Peanut Butter "Larabar"

I have been playing around in the kitchen again, and this time I came up with a peanut butter "Larabar". I can foresee myself playing around with a whole bunch of other flavors!! It is really super easy to make, and only very very few ingredients. I made some oatmeal raisin "Larabars" here and I had used raisins instead of dates, and let me just say that I think I will be buying dates in bulk from now on. I am not too terribly fond of my food being too sweet, and the raisins had made it a little too sweet for me. The dates provided a very nice balance of sweetness that I really enjoyed.
So how did I make them?

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pitted dates
• 1/2 cup unsalted peanuts
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used creamy but you can use chunky if you'd like)

now throw it all into your handy dandy food processor (I am so glad I received my heavy duty Kitchen Aid food processor for Christmas a few years ago! I seriously thought I would never use it and it has been sitting in my cupboard for years) and process it until it's all mixed up and it pulls into a ball.

Take it out and shape it into the shape you want. This recipe made 7 rectangle bars.

Keep in the fridge or freeze, although it keeps outside of the fridge too. And enjoy!

Dear Blogger,

Today I tried to write a post and of course upload pictures, when I get this message saying that I can't post any pictures because I have run out of room on Picassa and I will have to buy more storage if I want to be able to post pictures on my blogs. Am I the only one surprised about this? I was totally not expecting to have to pay to be able to upload pictures onto my blogs. So now I'm debating whether I just stop blogging altogether or suck it up and buy storage from Google, OR choose a different blog site provider and still pay for space to upload pictures?

Now I was looking online for a different blog provider that I will have to pay for and I cam across Squarespace. Has anyone had any experience with them?  I am a total sucker for good commercials (or any advertisement really, it's kinda sad. My husband gives me a hard time sometimes because a commercial for ice cream will come up, and two seconds later I'm like "ooo I want ice-cream!"), anyways, I am considering it.

Sunday Quotes

I know this isn't usually what I put up for "Sunday Quotes"  but I couldn't help but laugh when I saw this. I just had to share it. This describes our 25 pound cat perfectly...

Oatmeal Raisin "Larabars"

While looking through blogs for dairy free/egg free recipes I came upon Chocolate Ccovered Katie, she does a lot of vegan desert recipes, which I've been dying to find good recipes of!! And while looking through her site I found a recipe for her version of oatmeal raisin "Larabars" so of course I had to make them (not to mention I was out of my normal energy bars and I was too lazy to drive to the store to buy some). I didn't have everything that I needed but that was OK because I just switched it out for something similar and you know what It was yummy! Don't be afraid to experiment with flavors, I know I am definitely going to be experimenting with different flavors!

Oatmeal Raisin "Larabars"

• 1/2 cup raisins
• 6 tablespoons quick oats
• 1/2 cup walnuts (I used pecans)
• 1/8 teaspoon plus 1/16 teaspoon salt (I omitted the salt)
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon honey/agave syrup (optional, I added this to make it sweeter)

Pulverize the oats in a food processor, then I measured and mixed the honey, vanilla, raisins, and nuts into my bowl and spooned it into the processor. After it was all well mixed and sticky I spooned it into my measuring cup to make a cylindrical shape (you can just form them into balls or any shape you want!) and I smash it in tight in my measuring cup.

 

Then I push up on my measuring cup and with a knife I cut my cylinder into little pucks the thickness I wanted.

This recipe makes about 3 bars/rounds. The bars last at least two weeks in the fridge, and they can also be frozen.

Kitten Update

*Kitten update* As you've read in my previous post we've been super busy taking care of 4 newborn kittens. In these last few days we have learned a ton about being kitty parents (I've done this before, but every time is always different), we have had three of our kittens die. Our fourth one is going strong and it looks like he might make it.

Week in Pictures

This past week has been incredibly busy! Between a performance out of town, baby kittens, and everything else! phew!

the kittens were born on Wednesday sometime during the day, Grandma found them outside with the umbilical cords and placentas still attached. So I cut the cord (my husband cut the others) and got to nursing them. The orange one is not doing too good, I don't expect him to make it much longer.

Sunday Quotes

this describes my fingers right now...

I've had to tell my self this a few times this week, it's always disappointing when people you cared about belittle the things you do...

Sunday Quotes

Random Picture

Craft Show Jewlery Travel

Since i've started to make jewelry i've had this issue of "how do I transport my jewelry and not have it end up into a giant ball when I get to where I need to go?". Until It just hit me in the face one day as I was strolling the plastic container section at my local dollar store. I got one of the plastic shoe boxes, one 2-pack of ice cube trays, and one 3-section plastic container. And ta-da! for $3 I now have a perfect jewelry storage system for when I travel to shows!

each pair of earrings/rings/necklaces has a home to call it's own!

it seperates bracelets from necklaces perfectly!

Aquamarine...

I LOVE aquamarine, it's so pretty, it reminds me of the ocean. So when I went to the Rockhounds Pow Wow last week I decided to buy a piece of aquamarine. And with that little piece I thought it would be perfect on a ring. I LOVE it. I almost, almost want to keep it for myself...maybe.

Stone Pendant

Yup, you guessed it, this is one of those pretty stones I bought last week!

Lace on your Head??

I've had this short peice of really pretty lace, and just hadn't thought of what to do with it. Until I decided, "hey, I wonder if I could make a crown out of this?" So I put it on my head and low and behold I thought it looked pretty good. So I made it into a tiara and added rhinestones and glass beads to it!

Sunday Quotes