Nectarine Crumble

This is such a classic dessert. I don't usually set out to make it per se, it is usually when we buy a basket of some fruit and they start to ripen too quickly. It's a good way to use up peaches, nectarine, apples, and anything else similar. I'm not sure if this is a "Crisp" or a "Crumble" - some say they are the same thing. It's definitely not a "cobbler".

Nectarine Crumble

You start with almost any fruit - peaches work really well, and apples is a classic. Also, any baking spice will work. I like to go easy on the cinnamon and heavy on the nutmeg. 

Nectarine filling with delicious nutmeg, lemon,
and a bit of flour and sugar

We like ours with lots of crumble topping - and it has to have oats in it. 

Crumble topping - basically flour, brown sugar, oats, and butter

A little vanilla ice cream completes the package.

Next time:

Me: 8/10
SO: 9/10
SSO: n/a

Epicure granola bars with home made Apple Pie spice

Most granola bars from the store are really sweet, often covered in chocolate, just not appropriate for breakfast - or so says SO. To fix this, I'll make some bars using an Epicure recipe and this Epicure "Perfect Petites" silicon baking mold. By the way, I don't sell or necessarily endorse Epicure or their products. We have a friend who likes to sell us this stuff, so we occasionally buy. Some of their spice blends are decent, and there are no preservatives and all that. Free range and grain fed. Anyhoo.

Epicure granola bars with home made apple pie spice

First, the bad.  These molds are really small. They are probably better suited to fancy little hors d'oeuvres than to granola bars - they hold around 2 Tb of volume. Then again, you could just eat two or three. OK that's not that bad.   The good - the silicon mold is really easy to scrape the filling into, easy to pop the cooked bars out, and easy to clean.

The recipe I'm copying here so I don't lose it - it turns out to be a pretty basic recipe which not only is the perfect balance of dry/moist, but is infinitely adaptable. You could add pretty much any kind of nut or seed, different cereals, and different sweeteners.

Next Time: try different combos of seeds and nuts

Me: 8/10
SO: 8/10
SSO: n/a

CrunchyWhole Wheat Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

So I was sitting in line at the car wash and got the urge for peanut butter cookies. Yes, a bit random. But it was such a nice day after a really long spell of super cold weather, and the car really needed a wash. But back to the cookies. I think what got me on the idea was my trip to the grocery store before the car wash. Peanut butter was on sale, $2.99 for a 1kg jar, which is close to half price - which is why I got a smooth and a crunchy.  I'm the only one who likes crunchy in the family so had to get both. Incidentally, I almost got a jar of Skippy instead of the usual Kraft, because lately we've been listening to and singing that Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars song "Uptown Funk" featuring the best music lyrical passage for a long time:

Wait a minute
Fill my cup put some liquor in it
Take a sip, sign a check
Julio! Get the stretch!
Ride to Harlem, Hollywood, Jackson, Mississippi
If we show up, we gon’ show out
Smoother than a fresh jar of skippy

We laugh every time we hear it. But the Skippy wasn't half price, so no go.

Now, how to be inventive...let's try crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth, maybe whole wheat flour instead of regular, dark brown sugar, some oats, and maybe some freshly ground nutmeg. As a friend likes to say, "how bad could it be"?  Uttering that sentence is usually prelude to disaster, so we'll see what happens.  Here's what they look like going into the oven:

cookies about to go into the oven

...and....here's what they look like coming out of the oven:

Crunchy Whole Wheat Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies

Next Time: would try to make them a bit chewier, so a big more brown sugar, maybe an extra egg, and a bit less fat (or a bit more flour instead)

Me: 9/10

SO: 10/10

SSO: 8/10