These are yum-o and I've been asked for the recipe every time I share these treats...so here ya go! And feel free to eat these anytime~ not just for breakfast! :-)
Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
4 cups quick cooking oats
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut *
3/4 cup melted butter
Mix all of the above together in a large bowl.
Then stir in:
3/4 cup raspberry jam (you can substitute other flavors too)
Press into a 15x10x1 baking pan. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
I have found it helpful to bake for 12 minutes, take out of the oven cut into rectangles and bake another 3-5 minutes. The longer you bake these the crispier they will get, less baking time will give you a moist chewy bar. Great both ways!
*Coconut- I've talked about it in other posts but am going to comment again. Coconut, to me, tastes best in its natural state...aka coconut. So I no longer buy my coconut from the grocery store where they add such interesting ingredients to it as something in the same family as anti-freeze.
I buy mine from a health food store type place. It isn't very costly at all and it's REAL.
Today we have a man's meal. One of my readers wrote to me expressing his extreme "horror" over my cabbage bake recipe. So, Mr. T (yes, Mr. T reads my blog!...I pity the fool!) to help him and anyone else that was scared of my recipe yesterday I give you...
Oven Fried Chicken
I have readers who are scared of cabbage but I also know I have readers who are scared of RAW chicken. Be afraid of sky-diving and bungee jumping but no need to fear the chicken. It's easy peasy, I'll tell you how!
16 chicken thighs (or thighs/leg mixture) gasp! horrors! but you ARE going to leave the skin on this time. (In moderation it's not that bad for you and sure beats trying to skin the bugger!)
In a LARGE resealable plastic bag mix together:
1 and 1/2 cups flour (you will have left over but I get frustrated when I don't have enough coating mixture so I over do it a bit here)
2 tsp. paprika (essential. don't skip this.)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
This amount of chicken fills 2 (9x13) pans. So to get your pans ready, preheat oven to 425 degrees. Put 1/4 cup butter (that is half of a stick) into the pans and place your pans in the oven to allow the butter to melt. Once melted remove from the oven. Now you are ready for the chicken!
Keeping one "clean" hand and one "raw chicken" hand~ Add the thighs to the bag one at a time and shake to coat with the flour mixture.
Place skin side down in melted butter. Once all chicken is coated and placed in pans ~ Bake for 30 minutes. Then turn the chicken pieces over and bake another 30 minutes...perfection!
This recipe does make enough for a crowd (or several leftovers) it can easily be cut in half.
This is soooo good and the gross factor of raw chicken is pretty minimal. Remember to wash up good with hot soapy water! My dad says this is "better than Aunt Lizzie's fried chicken" and that's really sayin' something. Making it in the oven you really avoid the mess of fried chicken on a stove top.
In fact, this is so good if my family and I are starting to look a little chunky-lumpy to you this would ah, be the reason why! :-)
For a printable recipe click here and scroll to bottom of page to "print page".
This turned out way too tasty to not write the recipe down and it turned out waaaayy too tasty to get a picture of it first.
Black Bean Burritos
2 chicken breasts (cut up and cooked, although the meat in here is totally optional, next time I'm leaving it out)
1/2 onion cut up (could use a whole onion)
1 green pepper cut up
Saute the onion and pepper in a little olive oil. Then add:
1 cup corn (mine was organic frozen, canned would work too)
1 (15oz) can rinsed and drained black beans
1 can Ro-Tel (did.not.know what all the hoopla was about this product until we tried it. Yum! Total hoopla here now!)
When all warmed in skillet add in
4 oz cream cheese and stir in to melt.
Serve in tortilla's with all the fixin's. Shredded cheddar cheese, salsa, sour cream and a few tortilla chips.
