August 08, 2012

Back in the baking saddle.

You may have noticed by now that I seem to go through phases of things that I get excited about. Most recently it was baking and then making my living space better. I haven't given up on baking, although I guess it's been a little while, I've just decided that I'd rather spray paint things. Well, that and the fact that we've been a bit busier lately. I did, after all, paint some nightstands. Yes, I did.

I took a little break from the baking for just a few weeks, intending to get back into it a little sooner than I eventually did, but get back into it I did. And the reason? Breakfast.

Breakfast kills me. I know it's the most important meal of the day and I know that if I miss meals bad things start to happen so I always always always eat breakfast. I try to eat a filling breakfast, too, since the temptation is to snack all day at my desk. Now that I'm back on bananas smoothies are a good filling morning start. They take a little longer to make/consume than I'd like, though, and get a little boring after a couple days in a row. Plus we ran out of fruit that isn't raspberries or bananas. The only other thing that fills me up for a long time is a couple pieces of hearty flax toast with peanut butter. Can you say yawn?

Monday night I made a recipe I've already done once before to deal with the breakfast blues. I have to say, these breakfast bars, as I tend to think of them, are amazing. They really do keep you full for longer than pretty much anything ever in the whole wide world. Seriously. If I decide to have something else for breakfast, like I did yesterday at our Tuesday morning toast meeting, these make great afternoon snacks that tend to dampen the dinner cravings. That worked for me since I was going to go to yoga last night and dinner's always something super simple on Tuesdays. I ended up doing yoga at home but I still didn't have to make dinner. Karl even made eggs for himself. See? Miracle bars! These things will transform your whole life, I'm telling you.

The only issue I have with this recipe is how long it takes. Throwing the ingredients together is about ten to fifteen minutes or so depending on my level of distraction (usually quite high) and  is followed by an hour of waiting before baking. I realized this time that when the recipe calls for letting the combined ingredients sit for an hour to overnight it probably means in the fridge. I get smarter each time I make this. The power of the miracle oatmeal breakfast bars! Once everything's sat for an hour (I am not patient enough to be an overnight person) there's still an hour of cooking followed by an unspecified amount of wait time as everything cools down enough to go in the fridge.

As you can imagine, being a before bed baker, things never cool down fast enough and I always try to find a solution to cover them up over night without getting too much condensation. I am minimally successful. This time Karl swore up and down that wax paper would not accumulate moisture the way saran wrap would. I was skeptical but I did what he suggested with nothing to lose. Sure enough, the wax paper did not look like it had been exposed to very much condensation. When you touched it it felt as though the moisture had seeped into the wax paper and made it kind of soggy, but still, better than saran wrap. Miracle oatmeal bars!

So you see, I do still bake, it's just more sporadic than it used to be. I have spray paint now for goodness' sake! You don't want to let me into the kitchen with spray paint. There's no telling what I'd do.

Next week? Cupcakes. I promise.

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