Alton Brown's Protein Bars

Sorry that is no picture for this post. I didn't think about taking any pictures until after the bars all wrapped up.

Since I'm doing this muscle conditioning class at the gym and am trying to eat foods that are better for me, I was looking for a good "energy" bar that I could make myself. I had remembered seeing Alton Brown once making protein bars on Good Eats so I went to the Food Network Website and found the recipe. There were a few parts of the recipe that were unclear but after checking out the reviews on the recipe I figured everything out. Also, I remembered on the show that they gave the nutritional information, but that information isn't on the recipe page. The reviews had that info as well.

To make the bars begins with a bit of a monetary investment. Finding the protein powder, oat bran, wheat germ, and all the dried fruits in small quantities required by the recipe proved difficult. Luckily I already had protein powder and natural peanut butter on hand. The oat bran and wheat germ were not that expensive and I figured that if the bars didn't work, I could use them for other dishes. The dried fruit was the most difficult to find until my last trip to Trader Joe's where I saw a mixed dried fruit variety of raisins, blueberries, cranberries in a 1.5 cup bag. It would be perfect; I figured that cranberries would be close enough to cherries. I already had some dried apricots so I was basically ready to go.

I followed the directions as written and was a little worried once everything was combined. It didn't look the most appealing. But it had great reviews and was from Mr. Brown so I had faith that it would turn out okay. Since a specific internal temperature was stated in the recipe, I popped my digital thermometer into the batter and set the alarm for 205 F. It did take longer than the 35 minutes suggested in the recipe (I think it was about 45-50 minutes). If I wouldn't have had the thermometer the bars probably wouldn't have been fully cooked.

Once they were out of the oven, I let the bars cool completely then cut them up into the 24 servings suggested by the recipe. They cut easily and the bars stayed together.

Unlike other protein bars these have great flavor. Pretty much all you taste is the fruit and a hint of peanut butter. It's texture is similar to that of a fruit cake, but much better. I will definitely be making more of these. I want to experiment a little with different fruits or maybe no fruit at all. I also have an idea for a slightly less healthy chocolate bar. We'll see how things work out.

Black Bean Lime Chili

I got this recipe from the Food Network Website. Here is the link if you are interested in making it yourself.

This is a really quick and easy soup to put together. For the most part I followed the recipe but instead of chopping the onion and peppers by hand I used my food processor. For me, that worked great since I'm not a big fan of chunks of onion or pepper and the processor really diced them up fine. Just like the chicken salad I posted previously, this chili used canned breast meat chicken. For the time saving aspect, its well worth the price. From beginning to end, including taking time to cut the vegies and such, this dish took less than 30 minutes.

One word of caution however, I would not use as much cilantro and lime juice as the recipe recommends. I like both, but in the quantity called for the chili ended up tasting too much lime and cilantro (they both really overpowered the other flavors).

Birthday Party = Lots of Food

Saturday, April 1st, was my 25th birthday and my uncle's 55th. To celebrate I invited the whole family up to my house. The plan for the party was a casual get together with lots of good food and good drinks. I think I succeeded.



The food plan was to have a wide variety of appetizers. There were simple snacks like chips and vegetables (with homemade dips) and then slightly more elaborate hot foods. The vegetables were all purchased fresh from the West Side Market on Friday morning and I washed, cut, blanched (the ones that required it), and arranged them all. The hot foods consisted of skewered chicken (with either a Thai peanut sauce or an Italian basalmic sauce), mini hamburgers, sausage cheese balls, savory parmesan bites, and mini-new potato bites. A few of the foods have links to the Kraft Foods website where I got a lot of my inspiration. The plan for the vegie tray was in my America's Test Kitchen cookbook (which is highly recommended!) and the skewered chicken and mini-burgers were my own creations.



Everyone really liked the mini-burgers and they were the first food to run out. To make the burgers I used an 80/20 beef to which I added some French onion soup mix and some bacon fat (the bacon was required for the potato bites and bacon fat adds a lot of flavor so I figured why not splurge). I cooked the small burgers on the griddle until they were mostly done then placed each patty on a brown-and-serve roll that had been cut in half and topped with colby cheese. The burgers were then tossed into the oven to finish cooking and let the buns brown up. The end result was some really tasty little burgers.



The chicken was fairly simple too. I cut up breast meat into strips and marinated them in either the peanut sauce or the balsamic sauce. The peanut sauce had peanut butter, peanut oil, water, ginger, sesame seeds, soy sauce, and a few other spices. The balsamic sauce was a combination of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, water, salt, pepper, rosemary, and spices. Both batches of chicken marinated overnight. In an ideal case I would have grilled the chicken but since I was making a lot and didn't have the time to stand by the grill I baked the skewered chicken. Everyone seemed to really enjoy these too.



There was a wide variety of drinks for the party but the one that stood out the most was a new rum by Bacardi. It called Ciclon and is infused with Agave Tequila and Lime. When I saw it at the store it looked interesting so I picked up the bottle. And as it turns out, it tastes really good. I thought it was best mixed with a lemon lime soda but my dad preferred it as a shot. He was encouraging others to give it a try too.

And I almost forgot to mention the cake. As I continue to master my skills at cake baking I made this cake. The whole cake was iced in buttercream icing and then I colored a bit of the icing blue for decoration. The border around the cake came out looking nice but my hand writing with icing needs major work. One evening I should put together a small batch of icing and just practice writing. But, back to the cake; the cake is half chocolate and half vanilla and was filled with vanilla pudding (the cooked variety, not instant). The pan I used was an 11x14" pan which I think is a half-sheet size. Everyone enjoyed it and many went back for seconds (or thirds).

By the end of the evening very little food (and Ciclon) remained. There was one piece of the parmesan bites and some vegetables left as well as some cake. I was wore out, but it was worth it. I think everyone had a fun time and that was my goal.

Herbed Brie en Croute and Sausage Bites

I was invited to a dinner party this past weekend and was asked to bring an appetizer or a dessert. After having a Brie en Croute over the holidays I wanted to try to make one on my own and figured this would be the perfect opportunity to do so. Since the package of puff pastry contains two sheets and only one was needed for the brie I looked around and found a recipe for the Sausage Bites.

The Brie en Croute that I had at Christmas was done in a way to make it more sweet. It was cooked with walnuts and cinnamon and I think some sugar. For the one I made I decided to go more savory. I found this recipe on the Campbell's website which included parsley and almonds. I changed it slightly by using an herbed brie (since the grocery store was out of plain). It came out really well and wasn't hard to put together. My only problem was that the flavor of the parsley didn't blend that well with the rest of the ingredients. When I make this again I will substitute something else for the parsley.

And then since I had the extra puff pastry, I hunted around until I found this recipe for the Sausage Bites. Since the only ingredients were puffed pastry and sausage I decided to give it a try. These were really simple although a little messy. Everyone was a little hesitant to try these until they found out that the center was Bob Evan's breakfast sausage. After that they went rather quickly.

I was very happy with how both of these turned out even with the parsley issue. The only change I would make in the future is to not use parsley. There is a good chance that I will make these again.

Spinach Bread

I was in a bread baking mood this weekend and since the first batch did not work out as planned, I'm glad I made this one as well. This is a basic white bread with chopped spinach baked within. I found this recipe off the foodtv website and since I had a large bag of fresh spinach I thought I would give it a try.

The original recipe directed that it be done by hand. I used my stand mixer which made it pretty simple. The only out of the ordinary process was that you first have to wilt the spinach and that the water you used to wilt the spinach goes into the mix.

This dough rose very well and very quickly (verifying the fact that I did indeed kill of the yeast in the previous recipe and not that my yeast was dead to begin with.) I baked it in a silicone loaf pan which is why it looks wider than a typical bread loaf. [I didn't even think about this fact until my cousin questioned what pan I used to get a loaf that was wide.]

This bread turned out really well. There is a slight spinach flavor to the bread (if I remake this, I would add more spinach the recipe called for.)