I was browsing food blogs looking for inspiration for Olympic-themed cookies or cupcakes to take with me to an Opening Ceremonies gathering, when I saw a treat that looked awfully familiar.
Nanaimo bars!
Or, at least, that’s what the blogs were calling them.
To me, they looked suspiciously like Prayer Bars, one of my favorite holiday treats growing up. My mom made them every Christmas, adding green food die, and sometimes mint flavoring, to that middle buttery-sugar layer. My only two attempts to make them ended in disaster — a crumbly mess. So I gave up on Prayer Bars and kind of forgot about them.
The number of hits on my homemade thin mints post must mean I’m not the only one in the midst of a week-long marathon of holiday baking. All week I’ve been making and freezing dough for lemon cream cheese meltaways (a new recipe for me), thin mints (yum!), snickerdoodle pinwheels (a disastrous sticky dough experience that led me to toss the recipe immediately) and peanut butter blossoms.
No photos, because I haven’t baked a single cookie yet. That comes this weekend.
In the meantime, I thought I’d post my favorite savory holiday/party recipe. I love variation on Chex Mix. I think it’s the Goldfish crackers and croutons that win me over.
This recipe makes a really big batch. As in, I don’t have a bowl big enough to mix it all in, or pan big enough to bake it all at once. I have to divide it up between two bowls and two to four pans, and bake it in batches. The hassle is worth it though, because this snack mix goes quickly!
One note about the recipe: The packaging sizes have changed since the cookbook it came from was published. I just buy whatever size box the cereal and crackers and pretzels are sold in now.
I love traveling on the weekend when Daylight Savings ends. It’s like a free hour of vacation.
So, Halloween weekend, (I know, I’m about two weeks behind here), we drove up to Minneapolis for:
1. A lot of great food, including breakfast tacos at Moose & Sadies (below); burgers, tots, and beer at Bulldog Northeast (they had me at “tots”); contemporary Mediterranean/Middle Eastern cuisine at Saffron Lounge (I almost always go for good Mediterranean food while traveling to a big city, because you can’t find much of it here at home); and an amazing pile of huevos rancheros and delicious vegetable benedict at Hell’s Kitchen (could I eat brunch there every Sunday, please?).
2. A Ben Folds show featuring Sonny and Cher costumes, a ghost drummer, and an auditorium full of fans wearing dark-rimmed Ben Folds glasses. (We got there a half-hour before the show and were still too late to snag a pair!)
3. Shopping, including a stop at i like you, a fantastic local shop full of fun handmade items including prints, silk-screened t-shirts, jewelry, soaps, hats and scarfs, and softies, like this upcycled sweater cat that I couldn’t resist bringing home with me:
The store reminded me of Anthology in Madison, which I wrote about a couple of months ago, but with a Minneapolis flavor. You can find a bunch of photos of the store on its Facebook page here and read a little more about it here.
These sorts of shops, which are like little brick-and-mortar estys, are quickly becoming my favorite things to seek out in other cities. I can’t wait to have one in my very own hometown.
It’s fair to say that around here the last couple of weeks have been a little something like this:
Lucky for me, my husband knows that the best cure for such times is a roadtrip, so he swept me off to Madison for my first ever (finally!) trip to the Dane County Farmers Market.
The Dane County Farmers Market claims to be the largest producer-only farmers market in the country. I’d heard that it was big, that it was stocked full of fruits and vegetables and flowers and breads and cheeses (Oh, Wisconsin, how I love your cheeses!), that it could easily take up an entire morning… yet I still wasn’t prepared for sheer size and variety of foods for sale. It was amazing. I was in heaven.
I know they say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. But tomatoes? Judge away. Especially in August when locally grown tomatoes start hitting the streets of the farmers market. This is when I go straight for the uglist ‘mater I can find. One that looks something like this (which, come to think of it, looks pretty gorgeous after ripening on my window sill for a day.):
Anyway, you probably already know this, but an ugly tomato is a delicious tomato. So, so delicious. Especially when sliced and sandwiched between two piece of mayo-smeared-toast along with some still-sizzling bacon and cool, crispy lettuce.
Outside of tomato season, the only BLTs I eat are ones I order at restaurants. I’ve learned, though, that that’s a risky order. I’ve been served tomato-less sandwiches (um, no thanks) and more salad/taco bar compilations than I’d care to detail. (There is a right way and a wrong way to make a BLT. Shredded iceberg lettuce and diced canned tomatoes fall squarely in the “wrong” camp.)
In August, though, the homemade BLT — and the ugly tomato it’s made with — rules.
Anne is a writer, editor, and occasional photographer in Eastern Iowa. She also runs a digital photo booth rental business, Red Curtain Photo Booth, with her husband.
Most of the time, she'd probably rather be sewing, baking, planning her next road trip, or playing with her digital camera.
