Sweet reflections and hopeful cookies

23 May

Life has a funny way of dealing us its highs and lows simultaneously. It’s probably for good reason. Without the lows, we might not appreciate how good we have it. And without the baby smiles and sweet husband’s birthdays, getting through the tough times would feel infinitely more difficult. Seasons come and go, and as hard as it is to understand the whys and whens of what’s happening when it’s happening, there’s a comfort that comes in looking at the perfect curls on my beautiful niece or the newly toothy grin of my sweet little Bean and realizing that life is blooming all around us.

When hard times hit, people instinctively turn to the things they know. For me, aside from an embarrassingly vast knowledge of Disney Channel trivia and my editor’s vault of grammar-related know-how, what I know is baking. Thankfully, the comforting benefits of baking seem to expand beyond the baker herself (usage lessons on lay versus lie, on the other hand, seem to have the opposite effect). I’ve been doing a lot of baking lately (cookies, specifically, because who doesn’t love a cookie?), and it’s amazing what a cup of coffee and dose of sugar can do to lift the spirits. Even if the effect is fleeting, and even if the sweetness only provides a small relief from all the thoughts that are spinning in our heads, I truly believe that the moments we take to stop and reflect on the sweet things of life are never without purpose. A cookie brings with it a dash of hope. And a hopeful spirit is always a good thing.

For those who are interested in the cookie itself, I promise you won’t be disappointed, unless you have an unexplainable dislike for chocolate or delicious cookies that walk the perfect balance between crisp on the outside and unbelievably — almost magically — chewy on the inside. Come to think of it, they did disappear rather quickly after coming out of the oven. Maybe there really is some magic in them. I hope so.

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Grammy’s Chocolate Cookies
Adapted slightly from Martha Stewart’s Cookies, page 75

• 2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ¾ cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 ¼ cups unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• turbinado sugar

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder and baking soda, and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer (you could use a hand mixer instead), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat to combine. Reduce the speed to low, and gradually add the flour mixture. Mix until just combined.

Form dough into a disk, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour or until firm.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Shape dough into 1-inch balls, roll them in the turbinado sugar until covered and place them about 1 ½ inches apart on parchment-lined or Silpat-covered baking sheet. Bake for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until set. Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

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XO,
Katrina

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The Drapers could dig it: Old-fashioned apple spice cake

8 May

Jared and I have been on a bit of a Mad Men kick as of late (we’re still on the third season though, so no spoilers, please!), and watching an episode always makes me a bit nostalgic for the days of suits in the office, gallons of hair spray and backyard barbecues with multiple JELL-O molds in attendance. Sure, I wasn’t alive during the ’60s, nor do I have any real decade-specific memories to draw from, but TV and movies tell me I would have had a neat time (aside from the chauvinism in the workplace and housewifely mandates of course). Stick me in a full skirt and a pillbox hat, and I think I could be a happy camper for quite a few days.

Now truth be told, I can’t say that any of the slabs of meat or JELL-O salads Betty Draper serves to poor Sally and Bobby look all too appetizing, but I do like the idea of an old-school dessert every now and then. I’m really not sure what decade this old-fashioned apple spice cake derives from, but let’s pretend it’s from the ’60s, just for the sake of the story. My sister and I put this together a few weekends ago, and it was definitely a fun change from the usual fare. The cake seems like it should be an absolute disaster, with its thick, apple-filled batter topped with brown-sugar meringue stuck into the oven all at once. But something amazing happens while it’s baking away. The cake batter rises, the meringue hardens, and everything stays in place. You’re left with a super moist cake (think homemade carrot cake consistency) with a thick, sweet layer of meringue on top. A one-pan marvel that will wow the backyard barbecue crowd.

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Old-Fashioned Apple Spice Cake
Adapted slightly from betteirene at Food52.com

Meringue
• 2 large egg whites
• 1 ½ cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons water

Cake
• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• ¼ rounded teaspoon ground cloves
• 2-3 large apples, cored and grated
• 2/3 cup raisins
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 9-by-9-inch baking pan or casserole dish.

For the meringue, place the egg whites, brown sugar and water in the top of a double boiler. Over high heat, beat the mixture electric mixer until peaks form, 3 to 5 minutes. Set aside.

For the cake, beat together the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, and blend well after each. By hand, stir in baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, grated apples and raisins (we mixed all this together in a separate bowl beforehand). Fold in the flour and blend well, but don’t overmix.

Spoon batter into the prepared pan, and smooth the top. Spread meringue evenly over the batter. Bake until top is crisp, about 45 minutes. Serve warm or the next day.

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Do you have any recipes that you were sure would flop but wound up producing fantastic results? Any fun fare from the 1960s you can’t get enough of? And is anyone else eagerly awaiting the day when those pillbox hats come back in vogue for everyday wear? Do tell!

XO,
Katrina

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Tonight we’re having pasta

27 Apr

You know that feeling when you make it to the end of the week, your grocery supply is depleted and the thought of going to the store or consuming any of your usual fare is met with zero enthusiasm from any party involved? That’s where Jared and I were by the end of last week. Our cupboards were bare, nothing sounded good and, to be perfectly honest, I just had no interest whatsoever in standing over a hot stove. I’m embarrassed to say that not once, but twice in an eight-day span of time, we both looked at each other with expressions that could only mean one thing. Pizza? Yes, let’s do pizza.

But then a beautiful event occurred Friday night that turned everything around. The wise Sir Netflix (Yes, Netflix is a boy. And yes, he was knighted.) sent us the movie Mostly Martha. Have you heard of it? It’s actually been sitting in our queue for more than a year and a half and only made it our way because we forgot to update the No. 1 spot when we sent back our last movie (which was New Moon. Womp, womp.). Anyway, Mostly Martha is a German flick about an uptight, no-funny-business chef named Martha who takes in her newly orphaned niece and starts to rethink her life, both at home and in the kitchen, as everything starts to hit the fan. We enjoyed it quite a bit actually, and if you’re in the mood for a foreign film with good eats and an adorable 8-year-old girl who pronounces Martha as “Marta,” then I highly recommend it. But the quality of the movie and “Marta” were not what turned around our moods. It was the pasta — the pounds of fresh pasta that Martha and her kitchen staff ate throughout the movie, mounded in oversized bowls and spun in perfect circles around fast-moving forks.

What was especially appealing about the pasta in the movie was how elegantly simplistic it always appeared. There were no heavy sauces, additional meats or complicated recipes — just pasta, a bit of oil, maybe a few added vegetables and a handful of herbs. As it so happens, such a blueprint for pasta is highly useful for the couple with a near-empty pantry, and our adaptation of this simple recipe found on Food52 made use of the last few kitchen staples we had. With little more than dried pasta, panko breadcrumbs, garlic and spinach, we had a delicious, no-fuss meal that felt infinitely more special than its prep time implied. I think even “Marta” would approve.

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Pasta with Breadcrumbs and Spinach
Adapted from Hotplate Gourmet on Food52.com

• ½ pound thin spaghetti
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ to ¾ cup panko breadcrumbs
• ½ cup olive oil
• 8 ounces baby spinach
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ to ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes

Cook pasta according to package instructions in a pot of salted boiling water. Heat ¼ cup of oil in a large skillet, and add the breadcrumbs. Once the breadcrumbs are golden brown. Add the garlic, and continue to stir until well toasted. Transfer breadcrumbs to a bowl, then return skillet to the heat.

Add the spinach to the pan with a little bit of the pasta water and crushed red pepper, and sauté it quickly. Once the spinach is finished, toss it with the breadcrumbs and the drained pasta, and add salt and pepper to taste. Add the rest of the oil as needed, mix in parmesan, and serve.

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Have you watched or read something lately that sent you to the kitchen? Ever been caught in a kitchen rut? What dish got you out? Can’t wait to hear about it!

XO,

Katrina

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Adventures in baby food

23 Apr

I know I probably sound like a total broken record, but time flies by so quickly when you have a baby. I feel like it was just Christmastime, when we had a tiny 5-week-old who was just learning to smile. She’d nap off and on for half the day, and she was most content when snuggled in our arms.

Life has zoomed forward. We now have an almost-6-month-old who is learning to crawl, only naps at designated hours and would much rather wiggle around than be held. She talks in a continual stream of babbles, and she laughs at the drop of a hat. Beany has definitely become her own person in the past few, wildly fast months, and we think she’s pretty awesome.

So yes, that’s how babies are. They grow and change at the speed of light, and just when you think you know what they’re up to, they learn to do something else. But they don’t stay babies forever, and this reality is becoming clearer and clearer every time our feels-like-she-was-just-a-newborn baby scooches up on her knees and looks up with that gigantic smile. I’m ready for the next thing, Mommio. Let’s see if you can keep up.

Enter the next milestone: baby food. I was super excited about the prospect of making all of the Bean’s baby food myself. I did a bunch of research on different methods to try, different foods to start with and different cooking methods to follow. In the end, I decided on simple rice cereal. No frills. Just a classic.

I followed the recipe from The Baby & Toddler Cookbook (a mighty handy book if ask me), and we sat Beany down for her first taste on the road of culinary exploration. She opened her mouth wide and took a bite of her first real food. Then she looked at us like we were crazy. A bit of food stayed in, and the majority ended up on her face.

For the next week, the scenario looked pretty much the same. She’d eat a bit, spit out a lot and gave us that “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” look. I started worrying that the texture of the cereal was still too much for her to handle, and the lure of the box mix was getting stronger, so I decided to give it a try, just to see Beany’s reaction. I was able to find a brand of organic rice cereal with an ingredient list of nothing more than brown rice and iron that I felt OK about, so after a quick mix with hot water (those boxes do make it easy), I sat Beany down to give it a go. She took her first bite, let out an elated “Ahh” and proceeded to eat half the bowl. Excited as I was that she was taking to the eating thing so well, I could only reach one conclusion: As of now, my baby prefers boxed cereal to her mom’s home cooking. Ooph.

I’m convinced that it’s the texture thing that won Beany over in the end. I could only get the brown rice so powdery in the food processor (and thus only so smooth in the cereal), so I think once she gets a little bigger, I’ll try switching back to the homemade version. And I still plan to try doing the impending veggies myself (I’m guessing a sweet potato will be much more cooperative in the pureeing stage than that stubborn brown rice). Still, it’s all just an affirmation of a parenting lesson my mom has repeated often since the Bean was born: Figure out what works for you. Wiser words were never spoken.

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Rice Cereal
From The Baby & Toddler Cookbook (Karen Ansel and Charity Ferreira, p. 24)

• ¼ cup brown rice

Process the brown rice in a food processor or blender until it becomes a fine, uniform powder, about 4 minutes.

Bring 1 cup of water to a simmer in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the brown-rice powder, and reduce heat to low. Cook, whisking constantly, until the water is absorbed and the cereal is smooth, about 5 minutes.

Add enough water to thin the cereal to a consistency your baby can handle. Let cool before serving.

Refrigerate in an airtight container for up to three days, or spoon individual servings into ice cube trays and freeze, covered, for up to three months. You can also grind extra powder and store that in an airtight container in the refrigerator until needed.

 Makes about 1 cup of cereal

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Have any of you gone the homemade baby food route? What were the hits? What were the misses? And what was your biggest mess?!? I’d love to hear about it!

XO,
Katrina

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Easy (and lovely!) Asparagus Gruyere Tart

17 Apr

Although I will always and forever be a winter girl at heart (hence the yearly stream of holiday tunes and bi-weekly watching of Christmas movies), there are plenty of things to love about springtime. After all, if the outside can’t be covered in snow, it might as well be green and leafy and flowery and beautiful, don’t you think? Spring gets the flowers blooming, the birds chirping and the produce section of the grocery store looking like a right mecca of homegrown goodness. I, for one, am happy to oblige the season by cooking with veggies in abundance.

Asparagus is rolling into its primo time right now, and Jared and I are doing our part to keep the tall skinny guys (gals?) in business. Seriously, we can put the stuff away. It’s kind of ridiculous. But healthy ridiculous, so all is forgiven. Anyway, we typically roast the smithereens out of it because: a. all vegetables taste better roasted; and b. we like it good and crispy. But variety is the spice of life, and our asparagus addiction was in need of some out-of-the-comfort-zone action. I first spotted this recipe for asparagus Gruyere tart on Pinterest and gave it a click because it looked so deliciously simple and elegantly coifed. Wouldn’t you know it? Ms. Martha Stewart is behind it. That girl knows her asparagus like she knows her crafting glitter.

The tart was a huge hit. Not only is it lovely to look at, but it also makes the perfect light, weather’s-warming-up kind of meal. And it’s another excuse to eat a bunch more asparagus, which is never a bad thing.

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Asparagus Gruyere Tart
Adapted slightly from Martha Stewart

• 1 sheet of frozen puff pastry
• 2-2 ½ cups grated Gruyere cheese
• 1 1/2 pounds asparagus
• 1-2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F, and roll the puff pastry into a 16-by-10-inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface. Trim the edges to even them up, and place the pastry on a baking sheet. With a sharp knife, lightly score the pastry dough 1 inch in from the edges to mark a rectangle, and then use a fork to pierce the dough inside the markings at 1/2-inch intervals. Bake the pastry until golden, about 15 minutes

Remove pastry from the oven, and sprinkle with Gruyere cheese. Trim the bottoms of the asparagus spears to fit crosswise inside the tart shell, and arrange in a single layer over the cheese, alternating ends and tips. Brush the asparagus with olive oil, and season with salt, pepper and onion powder. Bake until spears are tender, about 18 to 25 minutes.

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Although I loooove the asparagus/Gruyere combo, I think the recipe is pretty flexible. Mix up some different cheese. Throw in another vegetable. Ten points for creativity!

What’s your favorite veggie that returns in the spring? How do you prepare it? Any other asparagus-lovers out there with other fun recipes to share? Lets hear it!

XO,
Katrina

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Lessons from a do-over: Banana tea muffins

12 Apr

I’ve learned a lot of lessons in the kitchen over the past few years. No. 1: Wait until the immersion blender is in the soup before turning it on. No. 2: Serrated knives are great for cutting chocolate. No. 3: Never underestimate the power of parchment paper. And No. 4: Don’t freak out when it all hits the fan.

A few weeks ago, I was feeling the baking bug and decided to squeeze in some cake making during the last hour of nap time. Jared and I typically aren’t cake people, but a Real Simple recipe for chocolate-Earl Grey cake caught my eye on Pinterest. We had all the ingredients on hand, so I decided to give it ago.

Now bear in mind, this was one of the rare instances when I followed the recipe to a tee, and I will maintain to this day that I have no idea what went wrong. After preparing and mixing the ingredients per the instructions and placing the batter in the appropriate-sized bundt pan, I stuck it in the oven to bake. Beany was still sleeping, and I was feeling quite pleased with myself.

You know that moment when you’re baking something and all of a sudden the delicious smells start coming from the oven and permeating all corners of the house? Well it was literally no more than five minutes after the lovely smells of Earl Grey and chocolate began wafting through our apartment when Jared looked up from his book and asked, “Is something burning?” I ran to the kitchen, opened the oven and saw a steady flow of cake batter rising over the top of the bundt pan, cascading down the sides and pooling quickly in the bottom of my previously spotless oven. Blurg doesn’t begin to describe my rage.

At that point, the damage was done, and I decided to let the obedient bit of cake batter left in the pan finish baking to see if I could salvage it. Aside from the incredibly strong burnt smell that now filled the room, the remainder of the cake cooked up pretty nicely. Deep brown, fluffy and fragrant. I pulled it from the oven, praised myself for staying (relatively) calm and waited for the cake to cool.

So all was well — until, after the recommended cooling time, I flipped the bundt pan over and only half of a cake plopped onto the plate underneath. Where was the rest, you ask? Stuck like a crumpled mess in the inside of my pan. Ooph. I could have cried. Maybe I did cry. I don’t know. It was not pleasant.

I really should have documented the cake disaster to share with you, but to be honest, I was too mad at my mess of an oven and pile of cake crumbles to see clearly at the time. We actually patched the cake back together piecemeal style and ate it anyway. It looked terrible but tasted amazing. Go figure. Still, I had lost a bit of my baking mojo and was hesitant to revisit the oven again (partly because my ego was bruised, partly because I was dreading cleaning that thing).

So what does this whole chocolate cake fiasco have to do with the pretty banana muffins you see dotting the blog today? Those pretty banana muffins, with their fluffy tops, light middles and didn’t-leave-a-dot-of-batter-in-my-once-again-clean-oven selves were my much-needed foray back into the world of exploratory baking. I was in need of redemption, and that’s where the muffins came into play.

It’s an incredibly simple recipe and a take on a baked good that’s been whipped up in one version or another in the kitchens of nearly everyone I know. That’s not the point. The point is that when it comes to baking, you can always try again, whether that means a second attempt at a flopped cake, an entirely new recipe or a different spin on something you’ve made thousands of times. In the kitchen, you can always have a do-over. And for that, I’m thankful.

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Banana Tea Muffins
Adapted from The Essential New York Times Cookbook (Amanda Hesser, p. 655)

• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup mashed bananas (2 to 3 ripe bananas)

Heat the oven to 350 degrees, and line 9 muffins cups with paper liners (or grease them with nonstick cooking spray if you’d prefer). Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, and set aside.

Beat the butter in a large bowl with a hand mixer until creamy, then gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla, and beat well. Then add the flour mixture alternately with the bananas, adding just a bit of each at a time. Beat after each addition until smooth.

Fill muffin cups nearly full, then bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out barely clean. Remove the muffins from the pan as soon as you’re able, and allow them to cool on a cooling rack.

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I should mention that these are a new favorite in our house. We’re big fans of the Starbucks banana bread recipe, but it makes for a pretty rich finished product. These muffins are just slightly sweet and slightly banan-y, a legit breakfast food that you don’t have to feel guilty about afterward. And they’re pretty. I needed that.

Do you have any disaster tales from the kitchen to share? Any lessons learned while cleaning up said disaster? Or maybe you’ve avoided the disasters altogether and have nothing but wisdom to bestow. Either way, I’d love to hear about it!

XO,
Katrina

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Meet me at The Nola Bar

9 Apr

A genius entrepreneurial idea came to me while I was getting ready yesterday, and like most of my aha-laden, pat-myself-on-the-back-for-coming-up-with-that-gem schemes, it came steeped in suds and conditioner (all my best ideas come to me in the shower for some reason. Perhaps cleanliness spurs creative thought?). So yes, soap + shower = Katrina’s half-baked business plan. Here’s the skinny: Imagine a fro-yo-style business where you can go to build your own granola bars. Hang with me for a sec; this could be awesome. You go in, grab your handy little bowl (emblazoned with an adorably clever logo, of course, maybe something resembling an oat snazzily fashioned into a letter or symbol), then you set to work filling it up with the mix-ins of your choosing: oats, dried fruit, nuts, maybe some healthy guys like wheat germ and chia seeds. So you toss it all in the bowl, then take it up to the front, where the friendly granola master will send it through a quick mix with the company’s magic glue (a maple syrup, peanut/almond butter, butter and molasses combo) and pops it into a high-powered oven for a quick blast that bakes it and sets it in minutes. Voila! You’ve just created your very own custom granola bar. And what’s the name of our kid-friendly, parent-friendly, even mountain-climber-friendly establishment? The Nola Bar. Zing!

So yes, I am proposing the marketing of a build-your-own granola bar business. Were timing and means on my side, I might set to work on this lofty venture right away. Jared, however, the arguably more realistic and business savvy half of our dynamic duo, isn’t feeling the ’nola love quite so strongly. “I couldn’t imagine actually going to a place and paying to make my own granola bar,” he said. Ho hum. You know me, Jared. Always reaching for the stars.

Unfortunately, I won’t be opening The Nola Bar any time soon, so in the meantime I’m taking to experimenting with homemade versions to fill my ’nola needs. A while back I was on a granookie kick (a granola bar/cookie combo I adapted from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe), but this time I was looking for a heartier, chewier granola bar I could pack in a bag or take on a hike. Not that I’m hiking these days, but you get the idea. Anyway, this version is a chewy, chewy winner. Much like my pipe dream of a build-your-own granola locale, this recipe can be altered as your taste buds see fit. Just be sure to keep the mix-ins (fruit, nuts) to glue (peanut butter, syrup, molasses) ratio roughly as is if you’re looking for that chewy consistency.

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Chewy Granola Bars
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

• 1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats
• ½ cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup oats, finely ground in a food processor or blender)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 ½ cups dried cranberries
• ½ cup wheat germ
• 1 cup cashews (roughly chopped)
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8-inch-by-8-inch pan with parchment paper, and let the extra paper go up two opposite sides of the pan. Lightly grease the parchment paper and the exposed pan.

Stir together all the dry ingredients, including the fruit and nuts, in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the peanut butter, vanilla, melted butter, maple syrup, molasses and water. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold together until the mixture is evenly blended. Spread it in the pan, and press the mixture firmly to ensure it’s molded to the shape of the pan.

Bake the bars for 30 to 40 minutes, until the edges are brown and the top gets a bit of color. The center will feel a bit underbaked, but the bars will harden and set once they’re cool.

Cool the bars completely in the pan on a cooling rack. Once they’re cool, use a serrated knife to cut the bars into squares or rectangles. If the bars seem too crumbly, stick them in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to harden further, and then give the cutting another go. Store the bars in an airtight container. If it’s humid outside, it’s probably best to keep them in the refrigerator.

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I’d still contend that The Nola Bar idea has legs. I mean, what’s not to love about granola bars? Granola bars are for everyone. They’re like fuel for life.

Come to think of it, that would make a mighty nice slogan. Dibs!

XO,
Katrina

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