Living in a Cereal World

Ugh, wow, it's been over a week. 👎 One more trip, just one more, and then I hope to stay put for a month. I have three new cereals in the queue, and I should be getting to all of them next week. Plus this summer's Smoothie List, since last year's version was surprisingly  popular . In the meantime, I've been eating these  Quinoa Breakfast Bars all month. How does a bar hold together with no flour? Very carefully. Actually, if you use dried fruit instead of the fresh blueberries it might hold its shape better. And I'm still on the fence about buying pumpkin cereals this year. 😲 I know, I know, but it's pumpkin! Plus cereal! I am not on the fence about baking with pumpkin, however. When Fall comes, I want those Fall flavors.

I think I must be on a banana kick. My original intent was just to use up some peanut butter chips; I'm not sure how the banana snuck in there. So I got up early one day last week and made these  Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies for my brother before he left. It was well past time for me to make a non-oatmeal cookie--in fact, maybe the first time this year. Maybe the only time this year. What can I say, I love oatmeal, with or without the cookies. Anyway, if it sounds like that's a lot of flavors for one cookie, fret not, they're really good. The flavors complement each other, and if you bite one just right you get the peanut butter followed by the chocolate with banana bringing up the rear. To continue the baking with bananas theme (I keep wanting to add an extra "na" on there) I also made this  Cinnamon Sugar Zucchini Banana Bread . Out of several options I think I ended up with this one because I could finish up some buttermilk. I had a perfectl

This is one of those cereals I picked up on a whim--I couldn't find what I looking for so I thought I'd try this in the meantime. I've reviewed Flax Plus cereals before so I knew what I was getting into with regards to the flakes but the berries were a new twist. Now I'm not the biggest fan of freeze-dried strawberries (this is why I still haven't had Special K Red Berries yet) but this has freeze-dried raspberries as well, which helped. Why? I'm not sure. I love how berries being sealed in a bag with flakes gives the flakes a hint of berries as well--it just adds another layer of deliciousness. Also, you may be hesitant to spend good money on such a small box of cereal; I realize now that I can't eat but a small bowl of this anyway. It's ridiculously filling. ***** (Okay, now don't be surprised if you don't hear from me again until next week.)👋

It's been a while, hasn't it? I have to keep kicking the guilt every time I feel I could be doing something more important. Well, blogging is important to me , right? But back to the cereal. 🎉 I haven't had Honeycomb in years because they changed the flavor a while back. (You can read my disappointment  here and  here .) So when I found out Post had "improved" the recipe, I figured now was as good a time as any to try it. The first thing I noticed was the new look. Underneath it's the same shape and texture but Honeycomb now has a shiny layer spackled over it. My first thought was, this looks like buttered popcorn. My second thought was, no, like Corn Pops. Which was exactly what my brother said: "They made Honeycomb like Corn Pops." That's not how I would've gone about improving it, but okay. As for the flavor, I wouldn't exactly call it an improvement. If anything, it's more generic. Like they should've changed the nam

I know I said cereal would be next but I have one more roundup of other foods first. Firstly, these Make-It-Mine Oatmeal Cookies from Better Homes & Gardens. Some people may not want to have to make all these decisions but I love love love options. I will tweak recipes anyway but this customizable oatmeal cookie is like an edible Choose Your Own Adventure (and you know it will end well). And mine happened to come out tasting like one of my favorite retired cereals, Multi Grain Peanut Butter Cheerios. Here's what I opted for:  butter plus peanut butter brown sugar plus granulated sugar allspice maple flavoring (I used extract--I think those are actually two different things) AP flour plus wheat germ mixed dried fruit bits (which I actually couldn't find so I chopped up regular dried mixed fruit) So why did it taste like Peanut Butter Cheerios? The combination of oats, peanut butter, and maple would be my guess. ****** Next, I just wanted to share this

It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, I've been busy, plus I needed time to finish some cereal before restocking. But there'll be some reviews coming up next, plus an interesting cookie recipe. Since I've been doing some traveling, I thought it was a good time to try Quaker's new packaged Overnight Oats. They come in a lidded tub, not unlike their Real Medleys oatmeal. Of course you need a lid to keep it covered overnight (the next morning? Not so helpful, so watch yourself). I tried the two flavors I could eat: Blueberry Banana & Vanilla Bliss and Toasted Coconut & Almond Crunch. As you might know, I can't do walnuts and only a small amount of pecans (so I'm not going to take the time to pick most of them out). I have no issue with the flavor, only the texture. If you add only milk, you get runny oats. You could almost drink that 😛. The second time I added Greek yogurt, hoping that would thicken it up a bit but somehow it ended up even more ru