First up on the menu this weekend was the raspberry oat bars out of my favorite cook book "The Joy of Vegan Baking." Whether or not you are a vegan, every recipe out of this book is simply amazing. The bars are pretty easy, just quick cooking oats, jam (I used strawberry jam), butter, brown sugar a little salt and baking soda. Seriously, buy the book for the recipe!
So these were by far the high point of my baking adventures this weekend.
Next up: Granola.....
So here's the thing about granola. There are a million recipes out there on the web for granola and they all differ dramatically. So call for half cup of oil or butter, others only a tablespoon. Some call for half cup of honey, others 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. With my head spinning, I just picked a recipe as a starting point and improved from there. Improvisation in the kitchen can be dangerous with something you've never made before. My granola was not a disaster, but not the best thing I've ever eaten either. I used about 5 cups of rolled oats, hap cup of canola oil, half cup of agave and a pinch of salt.
The granola is ok. Totally edible, but not the best this I've ever eaten either. But the high point, is that I bought the oats out of the bulk bin using my reusable bulk item bags so the total plastic bag consumption for this recipe was ZERO!
Now on to the low point: Pizza dough. I followed Paula Dean's basic pizza dough recipe. Not only was the dough way to thick, but it had no flavor either.
You can't tell by the photo, but the pizza was just not very good. I'm determined, though, to master this pizza dough thing! So I've saved a bunch of recipes on epicurious.com and plan to dedicate myself to pizza next week. Look for a special 4th of July pizza edition!That's all for now. I have granola to eat!
