the previous 79 haven't been, it's just that this one I completely made up out of my own little head.  I was looking through the pantry and found various ingredients and thought if I threw them all together, they might make a decent tasting bar.  We'll see.  I guess I could have called them Odds & Ends Bars, too, but the other title sounds a little more appetizing, I think.

     Brown Butter Pantry Bars

     ½ cup (1 stick) butter
     1½ cups flour
     ½ cup sugar
     1 egg
     1 teaspoon vanilla
     1 can sweetened condensed milk
     ½ cup white chocolate chips
     ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
     ½ cup cherry Craisins (sweetened dried cranberries)
     ½ cup chopped peanuts

     Preheat oven to 350ºF.
     In, small pan, melt butter until it is browned.  Remove from heat.

     In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, and sugar.
     Add butter, egg, and vanilla to mixing bowl.  Mix well until thoroughly combined.

     In a 9 X 13" baking dish, spread dough evenly over bottom of pan.
     Pour can of condensed milk over dough, spreading evenly with a spatula.

     Sprinkle semi-sweet and white chocolate chips on top of condensed milk.  Follow with Craisins.

     Scatter peanuts evenly over top.
     Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes.

 Allow to cool completely before cutting.
    
     I probably should have added a ½ teaspoon salt to the dough, but I forgot.  This was fun!  I really liked being creative and adding different things.  I was going to add some miniature marshmallows, but I thought that might be overkill and that they would already be sweet enough.
     Yes, they are very sweet and they fall apart easily.  They are not too exciting, so I wouldn't recommend printing this recipe.  I didn't even take a finished picture because it just wasn't worth it.  They were waaayyyyyy too sweet.  I am amazed that people are able to make recipes up.  I can follow a recipe, so that it turns out really well, but make my own things up?  I'm just not there yet and I wonder when I will be.  Everybody has a special purpose in life; maybe mine's just following the recipes, not creating them.  I'm okay with that, but I'm still jealous.
     I rate my recipes on a scale of 1-4 with 4 being the best.  These didn't cut it, so I'm giving them a 1.  Oy.  They were really sickening sweet.  Although the dough with the brown butter was good, maybe I'll have to work that into something else.
     Happy baking!

Day 35 - Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

         My mother-in-law gave me this recipe because my kids absolutely love when she makes these cookies, and it's also on the back of the Craisins bag if you're ever needing it.

      Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies
     2/3 cup butter
     2/3 cup brown sugar
     2 eggs
     1½ cups oats
     1½ cups flour
     1 tsp. baking soda
     ½ tsp. salt
     6 oz. package Craisins (sweetened dried cranberries)
     2/3 cup white chocolate chips or chunks

     Beat butter and brown sugar until fluffy. 

Add eggs and oats. 

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Add to butter mixture. 

Stir in cranberries and chocolate chips.  Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet.

  Bake at 375ºF for 10-12 minutes.  Makes 4 dozen.

     I'm mixing the brown sugar and the butter together, then take out the salt and baking soda and realize I have less than ¼ cup of flour left.  How can this happen?  I'm doing an experiment/project/challenge that will last me a whole year on baking and I have less than ¼ cup of flour in the house?!  Not well prepared, so had to run mid-recipe out to the store.  I bought the 10 pound bag, so that should last me through the middle of next week...I hope.
     My kids love these cookies!  I don't know if I made them as well as Grammy did; things always taste better when there are some warm fuzzy memories associated with them.  But they were excited to come home from school to find them on the counter.  My husband gave them the thumbs up, too.  I preferred the plain ol' Craisins mixed with white chocolate chips personally.  Alright, so I had a little snack while I was mixing things together - just making sure they were safe to eat and weren't going to make anyone sick.  On a scale of 1-4 rolling pins with 4 being the best, these cookies deserve a 3½!
     Happy baking!

Day 28 - Flu-Fighter Cookies

  Yes, a recipe that took me by surprise.  I was searching for a cookie recipe on the http://www.foodnetwork.com/ website and saw a delicious looking recipe that I'll definitely be trying, but when I was scrolling down the page this one caught my eye.  I had never heard of a cookie named the Flu-Fighter Cookie.  The thought of it just really doesn't sound too appetizing; which is why my teenage daughter probably turned her nose up at them and wouldn't give them a try besides the fact that they contain nuts (not that she's allergic, she just doesn't like to eat them).  The name sounded so unappetizing to me and yet at the same time, was so very much intriguing!  And it is completely filled with ingredients.  It's like someone took a pantry and spice cupboard and dumped it all in a bowl - really bizarre.  There are 18 different things in this one cookie!  And soooo many different flavors! I can't post the recipe, but I can give you the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchens/flu-fighter-cookies-recipe/index.html (I still haven't figured out how to link words to websites yet.  It's on my list of things to do, so please bear with me.)  I am going to list the ingredients for you though, you ready?
flour
baking powder
baking soda
salt
ground cinnamon
freshly grated nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves
unsalted butter
dark brown sugar (I went to two different grocery stores for different things today and forgot it each time.  I had some light brown sugar at home, so I just used that.)
eggs
molasses
Greek yogurt (I always have that in my fridge)
freshly grated ginger
grated lemon zest
old-fashioned oats
golden raisins
dried cranberries
chopped toasted walnuts
See?  That's quite a list, isn't it?  They're so much in them that I was concerned about how they would taste, but then I'm thinking the Food Network isn't going to put crappy recipes up on their site and it's so different that I'm just going to have to try it.  Besides, people around these here parts have been quite sick with the flu and whatever else is going around, so maybe these will help to boost people's immune systems.  I know I'm going to be eating them for a while.  Heck, they're healthy, too (ok, at least they appear to be - it says each cookie has a calorie count of 174).  Any excuse I have to eat a cookie, I'm all over it and again, if you read my weigh-in post today, I didn't gain any weight this week.  I'm ok.
     The ingredients:  oats, flour, brown sugar, butter, baking powder, baking soda, cloves, salt, cinnamon, and, eggs.

Golden raisins, toasted walnuts, dried cranberries. molasses, and Greek yogurt.

 Lemon zest, grated ginger (behind it is ginger juice), and grated nutmeg.

After grating the nutmeg, (grating those lil' buggers is hard!  It was rolling around in my fingers and wouldn't stay still.  I need to get me one of those microplane graters) something which I had never done before, I sliced it to make sure I was grating the proper part.  I had no idea.  It smelled good as I was grating, so I figured I was doing something right.  I couldn't buy just one piece, had to buy a jar of nine for $7.9something, and four of which are stuck in the bottom of the bottle.  How the heck am I going to get those out of there and when am I going to use the rest of it?  Guess we'll be making more things with nutmeg in them.  It doesn't expire until sometime in 2014, so we're good.  The smell reminded me of some rice pudding I used to eat, so there's one idea.
I thought the inside of the nutmeg was cool:

My sous chef, Charlie.  He kept watching the mixer, but really he's waiting for me to feed him because, you know, the world revolves around the cat.

The flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves combined.

 The butter and brown sugar creamed.

The second egg added to the butter and brown sugar.

The molasses, lemon zest and ginger added to mixture.

The flour mixture added to previous ingredients.  Hanging off the blender are the fibers from the ginger.  I was really thinking this wasn't going to be a good part of the cookie and would be stringy.

Oats,  ½ of each of the cranberries, walnuts and raisins added.

Ready for the oven.

Baked and ready to be eaten.

     The aroma that filled the house while these were in the oven was wonderful!  It smelled like gingerbread.  I have to say I wasn't looking forward to trying these and was thinking that they were not going to be eaten.  But, wow!  For a cookie with so much in it, it's like a taste party in your mouth!  Unbelievable.  It's gingery, with a taste of cinnamon; a touch of lemon and I'm not tasting that ginger stringy-stuff I thought I would; crunchy from the nuts and chewy because of the raisins and cranberries; and it has just the right amount of sweetness!  These probably are the healthiest tasting cookies I have ever had.  It's a good cookie to send in a care package to your college student who is stressed, doesn't eat well or get enough sleep and is around a lot of sick people, especially this time of year.  You can bet I'll be sending some of these out to my daughter.
     The rating for Flu-Fighter Cookies: 3½ rolling pins.
     So, here's to your immune systems, happy baking!