Camping Snacks

This summer has been filled with breads and pizzas...not ideal camping food. In hopes of getting inspired to leave my computer and go out for a day hike, I made buttermilk crackers last week from Wooden Spoon, my favorite bread book (so far, all hikes have been urban and undeserving of crackers) and granola bars (ditto). But both are incredible snacks for any occasion. The granola bars are sweet, chewy, and relatively healthy. Thank you, Ezra Poundcake.

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cups quick rolled oats

1/3 cup oat flour (or 1/3 cup oats, processed till finely ground in a food processor or blender)

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 to 3 cups of any mix of dried cranberries, cherries, blueberries, raisins, apricots, pecans, peanuts, walnuts, sunflower seeds, wheat germ, flax seeds, coconut, sesame seeds, dried apples – even chocolate chips

6 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces

1/3 cup peanut butter or any nut butter

1/3 cup honey

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon water

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease an 8×8 pan.

In a large bowl, combine the quick rolled oats, oat flour, cinnamon, and your choice of fruits and nuts. Set aside.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in the peanut butter, honey, vanilla and water. Heat just until combined. (Do not boil.)

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix well. Transfer to the prepared pan, and press down firmly using wet fingers, a rubber spatula coated in nonstick spray or wax paper.

Bake the bars for 30 to 35 minutes, until they’re brown around the edges. (The center firms as it cools.)

Cool the bars in the pan for 20 to 30 minutes, then place in the refrigerator for a few minutes to finish cooling.

To Serve: Once the bars are cool, use a serrated knife to slice the bars in the pan. They can be wrapped and stored for up to a week. 

Cracker recipe & pictures to come. 

Brentwood Fruit Picking

For two people who love fruit as much as we do, this trip was long overdue. It turns out that going to Brentwood, CA is rather like going to Napa or Sonoma, with fruit subbed in for wine. The orchards have clubbed together just as the wineries have up north, with a free map geared to steer you from orchard to orchard. And if you run out of steam picking, there are fruit stands everywhere -- we brought home mulberries, blueberries, and onions.

Orchards are friendly to pickers who like to eat while they pick (which my parents and most U-Pick strawberry places I've seen certainly are not). So we strolled among the cherry trees at Nunn Family Farms, sampling tree after tree until we found the perfect tree. And then we found another perfect tree, and another, and another. The abundance...of cherries, of trees full of cherries, of toddlers running down fallen cherries...was unbelievable.

Round two was apricots, where we had a few Seinfeld moments ("Not like the risotto, George") as we ate apricots warm from the sun. It was like eating molten jam, and it was good.