OMG an update? oh and some oatmeal squares too!

Oh my goodness has it been a long time since I posted something.  Life has been super busy lately, My husband and I finally moved into our own place.  We have called it our lil' gnome home, it's tiny, perfect size for just the two of us.  There is one downside however, we have a VERY small kitchen, maybe when I get it a little more clean I'll post pictures of it too.

But anyway, I have a recipe to share with you today.  It's a peanut butter oatmeal bar, I found a recipe on another site (gingerbreadbagels) but it called for bananas and at the moment I have no bananas, and I just had to try to make them!  So I fiddled with the recipe a little and came up with this yummy concoction.   It is a wonderful breakfast treat that goes really well with a dab of jam (my favorite is strawberry or orange marmalade)

1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup applesauce
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter (I recommend Skippy's honey peanut butter)

Mix together the quick cooking oats, light brown sugar, baking powder, salt, ground cloves, and ground cinnamon.

Add in the vanilla extract, milk and egg. Mix the ingredients together.

Then add in the applesauce and peanut butter. Combine all of the ingredients.
Pour the mixture into a lightly greased 8 by 8 inch metal baking pan. Bake at 350 F degrees for 25 minutes.  (Cooking time varies depending on your oven.) 

another addition that would be good in this is walnuts or pecans I would say put about 1/4 - 1/2 cup depending on how nutty you like your squares.

And I apologize fore the poor picture quality... it was taken from a phone... our camera is dead at the moment.

Easy Cheesey

The hubby and I discovered a wonderful thing this week at our local Winco's bulk bins.  They have a pretty tasty pizza mix (all the dry ingredients sans the yeast).  He's been making pizza left and right, but last night I decided to try something different with the mix, it's pretty easy but mighty tasty.

So first thing you need is the ingredients for one recipe of pizza crust.  **Below is an alternative recipe if you either don't have the ability to access a dry mix like this.  So go ahead and follow the recipe for the crust.  I always add about 1T of honey per single recipe mix. 

While the dough rises prep the rest of the ingredients.  You will need about 16-20 thin slices of cheese about 2''x2''  in size (I used cheddar but any cheese works really).  1/4 cup melted unsalted butter mixed with 1 teaspoon of garlic salt.  1/2 cup shredded or powder Parmesan 

Instead of rolling out the dough flat like a pizza crust roll the dough out like a log or a loaf about three inches wide, I usually cut the dough in half so I have two rolls.  Baste with the garlic butter.  Cut cross wise with a knife (serrated knife is easiest)  about two inches deep into the rolls, make each cut about 3/4 to 1 inch apart.  Stick you sliced cheese in to the cuts you just made and sprinkle with the parmesan.  If you have any left over garlic butter save it to drizzle over the bread after it's done cooking.

Before you cook it this is what it will look like:

Put the rolls in the oven and cook at the recommended temperature for a thick crust pizza (about 20 min for mine) remove and enjoy with or without the extra garlic butter!  (I would have taken a picture of both finished loafs if we hadn't eaten one as soon as they came out of the oven)

Oh Rats!

So for the very few people who don't know I'll just get this out of the way right now.  I'm a nerd.  Ok now that I have said that, here is the first real post of the new year!

Today I made a swarm of rats for our good ol' D&D meeting tomorrow.  Normally these little bugs would be a Hallowe'en only treat, not for me!  so here is a picture of the final product: 

Announcement!

The title says it all, I have a small announcement/update.  I have decided to do a little R&D for a small business idea that I've been kicking around for a while.  To make this a long story short, I am going to be having a cake tasting club/group.  I bake, and those of you who are my local friends get to eat.  There are still details to come and I will be posting invites soon.  Anyway it's just another project idea I've been kicking around.  I feel like I need to update more, so maybe this will insure at least a monthly post from this little baking hermit =D 

Until next time.