Monday, June 22, 2009

Breakfast Bars

I absolutely adore Nigella Lawson. She has such a great personality and it shines through when watching her on screen. I love that she is such a "real" person and is not too polite or proper. find myself laughing to myself when she is slinging the food all over the place. To put it simply, she just doesn't take herself too seriously and I really enjoy that. That being said, I had always loved watching her. However, I never really put much thought into making any of her recipes. I received her cookbook, Nigella Express, in the mail and I love it. I bookmarked all kinds of recipes to make in the next few weeks. These breakfast bars were at the top of the list. I've always wanted to make my own granola. When I saw Nigella's version containing condensed milk, I knew I had a winner!! Condensed milk is like liquid gold...you just can't go wrong with it. I made these bars from pantry ingredients (changed a few to please my family). They were delicious and kept great in a tin for up to one week. My picky husband and daughter ate them all. This recipe gets the keeper status in our house.

BREAKFAST BARS
  • 1- 14oz. can condensed milk
  • 2 -1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant)
  • 1 cup shredded coconut
  • 1 cup dried cranberries *I used 1 cup chocolate chips*
  • 1 cup mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame) *I used combo of pecans and walnuts*
  • 1 cup unsalted peanuts

Preheat the oven to 250F and oil a 9x13 inch baking pan or a disposible aluminium foil one.

Warm the condensed milk in a large pan.

Meanwhile, mix all the other ingredients together and add the warmed condensed milk using a rubber spatula to fold and distribute.

Spread the mixture into the oiled or foil pan and press down with a spatula or better still, use your hands (wearing those disposible latex CSI gloves to stop you from sticking) to make the surface even.

Bake for 1 hour, remove, and after about 15 minutes, cut into four across and four down to make 16 chunky bars. let cool completely.

Makes 16 and enjoy!! They are even better the next day and the day after (if they last that long).

7 comments:

  1. These look delicious Kim and they have the healthy in them:) Even better. Your sausage dish below sounds fabulous. me, sausage, hahahahaha

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would love to carry these around with me as an anytime snack...pre-breakfast, after-breakfast, pre-lunch, after-lunch, pre-dinner, after-dinner....what delicious ingredients.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Homemade granola bars are the best. The add-ins are endless and they taste so much better than anything you could buy in the store.

    My daughter loves Nigella also - she made her chocolate mousse last year, and it was terrific.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I love Nigella, too! I have that cookbook but haven't gotten around to making everything I want from it yet. These are part of the list now...sound delicious :D

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Kim! These look delish, I'm always looking for creative and filling weekday breakfast ideas. Thanks for stopping by my blog! (I just got home from meeting the puppy in the picture you liked...my heart is pure mush!). It's nice to "meet" you :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I too love Nigella. These bars look great. I will try them this weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Shanti has a range of products that will satisfy all your food needs – from the bowl of Breakfast Cereal Bars in the morning, masalas for delicious curries for breakfast.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for taking the time to leave a comment! At the moment I am having a huge problem with spam so I've had to add comment moderation and close off comments to anonymous users. I apologize for the trouble and hope to return my comments to normal shortly.