Healthy Granola Bars

Most often, granola bars are laden with lots of extra sugar and less-than-good-for-you ingredients. The "healthy" part of them all but disappears at that point. Sure, there are a few good ones out there now, but they can be expensive. For the same price you can make an entire batch or more.

The best part is that the recipe below can be tweaked to your liking. Don't like dates? Sub in raisins. Want to cut back on the honey? Go for it. Got a thing against peanut butter? Well then you're crazy and I just can't help you. Or use a nut/seed butter. The possibilities are endless! Enjoy!

Healthy Granola Bars

Yield: 16 servings
Ingredients

• 1 cup dates
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/4 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup walnuts, roasted
• 1/2 cup peanuts, roasted
• 1 1/2 cups rolled oats

Cooking Directions

1. Soak dates in water for 10 minutes.
2. Process dates in a food processor until small bits remain (about 1 minute). It should be able to roll into a ball, with a dough consistency.
3. Toast the oats at 350 F in the oven until slightly golden brown, about 15 minutes.
4. Place oats, nuts, and dates in a bowl.
5. Warm honey and peanut butter in a small pan over low heat. Stir and pour over oat mixture and then mix, breaking up the dates.
6. Once mixed, transfer to an 8x8 or 7x11 dish lined with parchment paper.
7. Press down until uniformly flat. Cover with parchment paper, and let set in the fridge for 15-20 minutes to harden.
8. Remove bars from pan and chop into 16 bars. Store in an airtight container in the fridge or wrapped up in the freezer.

Disney's Berry Crisp with Strawberry Sorbet

Berry Crisp with Strawberry Sorbet

Food and Wine Festival

Serves 8

Ingredients

Sorbet

3 c. fresh strawberries, hulled and quartered
½ c. honey
1 c. sugar
3 T. lemon juice

Filling

1 lb. fresh raspberries
1 lb. fresh blueberries
1 lb. fresh blackberries
1 lb. ripe strawberries
4 oz. granulated sugar
1 oz. flour
1 ½ oz. Grand Marnier
Zest of 1 orange

Crisp Topping

17 oz. sugar, divided
17 oz. brown sugar, divided
7 oz. oats
14 oz. pecans
14 oz. walnuts
8 oz. melted butter
6 oz. coconut flakes
16 oz. flour
6 oz. soft butter

Directions

Sorbet

1. Place the strawberries in a food processor and puree until smooth.
2. Strain the strawberries through a fine chinois.
3. Whisk in the honey, sugar, and lemon juice.
4. Mix well and pour into an ice cream maker.
5. Allow to freeze overnight.

Filling

1. Hull and quarter the strawberries.
2. Toss strawberries and all of the remaining fruit with the sugar, flour, and Grand Marnier.
3. Place the filling into ramekins and top with Crisp.

Crisp

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix 11 ounces of sugar, 11 ounces of brown sugar, oats, pecans, walnuts, coconut flakes, and melted butter.
3. Mix well with a wooden spoon. Then in a food processor grind the mixed ingredients together in small batches.
4. Back in the large bowl, mix the blended ingredients with the remaining sugar, flour, brown sugar and soft butter. Mix well then top the fruit filled ramekins.
5. Bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes.
6. Top with sorbet and serve.

Disneyland's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Hook's Pointe Restaurant

Ingredients

3 1/4 c. flour
1 T. baking powder
1 1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
2 1/8 c. shortening
1 3/4 c. brown sugar packed
1 1/2 c. granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
4 c. rolled oats
2 1/2 c. dark raisins

Directions

Blend flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in mixing bowl. Set aside until needed.

Cream shortening with brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla until smooth.

Mix in reserved flour mixture until well blended, about 2 minutes.

Add oats and raisins. Mix until blended, about 1 minute.

Using ice cream scoop (size #24), scoop out cookie dough into 4 dozen large balls.

Place about 6 balls on each lightly greased baking sheet, pressing down until about 1/4-inch thick and 3 inches in diameter.

Bake at 350 degrees for 9 to 12 minutes or until browned. Cool slightly, then remove cookies from sheets and cool on racks.

Whole Wheat and Oatmeal Bread

I love making bread, especially wholesome, hearty bread. It's downright delicious.

This is my first bread with whole wheat flour, and it came out great. It may not have risen as well as I thought it would, but it tastes fantastic. It's also exactly what we wanted: a loaf of sandwich-style bread that's perfect for lunches. It's almost too good to put anything between though!

The oats gave this bread a great crunch, and helped add to the whole grain profile as well. More whole grain = more wholesome. I'm particularly impressed, as you may be able to tell.

A few notes: It is very important to let the dough double in size each time. It will need a warm place for this, so try a low-heated oven if you need to. Also, take out of the pan (used a 9x5, but size doesn't matter too much) and tap the bottom after baking. If it sounds hollow, it's done! Let cool before devouring.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

Wow! These cookies are good. So good. Smack yourself across the face good.

Love pumpkin? Love oats? Love cookies? Who doesn't, right? Then you will go bat-crazy over these.

They're the perfect size for enjoying any time. Small enough to feel like you haven't overindulged yet their small stature keeps calling you back for more.

They're the best cookies I've ever made, and possibly the best thing I've ever baked. Perfection in every bite. If you have a go at them, tell me what you thought and if you made any changes. Enjoy!

Muesli with Yogurt

I think there's something wrong with my camera. See that purple line at the top? Not too pretty. And the display screen doesn't seem to work as well as it once did. And the pictures don't seem to come out as clear (not that they were ever that awesome to start. Any tips for fixing it would be sincerely appreciated!

Anyway, on to the goods! Muesli - sweet, sweet muesli. I'm not a fan of plain milk, so I make my own yogurt a lot. But I love muesli. There's something about leaving it overnight to soak up everything that I love. Plus, it's perfect for a hot summer day.

It's also pretty much perfect because I don't have to spend time over a hot stove cooking oatmeal to get my oats fix. And it's also pretty much perfect because you can toss in whatever your little heart desires, as I've done here. Read on for the specifics. Enjoy!

Mixing Bowls

As a featured publisher for Foodbuzz I check out the Daily Specials from time to time. Today, the daily special is a set of stainless-steel mixing bowls. Look, Ma, it even has an easy-grip rim.

Need it? No way! But is it awesome? Totally!

I have my own metal mixing bowl that I use quite often. It just gets the job done better sometimes (as used with the Loco Moco - Turkey Style, Healthy Zabaione, Smashed Potatoes with Garlic, and Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies).

Homemade Oat Milk

OK, so here's what we have for today: homemade oat milk. Whoa whoa, calm down. It's not that difficult. Trust me. Hey, I see you not trusting me there...that's right....get back here. Don't worry. We'll figure this out together.

That's better. So oat milk is easier to make and more nutritious than rice milk by far. For homemade rice milk you have to cook the rice and let it sit and blend and strain. It takes about 4+ hours of cooking to get it right - not something we want to do when oat milk is SO much easier. All oat milk requires is some oats, water, a strainer or cheesecloth, and a blender.

So step on up, folks, for the best homemade oat milk money can't buy. Once done, flavor it with vanilla or cocoa or whatever you like. And use it as an excellent substitute in recipes and for its creaminess. Enjoy!

Homemade Oat Milk

Total time: 12 hours
Yield: 4 cups
Ingredients

• 4 cups hot water
• 1 cup oats (any kind)

Cooking Directions

1. Heat the 4 cups of water and add to oats in a container. Note: do NOT use boiling water.
2. Let sit at least overnight in the fridge but for as long as two days.
3. Blend oats and water together in a blender. Add another cup of water if you'd like it thinner.
4. Strain the milk through a metal mesh strainer or one layer of cheesecloth. Note: this will make your cheesecloth harder to clean than when you used it for the yogurt.

Ta-da! That's all there is to it. How simple. Use within 5-7 days unless you like oat milk that's started to go a little bad (hey, to each his own).

Cottage Cheese Yogurt

I don't know why I came up with this. I just wanted to get some of the lactose out of the protein-rich cottage cheese so that it might be even healthier and easier to digest. It turned out better than expected though. I thought maybe it would have the consistency of cottage cheese and the tartness of yogurt, but it's really more of a fine balance between the two. Creamy cottage cheese that is less salty and more appealing texture-wise.

It's uber simple (I always opt for the simple), and best of all it can be combined with a variety of toppings or addins. I added oats to mine the night before and a drop of tahini right before I devoured it for breakfast. Experiment with your own unique take on Cottage Cheese Yogurt. Enjoy!

Oatmeal Pancake

These are simple, basic, and can be topped with anything you want. Try bananas, berries, or whatever fruit/greek yogurt combo you want. These are basically the Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes without the pumpkin. They don't look as beautiful, but they're full of healthy goodness. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes

We used up the very very last of the pumpkin with this - finally! Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes, mmm mmm. Despite how it might look in the picture (forgive my horrible photography skills), they turn out very well. They're moist, light, and flavorful. And they pack a powerful punch of fiber and sweet, sweet beta carotene.

We learned of the original recipe from Kath Eats and proceeded to tweak it slightly to our tastes. For one, we increased everything to use 1/3 cup of pumpkin instead of the 1/4 cup, and balanced out the rest of it as well, using 1 whole egg instead of just egg whites. If you've made both kinds, what did you think? Enjoy!

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

So we found this recipe over at Just Doing My Best. They are oh so delicious! Plus, they're so tiny that popping one after another into your mouth doesn't seem so bad, right?

Here's the recipe as we used it. J added some mini chocolate chips to a batch for extra sweetness. These are highly addictive. You have been warned. Enjoy!