Monday Baking

I Love to Bake. I'm super good at it (though I can't say that about everything I do), and I just love it.  My darling Hubby doesn't like sweets.  He likes to PT.  He hates when I send him packages of sweets and junk food.  I've been baking and cooking a lot lately, mostly using recipes from Skinny Taste .  I decided that for the Hubs' 4th of July package I would take one of Gina's recipes and put my own twist on it! I went for her Low Fat Chewy Granola Bars, but instead of chocolate chips, pecans and raisins, I did crasins, blueberry crasins, and white chocolate chips. Red, White and Blue! Get it?! I'm a sucker for a theme!

Mixing and Stirring

All mixed up!

Going in the Oven

Nice and brown on the edges!

Very crumbly!! I gave the Hubs 6 and kept the two that broke for my parents to try

For the most part, they turned out great!!! Very moist, and chewy.  A little bit too crumbly for my taste, especially trying to cut them into perfect bar shapes... But I hope that my wonderful husband Loves them!! I can decide if I should ship them with a piece of bread in the container or not. Normally I do this with cookies and things to keep them fresh.. I'll throw it in, It cant hurt right?

After this little adventure, I decided to try another of Gina's recipes!! Low Fat Chewy Chocolate chip Oatmeal cookies! She says in her recipe that they are very similar to the granola bars, and she was so right!! You use very little butter (2 tbsp) and unsweetened applesauce. A bit of cinnamon, and flour.  These cookies really couldn't be easier to make.  Same with the granola bars actually!! And they are very yummy!!

Adding the flour..

First batch.. smaller and only left in for 10 minutes

these were left in for the full 12 minutes so they are a little bit darker...

Now they are all packed up in super handy Glad Simply Cooking OvenWare containers.  I found them yesterday at the store. You can actually bake in them so you can bake a cake or whatever, slap a lid on it and go!! Just make sure you set it on a cookie sheet and not just on the bare over rack.  For about $6, you get 3. I opted for the 8x8 size, but they also have a 9x12. What will they think of next?!

Whats left for my afternoon?

The dishes wont do themselves...

Happy Monday everyone!!!