Black Raspberry Oatmeal Cookie Bars

Good afternoon, my 3 followers!

Over the weekend I helped out with makeup and wardrobe changes for the Beauty & the Beast show that the Colchester Community Theater put on. It was so much fun! Do I have any pictures of the makeup I did? Of course not. This is why I don't have a makeup portfolio. There are tons of pictures from the show. If anyone is interested... http://www.smugmug.com/gallery/11224462_R5peK#787134266_QDQKu

Here is a recipe for Black Raspberry Oatmeal Cookie Bars that I make REALLY often. The great thing about this recipe is that you can substitute the jam for your favorite flavor. I haven't experimented with other things like chocolate or peanut butter, but I assume you could probably use these things, too. Plus, this recipe is SO EASY!

Things you'll need:

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup [1 stick] butter

3/4 cup seedless jam [pick your favorite!]

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8 x 8 pan.

Combine all ingredients except seedless jam into a large bowl. The mixture will be crumbly!

Press half the mixture into the bottom of the 8 x 8 pan with the back of a spoon.

Spread your jam evenly on top of the crust, a 1/2 inch away from the side of the pan.

Crumble the other half of the mixture over the jam, and lightly press it into the jam with your fingers or a spoon. It doesn't have to cover all of the jam.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Let cool before you cut to ensure you get nice clean lines, which I like.

I've made this at least 10 times, and although I do the exact same thing EVERY TIME, twice I've messed it up. One time I came back into the kitchen when there was 4 minutes left on the oven timer, and it was already over cooked. This is best eaten warm, and according to my friend Rich, who I mention pretty often in my blogs I'm noticing now, you can eat this for breakfast with whipped cream on top. Perfectly acceptable, obviously.

Funny doggy face thanks you for your time.

This is what the end result should resemble.

Okay, thanks for reading! Tonight I'll be making chicken, soaked in buttermilk and paprika and then breaded with panko and regular bread crumbs with some side dishes that are unimportant and boring like mashed potatoes and zucchini.

Pasta with Smoked Salmon in a Creamy Dill Sauce, for real this time.

So, for real this time I'm going to post my recipe + pictures of the Smoked Salmon Creamy Dill Sauce in pasta I made the other night.

Although this recipe called for smoked salmon, I realized that it was not my cup of tea, and although much faster than cooking a non-smoked salmon, I would prefer regular salmon [maybe sockeye] in this dish the next time I make it, with a little extra sauce for reheating.



This is me, very excited to make this dish, obviously.



And this is my little helper, Luigi.

Onward!

Recipe:

1lb of your favorite pasta
8oz smoked salmon [next time I will use 8oz cooked regular salmon] I got the salmon that was already in the package in the back of the produce section, in front of the fish counter!
1 handful or so of chopped fresh dill
1/2 a medium sized onion, minced
2 tbsp olive oil for the pan
1 cup cream

So simple!

I started off by boiling some water and heating a skillet with tall sides. Once my water was boiling, I salted my water and put my pasta in. Then, I minced my half an onion and threw it in the pan with some olive oil and really only made the onions tender instead of browning them. I didn't mince my onions enough. I'm actually not that great of a cook because I overlook things like this.



Then, I put in the cream and some salt & pepper and let it cook for 8-10 minutes and stirred it often. When my pasta was done I strained it but left about a cup of cooking water in there so it didn't get all sticky sitting in the pot. After the 10 minutes was up for my cream/onion mixture in the pan, I let it sit for another 3 -5 minutes to let it thicken a little bit, and put in my little cubes of smoked salmon and dill. Then I just poured the cream mixture into my pasta pot and mixed everything around to coat the pasta.



Tada! I need to learn how to take amazing picture of my food like they do on tastespotting.com.

That's all for today - thanks for reading!!

Next: Blackberry Oatmeal Cookie Bars.

Cookies, Oatmeal Bars and Smoked Salmon Pasta with a Creamy Dill sauce.

Hello!

I was really hoping to post my recipes individually, but I've been putting it off because I couldn't figure out how to post a picture on here. And then Rich so politely pointed out to me this morning that the [insert picture] button was right in front of my face.

Before I post my 3 most recent delicious recipes, I want to tell you guys a little story about a woman I met last night at a paranormal lecture. They introduced her as a "sensitive" which to me sounds like she's somewhat of a medium for the spirit world, which I can totally get on board with. Then she starts talking about animals, and how they're more connected to the spirit world than we naturally are, and how she can... talk to animals. Okay, so at this point I'm thinking she's a little bit more weird than we all anticipated but I'm going with it.

And then she says that she sometimes gets words [english words?] from the animals, horses in particular because she's around them more. She says that this horse she recently visited played her a little "movie" of what happened in it's previous life... I pretty much mentally checked out at this point.

Anyway, onward with the food blogging!

My friend and birthday twin, Francis came over one night to play Super Mario Bros. and bake cookies. He made this dough by himself!

Recipe for the dough!

2 1/4 cups [why did my font change? I don't get this site fully yet.] flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract [love this! I put it in everything.]
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips, or in this case, chocolate chunks

Roll into balls

And cook [my font is back] for 9-12 minutes or until just golden brown around the edge at 375 degrees. Francis and I both share an affinity for gooey cookies, so I set the timer for 9 minutes and we watched them closely until the edges were just getting golden brown, took them out and set them on a cookie cooler.



How delicious do these look? By the way, can anyone guess where this famous cookie dough recipe is from?


Let the jealousy set in.

Okay, I lied, there will be a separate post for the other dishes I made since this post took so long and I don't have time for more. I also did makeup for a show over the weekend, but I forgot to take pictures of her/him. Of course.

Thanks for reading and I hope to have posts more often now that I know how to put pictures in!!

First Post!

Hi Everyone!

I'm dedicating this first blog to my friend Rich because he came up with my blog name. THANKS RICH!

I'm excited to have a blog! I'm going to be posting mainly about two things; baking/cooking and make up, which will be complete with pictures. Well, there will probably be pictures of my kittens in there as well. As soon as I get the hang of this, I'll start posting fun things.

That's all for now - expect lots of fun blogs about cooking and my make up adventures!