My apartment's a disaster. But, I made yummy food!

In my last post, I mentioned how I was a maniac cooking up all sorts of dishes.  Well, experimenting with 2-3 new dishes makes me a maniac in my book.

I saw on Pinterest (yes, Pinterest) about adding fruits to regular water to break up the monotony of drinking plain water upon plain water upon plain water.  Well, this was freakin' delighful! I made raspberry and lime water (left) and strawberry water (right).  I let the fruit sit in overnight and then strained out the water so the fruit didn't fall apart and get gross in the water.  I also put strawberries in my ice cubes for a little somethin' somethin'.

 

Another Pinterest adventure was this cauliflower pizza crust, which you can find here for the recipe.  My friend Nikki suggested it and I really enjoyed it.  I made my own sauce courtesy of my Vitamix blender (which I am obsessed with now) earlier in the week and just froze it.  So, all I did was nuke it so I could spread it on the crust.  Then I topped it with mushrooms and peppers with half having turkey pepperoni.  Because the crust is cauliflower, I definitely think a meatier texture from the pepperoni or mushrooms was needed.  I might try making a taco pizza with this crust and see what it's like.

And lastly, I made my own granola bars.   I kept looking for recipes and wasn't finding one that struck my fancy.  So, I got gutsy and made my own.  I figured I would keep adding ingredients until it was the right texture and hope for the best.  And since I didn't use eggs, I could taste as I was making it so see if it needed more spices.

 

Note: These aren't very sweet, which was my goal.

Here's my granola bar recipe if you want.  My next attempts will include ones with nuts and I think for a nice fall bar I'll experiment with adding pumpkin, different seeds like sunflower seeds, and more cinnamon.

Nut-Free Granola Bars:

Ingredients:

• 3 c. rolled oats (I only had quick oats so that's what I used)
• 1/2 c. flax seed
• 1 1/2 c. dried fruit (I used 1/2 c. dried cherries, 1/2 c. dried cranberries, 1/2 c. Sun-Maid "Fruit Bits")
• 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
• 1 c. unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 - 1/2 c. brown sugar (optional, but I added 1/4 c. b/c I didn't want it too sweet)
• 2-3 tbsp. pure maple syrup
• Several sprinkles of cinnamon (I just added enough sprinkles to cover the top of the mixture in my bowl)

Steps:

1.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix ingredients together starting with the dry and adding wet ingredients.
3. Spread out mixture onto parchment-lined baking sheet. (I wanted thin bars so I used a bigger baking sheet, but if you want fewer, thicker bars, use a smaller sheet or pan.)
4. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until top is fairly dry. (You can always do the toothpick test too.)
5. Flip the granola over.  (You'll noticed what was the bottom is a bit wet)
6. Bake for an additional 15 minutes or until top dried out some.
7. Let cool and cut into bars.  I cut mine into 12 bars.