post #8. shake n' bake and my favorite couple

Today amaretto and I had a more successful adventure. We spent a few hours in the kitchen and ended up with three different treats: lemon bars (her grandmother's recipe), coconut almond raisin granola with plenty of cinnamon, and some fondant (the first try at it for both of us). I haven't baked in quite some time and it was a lot of fun. We started with the fondant - both she and I are amazed by all the cake shows on TV and wanted to try our hand at a different kind of decorating. Our recipe was primarily sugar and Crisco, yum, and we dyed half blue and half yellow (I'll be using it to decorate a penguin cake I'll be making for Father's Day at the end of the week). It's currently solidifying in the freezer and I'm going to leave it there to hopefully preserve it until I use it. To be honest, it doesn't really look like it does on television, but what does? It's also quite gritty, but it's easy to shape and doesn't taste as nasty as some fondants do. We then moved on to the lemon bars. They turned out delicious and refreshing, but the top edges were chewy - they always are when I make lemon bars. Possibly because of the egg and sugar?

We finished off with the granola. I used a recipe from the Food Network website. Here's how to make a half batch:

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (we used quick cook 'cause that's all that was around)

1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut

1 cup sliced almonds (we used <3/4 cup chopped almonds)

3/4 cup dried cherries, chopped (we used maybe 1/2 cup raisins? we eye-balled it and added them in the last five minutes of baking. thought dried cranberries would be nice too, but again, raisins were the only dried fruit around)

1/4 cup vegetable oil (we used slightly less than that and canola oil instead - all we had, didn't affect the taste)

1/6 cup good honey (what the heck is "good" honey?? like, not the stuff they pull out of ancient Egyptian tombs? anyway, I dumped in three tablespoons)

1 tsp cinnamon (we used more than 2 tsp, I love me some cinnamon)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Stir together everything but the oil and honey. Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and stir some more. Pour out onto a jelly roll pan. Bake for 20 minutes, stirring every 5 or so minutes. Stir in the dried fruit and bake for another 5 minutes. Take out of the oven and cool. If you're me, also remember to actually turn off the oven when you're finished baking. I like my granola on the soft side, as opposed to the shards-of-glass side. This granola wasn't clumpy, but I think it baked just long enough to be crisp but not injurious.

Good thing ballet starts tomorrow. After this baking extravaganza, I'll need a way to work off all these treats.

So, combo post. I'm doing it. On to...my favorite couple. You've been waiting the whole time, haven't you? Did you scroll down early and ruin the surprise for yourself? Well, if I were talking about real people, I'd have to go with Blake Lively and Leonardo DiCaprio. But hell no am I devoting anymore than that line to those two, and I'm not talking about people. I absolutely love it when Nora Roberts and Lifetime get together. That's right, I love the Lifetime movie adaptations of Nora Roberts' novels. In fact, I'm watching one right now. It premiered tonight and it's entitled Carnal Innocence. How good is that? Seriously. If you haven't had the pleasure of viewing one of this couple's treasures, I suggested you find yourself a comfy couch to curl up in while you watch one. Borderline soft core porn? More like the best Lifetime movie sex scenes ever. When Nora Roberts and Lifetime get together, you know you'll find yourself a mix of love, drama, deceit, sex (on the stairs, on the kitchen counter), and naturally, murder. I've been eagerly awaiting the premiere of another Nora Roberts movie since the last trilogy of movies a couple years ago, and boy, has the waiting paid off. 

-sigh- what a day.

<3 ereese.