Blueberry Cobbler Bars

I've probably mentioned before that I'm a 'see what I can make with what I have on hand' kind of baker. I've had some culinary home runs, and few strikes. There was also the day that I couldn't convince myself, the Hubs, or my toddler girls that the chewy, flavorless mass of bananas, oats, and raisins was a cookie. It really was awful. 

Today, I found ingredients to make what I'm calling Blueberry Cobbler Bars. Not so sweet that I'd consider it a desert (though give me another try or two and I'll remedy that), but sweet enough that you can consider it a 'treat' for breakfast. And really, served warm, they didn't really hold up as bars very well. 

There's two separate recipe lists, but they're almost the same ingredients. 

For the base:

4c quick oats

2/3 c brown sugar

2 sticks melted butter

3 tbsp cinnamon

Mix and press into a sprayed 9x13 pan. I prefer glass always. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. 

While this is baking, mix your topping. 

Filling:

21 oz can pie filling, any flavor will work. I used blueberry. 

Spread the pie filling onto the baked base. 

Topping:

2c quick oats

1/3 c brown sugar

2 tbsp cinnamon 

2 c milk

1/2 c flour

Let soak for 10 minutes or so, mostly to let some of the milk absorb into the oats to soften them. 

Pour the topping mix onto the blueberry layer. 

Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. Your main method to test if it's done will be the jiggle test. :)  Shake your pan and if the center jiggles, keep baking!

Serve warm or cold, maybe even with some heavy cream or whipped cream for a sweet treat! 

       (yes, I'm aware it says Mama Doe Days, that was my previous blog name, but I just didn't love the title as much :)

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Bread

I love sweet breads. Cinnamon, Amish Friendship, Zucchini, and even Banana Bread. That last one makes me laugh a little at myself, because I don't care for bananas much, or banana flavored anything at all. 

But, I do try to make sweet breads as often as I can. They aren't too hard, you can easily make several loaves at once, and, wrapped in a little plastic wrap and foil, they freeze great! 

So, in an effort for even more variety, I decided to sweeten the deal even more! 

I grabbed this tried and true recipe http://www.simplyrecipes.com/m/recipes/banana_bread/  and added my own twist. 

You will need:

3 or 4 ripe bananas (I always use 4)

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar (can easily reduce to 3/4 cup)

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy

1/4 cup of cocoa powder

Mix all the ingredients together. Sometimes I really blend up the bananas. Sometimes I hand mash them, then hand mix the rest to leave big banana chunks. I find that the bread with the banana chunks tends to be a dryer bread, but it has nice little banana surprises (for the banana lovers) throughout. 

Spray a bread loaf pan with non-stick spray. I prefer the butter flavored spray for some added flavor to the crust. 

Pour your batter in till the loaf is 1/2-3/4 full. This batter rises quite a bit as it bakes, so make sure you have enough space above the pan. Too close to the top of the oven or another baking rack and you're in trouble! 

Bake for an hour at 350 degrees. 

When the top of the loaf has deep cracks in it, it should be done, but feel free to double check by sticking a knife in the center. 

I tip it out of the baking pan and put it on a cooling rack or cutting board right away to prevent over baking.... Plus, then I can taste test it! 

I love this with cream cheese, peanut butter or butter spread on it, but it's great plain too!!! 

Pumpkin Pie Bars

It's no secret , I love to bake. I could probably have a blog only about baking, but I love to try cooking new things too, and crafting new things, and learning new information etc., so a general blog it is. 

But, this post is about baking. 

You will need:

A large can of pumpkin pie filling or 2 small cans

1/2 cup of brown sugar

2 sleeves of graham crackers, crushed

4 tablespoons of cinnamon, divided into to 2 tbsp portions

2 eggs

1 can of evaporated milk

1 stick of butter/margarine, melted

Butter flavored cooking spray 

The eggs and evaporated milk were what my can of pumpkin pie filling called for, so you may want to see if yours says something different for preparing pumpkin pie. 

To make:

Preheat your oven to 350. 

Mix the graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar and 2 tbsp of cinnamon. 

Add the melted butter. 

Mix till mostly moist. A few dry crumbs or chunks won't matter too much!

Spray your pan (I prefer glass for almost everything) and pour your cracker mixture in. Press flat. 

Spray more of the butter flavored spray on top of the pressed crumbs. 

Bake for 10 minutes. 

While that is baking, mix your pumpkin pie filling, eggs and evaporated milk, and the remaining 2 tbsp of cinnamon. 

Pour it over the baked crumb crust. 

Bake for 35-45 minutes until the edges start to brown.

Let cool or serve warm. I found them to be yummy either way! 

Lactation Bars

As you all know, I'm on baby Girl #3. I've had some pretty tough times with breast feeding in the past, including several different issues, but a significant one was my milk supply. 

G1 was a totally unique situation, complete with the NICU and an oral feeding tube. Breast feeding was doomed from the start! We made it a whole 10 days, 8 of which were in the NICU with nurses and lactation consultants helping us. 

With G2, I made it a full 3 months before my supply really started suffering. I took fenugreek, drank gallons of water, dark beer, lots of protein, oatmeal and vitamins. It still was a struggle to nurse her and have a satisfied baby afterwards. We started supplementing with formula at about 3.5 months and she was exclusively formula fed starting at 6 months. 

I'm determined to go longer with G3. I've been much more proactive about maintaining a good supply, rather than boosting a falling supply. 

One of my methods to keep the supply I've got going now (which is pretty good if I may say so) is these lactation bars that I've made. I first made them when G3 was going through a growth spurt and I felt like I wasn't keeping up, and I wasn't. We did need to give 2 oz of formula every evening for 2 weeks because I just didn't have enough for her.  The first day I made these bars, I ate 6 of them (and it took zero effort as they are quite tasty!). That evening, no formula was needed. Now, I'm not a doctor or a lactation consultant or a nutritionist, so I can't promise that these will work as well for everyone, but they were a score for me!!

This is how I made mine. The 'goodies'  that I used were just what I had on hand. You can use whatever you choose! I've made this recipe before and used about 2.5 cups of dried fruit trail mix! 

Soak:

1/2 c steel cut oats

1  1/2 c milk

While that is soaking, mix:

3 c quick oats

1c sugar (white or brown)

2  1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 c brewers yeast

1 stick melted butter/margarine

3 eggs

The Goodies:

1/4 c peanut butter (crunchy or creamy works fine!) 

1 TBSP cinnamon

1 c chocolate chips

1 c white chocolate chips

1/2 cup m&ms 

Brewers yeast and flax seeds (which I didn't have on hand) and the oats (steel cut especially) are the lactation boosters. 

Let sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. This helps the liquids absorb into the oats a bit, though I don't think this is necessary. You'll just have to check your bars while they are baking. 

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes give or take. You may have to bake longer or shorter. A lot of this depends what kid of goodies you put in them! Some will absorb some of the moisture (like dried fruit or coconut), and others won't (sunflower seeds, other nuts, chocolate chips). The first time you make them, keep a close eye on them and take them out when they aren't runny in the middle. I usually just shake the pan... if the middle still jiggles, keep baking. 

The first batch I made, with dried fruit and shredded coconut, I baked for 25-30 minutes. They were good. The second batch (chocolate chips and m&ms with peanut butter), however, I couldn't tell you how long they baked. I put them in, and ten minutes later the tornado sirens went off. We turned off the oven, checked the radar to see how close the storm was, and drove a few blocks to my sisters house, because she has a totally concrete enclosed cellar. I don't remember how long we were there (probably 30-45 minutes), I only know that when we came home, the bars were still in the oven and they were perfect!

I use square bar pans for mine, but round muffin pans would work just as well I assume. 

Just a tip: I you don't want colorful streaks in your bars, add the m&ms right before you put them in the pans, or even just sprinkle them on.  I added mine before I let it sit for a while, and when I gave it a final stir, the candy coating streaked through the bars!

Please enjoy! Feel free to post your results in the comments!

Cool Whip Cookies!

This morning my girls and I made cookies again. I'd gotten a recipe from my mother in law for Cool Whip Cookies. Very easy, very yummy, and lots of variety available!

All it takes is:

1 egg

1 8oz container of whipped cream (Cool Whip or any brand will do)

1 cake mix, any flavor (oh think of the possibilities!!!

Bowl of powdered sugar.

We used a yellow cake mix to make our this morning. I'd made these once before with a spice cake mix and discovered a little trick... 

Put the egg in your mixing bowl first, then the cool whip, then the cake mix. (Last time I started mixing the cool whip and cake mix before adding the egg. The texture ended up really weird.) 

I used my smallest scooper to drop a scoop into the powdered sugar, then just shook the bowl around to coat the dough ball. Worked well and much cleaner than my last batch when I rolled it around by hand! 

Put them in a greased cookie sheet, and bake at 350 for 10 minutes. Let them mostly cool on the tray. 

One batch made this way made close to 4 dozen yummy cookies!!! I plan to try these with some mini chocolate chips mixed in, soon! 

Easy Sugar Cookies

My older two girls have been asking me for a few days if we can make cookies. It's been tough to find the time to do a whole lot with them lately, G3 is only 2 months old and takes up quite a bit of time!

   I knew that we wouldn't have time to make a whole batch from scratch, so easy Betty Crocker Sugar Cookie pre-mix saved the day!!! As it happened, we used the last stick of butter last night making mashed potatoes (probably my favorite side dish ever), so I grabbed a applesauce cup. It was a 4oz (half a cup) 'snack cup' for the girls, but they didn't mind giving one up... after all, it WAS for cookies!

   So, the mix, applesauce and 1 egg went into the bowl. I used my smallest scooper to put them on a greased pan, and let the girls decorate with sugar sprinkles!

   I used cupcake wrappers to hold the sprinkles for them, and they each got to decorate half a pan.

  G1 (age 3.5 years) decorated hers fairly evenly throughout her half of the pan...

   While G2 (age 2.5 years) seemed to put most of her attention (and sprinkles) onto the same cookie over and over!

  I baked them for 7-8 minutes or so at 350 (just followed the directions on the bag) and let them cool enough to not burn our fingers and tongues. 

   I was pleasantly surprised at the texture of the cookie itself. It was almost cake-like. It was a soft chewy sugar cookie! I love crispy sugar cookies, the kind that crumble in my fingers and melt in my mouth, but lets face it, they aren't the best for young kids! These were perfect! 

   I have been packaging just about everything into plastic bags lately, it's just easier for us right now. So into snack sized bags these cookies went! 

   The girls are very excited for the hubs to get home so they can show off their baking accomplishments of the day!