Living in a Cereal World

Peanut butter? Granola? I love both of those things! How could this possibly go wrong? I checked the back of the bag--nope, no peanuts, just peanut butter. On sale? Buying this. I finally opened it yesterday; I needed just a little bit to top off my yogurt. Then I noticed the block writing on the back of the bag: "Premium Decadent Granola." Oh. Ohhhhh. So this really is just more of a topper; a sprinkle on whatever needs a hit of peanut butter. I will be mixing it with another granola in order to finish off the bag and then move on to the next new thing. There's nothing wrong with the flavor, by the way--that plus the texture remind me of crumbled up Nature Valley peanut butter crunchy granola bars (even more so than actual Nature Valley peanut butter granola). But I won't be eating it too  often.

A classic combination, right? Well, it would be if I could find links to the recipes. They're from this month's Relish magazine, just so you know, and I'll insert links when I can. Anyway, it started with the biscotti. Parmesan and Black Pepper Biscotti. It's a lot of cheese and a lot of pepper. But it makes a reasonable amount (I only cut seventeen) and are perfect for dunking in soup. I've never made biscotti before but they don't really involve kneading so I thought it was worth a shot. The dough came together really easily but shaping it into the right-sized log took work. I was worried that I didn't have the right shape but once it came out of the oven and I started slicing it began to resemble biscotti. I also ate a crumb at that step. Soooo peppery. What if nobody liked them? The second step, baking the slices, seemed to help. The cheese flavor came through along with the pepper and both complemented the Italian seasoning in the soup. Oh, here

I came to the realization this morning that I'm not a bad cook. I don't mean the opposite of a bad cook, but in a pat-on-the-back way, "Hey, not bad." I had this mini-epiphany because of last night's dinner,  Corny Mango Salmon . I haven't made it in years  because I didn't want to screw it up again, and the thought just compounded until the recipe became more difficult in my mind than it actually was. It helped that I know my stove better, even with the new frying pans. If I were to follow the recipe as written, my salmon would be black on the outside and raw on the inside. Medium heat does the trick just fine, as long as the pan is thoroughly heated (I'm looking forward to trying out pancakes next weekend, but anyway...). The coating is browned and the salmon cooks on the inside. Twelve minutes, if you're wondering, was more to my liking. I'm also better at chopping up mangoes now. Oh, and the  Zucchini Hash  was better than I remembered.

So after Sunday's dinner  we had some leftover sides (no pork, that was polished off) and I couldn't just toss them. They didn't fit with dinner plans for the rest of the week, either. So I thought I'd turn them into hash and eat them for breakfast. I got the idea the from my sister who'd made a dinner hash recently. Anyway, I looked around the Internet to get a general idea of how to do this. I've never made any  kind of hash, ever. All I wanted to do was get a nice sear/char on the potatoes and reheat the dish thoroughly. A basic sweet potato hash--from what I could gather--has sweet potatoes, onions, peppers, seasonings of choice, and an egg (or eggs) cooked separately or with it. My leftovers already had onions, apples, and dried cranberries so I didn't want to change the flavor by adding peppers. I also didn't need to steam the potatoes since they were already cooked. So I cut the potatoes into chunks, heated a pan with a little bit of oil, then d

You remember the  oven incident  from last month, right? Well, the package of pork tenderloin actually came with two, and the second one's been waiting in the freezer all this time. My other recipe option--which I didn't have time for during said emergency--was this  Slow Cooker Pork Tenderloin  (you'll have to scroll down from that link). It was just about time to have some sweet potatoes again, and anything with dried cranberries will entice my mother. This was the first time we've made anything in our current Crock-Pot other  than soup. I know my mom used to make something years ago, but that was the eighties, a different Crock-Pot, and not for the kids. It still amazes me how food comes out cooked perfectly. I did the minimal amount of time for each step and still ended up with tender sweet potatoes and thoroughly cooked pork. The broiled glaze at the end was a nice touch but you could really get by without it. And then the leftovers...I'll save that for the

I've been on a bit of a post-holiday blog break; it's been so much in a short period of time, plus I didn't have anything of note to write about. But now I'm back with  Dijon-Herb Chicken Thighs . I had some chives that I didn't want to go to waste so I started searching different recipe sites and narrowed it down to two recipes. This one came out on top because it was a good day to have chicken. We don't eat a lot of chicken thighs (I've always been partial to them, though) so I didn't know how this was going to go over. Fresh herbs are always good, and the tang of Dijon mustard seemed a good complement, and it's baked, so, less work for me. The end result was almost-- almost --what it should have been. I think it needed more mustard; also, I didn't add the salt and pepper in the correct step, so I lost some flavor there. But it was cooked thoroughly in the amount of time listed (and broiled faster--I told you I have a super-hot oven) and we a

Like a lot of people, I find tiny versions of things both hilarious and adorable. Now I can add Brussels sprouts to that list. I could've sworn I blogged about this last month but apparently I didn't--at Thanksgiving I had Brussels sprouts for the first time ever. I mean ever.  In my life (we won't go into how many years that is). I only tried them for two reasons: 1) I wasn't going to gorge on Thanksgiving dinner without a vegetable on my plate, and 2) I'd heard a few days earlier that week that Brussels sprouts were in the cabbage family, and I do like cabbage, so they couldn't be that bad. I should point out now that the reason I never had Brussels sprouts is because I didn't grow up with them. Both of my parents loathed  them and refused to serve or eat them. Well, if you'd grown up eating mushy, slimy sprouts of course you'd want to stay far, far away from them. But these  Brussels Sprouts with Bacon  were cooked in a way not dissimilar to h

After I made  pumpkin oatmeal  I knew I'd have to do something with the rest of the canned pumpkin--I assumed that something would be pumpkin bread. Then I thought, hey, I haven't used my winter muffin cups yet.  So I set out to find my favorite pumpkin muffin recipe but it was difficult to access under a bunch of gifts at the time. I searched online and found this  Pumpkin Muffin  recipe instead. I realized later on that they have basically the same ingredients as my  Gingerbread Waffles  so I don't know why one is called "pumpkin" while the other is "gingerbread." They should really both be "pumpkin-gingerbread." And I didn't get to use my snowman liners since the recipe didn't call for it. However, with baking spray they came out just fine. ******* New cereal update: Raisin Bran with Cranberries -- yes, please. Special K Protein Cinnamon Brown Sugar Crunch -- from what I can tell, it looks like Kellogg's moved Mini-Wheats

I've had this three times already but haven't gotten around to reviewing so here goes: it's a lighter color but similar texture to the  Raisin and Chia  variety but for some reason tastes a little sweeter. I've never had spelt in any breakfast product before but I'll call it a positive experience. The dried cranberries are a little chewy but that happens sometimes. I think between the two I prefer this flavor but I'll definitely have both again. ***** In other breakfast product news, I had the limited edition Salted Caramel flavor of Dannon Light & Fit yesterday. It was actually pretty good. I threw in some blueberries just in case I didn't like the flavor...but that made it even better. Almost dessert-like. ****** One more product mention:  Blueberry Bliss syrup . Soooo good. My sister brought some for me from Maine and I saved it for waffle day last week. You know how most blueberry syrups taste sweet first, and then maybe "blueberry" a