Homemade Granola Bars

I have an new obsession with these homemade granola bars. They are delicious and satisfy any sweet cravings I get. They are a healthier alternative. I have to limit myself on how many I can have.

No-Bake Chocolate Chip Granola Bars

Adapted from: Lauren's Latest

Healthier and cheaper than the store bought kind!

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup honey
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
4 cups quick cooking oats {not rolled oats!}
2 cup crispy rice cereal (whole wheat)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Flax seed, mini chocolate chips, any other toppings you like

DIRECTIONS:

In a large bowl, stir oats and rice cereal together. (If you want to make them healthier, use whole wheat crispy rice cereal and throw in some flax seed. This will add some protein and fiber.) You can add nuts, coconut, or whatever other ingredients you want in your bars. Set aside. In a small pot, melt butter, honey and brown sugar together over medium high heat until it comes to a bubble. Reduce the heat and cook 2 minutes. Pour in vanilla and stir. Pour over dry ingredients and mix well to moisten all ingredients. Line a 9x13 pan with wax paper and pour ingredients into the pan. Press out to be about 3/4 inch in thickness.  (Press firmly - you want it to stick together!) Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips and press down lightly. Cool in the fridge until firm enough to cut. Wrap in parchment or plastic wrap and store at room temperature.

Seriously, so delicious.

Home all day.

With a completed internship and no job, Paul waiting to start his internship, and 100+ weather, we have spent the last couple of days inside. Working out, watching Netflix, working on puzzles, applying for jobs, and best of all, eating!

Tonight we decided to cook something special. Partially because cooking gives me a self-confidence boost when it turns out good, something I really needed today, and because we had time and food that needs to be eaten.

So after we finished all of the animal crackers..

We started working on our feast. The menu today? Broiled salmon that was marinated in Italian dressing, grilled pineapple, and roasted asparagus with Parmesan cheese. So delicious.

Ahh so good..and I can't wait to have the rest of it tomorrow.

And for dessert..we celebrated.

Happy Creamsicle Day! Now unfortunately at our local shopping center there were no traditional orange creamsicles..so we got chocolate. They were still amazing.

All things considered, it's been a fine day. Food always has a way of making hard days better.

Luv, Lindsay

sick.

I don't get sick very often. But I am sick today. My last real day at the Southwest office and I have to come home early because I feel so awful. Not the greatest. Luckily I'm going back in on Monday. I couldn't tell you the last time I took cold medicine, and I just took some. Not a good feeling, my friends.

On the bright side, today is National S'mores Day! So yummy.

The best place to eat S'mores is Priest Lake. No question.

And I got to talk to my BFF Bethany today! Love those chats.

The NyQuil is taking over..time for bed.

substitutions

Happy Zucchini Day!

I'm not the biggest zucchini fan. It's a texture thing. So I decided to try something new.

Zucchini Brownies.

I'm not the biggest fan of substitutions in recipes. They say you can't ever taste it, but I usually can. It might just be because I know it's there but I really think I can taste it. I just usually like the good, old fashioned, full fat, full calorie versions.


But here was my attempt. Thanks to Mommy I'm Hungry for the recipe.
(Pictures are mine though :) )

Frosted Zucchini Brownies 
½ cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
1 ½ cups white sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups zucchini (shredded)
½ cup chopped walnuts (I left out)

Chocolate Frosting-

6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ cup margarine (I used butter)
2 cups confectioners sugar
½ cup milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract 

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×13 inch baking dish. (I lined with parchment)
In a large bowl mix together oil, sugar and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract until well blended. In another bowl combine the flour, ½ cup cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. A little at a time stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in zucchini and walnuts. The batter will be dry and crumbly, don't worry. Spread the mixture evenly into the prepared baking dish.

Place into the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes until the brownies spring back when gently touched. Remove from the oven and allow them to cool.

To make the frosting- In a small saucepan over low heat melt together the cocoa powder and margarine. Set aside to cool. In a medium bowl blend confectioner’s sugar, milk, and ½ teaspoon vanilla extract. Stir in the margarine/cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownies and cut into squares.

 They were good, but again, I am just a fan of the regular, boring, not-trying-to-be-healthy-in-any-way brownies. But it was a good way to celebrate and feel a tiny bit better about it.

Luv, Lindsay

Birthday #21.

Hey y'all! I'm playing catch-up. No time to blog on vacation :)

August 2 - Happy Birthday..to me :)
This birthday could have been quite a disaster. Paul left for Florida on Wednesday for an intern conference EY has at Disney World. Yes, he was in Disney World on my birthday. Rude.

The funny thing was I didn't even remember it was my birthday. Literally. I've never had that happen before. But after getting ready, having yogurt for breakfast, and cleaning up the apartment, I got a sweet text from my hubby wishing me a Happy Birthday. Aww :)

My team at work bought me a huge jug of animal crackers and gave me a sweet letter. I love animal crackers. Unfortunately, they are very addicting and are already half gone. Don't worry, I haven't eaten them all by myself.

My sweet cube-mate, Carrie, drove me to the airport at lunchtime and there began my last non-rev adventure. Dallas to Lubbock was easy, but I was warned getting on that I might get pulled off of the plane in Vegas. That would definitely have ruined my day. Who wants to get stuck in Lubbock, TX? Luckily, they let me stay on the plane and I safely made it to Vegas.

Lubbock to Vegas was my longest flight and I didn't have time to get lunch anywhere, so this was my meal for the day:

Yummy, right?

I didn't feel the greatest later.

So many people want to go to Vegas for their 21st birthday. I couldn't wait to get out! It was fun seeing the "21 and over" type signs and knowing I was old enough for anything Vegas had to offer. Good thing none of it is appealing to me. 

I spent about an hour in Vegas on the standby list waiting to go to Salt Lake. Originally I wasn't worried about this flight because there were plenty of seats but for some reason a lot of people decided to go to Salt Lake City last minute. But once again I was able to get on!

It was a very long day of 3 different flights but funny flight attendants and just making every flight made it wonderful.

And then I got to see my family! They had dinner all ready and even had a birthday cake waiting.

It was a delicious chocolate cake with snickers and whipped cream. Thanks, McKay and mom!

We watched some Olympics together and chatted and then I headed down to Provo to spend the night with my bestest friend, Beth. But of course when I got there she wasn't even home. Loved..

Luckily Holly was there! She had been on skype with a special boy and though I told her several times to leave me to finish her conversation, she refused. What a wonderful ex-roommate she is. :) It was a great talk about life and love and all that jazz. Talking to these girls makes me miss single life a tad but mostly makes me really really appreciate being married.

When Beth got home we talked until around 2:30am. Talk about major catch-up! It was so great. I love my Bethy! I need to be better at calling people I want to stay in touch with..you miss out on a lot when you move to another state and don't call very often!

If you don't realize how ridiculously in love I am with my husband, you probably don't read my blog very often. This guy is the greatest thing. Ever. When Paul was on the bus home from Disney World full of who-knows-how-many interns, he called me and got the entire bus to sing Happy Birthday to me. It was basically the sweetest thing. Definitely not something I expected! It was hard being away from my sweety on my birthday, our first one as a married couple, but this definitely helped.

Paul is the first boy to ever kiss me on my birthday. Cute, huh? He is also the first boy I ever kissed on their birthday. Kind of special.

Overall, successful 21st birthday.

Luv, Lindsay

P.S. Shout out to Elder Tam and Elder Woodfield who share this amazing birthday with me! Also, to Uncle Benny who celebrated his half-birthday on this day. 6 months until Groundhog Day.

we can watch!

First, a shout out to my awesome cousin Derek and his cute family for loaning us their old TV antenna so we can watch the Olympics. It is pretty amazing. We got to have dinner with them and my cousin, Jake, on Sunday. Good catch-up time!

The dessert I made actually turned out really good. Easy too!

Recipe is included at the bottom.

My job search continues. I was sad to turn down a job offer I received but after lots of prayer and talking to people, I just knew it wasn't what I was supposed to do.

But here's what I wore including a skirt from my NYC trip and my wedding shoes :)

So the job search continues still.

Luv, Lindsay



Chocolate Dream Bars:
(Adapted from a recipe by Peggy)

Ingredients:

1  package chocolate cake mix (I used devil's food)
1 egg
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup (6-ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I only used 3/4 cup and it was great)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with non-stick foil.

Empty cake mix into a very large bowl and make a well in the center. Pour the egg and oil into the well. Using a mixer on medium speed, blend until the mixture is combined to a crumbly texture (like wet dirt). Remove 1 cup of the mixture and set aside for use later in the recipe.

Pour remaining crumb mixture into the bottom of the foil-lined baking pan. Press firmly into an even layer.

In a small saucepan, bring the sweetened condensed milk slowly to a simmer. Turn off heat and immediately stir in chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and salt. Stir until chocolate is melted and all is combined. Pour chocolate mixture evenly over the crumb layer in the pan.

Sprinkle reserved 1 cup of chocolate crumb mixture evenly over the fudge layer.

Bake about 25 minutes until the edges are firm. Place on a rack and let cool completely before adding the frosting.

I had some leftover canned frosting that I needed to use up so I whipped it with some cream cheese and powdered sugar to make my frosting but you can use whatever thick buttercream/cream cheese frosting you want. Just make sure it's not runny.

Pour into a zip-top plastic bag, press out all the air, and seal. Snip a very tiny bit of the corner from the bottom of the bag. Use as a pastry bag to drizzle frosting in a decorative pattern over the top of the brownie dream bars. Let brownies sit at room temperature for about an hour before cutting to let the frosting firm up.

let me eat cheesecake.

Happy National Cheesecake Day y'all!

We were already planning on eating at The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate this holiday but when we found out that the cheesecake was half price..what a nice surprise!

I'm not even much of a cheesecake fan. *gasp!* I LOVE all of the chocolate cheesecakes, but the ones that are mostly the true cheesecake...not a fan. I just feel like I'm eating sweet cheese. I guess that's what it is..it's just not my favorite. But what we had today had real cheesecake and I loved it. Read on..

I'm not usually an appetizer order at restaurants, but have you ever had the avocado eggrolls at Cheesecake Factory?

 They are so worth it. It comes with 6 rolls and they are so amazing. Try them.

Why yes, that is a forest on our table. It was a salad night. They are so huge and make for a good next-day lunch. I got the Grilled Chicken Tostada and Paul got the Chopped. They were both good but next time Paul has to remember to get his without the bleu cheese.

This was after we had BOTH eaten some of my salad. Hardly a dent in it!

Paul's birthday was last week and mine is this week so we mentioned that to the waiter hoping they'd sing us a song. They did. And they gave us a candle and wrote on our plate in chocolate! It was definitely a wonderful birthday cake.

We had the brand new Oreo Dream Extreme Cheesecake. I'll let you read the description:

OREO® Dream Extreme Cheesecake
OREO® Cookies baked in our creamy Cheesecake with layers of fudge cake and OREO® Cookie mousse. Topped with a milk chocolate icing. Available July 30th on National Cheesecake Day. 

Can someone say incredible? I sure did.
It had the real cheesecake but enough chocolate to balance it out and make it absolutely amazing.

 Happy Birthday to US!

 I was basically in heaven.

Oreos and more chocolate?

It doesn't get much better.

Happy National Cheesecake Day. I hope you got your piece.

Luv, Lindsay

a melted mess.

Happy Hot Fudge Sundae Day!

We have no ice cream. And I had no desire to go to the store and buy some or go out and buy a Sundae. So I decided to go to Pinterest and see the suggestions.

Apparently you can blend up frozen bananas into ice cream?

Lucky for me, I had some frozen bananas.

Unlucky for me, my ice cream did not turn out like their pretty pictures.

And once you put on the hot fudge..

Big melted mess. Like a banana chocolate frosty.

And it was not delicious, my friends. Not at all.

Tomorrow is Thursday! Almost the weekend!

Luv, Lindsay

start spreading the news

This is part 2 of our epic weekend! Find part 1 here!

After driving the 2.5 ish hours to from Philly to New York, we found a parking garage and set out. It is quite the adventure driving around that area! We got a little lost but got to see some stadiums and things on our way to the Lincoln Tunnel. No rain in New York!

 I believe this is where the Giants and Jets play.

Paul is SO excited for The Dark Knight Rises, so I had to snap this pic and send it to him:

They had ads for this movie covering walls of buildings all over the place! We are seeing it today in IMAX so hopefully it lives up to all the hype. And hopefully I actually enjoy it. I'm kind of paranoid now after the tragedy in Colorado..I can't believe that would happen. My thoughts and prayers with those suffering.

First stop? Central Park. What a beautiful place! The weather was perfect and we took a nice long stroll around.

 Such an awesome place!

We weren't hungry having eaten a lot not that long ago in Philly, but we had to try Wafels. 
We are so grateful for our awesome tour guides who knew all the best places!

I love eating places that have been featured on Food Network.

They even beat Bobby Flay on Throwdown It had to be good.

And oh...it was.

Next time I go to Central Park, I will get one.

Next stop, 5th Ave Shopping!

J. Crew was our lucky spot! I had to buy SOMETHING in New York besides food.

A very on sale shirt and skirt made it home with me :)

I love NBC! Today Show..favorite!

 I only wish I would have been there to see Kathie Lee and Hoda!

 I always wanted to go here as a little girl..

 For Paul!

 I learned that in New York and Philly you have to carry lots and lots of cash.

We had to make an ATM stop.

 We had to stop at the Southwest Porch!

#Swalife !

First Subway experience:

 On the subway we saw some very interesting people. Our favorite game was "man or woman?" Yeah, it was interesting. A very nice man with painted toenails helped us find our way.

By the end my feet were about to fall off. For some reason, right when I got off the plane in Philly on Friday night my right foot was killing me. It was so painful to walk. I figured I had just tweaked something and it would be fine when I woke up in the morning...no..not so much. I was kind of in agony for the entire trip but let me tell you, it was so worth it. Unfortunately my foot still hurts but not quite as much.

 My tired feet.

 We went to this bakery for some delicious treats.

So delicious!

I got the chocolate bomb! Just a big cup of chocolate.

And this could have been my favorite part.
Times Square! Advertisement Overload! Marketing capital! I loved it!!

I had so much fun, but I don't think it's a place I would ever want to live. I'm finding out that I am not the greatest in big cities. Mostly because I hate spending money and the city is very expensive, and I would go crazy trying to get around! As much as I hate driving, I would rather drive than take a taxi any day. I don't know what it is, but taxis give me anxiety like nothing else.

We got a quick 4 hours (if that) of sleep in New Jersey before heading back to the airport and back to Dallas. I had a row to myself on the flight from Newark to Houston (I think we stopped in Houston..I don't remember) and got some good sleep. Houston to Dallas wasn't as good. It was a more crowded flight and the baby behind me, as cute as he was, kept reaching over my seat and drooling. The disturbing part was that the drool seeped into the seat before I had a chance to get some napkins from the flight attendant...ew. I wonder what other fluids are hiding in those seats..

Thank you, ladies, for an AMAZING weekend! Especially Emilee and Danelle for the transportation and crazy tour guide skills.

Can't wait to go back with my hubby!

Luv, Lindsay