Door County Cherry Granola Bars

Happy New Year!  Welcome 2012...the year the world is supposed to end, or some such nonsense!

Beast and I have not stopped cooking and baking-we've just been so busy we haven't had time to write in the blog.  I'm working full-time now at Sub-Zero and Wolf and it has been an adjustment for us in time management. 

One day at work I came across a recipe in Fitness Magazine for some granola bars that sounded really good.  I hate the store-bought processed ones with all the preservatives and stabilizers so I'm always looking for a recipe for granola bars that will stave off my mid-day hunger and will hold together while eating...challenging. 

Yesterday I made these with a slight modification to the recipe and they are a great consistency and quite tasty.  I can't wait to try them with peanut butter instead of fruit and nuts. 

I used dried Door County cherries and pecans and adjusted the amounts to about 6 oz cherries and 1/2 cup pecans and increased the chocolate chips to about 1/2 cup. 

They make a great healthy snack or breakfast!

Breakfast Pizza with Farmer's Market Ingredients

Recently I've made a couple of breakfast pizzas with ingredients fresh from the Dane County Farmer's Market.  They might just be Tim's new favorite....after breakfast cheesecake, of course.

The first one was inspired by some leftover dough from pizza night the previous evening and I topped it with queso, sauteed baby bella mushrooms, spinach, artichoke hearts, scrambled eggs and cheese.  It was divine.
The second one I made with an herbed crust rolled super thin, and topped it with queso, sauteed onions and spinach, bacon, scrambled eggs and cheese.  It too was quite good, but we preferred the first version more for some reason. 

A tip if you try this:  scramble the eggs soft because they'll cook more in the oven as the pizza cooks and you don't want them to end up rubbery.

Currant and Pecan Muffins

During the summer I try to freeze some of the more interesting fruits and berries for use during the winter when I'm getting itchy for springtime. This week we had used all of the breakfast items in the freezer so I made a batch of muffins with whole wheat flour, freshly ground flax seed, currants I had frozen from our CSA with JenEhr Farm, and some toasted pecans. They turned out yummy!
Currant and Pecan Muffins:
Preheat oven to 500° (yes, it's really 500°)...read on...
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup white wheat flour
2 Tbsp ground flax seed
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 cup milk
1/4 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1 cup currants (fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup toasted pecans
Mix together the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients.
If using frozen currants, add them to the dry ingredients and stir before adding wet ingredients. If using fresh currants, wait until after adding the wet ingredients.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry and stir just until moist. Batter will be thick and somewhat lumpy. Add the nuts last.
Grease a muffin tin and then use an ice-cream scoop to scoop the mix into the pan.
Place the pan in the oven and turn the oven down to 400°. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean. Cool on a baking rack before removing muffins from pan.
Tip: Heating the oven to 500° and then lowering the temp when putting in the muffins helps the muffins to develop a nice peak and a beauty brown top. If you are using a convection oven, turn down the temp to 375° and bake for 13-17 minutes, turning pan half way through baking to avoid having the blow over effect on the muffins.
Serve warm with butter.