Pintrest Granola Bars... Hmmm...

Pinterest is a fantastic site. If you agree with me, raise your hand. Good. Glad we got that out of the way. :) Hee, hee. It's one of my favorite go-to sites for recipes and DIY projects, and sometimes I get a little pin-happy. I see something that sounds good, so I pin it. However, it gets lost in the couple thousand pins that I currently have (I am in the middle of downsizing). So lately, I've been a little pickier about pinning things. I now actually go to the site it was pinned from and check it out before I pin it, because let's face it... I'm probably not going to do everything I've pinned, so I want to make sure that I'm pinning things that I'll actually do. And in fact, I've done a little bit of Pinterest Purging.... I've been going through and deleting things that I probably won't ever do, or that I've lost interest in. Anyone else do this? If not, you should... it's quite liberating! :)

Moving on... These granola bars were one of my more popular pins. I took one look at the original picture, and they looked delicious! The bars looked absolutely perfect! And I was super excited to make them because they were "healthy", used up some stuff I had in storage, and inexpensive. So, I put the ingredients I didn't have on my shopping list, and went and got them. I set out to make them and followed the directions exactly..... and this was my end result...

 

 

Ahhh yes... They looked spectacular! I was so excited to taste them.... and then I picked them up. And they crumbled. Right in my hands. I was devastated! Why? What did I do wrong? These things tasted delicious.... but they fell apart right before my very eyes. I mean, the website I got the recipe from showed that her granola bars held their shape just fine, so why didn't mine? Hmmmm..... after racking my little brain trying to figure out how this could happen.... and the only thing I could think of was I didn't pack them tight enough.

Lesson learned.

What lesson? That not everything on Pinterest turns out the way it's supposed to. {Remember my chocolate bowl disaster?} Or perhaps that maybe I'm terrible at following directions.... hmmm....

:)

But that's not keeping me from trying new things on Pinterest. :)

Want to attempt these granola bars? I think you should! I bet you can follow directions better than I can! Ha!

Ingredients
1/2 c. honey
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
1/4 c. crunchy peanut butter
1/4 c. butter
4 c. quick oats (not rolled oats)
2 c. crispy rice cereal
3 tsp. vanilla

Directions
*In a large bowl, combine the oats and the crispy rice cereal.
*In a medium saucepan, melt together the honey, brown sugar, peanut butter, and butter. Over medium-high heat, bring to a boil then bring the temperature to low and simmer until the sugar disolves. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla.
*Pour the hot mixture over the oats and cereal and stir until well combined.
*Press well onto a parchement paper lined cookie sheet.
*Now, pay seriously close attention to the next few directions..... Don't follow my example. I'm pretty sure this is where I went wrong....PACK the mixture as closely and as tightly together as humanly possible. Make it about 1/2 - 3/4 inch thick. Let it cool down, and you're ready to enjoy!

**If the mixture doesn't hold well together, you can refrigerate it.... that's what I had to do.... :)

Happy Spring! French Spring Soup

Is anyone else seeing daffodils and tulips popping up, a little peek-a-boo of sunshine in the sky, and maybe the ability to leave your scarf and gloves in the closet.  Folks I think Spring has hit!  Actually today is officially spring. So in honor of more sunshiny days here in Portland, your fab friend Christie is posting today.  Yep, I know you might have forgotten about me, but I am still here.  It's been a doozy of a year, a new baby (love her), starting a new conference (a different baby), moved to a new home (projects coming soon to a blog near you) and just all around trying to figure out how to deal with this life.  I don't know? We will see if I can actually get my groove back, jury is still out.  Now moving on to soup, there is always room for soup.

OMG! This soup is amazing. Not kidding!  Do you want to know what the best part is... my husband made it!  He came home one day and said, "Honey! I had this soup today at the cafe near my work and it was amazing".  He asked them the ingredients and then searched online for a similar recipe, it wasn't quite right so he made it up. Whatever he did...it is soooo good!  And it is pretty dang healthy minus the cream part, but it is made with all veggies, so in my book this is healthy. 

To make this soup you will need the following:

Yield 10 servings
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 pound leeks, chopped
• 1 onion (yellow), chopped
• 2 quarts water (add ½ quart extra for brown rice)
• 3 potatoes (red), chopped
• 2 large carrots, chopped
• 1 bunch fresh asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1/4 inch pieces
• 1/3 cup uncooked long-grain white rice (substitute brown if desire)
• 4 teaspoons sea salt
• 1/2 pound fresh spinach
• 1 cup heavy cream or ½ pint of half-and-half