fruity oaty bars!

i couple days ago, i made 'fruity oaty bars' from the beloved 'vegan cookies invade your cookie jar.' i'd been wanting to make them for a while, but had a little setback in that these are uber-healthy things which require ingredients that i didn't have and/or never heard of. as it was, i still couldn't find two of them, but one does get by.

this dry mix contains things like oats, spelt flour, ground flax seeds, and wheat bran (was supposed to be wheat germ - but the store was out).

the wet mix began with fresh orange juice:

and, naturally, i needed some extra for myself, because fresh oj is nice. p.s. naval oranges are NOT the right kind for juicing. note to self.

the wet mixture contains things like brown rice syrup (purchased for the pecan bars from last month) and pure maple syrup that was supposed to be barley malt syrup, which i am convinced does not exist.

either way - no added sugar and no fake sweeteners here, which is quite nice. instead, we have mix-ins. everyone loves mix-ins. here, they were: sesame seeds, green pumpkin seeds, cranberries, and a cup of mixed, dried fruit. i tried for organic and no-sugar added wherever possible.

because, if one is going to employ such ingredients as spelt flour and brown rice syrup, one might as well go the whole hog. which is a weird expression, and i don't really know what it means.

here is a close up out of the oven, in the middle of the 'cooling for at least 45 minutes' stage.

everything was fine until i began to cut it up - then all heck broke loose. HECK! everything fell apart. here is one of the prettiest-shaped chunks:

and here is the pile of little chunks/crumbs. however, there is a reason that these crumbs are placed on some foil, and not in the trash. this is because they were too tasty to waste. this, despite the fact that being seen scooping and eating crumbs from leftover foil is quite undignified.

banana oatmeal breakfast cookies!

around the time of the lentil soup, i decided healthy cookies were in order, and went with 'vegan cookies invade your cookie jar's' banana oatmeal breakfast cookies. also, i had all the ingredients, including brown rice syrup and flax meal. because i am cool.

they also have oats and cranberries and, surprisingly, bananas.

remarkably, in making these cookies, i ran out of oatmeal, bananas, oil, cranberries, pecans, and agave. good job, nicole. here they are, pre-oven...

and post. yes, they look like blobs, but they're actually quite nice. bonus: you can taste the dough raw, which is not a bad thing.

caramel pecan bars!

so, this second month of blogging has not been as frequent as the first month. the good news is that, contrary to the evidence here, i have actually been cooking a lot. or, baking a lot, if one wants to be technical. is cooking different from baking? i'm not sure, perhaps its a subset of some kind. but i digress.

part of the problem is that i've been quite busy with many things. the other problem is that i'm currently in a house without wireless internets, and all my pics are on my lovely mac laptop. but that is why, on this christmas eve, i'm holed up in the local cosi, getting my wireless fix. my goal is to knock out a few recipes, and see what happens. i do not care that, at the moment, sitting in a coffee shop with my back to the corner while typing on an apple device, i'm a snobby stereotype.

we'll start with caramel pecan bars, taken from the lovely 'vegan cookies invade your cookie jar.' i made these a few weeks ago for a holiday party, and they were fabulous. the only bad part is that the leftovers are impossible to resist, and they are not very good for you. sugar and fats. mmm.

you begin with the crust, interestingly enough. and, i can't remember what it consists of, but i think it involves sugar, flour, and butter. and i must hereby apologize to the makers of said vegan cookie recipe, because i used dairy butter. *hangs head in shame - i KNOW* but, i do feel the need to say it was fancy, organic, very expensive butter from cows that were treated well. anyway, here is the crumbly crust:

and here it is baked in a foal lined pan:

the topping, interestingly enough, did not involve a boiling of the sugar. its just a big mixture of sugar-like items - including actual brown sugar and brown rice syrup, which is not cheap. here is an 'action shot!'

and here is more brown goo:

and here we have the sophisticated method i used to chop nuts (again, organic, fair-trade, and expensive. i was trying to make up for the butter because i felt bad). it involved pounding this bag.

the nuts went into the brown goo, and then into the pan, and into the oven, until the whole thing 'bubbled.' here it is straight out of the oven. if you look closely, you can see a few of the afore-mentioned bubbles. its always satisfying when the directions describe something and then it happens, and it is scary and confidence-plummetting when it does not.

and here we have the bars after they have been chilled, peeled away from the foil, and cut into actual bars.

again, i'd like to point out that i'm not really a nutty treats kind of girl, but these were amazing. a word to the wise, though: think long and hard about how you pronounce the title of this dessert in mixed company. 'pe-can' as in 'pecan pie' as pronounced in the movie 'when harry met sally' will not cut it if in the presence of someone who went to school at LSU AKA the south. they will mock you until you say 'pe-cahn' as in 'wrath of khan.' as in - they will have great wrath that you have disrespected the place where pecans grow. but never fear - their wrath will dissipate while they are stuffing their face.