Easy Granola Bars

Next weekend, I am heading to the beach for the first time in 2010.  Since we have a beach house and the beach is only about 2 hours away, we spend most of our weekends during the summer down there.  It's our home away from home!  Most every time we go, I bring homemade granola bars for breakfast and snacks.  I love to experiment with these.  They truly are idiot proof! 

EASY GRANOLA BARS
INGREDIENTS
2 Cups Quick Oats
1 Cup Rice Krispies Cereal
1 Can Fat Free Sweetend Condensed Milk
Nuts, dried fruit or trail mix - This where you get to be creative. Insert whatever you like.  I like to use the tropical trail mix and sometimes M&Ms.  I also sometimes mix in honey or melted peanut butter.

DIRECTIONS
1.  Preheat oven to 350° and grease pan
2.  Mix together ingedients until well blended and press into greased pan (preferably with a greased spatula).
3.  Bake 20-25 min. (20 min. will give you chewy bars.)

Happy Saturday y'all! I'm working today (can't you tell?!) since I was off a lot at the Bassmaster Classic and since I'll take off a day to go to the beach.  Pray for warm weather for me and I'll do my best to send it north to y'all who are still freezing and covered in snow! :) 

I'M BACK!!

What a couple of weeks it's been.  I survived my first Bassmaster Classic!  Jarrett and I had such a great time.  Not only did we get to give out stuff to tons of people, but we had such a FUN row of vendors and all had a great time laughing with eachother and helping out.  I'm glad I went!

 This is Jack Wingate and Forrest Woods at our booth.  I've already told you about Mr. Jack.  Forrest Woods started Ranger Boats and also started the FLW (Forrest L. Woods) Outdoors, which has huge fishing tournaments!

Here's me and Mr. Jack.  I love this man - he's hilarious and I'm glad I've gotten to know him over the past few months.  He's got tons of knowledge about all kinds of stuff and is always willing to share.

Jarrett went with me and helped me work at my booth.  I'm pretty sure he had a better time than I did.  As he put it, "I'm like a kid in a candy store!" 

The highlight of my trip? Eating at Dreamland BBQ and buying two new Woods and Water t-shirts!  Woods and Water is an outdoors store in Tuscaloosa and they've got the BEST t-shirts (long and short sleeve).  As for Dreamland - you know my love of BBQ sauce, so you shouldn't be surprised about how excited I am about this.  Jarrett even let me get some BBQ sauce to bring home.  I can't wait to use it!

A Valetine's Day Story

REWIND back to 2004 - I was at college in Alabama and Jarrett was 7 hours away at college.  Usually, due to work, I wasn't able to come home from the time I went back after Christmas until March.  It was basketball season, gymnastics, swimming and then baseball back-to-back-to-back, and I had to be present at all of the games/meets, so I just couldn't get away.  Valentine's Day was approaching and while I couldn't go home to visit Jarrett, I wanted to do something special for him.  So, I decided I would make him cookies and ship them to him. 

Now, keep in mind, I DON'T bake so what may seem like an easy, mundane task was extremely difficult for me.  His favorite cookies are oatmeal raisin, so I found a recipe and got to work.  Little did I know, that was the easy part!  I also wanted to make him heart shaped cookies with icing on them.  So, I went the easy route and bought a roll of plain cookie dough, premade icing and heart shaped cookie cutters.  Before I knew it, my entire kitchen was covered in flour (so the dough won't stick while you roll it out) and cookie dough, and red icing was everywhere!  I was amazed at what a mess I could make even with premade dough.  In the end, those too turned out okay. 

So, I packaged up all of his cookies and sent them to his house for him to get for Valentine's Day.  At the time, he lived with his brother, who for whatever reason was home first on the day the cookies arrived.  I'm not sure why, but Brother opened the package, found the cookies and ate all of my heart shaped cookies!  Jarrett never even got to see the cookies that I worked so hard at making for him.  I was SO upset.  Thankfully, Brother doesn't like oatmeal raisin cookies, so he didn't eat those, the ones I actually made from scratch, so I guess that was okay.  Imagine how mad I was when Jarrett called to say thanks for his oatmeal cookies and had no idea what I was talking about when I asked him about the others.  This is typical brother-in-law for you.  At least he thought they were good!

Anyway, here's the recipe for those oatmeal raisin cookies.  I actually kind of impressed myself by making them.  I have made them a couple of times since then and they always turn out pretty good.

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup butter flavored shortening
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats
1 cup raisins

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F


In a large bowl, cream together the butter, butter flavored shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth. Combine the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes until light and golden. Do not overbake. Let them cool for 2 minutes before removing from cookie sheets to cool completely. Store in airtight container.

Foodie Friday - Shortcuts!

A couple of weeks ago, I was reading a blog post by a girl that was looking for dinner shortcuts because her life is CRAZY busy!  This is something I definitely know about, as I am sure most of you do.  My typical day goes a little something like this:
5:00 a.m. - wake up, get dressed and work out
6:00 a.m. - shower, iron, breakfast
7:15 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. - Drive to work, work, drive from work (I have a 30 minute commute!)
5:30 p.m. - 6:15 p.m. - Clean, Barefoot Belle work, walk Outlaw (one or a combination of the above)
6:15 p.m. - Cook dinner (30-40 minutes) then J gets home and we eat
7:30 p.m. - Clean up dinner, continue with neccessary chores not completed earlier
9:00 p.m. - IN THE BED and hopefully asleep.  I know, I'm such a dork for going to bed so early.  But really, I need my sleep!

So, when it comes to cooking, which I really, really LOVE to do, I've developed my own little system of shortcuts that I would love to share.  I hope this helps some of you guys.  What are your tips for helping with dinner during the week? 

1.  Plan ahead - For me, this is the single most important factor in saving time.  I am a planner and nothing gets me more flustered that not having at least some sort of idea of what I will make for dinner.  Before you go to grocery store each week (or two weeks), decide what meals you want to prepare for the week.  You'll always have waht you need and might even save a little money and defintiely time by not having to go back and forth to store during the week.

2. Cook in bulk - When you're browning meat, do double.  Or when you're boiling chicken, cook double or tripple the ammount you need. It takes hardly any extra time to do this and will help you later in the week on a night when you don't have much time. Usually, I do this on Saturday or Sunday when I have some extra time.  I divide it up into portions and put what I need for the week in the fridge and put the rest in the freezer for later. 

3.  Find recipes that can pull double duty- For example, one of my favorite recipes like this is Sloppy Joes and Shepherd's Pie.  Once I've made the sloppy joes, I barely have to do anything the next night for shepherd's pie.  There are a lot of cookbooks that can help with this.  Better Homes & Gardens Cookbook has some of these and Robin Miller also has a lot of recipes like this. You can even do a google search on double duty dinners and find some good help!

4.  Your freezer is your friend - When you have time, make a double and freeze for later.  I do this a lot when I make chicken spaghetti or chicken tetrazini and when I make spaghetti sauce.  There's also a great cookbook called Super Suppers that's full of recipes that you can freeze and the author tells you at what step you can freeze things.  This has been a great help to me. 

5.  The deli is your friend - Grab a rotisserie chicken and cut it up!  One of thsoe babies can feed us for 2-3 meals.  If you know you won't have much time that week, sometimes the deli will have great sides. And don't forget about prepackaged salads.  They are fab!

6.  Always have a backup - When a recipe fails (aka the oven catches fire...I was not prepared here!) or you just do not feel like cooking at all, you always need a back up!  When you're at the grocery store, pick up some frozen or quick-prep meals.  Some of our favorites are frozen pizza (of course!), Stouffer's Easy Express Skillets Garlic Chicken and Grilled Chicken & Vegetables.  I also really like Macaroni Grill's Chicken Alfredo.  It takes a little work because you have to supply the chicken and a few other ingredients, but it's REALLY good and quick.


Those are my tips.  I hope they help you as much as they do me!

Kicked Up Sorta Shrimp Scampi

TRY IT! I promise it's good! :)

Ingredients
Extra virgin olive oil

1 lb. medium shrimp, peeled and deveind, tail removed
4 garlic cloves, minced
red pepper flakes (for as much heat as you’d like. I usually give 5 or 6 shakes)
½ cup chicken stock
1 lb. fettucini
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 jar kalamata olives
1 package cremini mushrooms, sliced

Directions
1.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add pasta. Before you drain, you’ll need some pasta cooking water.
2.  While the pasta cooks, heat some olive oil (twice around the pan) in a deep skillet.
3. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add olives, mushrooms and chicken stock and cook for a few more minutes.
5. Add the shrimp and a ladle of the starchy pasta cooking water to the sauce.
6.  Cook until most of the liquid has evaporated (leave some to mix with the cheese - it makes an awesome cheesy like sauce!), then add drained pasta to the pan. Let the pasta absorb the juices for a minute.
7. Add the parmesan cheese and stir (with tongs)

For the Love of Peanut Butter

I don't know about you, but I absolutely LOVE peanut butter! Not only do I love it on and in things, I eat it spoonfulls at the time for a snack.  For some strange reason, one day last week, I was thinking about how great some peanut butter icing would be!  I know this is strange - last week was REALLY stressful at work, so I was not myself.  It's even more strange because since I don't bake, what in the heck am I going to put it on?  I searched my cookbooks looks for peanut butter cream cheese icing, but no luck.  So I searched the internet and still no luck.  Then, this week I was watching tv and lunch and there it was!! Gina Neely was making peanut butter and jelly cupcakes with the peanut butter cream cheese icing!  So, I thought I would share since maybe some of you also love peanut butter and maybe you bake and can use it! How good would it be on some choclatte cupcakes?  YUM!  Since my sister shares her gift shop with a bakery, I think I might see if she'll make me some cupcakes to put this icing on. :)

INGREDIENTS: 
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, room temperature

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

DIRECTIONS:
In a large bowl, add the cream cheese and butter. Beat until well combined, then add the vanilla and peanut butter and beat until well mixed. Slowly add the confectioners' sugar and beat until well incorporated.

Potato Chip and Bacon Topped Mac & Cheese

I watch the Food Network every night when I get home from work.  I don't dare miss my favorites - the Neely's, Paula and Rachael!! One night, I was watching Down Home with the Neelys and they made this recipe.  I thought it looked so good, but since I'm more of a 30-Minute Meals kind of girl, I didn't really think much of it.  Then I got the Neely's cookbook for Christmas and this recipe was in there.  Since we were having friends over on New Year's Eve, I thought I'd give it a shot and BOY am I glad I did.  This is SO good!!!  I've never made homemade macaroni and cheese before, much less any with bacon and potato chips, but this turned out great.  It's so easy!  Go ahead, give it a try. 

Potato Chip & Bacon Topped Macaroni and Cheese

INGREDIENTS
6 tbsp butter
½ c. AP flour
4 c. milk, warm
1 tsp. dry mustard
⅓ tsp. grate nutmeg
¼ tsp. cayenne papper
dash of s&p
dash of hot sauce & worcestershire sauce
3 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 lb. small pasta, cooked al dente
1 c. crushed potato chips
5 slices bacon, crumbled
½ c. parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS
Prheat over to 350°


Melt butter in a large sauce pot over medium heat. Add flour and cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

Whisk in the milk and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. The mixture will thicken as the heat increases.

Continue to stir while adding dry mustard, nutmeg, cayenne, salt, pepper, hot sauce, & worcestershire

Stir in cheddar cheese until it melts.

Places cooked pasta in the bottom of a casserole dish. Pour cheese sauce over the pasta.

Sprinkle with chips, bacon & parmesan cheese.

Bake for 35 minutes.