Starting the year off with something slightly more healthy than cookies, I’ve made granola bars. This is an all purpose recipe that lets you swap out the type of nut (almonds or pecans or cashews or peanuts) and the type of fruit (I’ve made these with dried apricots, cranberries, cherries and raisins). If you can’t find pecan butter, or if it is too expensive (because wow, it can be very expensive!), stick with almond butter as it is the most neutral of the nut butters. I’ve not tried it will sunflower seed butter, but I will eventually and will report back on that too.
Browsing Tag
fruits-and-berries
It isn’t often that I post pictures taken from my mobile phone as the photos accompanying recipes, but I forgot to bring my Canon with my over the New Year’s long weekend up in the woods. I did want to share this amazing — and crazy-easy — recipe for Blueberry Croissant French Toast Casserole though, and without photos just wouldn’t do. I love this recipe and the best part about it is that you actually make it the evening before so as your drinking your first cup of coffee in the morning, you have nothing to do but wait for the blueberry goodness to arrive. This turned out to be perfect on New Year’s Day morning as I was still feeling effects of the bubbly the night before. Even if you aren’t hungover, what’s better than having your breakfast ready in 25 minutes with minimal effort.
Here we are at the end of 2018, and I am baking again. The change of one year to the next always makes me think of “Lucky Foods” to ring in the new year. The US South has black eyed peas, Eastern Europeans have pickled herring. In Italy and I believe Spain, you eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight. In Germany, there are lots of traditions as well, but I am going with something that implies luck, though not necessarily New Year’s. You see, in English, we have the expression “Lucky Devil” (as in, “You’re such a luck devil for winning the lottery!”). In German, a similar expression is to be a “Glücksschwein” (lucky pig) or “Glückspilz” (lucky mushroom). I had found these cute little cookie cutters at the Christmas Markets in Munich a few weeks ago, so decided to make Glückspilz Spitzbuben (Lucky Mushroom Linzer Cookies) — mainly because I thought that words Glückspilz and Spitzbuben would be funny to say (can’t you tell that I am a linguist by profession?). Filled with apricot and raspberry jam, and sure to bring luck in 2019!
So what do you get when you cross pumpkin pie, pecan pie and crumble bars? Well…these things! And I threw in some maple syrup just for good measure! I had found pumpkin butter at Trader Joes, and without any idea what to do with it, I bought a jar. While it has the unfortunate consistency of baby food, it tastes amazing (and *nothing* like baby food!) so I decided to make these Maple Pumpkin Butter and Pecan Crumble Bars. They are simply fab! Perfect thing to add to your Thanksgiving dessert and can be made in advance.