I’ve been working on a homemade granola bar recipe for the past few months and I think I’ve finally worked it out and I’m super excited to share it with you! These are so wonderfully easy that I make them in the evening after dinner.

• 2 cups oatmeal
• 2 cups rice krispies
• 3/4 cup honey
• 3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (we use fresh ground peanut butter which is slightly less sweet than the store bought kind so you may need to adjust your honey quantity)

Mix the oatmeal and rice krispies together in a great big bowl. Make a large well in the centre and pour in the honey, mixing it in slowly. Add the chocolate chips and peanut butter and stir until combined.  Pour mixture into an ungreased 8×8 baking pan. Wet your fingers and press really firmly into the pan, going over the whole dish about three times. Chill overnight, cut into squares, and keep refrigerated.

Enjoy!

Today I’d like to send out a special thank you to Camille Jacks Morgan, columnist for Handmade News, for including my photograph An Apple a Day in her Juicy Word Scramble. Handmade News is the world’s largest handmade co-op super blog and the only news site that pays artisans to share what they know.

An Apple a Day, 8″ x 10″ modern fine art photograph

Have you ever visited the blog fresh365?  It’s one of my favourite food sites out there.  This beautiful blog is authored by a sweet girl named Erin and is filled with a fresh collection of vegetarian recipes.

Last week I made her Broccoli-Cheddar Soup and it was super delicious!  The broth alone was amazing!  I can’t help but tasting soup at various stages in their creation. I substituted cauliflower for the broccoli because that’s what we had in the fridge and it made quite a nice meal for a cool fall evening.  I’ll definitely be making that one again!  Thanks Erin!

In Friday’s posting I mentioned that at our house every week we have meatless monday.  As promised, here’s one of our favourite meatless meals:

Eggplant and Feta Skillet

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium eggplant, cut into 1 inch chunks

1 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2 inch slices

1 green pepper, cut into 1 inch chunks

1 onion, cut into 1 inch chunks

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 can (796 mL / 28 oz) of tomatoes, diced and drained

kalamata olives, to taste, diced

1 1/2 cups croutons

3/4 cup greek feta cheese, crumbled – it’s worth it to find feta that’s labeled Greek

Heat oil in a big frying pan over medium heat until hot.

Add eggplant, zucchini, green pepper, onion, and garlic; cook and stir 6 minutes. Add tomatoes; simmer 3 minutes.  Remove from heat, place on individual serving plates and sprinkle with olives, croutons, and feta.

Makes 4-6 servings.

I got this recipe from a friend’s slow cooker cookbook (and I made a few tiny modifications) but I can’t remember what the book is called, if anyone out there recognizes it let me know.  I just googled it and discovered that it can also be found online here:

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/eggplant-and-feta-skillet-a-recipe.htm

It definitely seems as though I have a new found infatuation for making pie ever since I started using my Grandma’s piecrust recipe.  My husband really likes blueberries and since I haven’t tasted a blueberry pie that I like (it’s not the pies themselves, I just don’t really like blueberries), I figured I’d experiment a bit by mixing in other fruits and berries.  I thought I was going to love the blueberry peach pie that I made but in the end I was much happier with blueberry cranberry.  Here’s the recipe for the innards, for the shell I used my Grandma’s piecrust.

3/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup flour

dash of salt

3 cups blueberries (because of the time of year I used frozen)

2 cups cranberries (again frozen, see point above), I think the pie turns out better if the cranberries are sliced in half which allows a better mix with the blueberries, but it’s just a personal preference

Combine the white sugar, brown sugar, flour, and salt in a big bowl.  Add blueberries and cranberries and mix well.  Refrigerate over night to allow all the flavours to mingle.

Pour pie filling into the piecrust, add the top, cut some vent holes and bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes.

I’d love to hear what you think!  Enjoy!

I am terrible at making piecrusts. In fact, until this past weekend, the last crust I made was the worst crust I had ever eaten. But I had some macintosh apples in the fridge this past weekend so I decided to try out my Grandma’s piecrust recipe. Wow! Easy and delicious! Here it is:

3 cups flour

½ tsp baking powder

1 cup lard (I used shortening)

1 tsp water

½ cup boiling water

In a large bowl combine flour and baking powder. In a separate bowl blend lard and 1 tsp of water together and, with a pastry blender, add to flour mixture until it forms pea sized pieces. Pour in ½ cup of boiling water, all at once, and mix until dough has formed. Chill overnight.

I filled my crust with this recipe for apple pie filling from the Martha Stewart website.

PS. Have you gotten a gift for your sweetie for Valentine’s Day? New modern fine art photographs of hearts will be added to my shop in tomorrow’s update! More information here.

6 pounds cooking apples, such as cortland and macoun, peeled, cored, and quartered
4 cups apple juice
4 cups water
juice of 1 lemon
¾ cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice

This recipe requires a long baking time, when I make it again I plan to prepare the apples and put them through the blender one evening, then the next day I’ll add the rest of the ingredients, boil, bake, and can. I also found that 10 hours in the oven at 200F wasn’t long enough, so next time I plant to increase the temperature to 225F or 250F.

Combine apples, apple juice, and water in a large heavy saucepan. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the apples are soft, about 1 ½ hours. Preheat the oven to 200F. Run the apples through the blender to reach desired consistency (this doesn’t take long). Return to the pan and add lemon juice, white sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Slowly bring to a boil stirring frequently. Pour three-quarter of the puree into a crock or deep baking dish, reserving the rest. Bake, uncovered, until thick enough to mound on a spoon, about 10 hours. As the mixture shrinks, add the reserved puree. Pack the hot fruit butter into hot jars. Leave ¼ inch headspace and boiling water process for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!

This photograph is now available in my Etsy shop.