Living in a Cereal World

And now for the only thing I do with plain Cheerios: double-oat breakfast cookies. I'm sure I've mentioned before that I do not eat bowls of the stuff; the smell is...unappetizing, to put it politely. But baked into a cookie they become chewy and almost nutty-tasting--it adds an element to the chewing experience. As for the flavor, there's barely a hint of peanut butter in the finished product; I think it adds more sweetness than anything. Oh, and a ridiculous amount of energy--I feel like I need to get up and move after eating one (or two). My one complaint--and it isn't really a complaint--the recipe never makes as many as it says. I always come up around a dozen short.

Yes, I'm a day late. I had to take a sick day--did not feel like thinking about food at all, let alone writing about it. But a bunch of little notes started piling up, so: 1. Waah! My cereal hookup is going out of business next month. Sure, there's other branches but this one was so convenient. You'd better believe that if they have some kind of massive sale to get rid of the merchandise I will be stocking up! 2. I noticed a new ad for Fiber One 80 calorie Honey Squares the other day. The box says "now more honey and better taste." Can it top my previous "meh" review? We'll see about that. 3. Oh, another fruit butter to add to the list: McCutcheon's Pumpkin Butter. This was a gift from my grandma. I usually get Dickinson's pumpkin butter  every fall so it was good to have something to compare it to. This McCutcheon's version is definitely less sweet and seems to lean a little more on the cinnamon and nutmeg. I still like it thoug

I had to check to make sure I hadn't already written a review of this one. I think what I like most about it is that it's non-flake based. I don't know about you, but when I think of fiber cereals my first thought is dry, bran flakes. Not that they can't be dressed up, but to have a shredded wheat in the fiber lineup was refreshing. I remember I leapt at the chance to try this when it first came out. I think General Mills went out of its way to make sure this shredded wheat was different from Frosted Mini-Wheats (unless they were legally obligated to--either way, smart move). The biscuits are flatter and the texture is not quite as rough. I'm pretty sure I have to eat a little more to fill myself up. Also, the size and texture allow for better (cereal) mixing if need be. If you're not crazy about Mini-Wheats you might like these better.

Picking up where we left off... Banana Fig Bread makes 1 (9-in.) loaf 1 c. chopped walnuts 1 1/3 c. all-purpose flour 2/3 c. whole-wheat pastry flour 1/2 c. sugar 1/2 c. firmly packed lt. brown sugar 1 tsp. baking soda 1/2 tsp. salt 3 large ripe bananas, mashed 1 1/2 c. dried figs, stemmed and diced (I ended up using the entire Sun-Maid bag) 6 T. unsalted butter, melted 1/3 c. plain yogurt 2 large eggs 2 tsp. vanilla Preheat oven to 350. Bake walnuts 5 to 10 minutes or until golden, stirring after 4 min.; set aside. Whisk flours and next 4 ingred. in a large bowl; set aside. Combine bananas and next 5 ingred. in a medium bowl; stir in walnuts. Fold banana mixture into flour mixture. Spoon batter into a buttered and floured 9x5-in. loaf pan. Bake 55 min. or until a wooden pick comes out clean, shielding with foil as nec. Cool bread in pan on a wire rack 30 min. Remove from pan; cool completely. (Adapted for People magazine from Ted Allen's In My Kitchen )

You see what I did there? Well, you will. So I was wondering how the drought in the Midwest would affect cereal prices, since so many of them contain corn (of course that's not the only thing to think about, but it is for the purposes of this blog). The answer: not much. As I learned from this article , the majority of cereal pricing is determined by costs relating to production, transport, marketing, and so forth. The raw materials only make up a small amount. So no need to run out and buy up your local supply of Corn Flakes. Good to know. I also wanted to share a banana bread recipe that was in People a few weeks back, but there's no link to it. So in order to make the title of this entry work (I'm stubborn), I'll have to get back to it on Thursday and type it out. Let me just say for now that I'd never worked with dried figs before--or any type of fig for that matter--so I didn't really know what to expect. They smelled kind of like prunes but once I cut

I'm sure I've mentioned Cinnamon Life a couple times already but I don't think I've done an actual review. If you've ever had original Life then you'll understand when I say: it tastes like that, but with cinnamon. Now maybe that sounds kind of obvious but that's also what distinguishes it from my personal favorite, Maple Brown Sugar Life. I couldn't stand original Life as a kid; I thought it was a really weird flavor. Cinnamon Life takes that flavor from my memory and just dumps some cinnamon on it. It doesn't get far enough away from the original flavor like Maple Brown Sugar Life does. The only reason I ever have it in the house is for my brother; like I said before, he was just here for a visit. Whatever's left of the Cinnamon Life after he's gone is up to me to finish, so I mix it with whatever else I might have that fits. Like yesterday, when I finished up my Fiber One Caramel Delight but didn't have quite enough for a bowl--just

(from 27Feb'12) You remember a while back when the Fiber One campaign slogan was "Cardboard, no. Delicious, yes?" Well, I didn't need convincing. I was already convinced. I'll be upfront, though: the flakes might be too dry for your taste. But they--and the clusters--have a nice sweetness, and it's a change of pace from a raisin bran-type cereal for your fiber needs. *** Actual note from today: Just tried one of Dannon Light & Fit's new seasonal flavors--honeydew. Really good. It proved my theory that I like melon-flavored products but not the texture of actual melons.

I failed to mention last time that I trotted out these new recipes for my brother, who showed up for an unplanned visit. Now I'm still getting ahead of myself, in a way. I wanted to share two other recipes I tried this week. Yesterday we had these oven-roasted green beans with dinner. Super easy. Olive oil, salt, pepper, roast. Bam! If you will. It turns out I'd been sitting on this recipe for three years. I don't know why I was so afraid to try roasting vegetables. Now I just want to expand my vegetable options. And last week I made this shrimp fried rice. Definitely get a bag of shredded carrots for this one. One less step for you. What I liked about this recipe--besides all the vegetables--was that it didn't taste weighed down like a restaurant-bought shrimp fried rice. Much less salty. It might not be enough soy sauce for you, though. YMMV. Oh, and I only used half the ginger it called for because my mom is not a big fan of fresh ginger. Or ginger in general, n

I know I'm a day late but I wanted to let you know how the pie turned out. What pie? Oh, this Peach-Mango Pie from this month's Better Homes & Gardens. I knew I wanted to use my frozen peaches in something pie-based; I just happened to glance at the BHG table of contents and, hey, that solves that issue. I thought it was excellent; my mom kept saying, "it's so sweet," but everything's too sweet to her these days. I admit I didn't have enough mangoes; I've never made a recipe that called for a measurable amount of mango (as opposed to, say, "add 1 mango"). I suppose in a pinch you could add more peaches instead. Also, I could really tell the difference between the straight-from-the-orchard peaches and the extra store-bought peach. My original peaches were fat and almost orange inside while the grocery-store peach was small and pale yellow--almost the same color as the mangoes. I probably should go for local produce more often. I was

(from 22Feb'12) I've been dismissive of Little Bites since they came out--"Little Bites? That's for kids [says the woman who still eats Corn Pops and Golden Grahams unashamedly]"--but I could not resist the pull of Cinnamon Roll. In case you haven't caught on yet, I'll try anything that is maple, brown sugar and/or cinnamon flavored. That's my sweet spot, so to speak, and this cereal hits it. The small size isn't a deterrent at all--if anything, it almost makes you pour too much. I give this one 4 spoons.

...or so I thought. I knew there'd be more than enough for three people (eight), so I figured I'd better learn how to freeze them. I found several options and decided right away that the sugar syrup solution was not going to happen. These peaches will be going into a pie at a later date, which means they'll get sugared then. I was intrigued by the idea of freezing a few whole but as it turned out, there were only two peaches left yesterday. So I sliced them, sprinkled them with Fruit Fresh (which, by the way, can be found with the rest of the canning supplies in the kitchen section at Wal-Mart), put them in a freezer bag and checked on them this morning. Still peachy! Two peaches were eaten, two were tossed (boo--I hate wasting food), and I used two in this coffee cake. It was very tasty, although it got a little soggy in the middle--I'm thinking the juicy peaches did it. **** And it turns out I spoke a little too soon about the Cinnabon cereal, which I found yest

I made sure to taste one straight out of the box first--instant hit of cinnamon. I don't remember liking it much the first time (this, in case you couldn't tell, is only the second) but today I just really wanted some cinnamon. I guess I'm still smarting from my last entry. I mixed it with the apple cinnamon Life Crunchtime and that threw me off a little. Okay, I said to myself, remember that flavor from last week. The next bite made more sense, so I didn't have to get up and check my milk. This has just been a really rushed morning, so I was more focused on eating than tasting. *** I was debating whether or not to finally mention the pie I made last week, or wait and tack it on to my future peach entry. Either way it would still feel tacked on, so here it is. I wanted a pie with a crumbled oat topping and I needed to get rid of a frozen deep dish pie shell, so...ta-da. Oh, hey, look, another chance for cinnamon. Also, if you've never tried golden raisins, you b

I don't really need to review this, since I already covered it with the Little Bites version. Same flavor, different size. I just wanted it on record that I mentioned it. **** Now to what I really wanted to write about today: Dear Kellogg's, Do you have something against cinnamon? Why are you taking away my cereals? First the Simply Cinnamon Corn Flakes, now the Cinnabon cereal? Did you have to save up your cinnamon for the new Raisin Bran , which, admittedly, is delicious? Oh, and the Cinnamon Roll Mini-Wheats Little Bites. Yeah, that probably takes a lot of cinnamon. You realize you're now forcing me to try the new Apple Cinnamon Chex, though. Yeah, that's right. General Mills. Maybe you can win me back next year. Sincerely, cerealfyre