These oatmeal coconut cookies go to my Wholegrain Baking Event – Oats.

I’m a mother of a preschooler and like many others of his age he is also picky when it comes to food. Earlier I didn’t have any problem at all with him during mealtime. He used to eat a lot of veggies, rice, chapathis and fruits etc. But not anymore. So these days I’m hunting for healthy and tasty recipes which appeal kids. While browsing the “Vegetarian Times – Fast and Easy” book I found many such recipes.

The crispy breakfast bar recipe, especially caught my attention because these were “no bake” bars which can be prepared in a jiffy and are healthy too. These are crunchy chewy bars. They get fiber and iron from whole-grain puffed cereal and protein from almond butter and almonds. The original recipe does not have almonds, but I added it to give the extra crunchiness and protein boost.

Following the basic method, one can come up with a couple of variations, like using peanut butter and peanuts, chocolate chips, etc to mention a few. A variety of whole-grain puffed cereals are available in the grocery stores these days. I saw puffed millet and other puffed cereals too.

The prep time is only 15 minutes, which includes the time to take out the stuff you need from your pantry and you have to freeze the mixture for 30 minutes. So in 45 minutes you have a healthy treat ready, without any elbow grease.

So how does it taste? As I have mentioned earlier, my son “the picky eater” loved it so much, he ate 2 pieces as soon as he got home from school. We adults also liked it very much. Actually it’s a fancy “Pori Urundai” (puffed rice balls) with almond butter, raisins and honey instead of the jaggery syrup we Indians use.

This is my entry for:
1. Suganya’s Vegan Ventures.
2. DK’s AWED – Amercian.
3. Pallavi’s Sunday Snacks – Fix It.

IngredientsFor the crust:

Unsalted Butter, at room temperature – 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 and 1/4 sticks)

Light Brown Sugar, packed – 3/4 cup

Salt – 1/2 teaspoon

All Purpose Flour – 3 cups

For the Filling:

Unsalted Butter – 1/2 cup (1 stick)

Light Brown Sugar, packed – 1/2 cup

Honey – 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons

Granulated Sugar – 2 tablespoons

Heavy Cream – 2 tablespoons

Salt – 1/4 teaspoon

Pecan Halves – 2 cups (I used chopped pecans)

Vanilla Extract – 1/2 teaspoon

Yield: 3 Dozen

To Make Crust

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1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. In a large mixing bowl put butter, brown sugar and cream it using an electric mixer in medium speed until light and fluffy.
3. Mix in salt.

4. Add flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing until fully incorporated after each addition.
5. Continue mixing until dough begins to come together.
6. Press dough about 1/4 inch thick into a 9 by 13 inch baking pan. (See my notes)

7. Prick the dough with a fork.
8. Chill until firm, about 20 minutes.
9. Bake it golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes.
10. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
11. Reduce oven to 325F.

To Make Filling

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1. Place butter, brown sugar, honey, granulated sugar, heavy cream in a saucepan over high heat.
2. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until mixture coats the back of a spoon, about 1 minute.
3. Remove pan from heat; stir in salt, nuts and vanilla.
4. Pour filling into the cooled crust.
5. Bake until filling bubbles, 15 to 20 minutes.
6. Carefully transfer it to wire rack to cool completely.
7. Run a paring knife around edges of the pan and invert onto cooling rack. (See My Notes)
8. Invert again onto a cutting board.
9. With a sharp knife cut into 1 by 3 inch bars.

Bars can be stored in an air tight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

I came across this recipe in Recipezaar when I was searching for mango recipes for this month’s Weekend Breakfast Blogging – May Mango Madness hosted by Arundati, originally started by Nandita.  Inspite of the good reviews, I was not sure if we would like the combination of these two fruits, so I scaled down the measurements.  But to my surprise it tasted very good. 

Ingredients:
Raspberries, fresh or frozen – 1/2 cup
Maongo chunks, fresh or frozen – 1/2 cup
Plain Yogurt/Vanilla Yogurt – 1/2 cup
Milk – 2 cups
Honey/Sugar – as per your taste
Vanilla essence – 1 teaspoon (if you are using plain yogurt)

Procedure:
1.  In a blender add the fruits, yogurt, honey and 1 cup of milk and blend it smooth.  If your using fresh fruits you can also add few ice cubes during this stage.  I used frozen fruits, so I thawed them at room temperature just for 5 minutes and blended it.

2.  Now add the remaining milk or as much as required to get the desired consistency.

This also goes to my dear friend Dee’s AFAM – Raspberry event.

Although I have not tasted Baklava, I have always been fascinated by it.  I saw an episode of Sandra Lee’s semi home made cooking recently, where she prepared Baklava Roll Ups.  I felt that it was easier then the traditional baklava making.  I also saw A-kay’s version of baklava.  It was the real deal.  In general preparing baklava requires some patience.  Actually I’m ok with the patience part; I love to do this kind of stuff.  Getting some quiet time is difficult for me.  With a toddler around, I’m always running behind him or the vice versa.  He doesn’t let me do anything.  The only time I’m free is when he takes his afternoon nap.  So I thought of simplifying even Sandra Lee’s version.  Anyhow I bought both the regular phyllo pastry and the phyllo pastry pre baked shells from the grocery store.  I thought I will make either her version or mine depending on the time I get.

I placed both the packets in the fridge to thaw overnight.  I pre heated the oven at 350F, started preparing the pistachio and almond mixture.  When I thought of removing the phyllo pastry sheets from the packet, I heard my son running from his bedroom, he got up very early today.  So back it goes into the freezer.  I settled him giving some snacks and decided to do my version.  I removed the pre baked pastry shells from the carton, lined it on a baking sheet, drizzled some  honey, added a teaspoon of the nuts mixture and drizzled some more honey on top and baked it for 8 minutes.  It was nice and red on the corners when it came out of the oven.  After a couple of minutes, I was able to taste it and it was very good.  Since I have not tasted a traditional baklava, I don’t have anything to compare it with.  For me it was a “tasty, quick fix, make ahead in case of a party and store it in the fridge” dessert.  Everybody in my family liked the taste.  That by itself is a big deal for me with picky eaters around.

Stage 1:
Pre heat the oven at 350F.  Prepare the nuts mixture.  I just took equal amounts of pistachios and slivered almonds, a tablespoon of butter at room temperature, sugar (as per your taste) and pulsed it in a food processor.  I did chop the pistachios roughly before adding it to the food processor.  Remove the pre baked pastry shells from the packet.  I had thawed it overnight, but later only I saw that thawing it for 10 minutes is enough.  So do go through the instructions in the package before hand.

Stage 2:
Line the pastry shells in a baking sheet.  Don’t throw away the carton the shells come with, you can use it to store them after baking.  As always I tried only 5 of them at first.  But you can go ahead and do all at once because it came out well. There is nothing to mess up.  Drizzle some honey in the shells and then top it with the mixture and again drizzle honey on top of the mixture.  Bake it for 8 minutes or as mentioned in the instructions.

Stage 3:
Once baked take it out of the oven, either enjoy immediately or place the baked shells back in the carton and cover it with a saran wrap and store it in the fridge for later.

Variations:
1. Top it with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream for a gourmet kind of dessert.
2. If you let your imagination wild, you can come up with different kinds of stuffing.  For an appetizer, just bake the shells for 3-5 minutes and then fill with potato masala.  It will be a different kind of potato puffs, easy one too.  Fill it with anything from salads to chocolate mousse.

Update:
The baklava tasted really good even out of the refrigerator.  But one thing I would do the next time is mixing the honey with the nuts mixture itself, to bind it so that it doesn’t spill while eating.  Actually for adults it’s just one mouthful or two bites, it was not a problem, adding some honey on top of the mixture did bind it up, but my son was spilling it while eating.