Living in a Cereal World

...mostly because it's a basic peanut butter cookie. But a moist, succulent peanut butter cookie of just the right consistency: Classic Peanut Butter Cookies. If someone were to say to you, "I just made peanut butter cookies," this is what you would expect. Except ...I tried the honey option this time. Mostly because I didn't feel like sitting around waiting for my brown sugar to thaw. And you can tell the difference between the sweetness of sugar and the sweetness of honey, but it's not so huge that you would throw out an entire batch of cookies. Seriously, they're still delicious. Also, watch your oven. The minimum 7 minutes was almost too much for my cookies but they still turned out edible. ****** I'm sure you're wondering when the next cereal review is going to be posted. Probably next Thursday. Next Saturday at the latest.

We've had some weird weather the last two weeks--like Spring and Winter have been playing tug-of-war. Snow, sun, snow and then more sun. It just happened to work out that it snowed Monday and I'd already planned to make one more soup: Slow-Cooker Chicken and Gnocchi. We don't use the Crock Pot nearly enough; I had to dig it out of the back of a cabinet behind all the cookie tins. But it was worth the sore lower back to make this soup. I'd never had gnocchi until I made this soup for the first time a few years ago--or used the new Crock Pot, for that matter. I still haven't made any other dishes with gnocchi; I should amend that sometime this year. But anyway, to the soup: it's hearty, with plenty of chicken and vegetables (although I could have used some more carrots), and the thyme works really well with the gnocchi. By the way, if your gnocchi tastes kind of tart it hasn't cooked long enough. That's what happened to me the first time. I'm glad I

I felt like making some, at any rate. Of all the things to make from scratch, muffins might actually be the easiest. I would advise trying out muffins before tackling a cake recipe, anyway. So I've had this Basic Breakfast Muffins recipe stashed away for a few months and I finally had a good Sunday to make some. I decided to go with the apple pie variation because I love the idea of combining two different foods (like the new French Toast-flavored Goldfish Grahams--say whaat?) and I also didn't want to make blueberry muffins without my brother around (that's his favorite). Actually, I want to try all of the variations; they all sound tasty. But here's my notes on the Apple Pie muffins: 1. don't be afraid of what looks like a lot of spices; they're needed for flavor and will distribute themselves throughout the batter; 2. they didn't taste as like apple pie as much as they smelled like apple pie. Seriously, the whole house smelled like apple pie for whil

I thought for sure I'd already shared this recipe but I couldn't find it. So excuse me if you've heard this one before: Smoked Paprika Roasted Salmon with Wilted Spinach. This is one of my very first collected recipes from back in '07. Now I can't remember why I finally decided to start saving recipes--that wasn't a great year for me; I guess I needed something --but I didn't try to tackle fresh salmon for at least two or three years after that. I have a thing about handling raw meats; thankfully, I figured out how to get by with latex (or whatever material they're made out of) gloves. Anyway, back to the salmon. I'd never had smoked paprika before, either. It basically tastes like the name implies: smokier than regular paprika. The sweetness from the brown sugar and cinnamon should help curb your fears if you're still not sure. And a note about the spinach: we used a bag of baby spinach to feed three; it was just enough. If you want more, by

I knew I'd written sometime ago that Fiber One 80 calorie honey squares supposedly had an improved flavor and that cereal just happened to cycle back around today. Just from looking it at, you can tell it's supposed to be more appealing. It has more of a glossy coating, which makes it look less dry, and presumably taste sweeter. I didn't think there was that much of a difference in flavor but the texture is certainly less gritty. If it really is just the result of additional honey then I approve. ***** Also, while my brother was home he ate a fair amount of Honey Nut Cheerios Medley Crunch. I should have seen that one coming; he can polish off a box of regular Honey Nut Cheerios. So I guess that's two more thumbs up.

I'm really surprised I haven't mentioned this recipe before. I make other crab cakes but this is the only crab cake burger. I don't know why I like my seafood burgers less spicy than their cake counterparts (the same goes for salmon burgers); it just works out that way. All you need is some tartar sauce and you've got a very filling burger there. It's also not something we have very often; crab meat is definitely a splurge. Huh. Maybe that's why I hadn't written about it yet. Has it been that long? ***** Happy St. Patrick's Day! I totally forgot that was today.

(This wasn't the cereal I had planned to review today but it was such a reasonable price that I had to pick one up yesterday.) So I imagine the brainstorm at General Mills R&D went something like this: Hey, what if we took Honey Nut Clusters and added some Honey Nut Cheerios? That's basically what this is but there's a little more to it. First, the flakes are a little bit bigger than in Honey Nut Clusters. Also, I was expecting more of a bran-like flake anyway but this was the better choice. The clusters are larger too--you can see pieces of almond slivers in them. Come to think of it, the Honey Nut Cheerios seemed larger as well but maybe that was my eyes playing tricks on me. I can understand the need to do this, though; you have to differentiate from those other cereals, otherwise anyone could just mix Honey Nut Cheerios and Honey Nut Clusters. Actually, I can't believe I'd never thought of that one. Oh, and the flavor, in case you were wondering, is

I know some people eat soup all year 'round but I...just can't. So this may be the last soup recipe for a while: Roasted Sweet Potato and Quinoa. I picked this soup for my brother as he's a big fan of sweet potatoes but as it turned out, he didn't get any. The recipe says it makes four servings so some of us (ahem) must have eaten more than our share. This is another soup that requires a blender; I also liked the idea of starting and ending soup season that way. I was grateful for already figuring out how to blend soup; I didn't make a mess and (more importantly) I got the texture right. So I'd never had sweet potato in a soup before--I think the sweet onion really helped to bring out the sweetness without the typical cinnamon/nutmeg flavors I'm used to in Thanksgiving dishes. And the quinoa? Also a new experience. First off, I made too much. Don't ask me why I thought one cup dry would equal one cup cooked. I'm pretty sure that doesn't ap

Now here's a cereal I was definitely interested in. They've already made so many different  flavors of Mini-Wheats; what else could they possibly do? Upon first pour, they looked a lot like Oatmeal Squares, but with more of a slick sheen. They're lighter and crunchier, too--I guess it's the difference in grain? There's a hint of brown sugar flavor; it's just enough, I think. The squares are about the size of Little Bites and they hold up well down to the last bite. You know how regular Mini-Wheats get milk-logged and soggy. It's like they took Cap N Crunch technology and applied it to Mini-Wheats. If this product does well, I'd like to see another flavor next year--maybe that honey nut flavor that Little Bites came in when they were first launched. I never got to try those.

So I read this article in American Profile last weekend and it got me thinking: why didn't I ever do that? I'm guessing a lot of kids have tried to save their cereal box prizes but couldn't follow through, whether from boredom or wanting to play with everything or mom started throwing stuff away when it piled up...so for whatever reason, I couldn't do it, either. But it also made think about cereal premiums from when I was kid. Could I even remember any of them? One, for sure. Mini-license plates. They came in a big box, which I'm visualizing as Honeycomb but I can't possibly be sure. I remember I got a Texas one first--that was important as I lived there at the time--but I also got a Maryland one. I took it as a sign: I should move there one day. Yeah, still working on that one. I also remember baseball cards but no specific toys. I know in the last few years some General Mills cereals had crazy straws--I wanted to save them, but in a half-hearted way, so

This Easy Apple Pie Foldover was the first "pie" I ever made, about four or five years ago. I know a lot more now about apples and spices and thickeners but I felt like trying this again, so I did this past weekend. A word of advice: fold it horizontally (the width of the cookie sheet) so it won't be practically hanging over the edges. Heh. And some of the liquid still managed to escape before I could crimp it but I still think it was an improvement over the last time. **** And now...what did I do with the leftover pumpkin from my waffles? I made a pumpkin bread, of course, and gave half away. I wasn't in the mood for chocolate chips, so I went with the cranberry alternative instead. The pumpkin pie spice in the batter actually reminded us of the waffles a bit. But not quite the same. I also didn't glaze it because I didn't want to freeze it that way and then I didn't get around to glazing it after I thawed it. Oh, well. It's still good.

You know, I wouldn't mind if they made this cereal an annual event. I think January/February is the perfect time for a bowl of Special K Chocolatey Strawberry cereal. It's exactly what you think it is: Special K Chocolatey Delight  meshed with Red Berries. The bowl I had this morning had more berries than chocolatey pieces; I assume those are all in the bottom of the box. I'll have to give it a shake next time. At least it had that nice chocolate aroma when I opened the bag. And large flakes. There's nothing like opening a fresh box of cereal. And I mixed it with Tropical Blends. You wouldn't think they'd go together scentwise but the flavors melded nicely. (And I checked it for  glass shards anyway, even though that happened afterward, in regular Red Berries. You never can be too careful.)