Okay. Fuel for journey. Here we go…

I’m a big fan of homemade granola bars for the following reasons:

• they’re super easy to make
• cheaper than buying AND less waste in packaging
• you get to pick your own flavor combinations
• the sweeteners we use are healthier and can be locally found at farmer’s markets
• baking them makes your home smell AMAZING
• you can give new life to leftover pantry bits (no kidding, one of the best batches I’ve made was with the dregs of cinnamon shredded wheat. Killer!)
• you get to “nutsmash.” It’s fun…. read on. I’ll show you what I mean…

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The Basic Ingredient Outline:

Dry:

• 6 cups Oats*
• 1 ½ cups Dried Fruits
• 1 cup Nuts

Wet:

• 16 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter
• ¾ to 1 cup Brown Sugar
• ¾ to 1 cup honey OR syrup**

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Today, we’re making Apricot Cranberry with Almonds and Molasses.

 

I used:

• 6 cups thick cut organic oats
• ¾ cup chopped dried organic apricots
• ¾ cup dried organic cranberries
• 1 cup salted almonds
• 16 Tablespoons unsalted organic butter
• ¾ cup organic brown sugar
• ½ cup maple syrup
• ¼ cup honey
• ¼ cup molasses

 

Preheat your oven to 300°

Start by melting down all of your wet ingredients in a small sauce pan

until they look like this:

You want this hot, but watch it so it doesn’t boil over.

 

While that’s heating up, put the nuts in a large plastic bag, get yourself a wooden spoon and a three-year-old***, and do this:

(It helps if you leave a small opening in the top of the bag so you don’t pop it…)

 

Throw the nuts, oats, and fruit in a large mixing bowl,

and pour the hot syrup/honey magma over the top.

 

If you want a crunchier bar, simply mix the ingredients until combined.
If you like a chewier bar, mix until the oats get a little soft from the hot magma.

 

 

Now, this is important. You must “grease”**** your cookie sheet, put a piece of parchment over the grease, and grease the parchment.

(Do this or you’ll be sending me angry comments about how impossible it was to get your granola bars out of the pan so you threw the whole thing, cookie sheet and all, out a two story window. Don’t do that. It’s wasteful. And you could severely harm the unlucky bloke beneath your window.)

Then, dump the oat-lot on top of the parchment and spread it out with the back of a spoon. When it’s evenly dispersed, give it a good press and mash so it’s tightly packed.

Bake for 20-30 minutes at 300°, until golden brown. Granola will over brown and burn quickly, so watch it carefully near the end of your bake time.

Rest it on your stove top and set a timer for 5 minutes.

After 5 minutes, cut the granola into whatever size bars you prefer, but DON’T REMOVE THEM until they’ve completely cooled.

Once cool, they’ll break apart easily and still retain the shape you cut. Wrap your bars in cling wrap for individual servings, or stack them up in a large container. These are good at room temperature, though I’d refrigerate them after a week (if they last that long). You can also freeze them and keep a stash for random road trips…

There, you see? you’ve just raised the bar.
(Bad, bad, pun. I know.)

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* If you want a VERY chewy granola bar, use quick oats. You can also substitute a portion of the oats with cereal or other grains.
** I have used honey, brown rice syrup, agave, and maple syrup (in various combinations) for this. Any of them work and are completely up to your taste/nutritional preference. If you use molasses as I did in this batch, add it to the syrup meltdown.
*** three-year-old not required.
**** I use Spectrum organic vegetable shortening, but you can substitute butter.

Please o Please o Please,
tell me you saved your
Raisin Whiskey Juice
from yesterday.

 

We’re going to make some Irish Butter to put on that soda bread you made on Day 19.

It’s also rock-steady good on pancakes or buttermilk bread or cooked carrots or fingers (do not chew fingers).

Irish butter is typically not as salty as “American” butter, so you can either use an Irish Butter (like Kerrygold) or mix 4 Tablespoons of salted butter and 4 Tablespoons of unsalted butter together.

Let your butters come to room temperature and cream them with a mixer. Start it up on high and slowly drizzle 3 Tablespoons of the Raisin Whiskey Juice until it’s incorporated.

I also advise the following new kitchen rules:

#1: If it’s in butter, it’s not considered alcohol and kids can eat it.
#2: While incorporating whiskey into butter and residual whiskey sloshes out of the mixer and sprays onto your forearms and cheek, it is perfectly acceptable to lick your wrists and bathe yourself like a cat to get the little drops off your face. (Counter licking is optional, but please, leave the spoon alone.)

 

Now, chill. The butter.

 

This is best done with silicone ice cube trays. Just spoon heaps of butter into the cavities and scrape it off the top.

Chill until the butter is set, wrap in wax paper bundles,

and label with love.

 

Bhácáil Le grá

Now we’re talking…

I have made more loaves of Irish Soda Bread than I care to count (calorically speaking) in search of THE ONE. This is pretty close….

We start by saturating raisins with Irish Whiskey (of course we do.)

Take these:

and throw one cup of raisins into a half cup of whiskey, like this:

and let them sit for AT LEAST 30 minutes, OR you can leave them on your counter overnight to soak in the whiskey goodness.

In due time, strain the raisins and set them aside, but…VERY IMPORTANT!

 Save the Whiskey.

Don’t start baking until your raisins are plumped.

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The Bread Ingredients:

• 1 ¾ cup Unbleached, all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup whole wheat flour (not pictured)
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup buttermilk
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cold

Preheat your oven to 375º.

Mix all your dry ingredients into the bowl and then plop the cold butter in 1/2” cubes onto the flour.

Now you’re going to “cut in” the butter, by pinching it between your fingertips while combining it to the flour. Pinching out the large clumps, it should look like this:

Then, plop your plumped raisins in:

and gently mix them until they’re all coated.

Add your buttermilk and combine until there is no dry flour.

This bread will only require a soft knead: basically fold the dough over onto itself about 8-10 times. It’s a’gonna be sticky!

Soft kneads are more easily done by scraping the dough up and over with a bench scraper (not pictured), a bowl scraper,

or a chef’s knife will do in a pinch.

Otherwise, roll up your sleeves and get to it. (You don’t want to know what my camera looked like when I was done with this post… I’m insured):

Mound your dough into a 6” dome onto a cookie sheet or baking stone. Slice a large X onto the top of your loaf to keep away the evil spirits. (Not making this up. I love the Irish.)

Bake at 375º for 35 minutes.

Check for doneness by inserting a metal skewer into the middle of the loaf (my mom always used a knife) and making sure it comes out clean. If it’s still wet inside, turn down your heat to prevent over-browning the crust and bake another 5-10 minutes.

Now, you can stop here and your bread will look like this*…

Or you can go full-on-bakery-style with me and glaze it….

1. Set aside 3 Tablespoons of the Raisin Whiskey juice (that you saved, remember!?!?) and don’t touch it until tomorrow. Trust Me.

2. Put what remains (about 2 Tablespoons) into a small saucepan and heat it up until it boils and your bubbles start to pop rapidly. Watch it. You’ll see it thicken a bit. Pull it off the heat before it starts to blacken.

3. Brush the top of the loaf with the syrup and if you want to get REALLY fancy, sprinkle sugar on top. REALLY, REALLY fancy? make it Turbinado Sugar. Hmm. Look at you…

until she shines…

Oh! and come back tomorrow. We’re making Whisky Butter.
Yep.

 

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*let your bread cool wrapped in a flour sack dish cloth. It will keep the crust from drying out but still allow the steam to escape and not make your bread soggy.

I have had a protein shake for breakfast nearly every day for the last 5 years. The basic ingredients include: fruit, nut butter, coconut milk, protein powder, and GREENS.

Lots and lots o’greens.

And the worst protein shake there could ever be is the one made with stinky, green, slimy, sludge from a clamshell that was just purchased two days ago.

You know what I’m talking about:

I don’t even know what that is.

 

but I’m pretty sure it’s going to taste like this…

So! I got an idea…

I bought the humongo bag of greens,

Blended the petunias out of ‘em and threw them in ice cube trays*,

and now have tasty Green Ice to make my shakes even colder.

…aeh!?!

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*I recommend silicone trays so you can pop the cubes out more easily… Mine are from IKEA.

**Add water when blending, as needed.

Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention. Other times, food that’s going to spoil makes this mother invent.

I went to get A Key lime. But I was at a huge, box store so I could only buy TEN Key limes. Needless to say, I had left over limes. I also had left over egg whites. So, I decided to take the two orphans under my baker’s wing before they gave us all salmonella, and concocted:

 

COCONUT LIME MACAROON with a WHITE CHOCOLATE MACADAMIA NUT CRUST & PINK HIMALAYAN SALT GARNISH

….yee-haw!

The beauty of this recipe: I think it would pair nicely with Tequila AND it will possibly cure you of scurvy.

The ingredients:

• 1 teaspoon Key Lime zest
• 3 1/2 to 4 Tablespoons Key Lime juice (from about 4 limes)
• 2 Tablespoons corn syrup
• 2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 4 egg whites
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 5 1/3 cups shredded coconut*
• 2/3 cup almond flour (not pictured)**
• 4 ounce white chocolate baking bar
• 1/2 cup macadamia nuts

The instructions:

Preheat your oven to 375º. Start by beating the lime juice, corn syrup, sweetened condensed milk, egg whites, vanilla and coconut extracts, and salt together until you have a nice little froth:

Add your coconut, lime zest, and flour, and mix.

Refrigerate the dough for 15-20 minutes before shaping.

While you’re waiting, pound the nuts. Macadamia nuts will turn to butter if you grind or food process, so stick to chopping (for larger chunks) or smashing (for a fine grain).

To smash the nuts, put the macadamias in a plastic bag like this,

get yourself a wooden spoon and smack the bag with the back of the spoon until the macadamias look like this:

Good. Now set the nuts aside and get your cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, take the cool dough out, and shape it into haystacks.

Put the macaroons in the oven, close the door,  and reduce the heat to 350º. Bake at 350º for 20 minutes, switching the trays around half way through baking.

As soon as they come out of the oven, sprinkle a pinch of Pink Himalayan salt on the top:

After the cookies have cooled, melt your white chocolate in short bursts of microwave heat (15-20 seconds at a time),

stirring in between each nuke until it’s smooth:

set up a frosting station:

spread the white chocolate on the base of the cookie:

and press it into the crushed macadamias:

And rest the finished cookie on wax paper until the chocolate has set:

You are finished. Get the tequila…

¡Salud!

Que vivas durante todos los días de tu vida.

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*If I’d had it, I’d have used 3 1/3 cups sweetened shredded coconut and 2 cups unsweetened desiccated coconut for crunchier texture.

**coconut flour would be an alternative, if desired. The flour makes this cookie a little chewier. If you like a drier, crisper macaroon, use more unsweetened desiccated coconut in lieu of the flour.

(Translation? It means “Cheers! May you continue to live all the days of your life.”)

Today, we bake bread. We bake because deep thinking works up an appetite, because Minnesota believes it’s still winter, because kneading works out the angry bits, and because the smell, touch, and taste of this loaf brings me to a place I find comfort and memory in. Maybe you can go there, too.

(I should note that occasionally, I’ll bake a loaf of bread, and some folks react as if I’ve invented the solar system or something. If you think this post is not for you because you’ve never done it before, I offer the following: This is not complicated. People have been making bread for quite sometime. I hear they even do it in Europe. Doubt not. We gonna knead together.)

Step one: Gear up.

Bread doesn’t take much working time, but you’ll need to leave hours for it to sit and rise, so start in the morning and make it when you’ll be at home watching movies or figuring out how wordpress works.

Get these things:

• large mixing bowl
• measuring utensils
• spoon (wooden spoons are best for bread dough)
• tin foil
• 2 loaf pans or baking pans (you could even use disposable, foil pans)

This recipe makes two loaves, so halve it if you only have one pan.

and these:

• 1 cup oats
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 Tablespoon kosher salt

and throw them together in a large mixing bowl so they look like this:

Pour two cups of boiling hot water over them and set a timer for 10 minutes.

While you’re waiting,

get these measured out in a different bowl:

• 1 lb, 1 oz. (or 3 ¾ cups) bread flour (you can use unbleached, all-purpose in a pinch)
• 7 oz. (or 1 ½ cups) whole wheat flour
• 1 Tablespoon active yeast*

After 10 minutes, your melted ingredients should look like this:

and should be warm (not hot) to the touch.**

Then plop the flours and yeast on top of the melted ingredients.

Step two: We knead. O yes, yes, we do.

Start by mixing everything together with a wooden spoon. The flour will still be visible and it’ll get tough to stir. It should look like this:

Now, comes the fun part…

Stick your (washed) hand into the bowl and SQUEEZE. Do it again… a couple more times until everything sticks together.

Okay, now pick it up, stick it just under your nose, and inhale. Pause. This is when comfort and memory kick in for me…

Back to work: put it on the counter and start to knead. If you’ve never kneaded before, just think of it like folding the dough over and pushing it back down. I use my fingers to pull it up and the heel of my hand to push out and down. It’s a lovely, repetitive motion that begets profound thinking and promotes soul savoring.

Do this for 8 to 10 minutes. I’m not kidding. Work it. And use both hands; I had to take a picture with my left… (You can cheat and use a heavy stand mixer with a dough hook for 6 minutes, but make sure you give one additional hand kneaded minute at the end.)

It will be a sticky but silky ball of goodness. Now put it back in the mixing bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, set a timer for an hour and go away.

Step three: Things shape up.

Your dough should be about two times it’s original size, but don’t freak if it’s not super inflated; it’ll come.

Now you shape the dough and put it into whatever vessel you’ll bake it in.

Plop the dough ball onto the counter and cut it in half. (If you’ve halved your recipe, use the whole ball.)

If you’re making a loaf, I fold in the pointy ends and roll it into a sausage shape so it looks like this:

If you’re making rolls in a baking pan, I roll the clump into a sausage and cut it into pieces like this:

 

and arrange them in the pan:

Cover ‘em up with more plastic wrap, set the timer for another hour, and go away again. (This could take two hours-ish, so don’t plan your sandwich party just yet.***)

Step Four: Heat and Bake

Your bread should now be the shape you want to see come out of the oven.

Preheat the oven to 350º

Bake your uncovered bread in the middle of your oven for 25 minutes.****

After 25 minutes, put a piece of tin foil over the bread so it doesn’t get too dark, bake for 10 more minutes, and it’s done.

 

Yes. Yes. Yes. and Yes.

This bread makes a particularly amazing ham sammy with mayo, or strangely enough, rocks tuna salad and a pickle. But above all, toast. Just toast, butter, coffee. Magic.

We eat together,
and it makes a good day.

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For the detail oriented:

*If you don’t think you’ll bake much bread, buy the 3-packet strips of yeast, rather than a jar. It’s cheaper and they’ll last longer.

**Two things that will quickly kill yeast and prevent your dough from rising are too much heat and letting the yeast come into contact with the salt before it’s had a chance to “come to life.” If you have an issue with that, try adding the salt just before kneading.

***Bread rises with warmth and moisture. In Minnesota, we have them in abundance or scarcity, so your rising time will fluctuate. In drier, cooler times, I set the bread on top of the oven while it preheats, where the heat rises out. You can even put a dry kitchen towel over the plastic wrap to incubate the loaves.

****Make sure your oven is fully heated before putting the bread in. I let it sit for at least 10 minutes at 350º before baking.