Squash for dessert? Why not!

This one’s for those who are innovative and adventurous in the kitchen. That’s what I come to Macheesmo for—new and interesting ways to challenge myself in the kitchen, although I’m pretty challenged as it is. So when I ran across a pudding-stuffed chayote dessert recipe while looking for reasons to do a guest post on Macheesmo, I said “Yeehaw, let’s git ‘er done!”

I only recently discovered chayote, an amazing squash native to Central America. Is it odd I didn’t find it until I moved to Saudi Arabia? You’d think I’d be more focused on learning how to cook traditional Middle Eastern cuisine, but this baby is a delicious addition to soups, stews, and other squash and root vegetable concoctions. And, of course, to desserts, as well!

Pudding-Stuffed Chayote

Yield: Serves 3-6.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

3 chayotes
½ cup almonds
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons cream
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 cups crumbled pound cake (set some aside for final topping)
½ cup raisins
Fresh-whipped cream

Directions:

1) Slice chayote in half and steam for 45 minutes or until tender.

2) Scoop out seeds and some inside flesh. Leave about 1/2 inch of flesh on chayotes.

3) Mix other ingredients except whipped cream together for a filling. Leave some pound cake for a topping.

4) Scoop filling into steamed chayotes and bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.

5) Serve with fresh whipped cream. Can be served warm or cool.

Basic stuff plus a weird squash thing.

The ingredients: Pound cake, chayote, cinnamon, vanilla, egg, whipping cream, almonds, sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw someone gave me), raisins (any kind will do).

The recipe calls for a teaspoon of nutmeg and a teaspoon of brandy in the pudding filling, as well as sliced almonds as garnish. I haven’t found nutmeg in Saudi Arabia yet, and liquor of all kinds is illegal, so those two were out. I switched cinnamon for nutmeg and just ignored the brandy. I didn’t want to buy extra almonds, so I just nixed the sliced almond garnishes also. I’m not sure whether the cake I bought was a pound cake or what, because it was all in Arabic, but it tasted yummy and crumbled well!

Generally, I think if you use enough sugar, delicious spices, and cakey goodness, the dessert will turn out pretty frikkin’ tasty!

Sliced open.

First order of business: slice the chayote in half lengthwise (keep the skin on!) and place them in a steaming contraption. The recipe I mostly followed says to steam for 35 minutes, but I went about 45, and the chayote was still probably too firm. The skins on these were pretty sturdy, so they can probably be steamed until the insides are super-soft and easy to scoop out.

Scooped!

Which is the next step! Remove the seeds and scoop the chayote innards into a bowl. The recipe says to leave half an inch of squash to ensure it all holds together when you bake them, but I think I should have scooped them out a little bit more—the squash is fine, but I couldn’t fit as much pudding mix as I would have liked into these, and that filling was scrumptious.

Set aside the chayote innards. Take the almonds and sugar and chop them in a food processor or blender until they’re nice and finely ground. Then add the eggs and chayote innards and pulse until nice and well-mixed. Add vanilla and cream and pulse a little, then pour into a bowl with the crumbled cake, cinnamon, and raisins. Set aside a few tablespoons of crumbled cake to top the confection before baking.

A simple pudding filling.

My pudding filling looked like this, but I didn’t exactly measure the amount of cake, chayote, or anything else—I just eyeballed.

Grease a baking pan, place your steamed, scooped chayote in, and fill with the pudding filling stuff. Then sprinkle cake crumbs on top. If you’d like, add slivers of almonds as well.

Bake at 375 Fahrenheit for 30 minutes (for me, it took a little longer before the cake crumbs turned a little brownish). The recipe says to serve warm, but it also tastes good after being refrigerated overnight in tupperware. It’s almost like pizza and Chinese food in that way.

Stuffed and baked!

These look okay naked, but are better with fresh-whipped cream, which only took a few minutes of beating (I used what I think was heavy whipping cream—the only English was on the stuck-on label on the back and just said “whipping cream,” which was good enough for me—with some powdered sugar and a dash of vanilla to sweeten it).

All dressed up!

Okay, so it doesn’t look like the most delicious dessert. But if you want to try something new and interesting, or you’re going for a green-themed dinner party, pudding-stuffed chayote is the way to go!

As you can see from the first picture, the layers are awesome. Vanilla ice cream would totally rock this dessert!

If you follow the recipe, you will have a little bit of leftover pudding filling that won’t fit into the chayote shells. The recipe says to stick it in a bread pan and bake at 375 Fahrenheit for 25 minutes. And heck, that stuff is sinful! I had it for breakfast, I had it for lunch, and I had it for dinner. I’ve been on a sugar high all day!

Thanks Kenneth for the super-interesting recipe. I’ve never used chayote before and definitely wouldn’t think to stuff it with pudding! If you liked this post, be sure to check out The Expat Garden(er) and also follow Kenneth on Twitter!

A great breakfast!

I remember the first bran muffin I ever had. It tasted like dirty rag but had the texture of cardboard. I was told that this thing I was eating, this cardboard thing, was very good for me. As you might guess, it didn’t matter. It was many years before I ever tried a bran muffin again.

After trying a few more over the years though, I learned that it’s completely possible to make a bran muffin that has a softer texture, one with a moist interior. What I’m trying to say is… it’s completely possible to make a bran muffin that doesn’t suck.

To counteract the dryness of the bran, you just need to up the liquid a bit. Add in another egg and, in this case, some raisins. They lend a bit of moisture to the finished muffin also.

Raisin Bran Muffins

Yield: 8-12 muffins

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 Cup whole wheat flour
1 Cup wheat bran
1/2 Teaspoon salt
4 Tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 Cup honey
3 Teaspoons baking powder
2 Eggs
1 Cup milk
2/3 Cup raisins (optional)

Helpful Equipment:
You'll want a muffin tin obviously.

Directions:

1) Mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Mix wet ingredients separately.

2) Stir wet ingredients into dry mixture. Don't overmix the batter. It'll be pretty wet but the bran will absorb a lot of moisture.

3) Quickly stir in raisins. Again try not to overmix batter.

4) Pour into muffin tins that are either sprayed with non-stick spray, or rubbed with a light coating of butter. You could also use cupcake/muffin tins. You can fill these up almost to the top. They won't rise like cupcakes rise. Sprinkle extra bran on top as a garnish.

5) Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Try not to overcook them or they will dry out fast.

6) Cool on a rack for 5 minutes before eating.

Adapted from How to Cook Everything.

Making the Batter

You could definitely use normal all-purpose flour for these, but I figure since I’m making bran muffins, I might as well make them very bran-filled. So I used whole wheat flour. This gives the final muffin a very nutty flavor which I really liked.

Lots of fiber!

One of the ways I added a bit more moisture into the muffins (besides the extra egg) is to just barely raise the amount of butter in the muffins. The original recipe had 3 Tablespoons. I added an extra tablespoon and I think it really helped with the final texture.

Butter. It's good for the soul.

Pulling the batter together is really easy. Start by mixing all your dry ingredients in a medium bowl (flour, bran, baking powder, salt). Then mix all your wet ingredients separately (milk, eggs, melted butter). Then stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

It’ll be a pretty wet batter but trust me the bran will soak up a ton of liquid as it cooks. Try not to over-mix your batter, just stir it together until it’s barely combined.

Then quickly stir in your raisins if you’re using them. I highly recommend them but I guess you could leave them out.

I like mine with lots of raisins.

Baking the Muffins

Pour the batter into prepared muffin tins. You can either line your tins with paper or spray them with non-stick spray. Or if you’re me, just wipe them down with a very thin coat of butter.

I also could’ve filled mine up all the way to the top. These didn’t rise like cupcakes rise.

I sprinkled on some extra bran also just for show.

I could've filled these a bit more.

Cook these at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. If you make them larger, they might need 30 minutes. Try not to over-cook them though or they’ll get pretty dry.

A toothpick should come out cleanly from the center.

Yum.

Move these to a rack to cool for about five minutes and then they are ready to eat!

On the smaller side...

These will be best right away when they’re warm. They’re fine just like that but you could also spread on a bit of extra butter… if you’re feeling feisty.

Inside a muffin!

These were definitely best right away, but I let them cool and stored them in a bag and ate them all week for breakfast. They were just fine all week long! I didn’t even heat them up actually.

They reminded me nothing of cardboard!

And that’s why homemade peanut butter rocks. Is it faster or healthier than buying peanut butter in the store? It’s probably not faster and probably equally healthy. Is it cheaper? Well, actually it is, but that’s kind of secondary to the fact that it’s a lot of fun!

Making peanut butter is one of those things you can do with your kids. It’s like a magic show. You start with, well, peanuts and you end up with this delicious stuff.

Umm... easy.

This is kind of comical, but I’ll list the ingredients to this meal just for fun.

Homemade Peanut Butter

Yield: 2 Cups

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups peanuts
1 Teaspoon neutral oil (opt.)

Directions:

1) Pulse peanuts in a food processor until they form a rough paste.

2) Depending on the peanuts, it might help to add a small drizzle of oil to get the peanuts to come together.

3) Once the peanut butter is made, serve it immediately or store it for up to a few weeks in the fridge.

You can make peanut butter with literally just peanuts, but it takes awhile. If you add just a few drops of neutral oil you can really speed up the process. It’s seriously magical.

You start with, well…

The ingredients...

I used roasted and salted peanuts but you don’t need to necessarily use those. If I didn’t use salted, I’d probably hit my peanut butter with just a pinch of salt near the end.

Anyway, add your peanuts to a food processor. I used my little mini processor. I added about two cups of peanuts to start.

Is this really going to work?

Then just start pulsing the peanuts! At first, it won’t seem like you’re getting anywhere other than making a lot of chopped peanuts. Stop here if you need nuts for a sundae. Otherwise keep going!

Ok... chopped peanuts.

Keep your finger on the trigger. At this point, I’ve pulsed my peanuts for probably 30-45 seconds.

Chopped even more!

I honestly think that if I would’ve kept at it, it would’ve formed peanut butter, but to speed up the process I added a very small amount of canola oil (1 teaspoon). After another few seconds of pulsing it started to get creamy.

This is when the kids would say, “WHOA!”

Now we're getting there.

After another few seconds of pulsing, you’ll have very legit peanut butter.

Awesome.

So I left my peanut butter pretty plain, but the obvious advantage of making your own is you could experiment with add-ins. Honey? Cinnamon? Cayenne? Who knows. Go crazy!

Very peanuty.

I’ll tell you one thing about this peanut butter that I loved: It tasted like peanuts! It was actually somewhere in between the creamy and chunky varieties that you’ll find in the store, but the flavor was really deep and intense.

I actually made this batch around lunch time over a weekend so I decided to use it for lunch!

For half the lunch, I made some toast and slathered one piece of toast with peanut butter and one with honey.

Jelly would be the obvious choice.

Slap those together and you’ll have a pretty tasty sandwich. I also couldn’t resist making some classic ants on a log!

Awesome lunch.

Start to finish, I’d say this took me 15 minutes to do and I’ll admit that it would definitely be faster to reach for the jar. But it was really cool.

If I had kids, I think it’d be fun to have a peanut butter party. Make a bunch of peanut butter with the kids and then provide a bunch of fun mix-ins. Everyone can make their own sandwiches out of their own peanut butter!

What do you think? What would you add in?

I realized recently that I’ve never made bagels before, but I knew the process was somewhat similar to pretzels. For my first bagel attempt I went with cinnamon raisin. They are probably my favorite basic bagel.

Worth the work.

This recipe produces fantastic bagels. I might be willing to put them up against any DC bagel I’ve had. I’ve definitely had better in New York, but not by much. They are really quite good.

The recipe calls for an ingredient that isn’t very common: malt syrup. I happened to have a jar of it laying around because a neighbor at work gave it to me because she didn’t know what to do with it. I kept it in my fridge and figured I would need it someday. I was so right.

If you don’t have it though you can substitute honey without a problem or brown sugar.

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels

Yield: 12 bagels

Prep Time: 45 minutes + 3 hours of rise time

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes + 3 hour rise time

Ingredients:

Sponge:
4 Cups (18 ounces) unbleached bread flour
2 1/2 Cups (20 ounces) water, room temp
1 Teaspoon instant yeast

Final Dough:
3 3/4 Cups unbleached bread flour or high-gluten flour (I used bread flour, but I bet high-gluten works even better)
1 Teaspoon instant yeast
2 3/4 Teaspoons salt
1 Tablespoon malt syrup (you can substitute honey or brown sugar)
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
5 Tablespoons sugar
2 Cups raisins, rinsed and patted dry

1 Tablespoon baking soda for boiling

Directions:

1) Start by combining all your sponge ingredients in a large bowl. Cover this loosely and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours.

2) Meanwhile get all your final dough ingredients ready. If you don’t want to do cinnamon raisin, just get rid of the cinnamon and raisins obviously. Also, cut out the sugar and reduce the yeast to 1/2 Teaspoon.

3) Assuming you are doing cinnamon raisin, be sure to wash your raisins to remove any dirt or natural yeast that’s on them. Just pat them dry afterward.

4) After two hours, sponge should be bubbly. Then add all dough ingredients except the flour and finally stir in your flour until the dough forms a ball.

5) Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead it for about 10 minutes. It’s kind of weird to knead dough with a bunch of raisins spotted throughout, but it works just fine. Eventually it should pass the windowpane test.

6) Once your dough passes the windowpane test, immediately start forming your bagels. Cut your dough into about 12 or 13 even pieces. If you have a digital scale this is super easy. Just weigh your entire dough ball, divide by 12 or 13 and see what you get. Then you can weigh out each tiny ball for evenly sized bagels. Each one of my bagels was a bit over 5 ounces of dough.

7) Let balls of dough rest for about 20 minutes just so they relax a bit. Grab a ball and gently press down in the direct center of it with your thumb. Eventually it will poke through. Then slowly work the side of the bagel out, making the hole bigger, until the hole is about 1-2 inches in diameter. The goal is for the bagel to be perfectly even all the way around.

8) Set each bagel on a parchment lined baking sheet when you’re done forming it. Let the bagels rise again for about 30 minutes. Let them sit in the fridge overnight to develop more flavor (opt.).

9) Put a large pot of water on and once it is slowly boiling add 1 Tablespoon of baking soda for approximately every gallon of water.

10) Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

11) Boil bagels a few at a time for 1 minute per side. Move them straight to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. If you were topping them with something, now would be the time!

12) Bake them for 5 minutes at 500, then rotate your sheet pans and bake them for another 5 minutes at 450. You can bake them a bit longer if you like them darker.

13) Move them onto a rack to cool right away and let them cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting them open and eating!

14) These are obviously great straight out of the oven, but they lose very little in quality if you freeze them correctly. Just make sure they are cooled completely and then store them in a sealed plastic bag. To de-thaw them, set the bagel in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes and then slice it and toast it as you would normally.

From The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Making the Dough

I don’t think this recipe is all that difficult. It just takes a little bit of love. The dough is pretty straightforward. Start by combining all your sponge ingredients in a large bowl. It will be a soupy mixture (Top left). Cover this loosely and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours.

Meanwhile get all your final dough ingredients ready (top right). If you don’t want to do cinnamon raisin, just get rid of the cinnamon and raisins obviously. Also, cut out the sugar and reduce the yeast to 1/2 Teaspoon. But assuming you are doing cinnamon raisin, be sure to wash your raisins to remove any dirt or natural yeast that’s on them. Just pat them dry afterward (middle left).

After two hours, your sponge should be bubbly (mid right). Then add all your dough ingredients except the flour (bottom left) and finally stir in your flour until the dough forms a ball (bottom right).

Get it?

Turn your dough out onto a floured surface and knead it for about 10 minutes. It’s kind of weird to knead dough with a bunch of raisins spotted throughout, but it works just fine. Eventually it should pass the windowpane test.

After a work out.

Making the Bagels

Once your dough passes the windowpane test, immediately start forming your bagels. Cut your dough into about 12 or 13 even pieces. If you have a digital scale this is super easy. Just weigh your entire dough ball, divide by 12 or 13 and see what you get. Then you can weigh out each tiny ball for evenly sized bagels. Each one of my bagels was a bit over 5 ounces of dough.

Of course, you could also just guess. If you end up with 30 balls, they are too small. If you end up with 3, they are too big.

5 ounces each if possible.

Let your balls of dough rest for about 20 minutes just so they relax a bit (you want to catch them off guard you see). Then grab a ball and gently press down in the direct center of it with your thumb. Eventually it will poke through. Then slowly work the side of the bagel out, making the hole bigger, until the hole is about 1-2 inches in diameter. The goal is for the bagel to be perfectly even all the way around.

Making a bagel.

Set each bagel on a parchment lined baking sheet when you’re done forming it. Let the bagels rise again for about 30 minutes. You’ll know when they are ready because they will float! You just have to test one and they should all be done.

Ready to go!

At this point Peter recommends letting them sit in the fridge overnight to develop more flavor. I did this but my main problem was figuring out a way to stack two sheet trays in my fridge without crushing the bagels! I eventually came up with a complicated system of props (including hand mixer attachments) that let me evenly stack two trays without crushing the bagels on the lower tray.

Not sure that this is necessary...

Of course, I think you could also just make the bagels immediately and avoid that whole mess…

Boiling the bagels

Just like the pretzels, it’s very important to boil the bagels so they develop that nice chewy interior and get that great crust on the outside. Put a large pot of water on and once it is slowly boiling add 1 Tablespoon of baking soda for approximately every gallon of water. Now would also be a good time to preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

Then boil your bagels a few at a time for 1 minute per side. Move them straight to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper. If you were topping them with something, now would be the time!

Very different texture after a boil.

Baking the bagels

These do not need to bake that long. Bake them for 5 minutes at 500, then rotate your sheet pans and bake them for another 5 minutes at 450. You can bake them a bit longer if you like them darker.

Move them onto a rack to cool right away and let them cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting them open and eating!

So good.

Storing the bagels

These are obviously great straight out of the oven, but I found that they lose very little in quality if you freeze them correctly. Just make sure they are cooled completely and then store them in a sealed plastic bag.

I’m still eating mine that I made 3 weeks ago and they taste great! To de-thaw them, just set the bagel in a 350 degree oven for about 5 minutes and then slice it and toast it as you would normally. Works like a charm!

Couldn't resist.

These bagels are chewy and delicious. They are jam packed with raisins and cinnamon flavor. One of my pet-peeves is getting a raisin bagel with like two raisins in it. I hate raisin rationing.

I thought these were really fun to make. The final product was very tasty and they store great. What’s not to love about this recipe?

I’m always up for a good challenge and this was a tough one. I mean she clearly has a pretty large advantage on me as I’ve never purposefully tried to make a vegan dish although sometimes I make one by accident I’m sure.

To make things even more difficult, these were are chosen ingredients: Fruit preserves and raisins!

I'm pretty much at a loss.

Honestly, I’m not sure what I would’ve done even if I could’ve used meat and/or dairy. I poured over recipes for days trying to think of something that would work with both of these things and satisfy the Vegan deal. I decided to use an Apricot preserve that I had left over from my very non-vegan calzones. No real reason other than it was in my pantry.

This is the approximate thought process that eventually got me to my recipe:

“I want to make something good. Something with apricot and raisins. Maybe I could make a sauce? And put it on what? Salad? Gross. Tofu? Ugh. Veggies? That wouldn’t be filling enough. Yes. Filling. I want something filling. Something filled with apricots and raisins. Ok. I’m really on a roll now. Wait. Roll. I can make a roll. A roll with filling. But my filling would be a jelly. A JELLY ROLL. Kick ass.”

And the dessert was born: Vegan Apricot Raisin Jelly Roll

I had two huge problems right away: 1) I’ve never made a jelly roll. I knew they have eggs in them though. 2) I’ve never substituted anything for eggs or baked anything Vegan at all.

I did some research and found this eggless baking guide. I decided to do a mix of two different substitutions and use some banana and some silken tofu in place of eggs. Why? I have no idea. I’ve never done this before. It just felt right okay?

Who needs eggs?

This was the recipe I ended up with.

Vegan Jelly Roll (Adapted from Baking Sheet)

- 1 banana, mushed up
- 1/3 Cup Silken tofu
- 3/4 Cup sugar
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
- 3/4 Cup sifted cake flour
- 3/4 Teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 Teaspoon salt

With a hand mixer, I combined my banana and tofu until they were fairly smooth and then added my sugar and vanilla. In a separate bowl, I sifted together my flour, baking powder and salt. Then I mixed them all together.

No animals were harmed in the making of this batter.

To make the roll you need to make a very thin layer of cake that is moist and flexible. The last thing you want to do is overcook this batter.

I got a large baking sheet and lined it with parchment paper. Then poured the batter and spread it out to form a thin layer. At this point, I figured I had about a 10% chance of success with this.

Here was when failure became a distinct possibility.

Bake that for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. You might need up to 10 minutes, but definitely start checking it early. You don’t want the cake to crisp up at all.

Meanwhile, get a large kitchen towel and sprinkle it with powdered sugar. By sprinkle, I mean cover.

When the cake comes out of the oven, loosen the edges around the parchment paper, take a deep breath, and flip the parchment paper over onto the towel! If you have any kitchen karma points stocked up, now would be a good time to cash them in.

Peel back the parchment paper and dust your cake with more powdered sugar. If you are lucky, you might see this:

Oh glorious day!

Start on one of the shorter ends and roll the cake up with the towel! Basically, the dish towel is acting as the jelly while the cake cools. Set the entire towel deal on a rack to cool.

Cool it down.

As this was cooling, I decided to focus on the jelly filling. While I could just mix together the preserves and the raisins, I thought I would kick things up a notch with some of this Vegan ingredient:

Whiskey = Vegan!

I soaked the raisins in about 1/4 Cup of whiskey for 20 minutes or so. Stirring every few minutes. I probably used 1/2 Cup of raisins.

Drunken raisins.

Then I added the whiskey and raisins to about 2/3 Cups of preserves. Yes. This makes this dessert alcoholic. At this point I figured it would give the dessert some kick and also someone would probably need to be drunk to try it anyway…

Goop!

When your roll is completely cool, you can unroll it, spread your filling on and roll it back up! That part is super-easy.

Umm... okay.

Once it is rolled up, sprinkle it with a good dusting of powdered sugar and you are all set!

Success?!

This turned out much better than I thought it was going to turn out.

I know... Overkill on the sugar.

A few honest assessments on this recipe:

1) The cake part wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t quite as fluffy as if I had used eggs I think , but it was still decent. It tasted like bananas and you couldn’t taste the tofu at all.
2) The filling was super sweet. If I were to for some reason make this again, I would add probably 2 Tablespoons of lemon juice to cut the sweetness.
3) The entire time I was making this, I was singing the Coolio classic, “Rollin’ with the Homies.”

Check out Veggie Girl’s dish and don’t forget to vote for your favorite! Voting closes on Sunday at 9AM EST.

That goal happened to coincide with a email from a reader asking if I had ever made protein bars, which I hadn’t, so I thought this would be a good time to give it a shot. This is what I ended up with:

Popeye should have eaten these.

The problem with a lot of protein bars that you buy in the store is they are A) expensive and B) not actually that healthy for you. I tried to solve both of those problems. I took a recipe from Alton Brown and modified it a bit. These are the ingredients I used.

Great ingredients

Macheesmo Muscle Bars

Dry Stuff:
- 4 ounces protein (I used vanilla soy, but go crazy. This is about 1 Cup.)
- 2 1/4 ounces oat bran (1/2 Cup)
- 3/4 ounces wheat germ (1/4 Cup)
- 1 ounce rolled oats (1/4 Cup)
- 1/2 Teaspoon kosher salt

Wet Batter:
- 12.5 ounces silken or soft tofu. An average container is 15 ounces, which is a bit much.
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 Cup almond butter (you could use peanut butter to save some $)
- 1/2 Cup Orange Juice, or apple juice
- 2 3/4 ounces whole wheat flour (1/2 Cup)

Other stuff:
- 3 ounces golden raisins
- 3 ounces dried cherries
- 5 ounces dried cranberries
- 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (optional)

So this does look like kind of a lot of ingredients and I would encourage you to experiment to reduce costs and also change up flavors. Try to keep the dry/wet ratio about the same. Also, this is one of those recipes that is expensive the first time you make it because the protein, wheat germ, and almond butter if you are using that. These are sort of pricey, but if you make these more than once your costs per bar will plummet.

Also, I did this recipe by weight because I wanted to actually calculate the nutritional info in each bar. I don’t think it is that important to the recipe. I’m pretty sure you could use the approximations above and end up okay.

To start, let’s mix up our dried fruits just to get that out of the way. Also, now would be a good time to preheat your oven to 350.

Don't skimp on the fruit here.

Then mix together the dry ingredients listed above. This recipe is very easy once you have all your stuff together.

Dry stuff.

Next we need to make the wet batter. To start, whisk your tofu until it is light and a bit fluffy. Then add all of your wet stuff. Finally, add your flour to the mix. Whisk well to combine.

Wet stuff.

Next, incorporate your dry ingredients into your wet ingredients. Do about 1/3 of your dry at a time. You will need to switch to a fork to combine it all. It’s okay if it is a bit clumpy.

Mixed together.

Finally, stir in your fruit. I used raisins, cranberries, and cherries. Alton likes blueberries. Totally experiment here. You could try adding some nuts, or chocolate or tons of other stuff.

This is not rocket science.

Dump this batter in a 9 X 13 baking dish. It will be pretty thick. I lined mine with parchment paper which I highly recommend. I also sprayed my parchment paper with nonstick spray which I also recommend. If you don’t use the parchment paper, definitely use the spray.

Ready for the heat.

Bake this at 350 for 35-40 minutes. The dish will set up nicely.

These were pretty good like this.

I cut this tray into 16 bars. If you go smaller than that then they would be too flimsy I think. I tried a bit of one without chocolate and it was awesome. If you are using chocolate, be sure the bars cool to room temperature before you top them.

Why would you not coat these in chocolate?

These were not very hard and I’ve been eating them all week. My biceps are loving it.

As I noted before, I had the idea to calculate the nutritional info on these to see how they stack up to other bars. At first, I thought this would be an easy thing to do. I ended up with this crazy set of notes.

This was, by far, the hardest part of this recipe.

Ultimately though, I did manage to get the data right. Of course, these are still a bit inaccurate because it assumes that I cut every bar to the exact same size by weight. Oh well, it is close.

Per Bar:
Calories: 266
Fat: 10.2 g
Sodium: 200 mg
Cholesterol: 30 mg
Carbs: 34 g
Fiber: 3.7 g
Protein: 13.3 g

That is a pretty solid ratio of calories to protein. It would be even better without the chocolate which added some fat and calories without giving any fiber or protein. Oh well. This stacks up pretty well against most of the bars. The only bar I found that had a lot more protein was the Powerbar Protein Plus. It came in at over 20 grams of protein. I think it almost qualifies as steroids. My bar kicks its butt on taste though.

If you are looking for a decent afternoon snack that is packed with Protein, these are a great option. They keep easily for two weeks in the fridge.

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Turns out I was right:

You have to make this if you are a granola fan.

After doing some research and looking at MANY different recipes, I realized that granola is kind of like one of those “Make-a-bear” workshops. I’ve never actually been in one of those shops but I think I get the general idea. You go in and pick out your teddy bear, your outfit, and your characteristics with the goal of giving the drab old teddy bear some personality. You get to make it “yours”. Genius marketing if you ask me.

Granola is very similar. There are dozens of variations and probably hundreds of additions that you can use to give it some personal flare. You can go on the cheap with some basic rolled oats, honey, and cinnamon, or you can get extremely luxurious.

I chose somewhere in the middle, but still started with plain old rolled oats.

Rollin' with the oats.

I used Mark Bittman’s recipe from this book because I trust him. I made a few alterations, but kept the proportions the same.

Homemade Granola
- 6 cups rolled oats
- 2 cups various nuts/seeds. I used 1/2 cup of each of the following: Sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chopped cashews, sliced almonds.
- 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
- 1 Teaspoon Ghirardelli’s cocao powder (my addition)
- 1 cup honey. I probably did closer to 1 1/8 cups. Adjust according to your tastes.
- 1 cup golden raisins
- 1 cup dried cranberries

These are a great addition to anything.

Add all of your nuts and seeds to your rolled oats and mix it up really well. Some other options you could use include walnuts, pecans, peanuts, hazelnuts, Macadamias, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, and on and on and on.

Don’t add more than two or two and a half cups of this stuff though or they will overpower the granola.

This bowl just got way healthy.

Then put in whatever spices you would like along with your sticky stuff. I chose cinnamon, coca powder, and honey. Again though, there are tons of options: anise, vanilla, allspice, nutmeg, poppy seed, maple syrup, or molasses just to name a few possibilities.

Again though, don’t over do it. I would choose two or maybe three spice additions and a base. If you add to many then it starts to taste like nothing at all. Choose wisely, young backpacker.

Honey makes oats into granola.

Now for really the only hard part of this recipe: stirring. This stuff will be pretty thick and you want to make sure that all of your honey and spice is evenly distributed. Stir it for a few minutes to make sure it is well-combined. Don’t worry, dude, you can’t over-stir granola.

Then pour out your mixture onto a baking sheet and spread it out to form one even layer. If you use the above recipe you will either need two baking sheets or to do it in batches. It’s a lot.

Miles and miles of granola.

You want to cook this at 350 for somewhere between 25-30 minutes. My first tray I cooked for 30 minutes and it was borderline burnt. My second tray I cooked for 27 minutes and it was spot on perfect. I think this varies depending on oven and ingredients you use.

I would start watching it pretty closely after 25 minutes. The last thing you want to do is burn a whole batch of this stuff!

Once it is done pull it out but leave it on your baking sheets to cool. Then sprinkle on all of your dried fruit or half of it if you are working it batches. It is semi-important to add the fruit while the granola is still hot so the flavors start to blend.

Then let it cool completely and store it in an airtight container. The stuff will last for a very long time which is good because it makes a bunch.

This recipe makes like 40 of these.

One reason why I like this recipe oh so much is because granola is expensive. In DC, one 13 ounce box of granola in the store costs $4.19. This entire recipe costs me $18 and made the equivalent 3.5 boxes of granola. While the cost appears to be more for the homemade version, I have nuts, seeds, and dried fruit left over to make a second batch if I wanted to. All I would need is the oats which run about $1.30/lb.

I had a bowl of this for breakfast this morning and I must say that it was very delicious. Maybe there’s something to this granola craze after all.

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