Happy (Belated) Easter

Well, first off I want to start by saying Happy Easter to everyone. I'm a bit behind on my blogging. Been a bit busy and distracted lately with work and life.

I started out having a rather lovely weekend, involving a nice relaxing Saturday, I decided to tackle a project my Mom had on her “list,” this thing grows daily as she finds more tasks that she needs to do, yard work, housework, etc. Needless to say I figured me taking some gumption and doing this would be a nice surprise. Plus!!! It looks awesome!

I guess I could say what I did…we used to have a top waterfall by our front door, and then a waterfall leading down to a lower pond by our basement. Due to yard work and other things that went on the bottom pond got axed. Now a waterfall to nothing…it’s not that cool…or aesthetically appealing. My mom was thinking something floral or herbal in the sections would be really pretty. I not only agreed, I thought it was brilliant. Hence why I jumped at this task on her list.

Needless to say, draining the yucky water out of each section, drilling holes in the bottom, lining with rocks, and then covering with a thick layer of dirt was a fun task…and I’m not your typically get my hands dirty kind of girl. I wash my hands constantly when handling raw meats…so it’s hard to work in dirt. Yuck!

After accomplishing this feat of a project I decided that was it for me. I was done. I thawed some shrimp and added to some fun shaped pasta and made some shrimp mac and cheese. Not too shabby…

Sunday rolled in with a lovely day and a few more projects to complete. First, what was I going to cook from scratch this weekend that I could blog about, and also be something nice to enjoy for Easter? Raspberry Oat Bars! Yum! Plus, I’d found this lovely jar of Raspberry preserves at the store, that wasn’t Smuckers…so I knew the recipe was meant to be. No offense Smuckers, but I wanted something a bit more…

I got this recipe from Ziplist, my new iPhone addiction app. I highly recommend it if you don’t already use. Plus a lot of really great bloggers use the app directly on their blogs, so you can just click a button and add it to your recipe box/list.

Raspberry Oat Bars
adapted from All Recipes


INGREDIENTS:
¾ cup butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 ½ cups rolled oats
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 (13 ounce) jar raspberry preserves (originally called for 10ounce, what does one do with leftovers...)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. I like to use convection bake a lot, I just feel like my baking is a bit more even and I get happy little treats instead of sad…Grease a 9x13 inch pan, then line pan with parchment, grease parchment.
2. In large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar, until smooth. While this mixture is creaming. Measure out and combine in medium bowl your oats, flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir into the creamed mixture.
3. Now to get our hands dirty. Dive right in and crumble the mixture a bit until it’s a nice crumbly consistency. Take about half of the mixture and press into the bottom of the pan onto the parchment.
4. Next spread the preserves on the crust. Then crumble the rest of the mixture onto the top for a truly divine look.
5. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in preheated oven. Until light brown. Cool completely, then enjoy!

Anywho, I didn't take step by step pictures this time, I was too into making and baking and moving on to another task...spraying off all the nasty crap that falls from the tress in good ole Missouri...

~Nikki