oatmeal

The Best No-Bake Cookies Recipe – with Coconut!

These easy no-bake cookies are loaded with goodness and even a little bit of healthy. Old-fashioned oats, chocolate and the surprise addition of coconut make these classic no-bake cookies (without the peanut butter!) the very best.

No-bake cookies are a starter-cook-in-the-kitchen classic recipe that’s oh so easy to make.

That’s the good part.

So what’s the bad part?

It’s just that they’re so dang easy to make you can whip up a batch whenever the craving strikes. And then eat the whole bowl. By yourself. In one sitting.

Just ask my husband. That was his M.O. when back in the day after high school football practice he would make no-bake cookies at least once a week. As all big brothers do (or more aptly don’t) he refused to share any of the batch with his siblings. Brotherly love. It’s real.

But here’s the best part…

Once you make these no-bake beauties yourself, you’ll see why he was so selfish. And you won’t blame him one bit for keeping them all to himself.continue to the recipe… about The Best No-Bake Cookies Recipe – with Coconut!

Cranberry White Chocolate Chip and Macadamia Nut Cookies

These easy, wonderfully chewy cookies are loaded with chunks of macadamia nuts, white chocolate chips and dried cranberries in an oatmeal batter good enough for breakfast too.

See these cookies? They are chock-full. Chock-full of all kinds of flavors and goodness that go together like peas in a pod. But they’re much sweeter—and most everyone says much better—than peas. Obviously.

But they’re missing one thing for too many people.

They’re missing a giant glass of cold milk for some kids not as fortunate as mine to dip these still-warm-from-the-oven cookies into before setting a glass next to Santa’s plate to wash them down and then wipe from his frosty mustache.

But that doesn’t have to be the case, because I’m doing something about that fact, and you can too. continue to the recipe… about Cranberry White Chocolate Chip and Macadamia Nut Cookies

Cherry Berry and Banana Overnight Oats

Oats, cherries, berries and banana soak in almond milk overnight in the refrigerator to create a no-cook red, white and blue layered, healthy on-the-go breakfast in a jar.

This year I’m partnering with Blue Diamond Almond Breeze to share healthful recipes made with almond milk, like these easy, no-cook overnight oats that will help you serve up your best.

This summer our days have been jam-packed. No lazy days of summer here. She’s been a busy 12 year old with one camp or another almost every week this summer.

Golf camp. Soccer camp. And to continue carrying on my sport-loving legacy, she had her first volleyball camp too.

continue to the recipe… about Cherry Berry and Banana Overnight Oats

Quick Rustic Apple Tart and Crushing On Three Many Cooks

Apples dashed with brandy make this simple tart with an oatmeal crumble topping shine, and gives the perfect excuse to enjoy with a dollop of ice cream.

There are few things that bring a family together more than those centered around food. For the Anderson family, the heartbeat of their kitchen is the door to their soul.

In their memoir, Three Many Cooks: One Mom, Two Daughters, Their Shared Stories of Food, Faith and Family acclaimed cookbook writer Pam Anderson and her two daughters Maggie Keet and Sharon Damelio, weave the good, the bad and the funny recollections of their mother daughter relationships with well-loved family recipes into one of my favorite books of the summer.

Writing a memoir with three different authors is no easy task. But somehow, this book’s stories and voice flow effortlessly into one.

“Our book was first conceived as a traditional cookbook, but when our editor, Pamela Cannon, read the stories behind the recipes, she asked us simply to write our stories,” shares Pam. “Since our blog is story-driven, we liked that idea too.”

With chapters that deal with Pam and Maggie’s challenging growth as a mother and a daughter who both know best, to the rebellious years that led Sharon to discovering her passion for food and culinary school, the stories that are shared are sometimes serious, always introspective, and flared by bitter fights, insight and soul searching, forgiveness and growth.

“We read one another’s work along the way and one story led to another. When it came time to stitch the stories, the book came together pretty naturally.”

Each chapter is told by either Pam, Maggie or youngest daughter Sharon, each of whom contribute to the food blog Three Many Cooks. Within each chapter the story telling is totally compelling and conversationally entertaining. These girls aren’t just good cooks, they’re great writers.

Food, Faith and Family

This book is one of my favorite of the year. The stories are told in a lively way that makes me feel like I’m one of the family, sitting down at their kitchen counter with a glass of wine, wryly spying on the drama and discovery that often enfolds.

At the essence of each story a shared dish is looped in, with the recipe provided at the end of each chapter. And the recipes…oh, they are good. I had a hard time choosing which recipe to feature, and Pam shared that they too each had their favorites.

“Sharon’s especially proud of her Perfect Carrot Cake. Maggy loves the Pumpkin-Walnut Scones, and I’m partial to my late father’s Grilled Lemon Chicken.”

This book may have never been written had it not been for the relenting work ethic of the family that starts with Pam. As an enterprising mother of two young girls with a husband starting a career in the clergy, Pam did whatever she could, and everything she could, to keep her family afloat. A tireless worker who sacrificed much of herself including time with her children, Pam’s dogged resourcefulness shaped her entire family.

She is proud. She is a success. She is a woman I whole-heartedly admire.

And now, my list of 10 Q’s for Pam, Maggy and Sharon.

1. Describe your blog in 3 words:

Maggy: Real life recipes

2. If you could be one blogger other than yourself, who would you be?

Maggy: I love Jen Yu’s blog, Use Real Butter. She’s a gifted photographer who lives in a wildly beautiful part of the world. She captures her outdoorsy, Colorado lifestyle alongside recipes that feel very true to my own tastes: often celebratory, but mostly just inviting, exciting comfort food. Right now I’m particularly enjoying her social media streams as she captures the autumn leaves – and the adventures of her new puppy, Neva!

3. Which 3 blogs do you follow/are obsessed with/can’t live a day without?

Maggy: Use Real Butter, A Thought For Food and Sprouted Kitchen. All three of these blogs have beautiful, inspirational photography and approachable recipes that I always want to cook.

4. What is the one kitchen tool you could never give up?

Sharon: I can make due with crappy wooden spoons, rickety cutting boards, and flimsy whisks, but I need a good, sharp knife. I have the Global Oriental Cook’s Knife, which is a little shorter than their traditional chef’s knife (18cm rather than 20) and a little lighter. I have small hands, and this knife fits like a glove. It’s got this gorgeous, graceful shape and their signature one-piece stainless steel design. I can’t say enough about this knife—easy to clean and sharpen and a dream to use.

5. What dish are you obsessed with mastering that you just can’t get quite right?

Sharon: Paella. My husband and I had a disastrous paella attempt our first New Year’s Eve together, and now it’s become an NYE tradition. Though we’ve gotten to the point where our recipe is really good…we haven’t quite perfected the technique such that it reliably produces that deep brown, crispy crust on the bottom. We just moved into a new apartment that has a gas stove (finally!) and I’m excited to try paella again. I think electric and induction burners make it nearly impossible to get the crust. You need fire!

6. What did you have for dinner last night?

Sharon: Kale salad with roasted sweet potatoes, apples, dried cranberries, spiced pepitas, and homemade balsamic vinaigrette. And a bottle of Segura Viudas Brut Reserva Heredad Cava. My husband and I make this salad—or some seasonal version of it—two or three times a week. We love to eat and drink, and we’ve found that having a big, beautiful salad on the weeknights keeps our calories in check, so we can enjoy wine with dinner most nights and heavier fare on the weekends.

7. What’s one secret talent outside of the kitchen nobody knows about you?

Sharon: I am a super-fast reader. Depending on the week, I can plow through up to 4 books in a week. I read everything from biographies to theology to culinary science, but novels are a huge source of relaxation and enjoyment for me.

8. You’re happiest when cooking/eating?

Pam: I’m happiest in the kitchen with Maggy and Sharon, my sons-in-law, Andy and Anthony, and my David, and we’re all doing our thing to make dinner and having fun along the way. And there are two new additions to our family—Dashiell, my 9-month old grandson and Eloise, my grand French bulldog, who adore one another. It’s a lively, lovely scene.

9. The one secret ingredient to your success is?

Pam: Stay open.

10. What’s next for you three? Do you see another book in your future?

Pam: See answer to previous question ☺

About the Recipe

This recipe for quick apple tart (the apples are dashed with brandy!) is just one of Pam’s contributions to the book. It comes from the chapter in which she describes her time as the food editor to the then start-up Cooks Illustrated, where she wrote, created, and tirelessly tested recipes under its founder Chris Kimball for the next nine years.

Sounds like a dream job. But there were drawbacks. Pam found herself becoming too much a perfectionist when it came to entertaining, trying to create the perfect meal. “Eventually I started to realize that many of the recipes I had so carefully developed in lab-like conditions often didn’t work in real time.”

On the flip side, others were reluctant to cook for her. They were too nervous to cook for a professional, worried their food wouldn’t live up to her standards. This is when she had an epiphany.

“I started caring less about perfection and more about connection,” Pam writes. “For me it’s a good night not when the apple tart I’ve made is perfect, but when the conversation has been significant, and people have made some connection of the mind or heart or spirit.”

Following is her recipe for Quick Rustic Apple Tart with Oatmeal Crumble Topping. It’s just one more reason to cheers Three Many Cooks for giving us an entire book of reasons to connect with one another over food.

If you make this recipe, please let me know! Leave a comment below or take a photo and tag me on Instagram with #foodiecrusheats.

5 from 1 vote

Quick Rustic Apple Tart

Apples dashed with brandy make this simple apple tart shine and gives the perfect excuse to enjoy with a dollop of ice cream.

Ingredients

For the Tarts
1 recipe Perfect Apple Pie Filling with Cinnamon and Cognac
2 refrigerated pie crusts from at 16.7-ounce package
For the Oatmeal Crumble Topping
¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup old-fashioned oatmeal
½ cup dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons butter melted by not hot
For the Perfect Apple Pie Filling with Cinnamon and Cognac
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt
4 pounds crisp firm apples such as Granny Smith, cored, peeled and sliced ¼-inch thick, about 12 heaping cups
4 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons brandy
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

For the Tarts
Prepare Perfect Apple Pie Filling with Cinnamon and Cognac and refrigerate. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees F.
Meanwhile, mix the flour, oatmeal, sugar, and cinnamon. Stir in the butter with a fork until well combined then use your fingers to form clumps.
Unroll one of the refrigerated pie doughs and place it onto one side of a 12 X 18-inch baking sheet covered with parchment paper or a Silpat liner. Spoon half of the apple filling onto the dough, leaving a 2-inch border all around. Bring pie dough over filling, pleating it to fit. Sprinkle a portion of the crumble topping over the exposed filling.
Repeat the process with the remaining dough, filling and crumble. Bake until golden brown, 40-45 minutes. Cool slightly, serve warm with ice cream if you’d like. The tart can be made several hours ahead of time and warmed in a 300 degree F oven for 15 minutes.
For the Perfect Apple Pie Filling with Cinnamon and Cognac
Mix sugar, cinnamon, and salt; toss with the apples. Heat butter in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat until it looks pale nutty brown. Add apple mixture; cover and cook until the apples soften and release their juices, about 7 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook until juices thicken to a light syrup, 1 to 2 minutes longer.
Meanwhile, whisk cornstarch, brandy, and vanilla in 1 cup of water. Stir into apple mixture until it thickens, less than a minute. Transfer apples to a jelly roll pan to cool quickly. Refrigerate or set in a cool place until apples cool to room temperature.
Recipe reprinted from Three Many Cooks: One Mom, Two Daughters, Their Shared Stories of Food, Faith and Family

Thank you Three Many Cooks for being our foodie crush. Purchase their memoir/cookbook here and visit their blog here.

Food for Thought

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Chewy Almond Butter Power Bars

These chewy bars are full of protein thanks to almond butter and sliced almonds and are naturally sweetened with honey and dried fruit, for a healthy snack or breakfast on the run.

I consider myself a fairly friendly neighbor.

I put thought into my holiday neighbor gifts. I wander over with a smile to say “hey, how’ve you been?” And I’m always in search of people to deliver food blogging leftovers to.

You gotta share the love. Just don’t expect reciprocity.

So when one of my neighbors dropped by to deliver a Ziploc bag of homemade power bars last week, I was impressed. Not only because it was the man of the house who made them (kudos to guys who cook beyond the grill), but also because he didn’t take the usual course of action to think that just because I’m a food blogger that I wouldn’t appreciate them.

Let’s get something clear. I’m no snob when it comes to free food.

continue to the recipe… about Chewy Almond Butter Power Bars

Coconut Baked French Toast With Oatmeal Crumble

This easy coconut scented baked French toast is made lighter with almond milk, and features an oatmeal crumble topping for a crunchy granola texture, for a delicious special breakfast your whole family will love.

This year I’m partnering with Almond Breeze to create and share recipes using almond milk, and like many who think of almond milk, breakfast has been on my mind.

A make-ahead breakfast, something to make at home instead of going out. For breakfast, or better yet, for brunch. For Easter. For Mother’s Day. For Saturday or Sunday. With champagne, orange juice and daffodils on the table.

For me, French toast is something you make at home.

continue to the recipe… about Coconut Baked French Toast With Oatmeal Crumble

Slow Cooker Baked Oatmeal with Bananas and Nuts

Layered like a strata in the slow cooker, this irresistible oatmeal is loaded up with bananas, pecans, raisins, applesauce, and brown sugar, but it can also be baked in the oven if you prefer.

Why is it that every year come January there’s an avalanche of healthy recipes just knocking at our door? Why in the dregs of winter does one feel so compelled to say, “Yes! This is the day I’m going to eat healthier, read more, kick those bad habits to the curb, clean out my closets and be a better person.

I mean, why can’t we all just do it every day, all year?

I’m blaming the weather for making us all cuckoo in the head.

So today, I’m sort of joining the fray and sharing a recipe that’s overall really pretty healthy, if you consider that it’s chock full of whole grains and healthy fat. And it’s packed with fruit if you count almost ready to expire bananas on my countertop mixed with raisins and applesauce. The only devil in the details might be brown sugar and a whizzle of maple syrup.

But since we’ve been working so hard to stay in front of that January health kick avalanche, I’d say a little sweetness should balance us out just right in my book.

continue to the recipe… about Slow Cooker Baked Oatmeal with Bananas and Nuts

Currant Cookies and a Cookie Cravings eCookbook Flash Sale

Friendship is a funny thing.

You can be the best of friends. Totally inseparable for weeks, months, even years. Then life changes. New friends come into your life, old friends drift away. Often it’s not even a conscious decision, thought or action. It just happens.

I was first introduced to these Currant Cookies thanks to a friendship I’ve known all of my life, a friendship of my mother’s that has been passed down to the next generation. Life comes full circle and somehow these cookies have become a part of it.

Back a few more years than I’d care to have on my calendar, my mom was set to deliver my little sister when she met her best friend Pam. My mom and Pam were both in the same hospital about to give birth to daughters. For years they had run in similar circles, in the same city, but hadn’t met one another. Yet people would always mistake them for one another. Similar mannerisms, style, beauty and height. It was a wonder they hadn’t met before. I guess bringing their daughters into the world at the same time made it their time.

They both named their daughters Holly. Well, my mom didn’t initially. I did that. My mom and dad named her Heather, but I refused to call her anything but Holly. My mom said she never did look like a Heather. She said Heather’s are wispy. Holly was a tub. So at 4 months old, Holly had a name change.

I’ve always been a bossy older sister. I blame it on this first act of self righteousness.

continue to the recipe… about Currant Cookies and a Cookie Cravings eCookbook Flash Sale

Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal with Sweet Potato

I’m not going to lie. The process of coming up with recipes to put on the blog is sometimes, just, well, weird. And sometimes the outcome can be a little, well, weird too. Like Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal with Sweet Potato. But in a good way and with 10 more food blogger’s oatmeal recipes at the end of this post.

When I’m brainstorming recipe ideas I usually go for a few tried and true methods. Around this time of year they include:

Go with an event: The World Series, Halloween and Thanksgiving or any event that features sweets
Choose a seasonal ingredient: Apples, pumpkin, comfort food or sugar on anything that might bear a hint of dessert
Select a trendy ingredient: Kale, bacon, quinoa or sugar on anything again and again and again
Or just stuff something sweet with something else and call it a cookie, or a cake, or something that is ooey and gooey and makes everyone deem it “drool-worthy”

continue to the recipe… about Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal with Sweet Potato

Apple & Blueberry Crumble

Next week is a big week for me, and for you my readers! You’ll be seeing a new look for the blog and also the release of the next issue of Foodie Crush!

I’m busy putting the final touches on the magazine so today’s post will be short but sweet. Mmmm, sweet.

continue to the recipe… about Apple & Blueberry Crumble

Banana and Chocolate Chip Baked French Toast

It hasn’t stopped rocking and rolling around here.

School just got out, schedules are in transistion, my husband is in full rehearsal mode with the band getting back together (oh Lord, did I just admit that is really happening?) and I just got back to town after an amazingly inspiring trip to Seattle for BlogHer Food. I did my fare share of blogger-stalking, business card exchanges and tweeting #overkill and met many of my fave bloggers and even more new faces I am so stoked to now/soon be following. And yes my pants are fitting a bit tighter. Damn Seattle has some good eats!

I’ll be doing a blog biz wrap up later this week and can’t wait to share the highlights. And BTW Austin, watch out ’cause this bloggo bunch is headed your way next year.

Before I left for Seattle I was crazy busy with deadlines, all of that said above and most importantly our Smudge’s 8th birthday. I’m still not sure if my post-party hangover is from the night of 8 year olds who don’t know any other speed than full throttle or food bloggers who pretty much do the same.

Either way, they both created new inspirations for me. Like this ooey gooey concoction that thanks to requests at our house for more combinations of chocolate and banana, has yet to fade from the peanut gallery.

continue to the recipe… about Banana and Chocolate Chip Baked French Toast