Thursday, February 9, 2012

Feeling LAZY

When I feel lazy, which I do tonight, I make a post out of a picture...so here I go delving into my unnamed photo files (now THERE's a HUGE decluttering/organizing project that I truly dread - perhaps even more so than the dreaded linen closet!!).....
and here's what I found:

 I took this photo on Tuesday - my snowdrops are up several inches and this is the first flower bud!! Isn't it the prettiest thing you've ever seen??

 These are the oat squares I made on Tuesday. The whole pan was gone within 24 hours!! They were SOOOOOOO good! I changed the recipe up a bit trying to make it healthier. I am not really a huge experimenter with recipes and this was the first attempt at trying to do my own thing.


  • instead of 3/4 cup of shortening I substituted 1/2 cup olive oil
  • I cut back the sugar from 3/4 cup to half a cup
  • I substituted low-fat vanilla soy milk for regular milk
  • instead of all purpose flour I used whole wheat flour
  • in addition to the usual raisins I added dried cranberries, sunflower seeds and a few dark chocolate chips (my daughter refuses to eat anything with seeds, but she didn't even notice there were any!! She'll eat anything if it has chocolate chips in it lol!  haha fooled ya!)

Never having messed with a recipe before I didn't know if they would "stick together" or crumble apart or what, but as you can see they turned out quite nicely and were gobbled up faster than any other oat scones/squares I've baked.  So my next experiment will be to try some different non-gluten types of flours - like rice flour, or soy flour to see what happens.

THIS is FUN - kind of like playing with a chemistry set without the instructions but definitely better tasting!

Bon appetit!

16 comments:

  1. yum! are these cake-like or chewy or what? they sure look good! post the rcipe pls when you get it tweaked how you like them best! sound a lot healthier than granola bars. would probably freeze good too (IF they made it that far!)

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  2. Your pastry looks yummy!! Chocolate chips are a hit in our home too, they will eat anything with a chocolate chip in it.

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  3. We have snowdrops coming up in our garden too!! :) The squares look good! Good luck with the rice flour, but when you bake with GF flours, you need to mix them to get the right consistency, it's not just a matter of swapping out, Kwim? I rarely bake for myself, too much of a pain. :/

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  4. We have snowdrops....and snow this morning. Urgh! 

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  5. It's been an easy Winter so far but I still want Spring to arrive. 
    Your Friend, m.

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  6. Oh crap! Well at least we know the snowdrops will survive! The snow won't!!

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  7. Oooooh, well thanks for the tip! I'll try anything once (or twice) if I can't get it right I'll go back to whole  wheat, it worked well.

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  8. Thanks Debby!  BTW chocolate chips work for ME too!!

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  9. They're more chewy than cake like; there is only 1/2 tsp of baking powder and NO eggs so they stay relatively flat. Yes, they would freeze well, but I'll never get them that far lol! I will post the recipe for you!

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  10. The snowdrops are pretty!  Our first signs of spring here in the south are Azaleas...( pretty shrubs with beautiful pink flowers).  I love your pictures!

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  11. I have some azaleas bushes at the trailer (well, it's not my trailer anymore darn it) and I love them:)

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  12. Love the picture of the snowdrops (and that it means Spring is just around the corner!!).

    Good for you for adapting the recipes; I love to do that!

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  13. I can't believe you have life in your garden, mine is still as dormant as a door mouse!!!The oat squares look good.

    Gill

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  14. that's my worry too - I rmemeber sitting in a weight Watchers meeting once (HA!) and the leader was talking about 'just freeze the girl scout cookie s- easy huhs?' and I said I knew firsthand how they could be eaten frozen and she just looked at me then heads started nodding around the room! thank God I wasn't th only one! tinier nibbles but the thin mints thaw pretty fast!

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  15. You have flowers already!  damn I'm jealous.  We've had such a mild winter so far and now as we're nearing the end the snow has finally arrived.

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  16. It's true, buds are forming BUT now they are covered in a few inches of snow - I'm sure the snow will melt again though as warmer temps are forecast for next week.

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