Living in a Cereal World

(I'm just going to wing this entry.) I was in the mood for oatmeal cookies--we're having a still-undetermined number of guests this weekend--and I found this recipe...last week, maybe? It's supposed to be a healthier version of  Kitchen Sink Cookies . I ended up making them for a work party the other day and they don't make very much so I assumed I'd have to make them a second time. Luckily for me I had just enough apricots, chocolate chips (yes, a sub) and brown sugar and applesauce left. I didn't add the nuts--you know I don't do nuts in my baked goods--and I didn't have any dried cherries on hand so I just added more chocolate and apricots. So maybe it's missing a little something but nobody needs to know. They're chewier than a regular chocolate chip or  oatmeal cookie but not gummy and weird. And they're just as filling. Just double this recipe and serve it to a crowd already. Football season's coming up, you know.

Ok, so I'm a little late to the cauliflower game. Roasting, hiding it in other foods, whatever. If you, like me, grew up forced to eat (around) rubbery cauliflower with dinner, you'd hold off on trying that again, too. So I found this  Herbed Mashed Cauliflower  recipe from Land O' Lakes and I figured it was worth a try since (1), it was mixed with potatoes and (2) the flavor would be masked with the Saute Express square. I cut the recipe in half--which was plenty for three--and I think the flavor wasn't affected by that, either. I got raves and more importantly, I ate cauliflower.

(I realize I've been out all week. Wrist flare-up. NBD.) What would you do if you had two perfectly round peppers unused for a recipe? Surely you wouldn't toss them. Perhaps you'd want to stuff them? That's what I was thinking when I found this recipe for  Bulgur-Stuffed Summer Vegetables . I was actually looking to replace my mislaid Lemon Orzo recipe but this was right on the front page. Lucky me. I had the peppers and I'm still trying to use up my bulgur, so why not? We were already planning on grilling porkchops so the oven was free. I halved the recipe, so I cut out one zucchini and the tomatoes entirely. It had been a while since I last used bulgur, so I'd forgotten how it really cooks up. I actually had too much stuffing when I was through. And I was really surprised at how the vegetables didn't stick to my baking dish. Next time, as usual, more seasoning (I always under-season out of fear of overseasoning) and more cheese was also requested.

I finally got around to opening this over the weekend. As I struggled with the bag (sometimes I'm not patient when I'm hungry) I thought I smelled maple. Then, once I got the bag open, maybe cinnamon. Then I looked at the box: "lightly sweetened graham flavored cereal." Ooookay. How do you flavor something like "graham?" I don't even know if I could put my finger on what graham--or a graham cracker, probably--tastes like. And the shapes seem totally random: a person, a tree, a star (?) and one other thing. I'm assuming there's a commercial that explains this but I haven't yet looked for it. Also, owing to the multi-graininess, the individual puffed pieces are larger than original Rice Krispies. It's not a bad flavor, but not a must-buy again.

I tried to squeeze in one last treat before my brother leaves, so I went with ice cream sandwiches. He's not a big wait-for-it-to-thaw, scoop-it-yourself kind of guy but he will eat a portable ice cream dessert that doesn't involve any work on his part. I found these Ginger-Peach Ice Cream Sandwiches by accident but it is peach season, so I thought I'd try it. It's a two-step process: I did the ice cream part Wednesday and made the cookies yesterday. You could shortcut and buy peach ice cream but like I said, it's peach season...why pass up fresh? The cookies are perfect for a ice cream sandwich--just the right size for me to eat a whole one (and not feel guilty) and not too sweet. The sweetness should be in the ice cream. I will say that I didn't really taste any of honey that the peaches were cooked in but it doesn't matter. It's that combination of peaches and ginger that lifts this to the category of extraordinary ice cream sandwich.

I probably should've waited to review this because I only had a small taste but I've been itching to write a review. First off, I didn't get any dried apple pieces. I know they're in there, though, because I can see them (thanks, clear plastic bag front!). Unlike the Cascadian Farm box granola, this comes in thick clusters, which I don't think was really necessary. I'm trying to think which brand of granola is cluster-y...Honey Bunches of Oats, maybe? I think that's what they going for. The predominant flavor I got was nutmeg. Now, I like nutmeg as much as the next person, but this was just too much. I need more apple, so I hope I get it next time with a full serving.

I'll admit it, I could stand to eat more fruit. So why not try it for dinner? I'm somewhat open to expanding my palate. This  Mediterranean Skillet  recipe calls for dried apricots (although the wording is odd) and fresh quartered grapes. I don't actually like grapes; the texture is weird to me and the flavor is too tart--but I know roasting brings out the sweetness in veggies so I hoped a similar principal would apply here. The combination of sage, parsley and basil works surprisingly well with the sweet apple chicken sausage and the grapes. The only thing I didn't do was make enough rice, but I learned from my mistake as you'll see in a few entries. ******* I know you're probably sick of dinners. Hang in there; oatmeal season is fast approaching.

...but this one I made almost a month ago. Bobby Deen's  One-Pan Roasted Chicken and Broccoli --which I actually tore out of a People magazine last year, I think--might actually be the most simple chicken recipe I've shared here. Just cut up the ingredients and let the oven do the work. You can easily cook for fewer or  more people, and you know how I feel about roasting vegetables. Also, the chicken came out perfectly tender. I don't know how to plug this one any further. ******* Totally unrelated to chicken (yay! says everyone ), I tried the limited edition mango lemonade flavor of Dannon's Light and Fit Greek yogurt, and let me tell you...whooo, was that ever mango-y. Maybe the acidity of lemon intensifies the flavor of mango? It was good, though.

Here's a recipe I'd been sitting on for the last three years:  Chicken, Mushroom and Asparagus Stir-Fry . Now those are three of my favorite dinner ingredients, so why wait? Well, I wasn't sure about the oyster sauce. Or the stir-fry sauce. You may recall that I finally tried oyster sauce back in April when I made  Pork Lo Mein . It's just been sitting in the back of the fridge ever since so I figured I might as well use it. It turns out that the combination of the two sauces tastes exactly  like takeout beef and broccoli, so I guess that's what they use? It's a familiar taste, at any rate. I thought the final dish was delicious, and being a stir-fry, easy to put together. Highly recommended.

I had to admit I didn't expect to like Nature Valley's  granola ; I also didn't expect to like it enough to try another flavor, but when you put dried cranberries and almonds together...well, that combination's almost unfair. It's pretty much daring me not  to try. I ate the first cluster right out of the bag; it wasn't quite as sweet as I remembered the other flavor being, but sometimes underwhelming works with certain components. The rest I tasted with yogurt and I noticed the cranberries and almonds were actually in  the clusters. Usually those kind of add-ins are just mixed in the bag but Nature Valley consists of big granola clusters (except whatever breaks up in the bottom of the bag, of course) so it makes sense for all the ingredients to be bunched together that way. It's not my favorite flavor but I welcome the opportunity to add variety to my granola lineup.