Living in a Cereal World

File this one under "Things I Should Have Accomplished a Long Time Ago." I've been collecting granola recipes for a few years now but just couldn't bring myself to try one. There were so many brands and flavors to try, you know? I get distracted easily. Also, maybe I was afraid it wouldn't come out right. I'd burn it or it would be mushy instead of crispy, and so on. Well, I needn't have doubted my baking ability. Or the thoroughness of a Sally's Baking Addiction recipe:  "Hit the Trail" Trail Mix Granola . I went with this one first for a couple of reasons, 1. The reliability of Sally's recipes; 2. The ingredients. I guess that's it. Almonds, dried fruit, optional chocolate? I'm there. It also helped that I had all these ingredients on hand; if I was going to screw this up I didn't want to spend any extra money. Now for the end product: first I have to say, how have I never  thought to combine maple syrup and peanut butte...

...another cold oatmeal. I told you last week about the  Refrigerator Oatmeal  I made; this week I decided to try another with Lactaid instead of almondmilk. I felt the almond flavor was overpowering and I think I proved that right with this one:  Peach Melba . This time the peaches were strongest, followed by the raspberry and that's really all you should be tasting. I also realized I have no idea what "peach melba" is, so I should go look that up. Oh. Peaches, raspberry sauce and vanilla ice cream. Oh, that sounds delicious. I need to make that. Also, after eating this refrigerator oatmeal I realized I'm ready for hot cereal again. Unfortunately, we're about to have a mini-heat wave so it'll have to wait another week.

...yeah, that was a stretch. But I do like a good scone, so check out these  Very Blueberry Scones . I wanted to make one last thing with blueberries while they were still in season and I felt like making scones, so, there you go. And even though it says very  blueberry, it's more like Just Enough Blueberry, or The Perfect Amount of Blueberry. And even with stirring and kneading, I think I only broke two berries. I am probably one of the world's gentlest kneaders, though. I should also point out that these bake up bigger than they look. Cutting in eighths might actually be too big for you. And I hope you like lemon zest; it really comes through here. In a good way, I think.

These cookies. I can't even. Just...wow. Okay, let me find the words. I know I shouldn't be getting bent out of shape over a cookie recipe. In the grander scheme of things, it's just cookies. And I also don't want to oversell it. But these  Chewy Molasses Cookies ? Need to be made ASAP. What makes them so great? Well, the recipe (my copy, anyway; not the link for some reason) says they're a grown up take on molasses cookies. As soon as I bit into one I thought, I get it . It's like biting into a little ginger-molasses pillow. Soft, chewy, not overcooked (seriously, don't burn these). And the cardamom's the kicker. I didn't know this spice was missing from my baking life. The complexity of the spices all mingling together elevates this from ordinary molasses cookie. On the other hand, you might find them kind of rich, so you might want to freeze some for later. I almost want to double the size and stick ice cream between two cookies. Maybe a nic...

The website says "Almond"; the box says "Almond Crunch." Does that make it more appealing? I don't know. All I ask is that if "Crunch" is in the name, some part of that cereal had better crunch . This was one of those cereals I found unintentionally; I was looking for Fruit Blends but they've all been discontinued. Oh, well, it's not like I don't top my cereal with fruit anyway. So I picked up this Almond Crunch mostly because the box said "New!" but also because of the almonds. I've never had the regular Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds but I imagine the flavor is not that different. I definitely picked up hints of honey and cinnamon, and there's also almonds mixed in with the flakes (but not part of the Bunches). I guess this line is catching on for Post; hopefully the next step is a Whole Grain with fruit variety.

Since I knew I'd be getting up super early for an eight-hour car trip--both ways--I thought I'd be having breakfast in the car twice. So I saved my prepackaged muesli for Monday and made this  Blueberry Maple Refrigerator Oatmeal  for last Friday. You may recall that I really liked this  Raspberry Overnight Muesli  back in June and I've been looking for more like that ever since. The problem is that most refrigerator oatmeals just add milk; I wasn't looking for something with that much liquid. The  refrigerator oatmeals  from The Yummy Life, however, call for a mixture of milk and yogurt as well as chia seeds for thickening (not to mention the nutritional benefits). I made two changes to the recipe: 1. I substituted raspberries for blueberries since you know I can't deal with the texture of blueberries in oatmeal; and 2. I used almondmilk instead of regular milk because I didn't know how long I'd have to stash my container in the cooler before eating. I t...

Along with variety, of course, as you can probably tell from all my cereal entries. But today I want to talk about muffins. Or write about muffins. Whatever. Now that I have cardamom in my spice collection I need to use it, right? So I started off with these  Whole Wheat Banana Spice Muffins . Along with the cardamom there's also cinnamon and nutmeg--which is how I thought cardamom was usually used--and all three come through in the final product. Second most important is your bananas; mine could've been a day more ripe but they still baked well in the muffin. They didn't have that sort of sour taste you get when your bananas aren't ripe enough. And the whole wheat pastry flour (my favorite) makes them really  filling. It's nice to sometimes not  stick oats in everything and not feel like you're totally eating junk. I know that sounds crazy coming from me but it goes back to what I said in my first sentence: variety! I don't want oats in every single muffin ...

It's a total coincidence that I finally tried this the same week as  Chex Clusters . And now I really get the difference between the two. Most important, there's actual  dried berries in this. Blueberries and cranberries, to be specific. And they're not minced into little bits, either. So they lend the whole product a nice berry flavor. So you've got Chex, big granola clusters, mixed berries, and sliced almonds. Everything advertised. ******** I was just passing by the cereal aisle today (for a reason I'll get into later) and happened to be smacked in the face--not literally--by a reminder that Fall is coming: seasonal cereals. Special K Apple Cinnamon Clusters and Pumpkin Spice Mini-Wheats. On the one hand, stop rushing the seasons, marketers! On the other hand, yay, new cereal. So I picked up the Special K. (I'll go back for the Mini-Wheats next week.)

I discovered this by accident, just flipping through newspaper ads. A new Chex? Since when? About a month ago; I think that's when I bought it. The clusters were kind of disappointing; I was expecting big individual oat clusters, maybe with some berry pieces attached. The only attaching here is little cluster bits to the cereal. And the fruit is just dried/sweetened/colored apple bits. I guess that's why the box says "Fruit & Oats" and not anything more specific. It is  weird though, to think you're eating one fruit when it's something else altogether. And I kind of understand why the clusters are made this way--otherwise it would be too much like Chex granola. Overall, it's not bad, just not what I was expecting.

So Giant rebranded their in-store magazine as Savory, and I have to say it is  an improvement over the old one. I think I must have picked up the first issue the day (or close to the day) it came out. There was one article that caught my eye: "The Challenge." You might not know this about me but I can't resist a challenge. If I could frame everything in life that way maybe I'd get somewhere. Anyhoo. This particular challenge:  Peach and Apricot Pie . Of course I can do that. I've made peach pies before. And I've made pie dough from scratch. It's just really labor intensive and not my favorite thing. Your best bet is to make the dough ahead of time. That was my original plan but my apricots had other ideas, like a "24" countdown clock was ticking over them every time I opened the fridge. So I had to do it all in one day. I made the dough entirely by hand. Sometimes the pastry blender just gets in the way so I just got in there and worked the b...