So yeah, these look a lot more healthy than most–um, all–of what you find here. And sure, these trail mix oat bites (that’s the best title I could think of) have rolled oats, coconut flour, wheat germ, and dried fruits and nuts and make a great fill-you-up-and-give-you-energy snack, but they also have a bit of sugar, maple syrup and butter. So please don’t desert me. There’s a little bit of me left in there. And if they weren’t so crumbly I’d have put them on a stick.

I’ve been really into homemade granola bars lately. I find being home all day I put my hand in the snack drawer a lot. Yes, we have a snack drawer. You see, when we bought our 1930s house, it came equipped with the original 1930s, totally not functioning, kitchen. And so we had to do a quick renovation so as to stop washing dishes in a bucket. I casually pointed out to our semi-custom cabinet dude how cool it was that the original kitchen had a bread drawer. My grandmother had one of those. You know, those drawers you pull out that have the metal lid? So semi-custom cabinet dude gave us a big drawer. He called it the “bread drawer.” He was so proud. He was so proud I did not point out that this big drawer had no similarities to an actual bread drawer. I use it for snacks.  And  I eat a LOT of snacks, so I’ve been seeking something more substantial than Goldfish. I mean, at least something that has vitamins. Plus, I’m not really a raw veggie snacker. (Seriously? How do people find that fulfilling?) So granola bars it is.

For these, I started out with THIS RECIPE for granola bars from SMITTEN KITCHEN. I made them in bar form and yum. They were good. So I added some more of some stuff, added less of some other stuff, and substituted different things to come up with a bite-size version of the bar.

how to make trail mix oat bites

adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s granola bars

(visit Smitten Kitchen for tips on more substitutions and whatnot)

1 2/3 cup quick rolled oats

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup coconut flour

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2 1/2 cups coarsely chopped trail mix (I used a cranberry nut mix)

2/3 cups nut butter (I used almond)

6 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix everything together well. I used my hands to mix when the spatula could do no more. Take a bit and form a clump with your hands. Don’t try and roll a ball, these are too crumbly. Just use your fingers to make an imperfect sphere 1 1/2 inches in diameter. If necessary, add a bit more of a wet ingredient (butter, syrup, water or nut butter). Place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Bake 20 minutes or until they begin to brown. Let cool totally before eating.  Makes about 36 bites.

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Once the word leaked out at my daughter’s school that I decorate cookies and cupcakes and marshmallows and such things, it wasn’t long before I was tapped as a resource. My daughter’s teacher asked me if I’d like to lead a session with some kids in the school. I love kids, I love my daughter’s school, I love her teachers. So yes, of course I would. My task was to come up with a 50-minute activity for a bunch of three, four and five year olds. The catch: The school is a no sweets zone. And I’m all about sweets. And they just completed a whole lot of lessons in fruits and veggies and gardens and healthy eating. Sigh. So… no cookies, no cupcakes, no marshmallows? You see why this poses a challenge for me. Rather than even attempt a healthy version of icing, I just went with fruit and veggie decorating. We made silly veggie faces with tortillas and cut up vegetables, vegetable field scenes, and some yummy star, heart and flower fruit pops from slices of watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe.

I briefly (very briefly, it would be torture to make kids so young wait to play with food) introduced the concept of food as art, then we yakked about shapes. What shapes are on our faces, the shapes of the vegetables, and what might be used for what. The results? While the kids were way quicker with their creations than I anticipated, I was crazy impressed by their veggie face skills. Even the youngest of the group made clever faces, adding features I didn’t even consider, like eyebrows and mustaches. Of course! Eyebrows and mustaches. How could I forget those?  And I needlessly worried that the cookie cutters and fruit would take dexterity and strength they lacked. They wielded those cutters, melons and lollipop sticks like old pros.

I snapped a few photos of the veggie faces so you can see them in action. It was too hectic to get photos of the rest, so apologies for that. And while I’ll post pics of my own kid from here to Kalamazoo, I don’t ever post pictures of other people’s children without their permission, so I’m afraid the cute and smiley real faces have been cropped out of sight.

Some tips on what I did in case you’re asked to lead 20 three to five year olds in a healthy, fun food activity, too.

silly veggie faces

Start with mini tortillas.  I thought about slices of bread, but tortillas are much more sturdy to hold the veggies. Each child got a tortilla on a paper plate.

Ideas for veggies:  I used cucumbers (cut in circles or semicircles), cherry tomatoes (halved), baby carrot slices, carrot and cucumber and celery sticks, green peppers (great for smiles!), shredded cheese and alfalfa sprouts (great for hair!), provolone and American cheese slices cut with a cookie cutter and scissors into circles and triangles.

field-of-veggie scenes

We also made these field-of-veggie scenes. I drew a tree and meadow in each plate:

And let kids use broccoli for the tree leaves, cauliflower for the clouds, sticks of cucumber and celery for the tree trunk, smaller sticks of cucumber and celery for flower stems, and carrots and tomatoes for flowers.

melon fruit pops

For the fruit pops, I sliced honeydew, watermelon and cantaloupe, brought in a bunch of cookie cutters (smaller is better) and lollipop sticks and let the kids cut out their desired shapes and make pops. These they ate right away, so there was no evidence afterwards.

It’s not often I take a break from sweets, but every now and then it’s nice to play with other food.

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This is totally not sweet at all, but just had to share with you… So the California Ripe Olives people sent me this super creepy (really, it had spiders all over it) box of Halloween goodies to help promote California Ripe Olives and create a Halloween dish with olives. I went the easy route and made googly-eyed crudites.

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UPDATE: You can VOTE FOR ME HERE, if you’re so inclined.

I love mason jars. They are perfectly portioned, retro, convenient, and reusable. They are affordable, accessible, versatile and stylish. They contain, shake, serve and store. And they travel. And given that Round 6 of the Project Food Blog challenge is to create a meal that will travel well and still look great, and given that my pizza pops survived Round 5 (THANK YOU for all of your wonderful votes, wonderful people!), I get to do something I’ve wanted to do for ages: create a mason jar meal. My meal for two fit easily in the Project Food Blog cooler we received, with plenty of room to spare.

I wanted a meal that tasted freshly made, even after sitting for hours in a jar. Mason jars allow you to stack food in layers, keeping unfriendly mixing at bay, until right before serving. My biggest challenge was deciding in what order to layer the meal in the jar. How could I dress the salad but not have limp lettuce? How do I prevent pesto from browning? Here’s how I layered things (there really isn’t layering to the chips, cookies or drink, but I thought you’d appreciate the consistency):

chickpea and chicken salad: Rinse and drain a can of chick peas. Place about half in a bowl, add your desired salad dressing (generously, as this will dress the whole salad) and mix. Spoon a layer of the chickpea mixture on the bottom of a mason jar. Top with a layer of sliced baby carrots, a layer of bite-size, cooked, seasoned chicken pieces, a layer of cucumber slices and a layer of lettuce. Shake right before eating.

homemade bagel chips: Slice several bagels in half. Slice crosswise in thin slices. Brush both sides of the bagel pieces with olive oil and arrange on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with kosher salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, turning once. Let cool and place in mason jar.

pesto pasta: Cook penne pasta and drain, reserving 1/4 cup of the water. Prepare pesto: Process two cloves of garlic, about a cup of fresh basil leaves and 1/4 cup of walnuts in a food processor. With the blade running, pour in about 1/4 cup of olive oil and the pasta water. Add salt and pepper to taste and blend. Add about 1/2 cup of Parmesean cheese. Mix briefly. Blend in more olive oil or hot water to desired consistency. Spoon a layer of pesto on the bottom of a mason jar. Add a layer of halved cherry tomatoes, a layer of cubed mozzarella cheese, and some of the penne pasta. Shake right before eating.

white wine sangria (adapted from this Martha Stewart recipe): In a saucepan, combine and heat 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup honey, the zest and juice of a lemon, six whole cloves, and two cinnamon sticks over medium heat to a simmer. Turn heat to low and let simmer for 15 minutes. In a pitcher, combine a bottle of white wine, the spice mixture, one apple peeled, cored and cubed and lemon slices. Refrigerate overnight and pour in individual mason jars.


chocolate sandwich cookies: Prepare chocolate cookie dough (click the link for recipe). Chill, roll out, cut out 1 1/2 inch circles and bake according to the recipe. Let cool. Prepare frosting (click the link for recipe) and tint white. Prepare a frosting bag with a coupler and size “10″ tip. Fill with frosting and close tightly with a rubber band. Pipe and fill a circle of frosting on the back of a cookie and top with another cookie. Let dry overnight before packaging in mason jars.

The beauty of mason jars is the pretty package. You can add ribbon, labels, and tags. Or attach napkins, plasticware, and straws with ribbon. I made labels for the top: “SHAKE” (pasta and salad), “CRUNCH” (chips), “SWEET” (cookies), “SIP” (drink), and “BRR” (ice).

To test the freshness, I prepared my mason jar meal in the morning and we dined in the evening. The result? Even better than I expected. Flavorful, fresh, balanced. The layering works well for meals-that-have-to-wait because the veggies at the bottom of the jar marinate in the dressing and sauce, adding flavor, but the food at the top of the jar stays pristine. The pesto stayed green and the lettuce crisp. My pesto could’ve been a bit thinner for better mixing, but that’s my only complaint.

Some tips:

• I used the wide-mouth mason jars for the meal, as that made layering the food easier. For the drinks, I used the small mason jars.
• Add a couple extra mason jars filled with ice to your cooler to keep things cool.
• Mason jar meals would be ideal for outdoor parties and picnics to keep the bugs away.
• Mason jars add heft and the fear of breakage, so while they are perfect in so many ways, and they are perfect for traveling when heft and the fear of breakage is controlled (such as a nearby picnic, for tailgating, or for traveling in cars). I wouldn’t recommend packing a mason jar meal in your rucksack and climbing a mountain.

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{UPDATE: You can vote for these HERE.}

For the fourth time, a huge thank you to all who voted for my cookie witch legs for the Project Food Blog contest! I made it through to another round!! Thanks for sticking by me this far. And speaking of sticks…That’s how I interpreted the 5th challenge: put my own spin on pizza. I don’t often openly toot my own horn very loudly, but these mini pizzas on a stick…. Oh. My. Goodness. Awesome. My plan worked perfectly (it never does), they tasted absolutely delicious, and they were ridiculously easy to make. So toot.

How did my pizza pops come to be? Anyone who reads this blog or my other gig knows that I love tiny versions of things and I especially love tiny versions of things on lollipop sticks. So when I saw this challenge, I knew precisely what I would do. Then I remembered that I’ve already seen pizza-on-a-stick. And that I already blabbed about it here. Dang. Not an original idea. But I hope to at least claim a tiny bit of credit for this method. Though I suppose dough, sauce and toppings, in that order, is hardly an original idea for pizza either. Hmmm. Perhaps we should just get on with things.

how to make pizza pops

you will need*
roll of refrigerated pizza crust

*I used the Pillsbury refrigerated pizza dough, Classic, not Thin Crust. Find lollipop sticks and circle cookie cutters in the baking aisle of the craft store. I chose these assorted toppings:tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil, arugula, goat cheese, ricotta cheese, cherry tomatoes, and fresh spinach.

what to do
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Unroll pizza dough on a floured surface. Cut out 2 1/2 inch circles (this may need some muscle to get the cutter through the made-to-stretch dough, just twist the cutter back and forth a bit). Insert lollipop stick about half way into the circle and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Add a teaspoon or so of sauce (if using) and tiny bits of desired toppings. Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until crust and toppings begin to brown.

some ideas for toppings
In case you need a little inspiration:

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Feel free to share (nicely)! While my blog's photographs and text are protected by copyright, I do allow (and encourage) you to share ONE photograph with credit to "the decorated cookie" and link to this blog post. PLEASE don't reprint any part of the blog post and PLEASE don't post a photo without credit. Thank you!