Living in a Cereal World

Can you handle these cinnamon chips? I don't think you're ready for these cinnamon chips. You know I love cinnamon. I also enjoy baking cookies. So when I found these Soft and Chewy Cinnamon Chip Snickerdoodles  I thought, yesssssss. Snickerdoodles are definitely not something I make on a regular basis--or a yearly basis, for that matter. But I was intrigued, mainly because these weren't your typical thick and cake-y snickerdoodles. In fact, they taste just like some store-bought cookie I've had but can't put my finger on. I want to say it reminds me of Skinny Cow Snickerdoodle ice cream sandwiches but I can't say for sure. So, yeah, these cookies are delicious. And sweet. And rich. Definitely a one-cookie-at-a-sitting kind of treat. And now this cinnamon-lover actually needs a break from cinnamon.

Apparently this has been out for a while, but I first started seeing it this month. My parents like to top their yogurt with Raisin Bran, so my first thought was, well, that's a natural progression. I'm not sure they'd like this, though. There's a lot going on besides raisins and bran flakes. In fact, I don't even remember the granola clusters. They had to be there, though, or you couldn't call it granola. Mostly it was overshadow by the puffed cereal, which reminded me of Honey Smacks and dominated my tasting experience. I will say that I liked that weren't too many raisins; they get chewy and annoying after a while. And at some point I'll try the Cranberry Almond flavor. But next I'm looking forward to making another granola.

(It's a pun if you say it aloud.) I know I don't really share dinners here anymore but this one was a standout. I never thought my parents would enjoy a pizza that didn't have pepperoni or sausage. Or tomato sauce. It all started a weeks ago when my mother mentioned in passing that she'd like to try naan sometime. I had some chicken in the freezer so I'd thought put the two together. Actually, Hidden Valley put the two together with this Chicken Ranch Naan Pizza . And the garlic naan is a must. The combination of garlic, mozzarella, and tomato? I can't even put it into words. Which is not great for a blog. But I highly recommend this if you're bored with regular pizza. ****** I know I said I wasn't ready for Fall but I may have already opened my box of Pumpkin Spice Mini-Wheats. The spices taste a little stronger than I remembered. I'm still in the process of collecting the rest so I probably won't be opening them until September.

I'm not sure why I wanted to this; I guess I'm a sucker for berry-flavored products. And it has an adorable name. Tiny Toast! Which also never fails to remind me of Tiny Toons.  Funnily enough, I forgot about the toast part of the name when I poured and saw all these little fat toasts in my bowl. It basically looks like a shrunken slice of Texas Toast, dotted with blueberry. The flavor is almost too blueberry. Like they didn't want to err on the side of cautious flavoring. But it also reminds me of blueberry muffins. I'm sure someone will figure out how to work this into a muffin batter. It also has that weird grittiness that comes with some part-corn cereals. Thanks to the intense blueberry-ness, it's not as noticeable. And another plus, the thick pieces of cereal hold up nicely in milk. So I suppose now I'll have to try the strawberry.

I wasn't going to try these--you know chocolate cereal isn't my favorite thing--but my brother was home two weeks ago to help eat this/be a new cereal guinea pig. His verdict: "Interesting." I guess that's a good reaction because he ate it several days in a row. The thing about chocolate cereals is you can't eat a whole a bunch at one sitting--so it's going to take a while to finish. So you may remember my review for the original Baked Oat Bites : to put it simply, this is the chocolate version. The cereal itself looks like it was mixed with cocoa powder to achieve its dark brown color; it also has a chocolate(-y?) drizzle. So it has a very strong chocolate flavor and would be a good candidate for chocolate-ing up your milk, if that's important to you. If I had to rank this year's chocolate cereals, though, Dark Cocoa Karma  would come out on top. ******* So I am almost done with the new summer cereals; I have just the two flavors of Tiny To

So I just got back from a mini-vacation and I think my brain is still in travel mode. You know what I did as soon as I got home yesterday? Okay, laundry, but the second thing was have a bowl of cereal. I don't get cereal when traveling due to lack of access to tolerable milks so I really had a craving. And then this morning I had a smoothie. Cravings don't last long. But now I'm rambling. The point I wanted to make was that I'm behind in my posts. And one of those topics is Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies . I made them for my brother but froze some for the trip. You know I love my travel cookies. I chose this recipe because I wanted a peanut butter cookie. Then I wanted a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. I almost made those but then realized, you know what, this trip's coming up, I should really make oatmeal cookies. As for the recipe itself, on first bite my reaction was, I miss the raisins. Which is silly because I didn't want an oatmeal

I don't know how I got so far behind--I have subjects to write about, I just haven't done it. So here's one. Muffins. 100% Whole Wheat Blueberry Muffins , to be precise. My brother asked for only one thing during his brief visit: blueberry muffins. Simple blueberry muffins, nothing fancy. I wanted to make something with buttermilk that needed to be used up. So no lemon-blueberry muffins, so no banana-blueberry, and no crumble toppings. That's how I settled on this recipe. What I didn't notice, though, is that there's no egg in this recipe. The baking powder, baking soda, and buttermilk do all the heavy lifting. So this isn't the recipe for you if you like monster crowns on your muffins. But if you want simple ingredients to showcase your fresh blueberries, these are pretty good. They're filling but don't feel like you're eating a rock, if you catch my drift. Somehow weighty but delicate. It works.

(I always forget to take a picture before cutting into food.) So it's peach season and I felt like making a pie. Conveniently, Sally  came through again with this Brown Sugar Peach Crumble Pie . A few new elements for me: an oat-less crumble, made with melted butter (which actually makes sense if you don't want butter getting down into your fruit), and peaches cut into chunks instead of slices. I went ahead and sliced first and then cut those slices into chunk. And for some reason, slicing upside-down (stem-end down) was quicker for me. No idea why. I also strained my peaches twice to get the juice out--once before adding ingredients to the filling, and then using a slotted spoon to transfer the filling to the pie crust. And the crumble was damp but bakes into a regularly-textured crumble. And it goes without saying that it's delicious. Peaches, brown sugar, and cinnamon? That's a no-brainer.