Blueberry Oat Crumble Bars

If you saw yesterday's blog you'll know that Leyna and I attempted to do a little baking. It didn't go so well the first time around. We had a bowl full of oats, flour, and brown sugar. I turned my back to get the salt and heard a crash. Then I saw the bowl upside down on the floor with Leyna next to it. There was a fine dusting of flour on her face, slippers, and dress, the stove, the cabinets, the floor, and halfway across the adjoining morning room. Leyna was hysterical, not because she was hurt but just shocked and upset by the disaster. She was much more upset than me and I did my very best to make her laugh at the situation. It was the only thing left to do. I put her on the couch with a movie, cleaned up the mess, and started over. Luckily it's a very easy recipe! And it was worth EVERY second. The four of us plus Uncle Steve made it through the first pan in less than 15 hours. Leyna and I made a second batch today (with strawberries added) and we put a severe hurting on it. You should make it ASAP!!!

Version 1 with blueberries

Version 2 with blueberries & strawberries

Blueberry Oat Crumble Bars
Courtesy of How Sweet It Is

1 1/2 C rolled oats
3/4 C whole wheat flour
3/4 C brown sugar
1/4 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 C butter + 2 T
1 C blueberries (or 1/2 C blueberries and 1/2 C strawberries)

Preheat oven to 350.
In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, oats, cinnamon and salt. Melt the 1/2 cup of butter and stir the vanilla into it. Add to the oat mixture and stir until completely moistened. Fold in the blueberries.
Butter and flour an 8×8 baking pan or use a non-stick (I actually used a 9x9 and cooked them for the same amount of time). Press batter into the pan. Melt remaining butter and drizzle it over the bars. Bake for 20 minutes and then let it cool completely. Cut and serve. Try not to eat the whole pan in one day, but if you do just concentrate on how healthy most of the ingredients are ;)

Pizza Friday - It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno

This is what happens when I grocery shop hungry and late in the day on a Friday and realize we won't be home until dinner time...

The grown ups ate the wings and pepperoni pizza while the girls dined on the plain cheese variety. The wings were perfectly spicy and the pizza crust was just right. It was all quite delicious and I highly recommend it. Plus there were hardly any dishes!

Pizza Friday - Pesto Chicken PIzza

Well, this pizza was delicious but the girls wouldn't even touch it. It was whole wheat crust with pesto, mozzarella, parmesan, and grilled chicken. The up side of them not eating it was that they ate every last veggie that I put on their plates (carrots and red peppers)! Oh well, we'll try again next Friday :)

St. Patrick's Day Fare

I didn't quite live up to my own expectations today. I thought about green pancakes for breakfast but couldn't bring myself to put food coloring in their food. I made a yummy potato soup for dinner but the girls wouldn't touch it. So, the only festive hit of the day was a muffin tin lunch. That, they gobbled up!

(clockwise from top left) Green beans, shamrock-a-dillas, green pickles, shamrock cookies, chicken nuggets with shamrock flakes (italian seasoning), & green olives

And would you believe they really did save their cookies for last with no prompting from me? I hardly believe it myself but it's true!

Low Fat Sugar Cookies

Today was our second time using this sugar cookie recipe and I just have to share because it's so simple and delicious!

Low Fat Sugar Cookies

Adapted from a recipe at About.com

5 T butter, softened
3/4 C sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla extract (this time I used 1/2 t lemon extract & 1/2 t vanilla - it was yummy!)
1 2/3 C flour
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt

Using a mixer, cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and continue mix. Finally, add flour, baking powder and salt and mix until dough forms. Wrap dough in plastic and chill for two hours in the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to a 1/4-inch or 1/8-inch thickness. Use cookie cutters dipped in flour to make cutouts. Place cookies 1 inch apart on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and decorate. Bake for 9-10 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned. Transfer to wire rack after 1 minute to cool.
Makes about 30 cookies, depending on size of cookie cutters used and thickness of dough.

Pizza Friday - Bacon French Bread Pizza

Just now as I started typing I realized I didn't take a picture :( UGH! It was so yummy. I skipped a week of grocery shopping so I was scrounging for ingredients this evening. I had a loaf of "Roasted Garlic French Bread" from Costco, sauce, cheese, and some bacon. Add them all together and pop them in the oven at 425 for about 10 minutes and you have quite the tasty little pizza. I should note that Cora ate all of the bacon off of hers, mine, and Daddy's. Sharing the bacon off my pizza is seriously true love.
Oh well, if I make it again I'll have to remember to take a picture!

New plates!

Aunts Susie, Liz, and Rhonnie sent these adorable new plates today so I have to showcase how nice our lunch looked on them :)
Leyna has been literally begging for "garbanzo beans" for two days straight so I mixed them with some rigatoni, spaghetti sauce, and cheese (and I added artichoke hearts to my serving!) and served cucumbers and olives on the side. They gobbled everything up!

Breakfast solved! (for now)

I have had the worst time getting the girls to eat a healthy breakfast lately. They just aren't interested and try to get by on the bare minimum of calories in the morning if I let them. Orange juice is the only thing I know they will consume for sure.
Cora won't eat eggs, Leyna is no longer into yogurt, waffles & cereal are iffy these days, and neither of them will touch oatmeal with a ten foot pole (I was the same way until about college). Even cereal bars have fallen out of grace. Thankfully I've finally figured them out (at least until they wake up tomorrow and change their minds) and decided that it's okay if they eat the same thing every day, as long as they're eating. Variety is not the spice of life when it comes to breakfast apparently. For Leyna it's either pancakes or peanut butter sandwiches. If we have berries she'll eat them as well but bananas are on the "not yummy" list at the moment. For Cora it's either our homemade granola with milk or yogurt with granola and berries. She's had the latter for the past two mornings and has cleaned her bowl. That makes me SO happy :)

Pizza Friday - Hawaiian Pizza (again)

Tonight we had another delicious Hawaiian pizza! This time it was our usual whole wheat garlic & herb crust with fresh pineapple and fried country ham. YUM-O. The girls have been enjoying salad lately so I served it with a chopped garden salad with ranch dressing. It was another delicious Friday :)

Pancakes for snack?

Today I did something a little silly that turned out to be a lot smart! We had lunch with Aunt Jean yesterday and she mentioned making really amazing blueberry pancakes. Ever since then I've had blueberry pancakes on the brain :)
After nap time today the girls needed something to do so I said, "Who wants to make blueberry pancakes?!" We used this recipe for Lemon Blueberry Pancakes. It was a genius idea because:
1. It was a fun activity that we could all do together. Measuring, stirring, dumping, etc...
2. The girls had a yummy and unique afternoon snack.
3. I don't have to make breakfast tomorrow because there are leftovers!!!
Sometimes I do really smart stuff. Sometimes I don't... ;)

A muffin tin lunch

(clockwise from top left) Red peppers, ranch dip, string cheese slices, grapes, Annie's organic spaghettios, Gummy Vites vitamin