Breakfast Bars

2011-03-09T15:51:00.002-05:00

This recipe is my own, but based on an oatmeal-raisin cookie that should be familiar. It makes a chewy, thick cookie; especially good with coffee. I usually make it as a loaf and then cut it up.

Preheat oven 375. You will need three bowls. Thoroughly mix each bowl and set aside. Oven at 350 yields a softer loaf, turn it up too high and you burn the raisins.

Bowl One, Largest
3/4 cup brown sugar. If the sugar is too dry, put it in the bowl first with a sprinkle of water and microwave for a few seconds, it will get mushy. Too much power or time and you will have a rock. Caution. As always you can substitute white sugar for brown, but it will change the taste somewhat.
1/2 cup granulated sugar or Splenda. Splenda makes a smoother bar, tastes no different.
2 sticks butter. Additional butter makes it moister. Margarine or oil changes the taste for the worse.
2 tsp vanilla Yes normally this would be 1 tsp but you need this because of the dry ingredients volume
2 eggs Again the egg will be soaked up by the dry ingredients.
Variation: Add 1 to 2 mashed bananas. Consider increasing the spicing and oatmeal volume if you take it up to 2 bananas. At 2 bananas the bar tastes like banana bread, but somewhat crunchy.

Bowl Two
1-3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon increasing this gives a hotter taste
1 tsp nutmeg without this the taste is a little flat

Bowl Three
1-1/2 cups raisins
1-1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup chocolate chips. The smallest ones work best if you want to avoid sticky fingers. Larger ones make the chocolate taste more prominent. If you put in much more than a cup, you will probably want to reduce or eliminate the cinnamon and/or nutmeg, since the bar will have a dominantly chocolate taste.

Fold contents of bowl 2 into bowl one, mix thoroughly. Add 3 cups oatmeal, more if bananas were used. Add contents of bowl 3. Pour into 9x13 baking pan or bottom of broiler pan. Bake 25 to 30 minutes. Cool while still in pan. Cut into 1 inch squares or 3/4 by 2 inch bars. Bars left exposed to air after cooling will get drier and crunchier. Cutting while still cooling and wrapping them will yield moist bars that might not hold together well.

Trail Head

2010-07-30T14:00:00.000-04:00

This is the start of a blog, but not the start of a journey.

In a few weeks, I leave with my pony and my kitten for an alternative lifestyles camping event near Seattle Washington. We will pull a 19 foot travel trailer across the country, camping along the way.

The Trail

Breakfast Bars

Trail Head