Living in a Cereal World

Or as the box says, Real Strawberries. As opposed to strawberry-shaped, red-dyed goo? Sorry. My sarcasm's getting away from me. We're in the middle of some repair work with repairmen on a totally random schedule, apparently, so I have to make time to blog when I can. And I absolutely couldn't let the month end without a cereal review. I mean, that's the essence of this blog... So after I reviewed the Honey Bunches of Oats with Vanilla Bunches  I figured I might as well try all the regular Honey Bunches of Oats varieties, and I had a taste for strawberries. The first thing I noticed was an oddly narrow bag. Are they planning to narrow the box in the future, too? The second thing: the flakes looked a little dried out. I tried a few and they didn't have any flavor, really. But were they supposed to? Also, I don't recall many oat clusters. Or strawberries. I really need to give the box a good shake next time. I will acknowledge that this cereal served its purpo

I don't know why it's taken me 'til now to write this entry. Last week I had a taste for peanut butter cookies, but nothing fancy. Flour, sugar (preferably brown) and peanut butter. The peanut-ier the better. Oh, and not a huge amount of cookies. So I settled on this Peanut Butter Cookies  recipe from Simply Recipes. One wrench in my plans: chilling the dough for three hours. Three hours? Really? Yes, really. And even after those three hours I had to keep rinsing my hands in cold water to keep rolling firm peanut butter dough balls. But other than that, pretty simple and straightforward. I made one change, which was to bake at 350 degrees because I know cookies will burn in my oven at 375. After about eleven minutes the first batch was perfect. The second batch, not so much. The second batch always cooks faster and I forgot to keep an eye on it. They're still edible, though. Just a little brown.

So as I've said before, I'm trying to avoid pumpkin overkill while also embracing fall flavors. So I thought I'd try these Apple Cinnamon Waffles . They're supposed to be vegan but my mother has a thing about seeds. They're supposed to be hard for her to digest or something, I don't know. So I subbed a real egg. But everything else is what it was supposed to be. I also learned that I'm the chief cooked apple-eater in the house. I'll remember that from now on. Two things to note: these are the chewy kind of waffles. If you like entirely crispy waffles this isn't for you. Also, unlike some other batters this one didn't spread when I put the lid down. If you want picture-perfect waffles like in the recipe be sure to spread the batter out before closing the lid of your waffle iron. And an extra note: I put the leftover apples in my oatmeal this morning. It tasted just like the Apple Cinnamon instant oatmeal packets we ate as kids (my brother esp

It was past time for my monthly homemade granola but it took a while to get the ingredients together. Seriously, no one around here sells large-flake coconut. And I absolutely had to have large-flake coconut to make this Strawberry Coconut Granola  from Minimalist Baker. I finally found some at a better (read: larger) Target than mine. I made two ingredient swaps, though: first, I didn't want more nuts than oats so I just swapped the amounts. It helped that I had a bag of slivered almonds that was exactly one-and-a-half cups. Second, I still haven't made the commitment to coconut oil because I don't want to keep bringing specialty foods into the house when I could be moving any month now. I already have a shelf in the smaller fridge with all my stuff stored. So I just used light olive oil. Obviously that takes away from the coconut-iness (coconuttiness?) of the granola but I'm hoping after being stored for a while it'll take on more of a strawberry flavor anyway.

My local newspaper prints excerpts from Meredith magazines including one full of pumpkin recipes. I forget the name of it, but the important thing is the name of this particular recipe: Honey-Glazed Pumpkin Banana Bread . I know, there's so much going on here, right? Honey. Glazed. Pumpkin. Banana. Any one of those components would be great in any recipe but all four combined? Must make. The only reason I didn't make it right away was that it makes two loaves. And as much as I love pumpkin, I didn't need two loaves. So I had to wait for my brother to come home to give away some bread. So I've made pumpkin bread before. And banana bread, of course. Naturally I assumed this would be super-extra moist. Actually it's more like perfectly moist. And maybe mine were a little brown around the edges but I always volunteer to eat the end pieces. As for flavor, the ginger comes across really strong, like you would expect from a banana bread. It almost overshadows everythi

I've eaten this a few times but today I purposely took the time to pay attention to what I was eating. Because it looks the same the as the Raisin & Honey granola (but with added dried cranberries and almonds) I really wanted there to be a distinct difference in taste. I was surprised that it wasn't as sweet as the other flavor, especially since honey is pretty high up in the ingredient list. But it's not nearly as honey-ish. I was actually able to pick up on the cinnamon, which is nice with cranberries. The only thing about this granola is its tendency to stick and clump together--and you really don't want a giant clump to fall apart on your yogurt, trust me. Of course it could just be the warmth of my kitchen but I thought I'd mention it.

I know you're probably wondering, where's cerealfyre been all week? Well, things have been crazy around here. Am I moving, what are my working hours, should I be bringing more cereal into the house? I guess it's settled for the next week, at least, so here's a cookie I found time to squeeze in yesterday. If you like a moist and chewy cookie, then Erin's Apple Oatmeal Cookies  are for you. If you're not accustomed to oatmeal cookies having a chewier consistency, you should try these anyway. I decided to make these for two reasons: 1. I wanted a small batch of cookies (it made fourteen), and 2. I'm trying not to overdo the pumpkin-flavored foods. Mostly because I already know that's coming up next weekend. But there's a lot to like about these. Mainly the flavors. Somehow the apple comes through so strongly (maybe I had a good Gala?) even with all the spices--also great--and the honey. Actually what was surprising was the honey had more of an effe