*#@!#*& Snack Week: Friday

Friday

So what do you eat when you make about a million raspberry bars and half the kids don't touch them? They'd rather have left-over pretzel rods? I'll tell you:  raspberry bars and a super large vodka tonic. I guess this answers my question as to whether my bars are as good as my friend's.  Cheers.

*#@!#*& Snack Week: Thursday

Thursday

I have a friend who makes the most delicious raspberry bars known to mankind. Yesterday I begged her for the recipe, knowing that I was going to bake something for my daughter's class. But even knowing how very much in love with her raspberry bars I am, she would not fork over her recipe. Well. I. Never. Actually I completely understand, however I took this as a CHALLENGE. I would make my own raspberry bars, goddammit. And that is what I did.

I started with a shortbread crust. I can make shortbread. My grandmother was from Scotland, and just about the only thing she could make was shortbread, so that's a cinch. In my food processor, I dumped 2 1/2 cups of flour, 2/3 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp (sort of heaping, almost). I blitzed for a few seconds, then dropped in two sticks of unsalted butter cut into cubes. I pulsed this for about 40 pulses until it was grainy, and able to be pinched together. I scooped out 1 1/4 cups of this sugary grainy flour and put it in a separate bowl. Next, I lined a 13x9 inch baking pan with foil, greased it up, and pressed the shortbread into the pan, and let her cook at 375 for about 17 minutes until she was nice and golden brown on the edges. Shortbread, done.

Here you see the shortbread crust mid-way through being pressed into the pan.

Then I mixed 3/4 cup raspberry jam with a half pint of fresh raspberries, and sort of squashed the fresh berries into the jam because nobody wants great big globs of fruit in their delicate raspberry bars. To this berry mush I added some fresh lime juice, squeezed from half of an extremely juicy lime. If you are using a dryish lime, then go for the whole thing, or taste it to see how limey you like it.

 This picture is not a badly drawn parallelogram. You can't tell, but that is my stove on the right.

Now for the crumb topping. Normally I like almonds in a crumb topping. Or pistachios, if I'm feeling fancy. And if I am being totally over the top, 'who does she think she is?!' I mix marzipan in there. Oh, I know. It's totally crazy. But there's this nut issue. So I used pumpkin seeds. I blitzed half a cup in the processor, then added them to the flour with 1/2 cup of oats (the old fashioned kind) and 1/4 cup of brown sugar. My mother used to call brown sugar "Brown Hoo Ha," and one of my earliest memories is of her standing on the counter, gnawing on a hardened piece of said Hoo Ha that she kept in a high cupboard so that my brother and I couldn't reach it. Chic c'est la vie!

 Pumpkin seeds to save the day!!! Since I used pumpkin seeds a.k.a. pepitas, and lime, can these bars be heretofore known as Mexican Raspberry Bars? Maybe not.

I mixed this stuff up, and when the shortbread was ready, slathered on the raspberries, then topped with the crumb mix. Baked for about 24 minutes, then let it rest for an hour, or as long as it took me to pick the kids up from school and take them to their after school activities. I swear, if I added up all the time I have spent waiting outside various ballet classes, swimming lessons, gymnastics and Kumon, it would total about four years. Anyhow, when I got home, I cut them into squares, and as I made two batches, we got to eat some!

The verdict? These bars are delicious. Do they match up to my friend's raspberry bars? It doesn't really matter, does it? The important thing is that I am no longer dependent on someone else to provide me with raspberry bars, cause I can make them my own self. Not that I wouldn't be really really really thrilled if my friend would make me some of hers soon. Real soon.

Will the kids like them tomorrow? My daughter assured me that they would - if I also sent in some whipped cream.

*#@!#*& Snack Week: Wednesday

Wednesday

Today the kids ate the rest of the yucky pretzel rods, and the cookies - nobody had to bust out their epi pen, so that's a good thing. This afternoon I really planned to bake something, I swear I did. But I hurt my back and am trying very hard not to move too much, so that's not happening. Don't worry I didn't hurt my back so badly that I won't be able to lift the magnum of vodka out of the freezer and pour myself a large cocktail now that the kids are in bed. I bought the snack for tomorrow, and it is a healthy one to make up for the cookies that I'm sure the teacher was not exactly thrilled about (sorry Caitlin). Tomorrow is hummus, carrots, and I was thinking to buy pitas and chop them into cute little triangles, but I found these, which are super cute all on their own!

I'm sure the kids would like them more if they were stuffed with M&M's, but they're going to have to settle for chick peas.

Here is something else that's cute:

*#@!#*& Snack Week: Tuesday

Tuesday

Today I got a free pass, as the kids had the Pirate's Booty that I dropped off yesterday. AND, if that's not enough to make a mom smile, the cookies passed inspection, so that takes care of tomorrow! I'm feeling like a bit of a whiner that I was making such a big deal out of snack week, and I was almost finished with my duties on Monday. So, just to even things out, I am going to actually make something for snack on Thursday and Friday. I know you're saying, "Heather, don't make us wait until Thursday to see what you are bringing for snack! We will die of anticipation by then!" But remember, if I'm making something to bring to school on Thursday morning, I'm going to have to bake, or otherwise prepare, the snack tomorrow night, because the type of person who gets up at four to bake is not the type of person that I am.  In the meantime, check out this totally awesome video I found on the YouTubes. Enjoy!

*#@!#*& Snack Week: Monday

Dear Reader,

At my kids' school, parents are required to take turns providing snack for the class for one week. It's best to sign up early, lesson learned by forgetting that it was my turn and leaving the teacher with a room full of famished first graders. So this week it is my turn, and in this here blog, for this whole entire week, I will tell you about the snacks I am bringing to school. If you have any snack suggestions I would be most appreciative!  

MONDAY

I thought I had everything under control, buying strawberries, because the snacks are meant to be healthful, and also some organic Oreo-type cookies, because I want the kids to think that my daughter's mom brings awesome snacks. But last night I received a letter from the teacher, with words that no parent who is providing snack for thirty (yes, THIRTY) kids wants to hear:  

There are peanut and nut allergies present in the class. When shopping for snacks, please be on the lookout for anything containing peanut oil, peanut butter and nuts as well as any foods that have been manufactured on equipment handling these ingredients.

A quick check of the cookies I had purchased revealed that they were manufactured in the same general vicinity as some things that may or may not have touched peanuts. I don't know when peanut allergies became so commonplace, or so dangerous, but I'll be damned if I'm going to make a kid go into anaphylactic shock over my snacks. So the cookies stayed at home and I will soon be providing you with a recipe using two boxes of organic Oreo-type cookies.

Three pints of strawberries are hardly enough for thirty kids, so after the school run today I had to stop in the grocery store for some pretzel rods. I also picked up three bags of Pirates Booty, because I can't figure out why kids, or anyone else for that matter, like pretzels. When my son was in nursery school, my very first snack experience, I brought in fruit and the kids helped me make a delicious fruit salad. I was so proud of myself, had bought the best fruit, all organic and everything. I spooned some of the fruit salad into little bowls, and hovered, waiting for the kids to say how delicious it was. Not one of them ate a single bite. They just sat there squirming in their little chairs. And these weren't exotic fruits or anything. The teacher said, "Would anyone like pretzels?" There were cheers, fist pumping, and chants of, "Pretzels! Pretzels! Pretzels!" Go figure.

At least there aren't gluten issues in this class, cause that leads to some super lofty string cheese bills.

First Day of School Gooey Breakfast Cake

 Fourth grade, Second grade.

Dear Reader,

This year the first day of school came too soon.  I couldn't figure out why this formerly joyous day was now bittersweet, and then I realized: this year I like my kids more.  Of course I have always loved my children, I'm not a monster, but they're a little older now and we can do stuff together besides playing Memory or reading over and over about the cranky trains on the Island of Sodor.  They're real people now!  Sometimes they even give me the finger!  (Not in an out-and-out F.U. kind of finger-giving way, but more like an "Oof, I got something in my eye," while wiping your eye with your middle finger kind of way.)  So today, I packed them off to school and actually can't wait for them to get home.

I wanted to make them something delicious for breakfast - not only because they are awesome and they deserve it, but because I knew I would be exhausted and bleary-eyed this morning.  And let's face it, the first day of school can really, really suck.  Just ask my brother whose best friend thought that dying his hair platinum would help with the bullying.  Wrong!  He was wrong! Oh so very, very wrong!  Then he tried to dye it back to brown and wound up with green hair, oh the torture!  Don't worry though, cause that kid grew up to be team President for the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants, so suck it Eric Berg, you mean bully.

Last night I whipped up a banana bread for the kids, but no ordinary banana bread was this. To make my bread really yummy and special for awesome kids like mine, (and yours I am sure), here's what I do:  I rub butter all over the inside of the loaf pan, as usual, but then I sprinkle in sugar, the same way you would if you were to flour the inside of a pan, but see, I used sugar!  Ten minutes before the thing is finished baking, I pull it out, dot butter on the top and sprinkle on more sugar!  So the outside of the bread is super gooey and sweet and so freaking good.  This works with any quick bread and is especially good if you have that raw sugar with the big crystals which can be obtained for free at Starbucks if you're sneaky or just cheap.

Of course the banana bread recipe I prefer is the You Were a Bully In Middle School Banana Bread from my book, which you can buy even if you are cheap because it is only $9.67 on Amazon.

Enjoy.

 Pan dusted with sugar. Note: I didn't get the bigger crystal sugar, but just used plain ole reg'lar sugar, which is also good.

Bread ready for baking.

Extra buhtur and shuhgur.

Voila!