PEANUT BUTTER CEREAL BALLS

She’ll be 87 next month. She was an only child of parents from the Great Depression so she has an impressive collection of every take-out tupperware, yogurt and soup containers she uses and hides cash in envelopes in secret drawers. Or most recently, the freezer. She was also a young mother of three kids very close in age so she has opinions and perspective on mothering that she doesn’t waver from. She is both private and loquacious in a way I can’t quite describe but she makes friends wherever she goes and is so, so beautiful. I spent half the day with my grandma last week as she has been going through some unfortunate health stuff with her eye and needed company. She didn’t ask, it was by my moms suggestion actually, and I regret it’d taken me so long to just be with her. Not a holiday, or quick passing through, but to just sit in a big comfy chair in a room full of sewing knick knacks and memories and chat. We stared at Cleo for awhile, I made her scrambled eggs in salted butter and we talked about each member of the family and made sense of what they’re up to and their respective personalities. She may be a bit of a know-it-all but she takes so much in. Perhaps that comes with years of watching. It had been so long since I didn’t feel like I should being doing something or completing a task but being there, I really couldn’t. All she wants is quality time. When I left, she hugged and kissed me three of four times and thanked me for cooking for her. Cooking for her!?! Scrambled eggs felt so trite. But the scary thing about watching someone who has cared so much for you, get older, is that the roles shift ever so delicately you hardly notice. It’s like a tide changing or plants growing, you don’t see it all at once but at a point it strikes you that things are different. She still tells me to sing to calm my babies down and hems my little boys shorts, but needs to hold my hand when she comes downstairs or read her the fine print. There is this gradual giving back that feels so natural but stops you. How we all need each other. It’s sort of magical. 

I dropped off a bag of snacks for her and it got me on a kick of other nibbles. I made her some granola bars which led to these - something richer and more chocolatey but not totally junky. The boys and I polished these off before I could get some over to her but there will be more. They are crunchy but still candy like. I note in the recipe but it’s worth saying here that they are delicate. They need to be kept in the fridge to hold shape but that didn’t seem to slow us down. 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cereal Bites // Makes 20

I used the new Kashi GOLEAN Vanilla Pepita Clusters for this specific batch.  It has great ingredients like yellow peas and red beans that add protein and fiber. You can find brown rice syrup at health food stores or online. Almond butter or sunflower butter may be used as an alternative nut butter with a slightly less distinctive taste. 

1/2 cup brown rice syrup
1/2 cup salted peanut butter
1 Tbsp. coconut oil
pinch of sea salt
2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups Kashi GoLEAN Vanilla Pepita cereal, or something similar
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

3 ounces dark chocolate
flaky sea salt, for garnish

In a small saucepan, heat the brown rice syrup, peanut butter and coconut oil to combine. Once warm, add the salt and cocoa powder and stir to mix. 

In a large mixing bowl, combine the peanut butter mixture with the cereal and stir to mix. Add the chocolate chips and mix again. 

Line a small tray with parchment paper. Rub your hands with a bit of coconut oil and form balls with about 2 Tbsp. of the cereal mixture until it is all gone. They are delicate, be patient. Line them up on the tray and chill the balls for 45 minutes to firm up. They are best stored chilled to hold shape. 

Melt the dark chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. When the balls are firm, drizzle the chocolate over the balls and sprinkle them with flaky sea salt. Chill again for the chocolate to set and enjoy.

This post is created in partnership with Kashi. Recipe and opinions are my own.

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LEMON BLUEBERRY LOAF CAKE

I am behind in tax prep so the text will be terse today. All I have on my mind is sheer amazement at how much of our income goes towards food. And Amazon. Being a grownup is scary. I remember playing house when I was little and always wanting to be "the mom." I had a fake checkbook to pay for things in this make believe adult-land I thought was so glorious. Now I am IN adult-land and I don't understand why on earth I was so anxious to be here. Take me back to where I could write my little sister a check for $20,000 just for being my pretend daughter!

But there is loaf cake. I make a lot of these and realize there is a similar one in the recipe archives but they are popular here. Hugh likes a sweet in the morning with coffee and I like cake after dinner so we can polish one these off quite quickly. They gift beautifully too if you're taking food to a friend. It's a snack to be shared no matter how you look at it. 

LEMON BLUEBERRY LOAF CAKE // Makes one 9x4 loaf

Adapted from Food and Wine 

The original calls for 2 cups of all purpose flour which, by all means, go ahead with. This was our wheat-free version and is sort of my standard loaf cake ratio anyway. Change the fruit, maybe replace the yogurt with mashed banana and the berries for chocolate chips. It's a great base to work with.
For the oat flour, I simply blend up rolled oats. The glaze here is optional. I am happy with the loaf as is but Hugh likes it a bit sweeter so the glaze keeps everyone happy. You can mix in some melted and slightly cooled butter if you'd like it to resemble more of a frosting.

3/4 cup coconut oil, melted and slightly cooled
1 cup natural cane sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. lemon zest
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 cup plain goat yogurt (or regular)
1/4 cup lemon juice

1 cup superfine brown rice flour
1 cup oat flour
2 Tbsp. flaxmeal
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen
 

// glaze //

2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
1 cup powdered sugar

lemon zest, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 350'. Grease a 9x4 loaf pan and line it with parchment. 

Wish a hand or electric mixer, combine the coconut oil and sugar until well blended. Add the eggs, one at a time until well mixed. Add the vanilla, lemon zest, yogurt, lemon juice and mix. 

In another bowl, combine both flours, flaxmeal, baking powder and soda and stir to combine. Gently add the dry to the wet ingredients to mix. Fold in the blueberries and pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake on the middle rack for 1 hour and 10-15 minutes until golden or until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to cool completely. 

In the meantime, whisk the lemon juice and powdered sugar together to create a glaze. 

Glaze the cooled cake. The loaf with keep covered for three days. 

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COFFEE + CARDAMOM SHORTBREAD

Have you had your share of treats? Sorry. I just got my kitchen in (rough) working order and it's the last week to go big. I generally am one for an underdone oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Maybe a brownie type cookie if it tastes like real chocolate and not just cocoa powder. I also love these Peanut Butter Cookies from Heidi that my sister in law used to make all the time. But a pal who knows her way around baking recipes sent me these delicious goat butter shortbread cookies months ago when Curran was a wee thing and it felt like a dream to get homemade cookies in the mail. Until then, I didn't realize that I really liked shortbread. It always seemed like such a plain choice amongst cookies. Sure, butter makes things tastes good, but I don't need a butter cookie. Give me your chocolate. I ate the whole package of those buttery little coins when I thought it'd be a cookie easy to refuse. Which brings me to this recipe that caught my eye when browsing for holiday cookies in The New Sugar and Spice cookbook. It is a shortbread recipe spiced with coffee grounds and cardamom and while I'm sure you could roll it out and use cookie cutters, Samantha suggests baking it in a fluted tart pan or springform pan so you can pop the disk out and cut it into wedges or geo shards as we did here. These are not as dry and snappy as a traditional shortbread. I replaced a mere 1/4 cup of the flour with nut meal because I love the warmth it gives to baked goods and I'm sure that contributed to the change but for shortbread, they are pretty tender. Not a bad thing, just not necessarily par for the shortbread course. They taste of butter, of course, but the heavy hand of spices and vanilla make them so much more of a cookie. It stands out on a platter for sure and there is still time to leave some for your neighbor, mailman or the UPS guy that is still delivering packages at 8pm. Perhaps you're sick of baked goods but the way I see it, we have another week before all the cleansing and salads so what's one more?

A very warm and bright holiday to each of you. You make our year that much richer, thank you for reading along. 

COFFEE + CARDAMOM SHORTBREAD // Makes 12ish large triangles
Recipe adapted from The New Sugar and Spice Cookbook by Samantha Seneviratne
 

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, nearly room temp
2 teaspoons ground coffee (a light or medium roast)
1 tsp. cardamom seeds (or 1 1/2 teaspoons cardamom)
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. almond or hazelnut meal
1/3 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup packed muscavado sugar (or dark brown sugar)
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325'. Butter  9" fluted tart pan or spring form pan.

Grind your spices until very finely ground. In a large bowl, whisk together the spice mixture, flour, nut meal, powdered sugar, muscavado or brown sugar and salt to mix. Into a stand mixer or with an electric mixer, beat in the butter and vanilla to combine. 

TIp the dough into the prepared pan using wet fingers. Press it into an even layer on the bottom, all the way to the edges. Freeze it until firm, about 15 minutes. 

Bake the shortbread on a rimmed baking sheet to catch any leaking butter. Bake for 40-45 minutes until the top is golden brown. Immediately, and while the dough is still warm, use a sharp paring knife to score the shortbread into wedges or slices as you wish. Set on a rack to cool completely. When it's cool, remove the cookie and gently break it apart along it's edges. 

Store the shortbread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the freezer for a month.