Tag Archives: Mmm… Monday

Mmm… Monday #17: Jam Oatmeal Bars

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A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
~Author Unknown

I have no idea why I generally only make these cookies around Christmas time. I think I’m going to have to make these more often. Every year, I forget how incredibly awesome they are. Until I bite into one. Mmm.

I just want to gobble this up.

Now, I make these with my homemade raspberry jam, but any type of jam will work. However, I will have to admit that the homemade raspberry is the best jam in the world! Yeah, I’m a bit biased.

These are quite easy to make.

Jam Oatmeal Bars

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cups butter/margarine
1 1/2 cups quick oats
1 cup thick jam

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Mix dry ingredients.
  3. Cut in butter until mixture resembles fine crumbs.
  4. Press 2/3 of mixture into 11″x7″ glass baking dish.
  5. Spread jam and top with remaining crumbs.
  6. Bake for 25 minutes.
  7. Cool and cut into bars.

I hope you enjoy them!

Mmm… Monday #16: No Bake Cookies

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A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
~Author Unknown

I make anywhere between 17 and 23 dozen cookies each Christmas season. I also bake bread and make homemade jam. I generally give most of them away to family, friends and co-workers. This year, I have no family and no co-workers and just a smattering of new friends in my new home state.

One of the types cookies I make pretty much only at Christmas are No Bake Cookies. I have no idea why I don’t make them at other times during the year because they are SO easy and literally only take about 15 minutes from start to finish. Oh wait… probably because I don’t need to eat them year-round ;)

I thought No Bake Cookies were pretty much something everyone made  so I never put in my recipe section here, but some of my Twitter friends said they don’t have recipes for it. So here it is:

Mmmm... total chocolate and peanut butter yumminess!

No Bake Cookies

Cook and boil the following for 1-2 minutes and then take off the heat:
 – 1/4 pound (4oz) of stick butter
- 2 cups of sugar
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 3 tablespoons of cocoa

After removing from heat, add the following:
- 1/2 cup peanut butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla (but I generally add 2 teaspoons because I love vanilla so much)
-  3 cups of quick oats

Stir well and then drop from spoon onto waxed paper. Let cool and harden. Enjoy!

See? Now wasn’t that easy?

Mmm… Monday #15: Homemade Carrot Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting

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Vegetables are a must on a diet.  I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.
~Jim Davis

Huzzy loves carrot cake. It’s his favorite dessert. So for his birthday (and just before he left on last deployment… not this one, but the one previous), I made a homemade carrot cake for him. Complete with homemade cream cheese frosting.

This recipe came from a lovely restaurant in my hometown that has since closed down (obviously not because of this awesome carrot cake!)

Carrot Cake  

Ingredients
1/4 cup oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup crushed pineapple (drained)
2 cups shredded carrots
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Mix all ingredients together.
  3. Bake in a 9″ x 13″ greased and floured pan.
  4. Bake for 45 minutes or until done.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

8 ounces of cream cheese
1/4 cup of margarine
1 1/2 to 2 pounds of confectioners (powdered) sugar

Directions

  1. Melt margarine.
  2. Beat margarine in with cream cheese.
  3. Add powdered sugar as desired.
  4. Uh… don’t put the frosting on the cake until the cake is cooled ;)

Note: This frosting is awesome, but it is sweet and rich!

Enjoy!!

Mmm.. Monday #12: Pumpkin Bread

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Vegetables are a must on a diet.  I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.
~Jim Davis

My mom made an amazing pumpkin bread last year and this year I decided to try it. It is soooo yummy, so I thought I’d share it with all of you!

Ingredients

Combine ingredients one at a time.

4 eggs beaten
3c sugar
2c pumpkin
1c oil
½ c water
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 1/3 cups flour

Directions

Almost ready.

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Combine the ingredients in order, one at a time.
  3. Spray baking pans with cooking spray.
  4. Pour batter into baking pans approximately 3/4 full.
  5. Bake for approximately one hour.

    Mmmm

NOTE: This recipe makes 2 large loaves or approximately eight small ones. I filled my small loaf pans too full (I filled them to the top).

Mmm… Monday #12: Frozen Berry Jam

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If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable – each segment distinct.
~Letty Cottin Pogrebin

It’s been a while since I’ve done an Mmmm… Monday!  I’ve had this one sitting in my bank for a while and just haven’t put the post together.

I add a homey touch by putting some fabric and a bow on each of my jam jars given as gifts.

This week, it’s all about jam. Fresh, homemade jam with no preservatives. I’ll never go back to eating store-bought jam again (well, except when I’m at DINFOS where I don’t have the ability to make my own!).  I purchased a bread maker about five years ago (against my mom’s advice… oh you’ll never use it that often). I’m so glad I did! When I purchased it, I saw that it had lots of different settings and could make lots of different things. But I didn’t know it could make jam. I looooove my Oster breadmaker.

This recipe came with the breadmaker. It’s awesome. I tend to give jam (and cookies!) away for Christmas. I am always getting asked for this recipe. So here it is:

Frozen Berry Jam

Ingredients

Mixing it all together.

  • 1 3/4 cups sugar
  • 1 (10-12oz) package of frozen berries (raspberries and strawberries are ideal)
  • 1 pouch (3oz) liquid fruit pectin
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice

Directions

  1. Combine the ingredients into the bread pan.
  2. Select the “Basic” setting. Press “Start/Stop.” Allow to mix 5-6 minutes, scraping the sides with a rubber spatula. Press “Start/Stop” to cancel.
  3. Select the “Bake” setting. When the display unit reaches “00:00,”  press “Start/Stop” to cancel.
  4. Using hot pads, remove the bread pan.
  5. Pour jam into containers; cover.
  6. Refrigerate to set. Makes approximately 3 cups.

Yeah, that’s it. Four ingredients. Now, I have no idea how you do this without a breadmaker that has these settings, but the mixing is

Mmm... Jam!

just that… gentle mixing so that everything is together. The second set is just a bake setting, which I’m sure you could do on a stove or in an oven. I just don’t know what temperature and how long you would need. The baking setting here lasts exactly an hour.