The Adventures of a Frustrated Baker

I love having granola for breakfast!  I remember always wanting to have some granola whenever we had it in the house as a kid, it seemed like the kind of food grown ups ate, sort of like Grape Nuts only way better! The biggest down fall to granola is the really yummy stuff is sort of expensive, especially if it has lots of fruit and nuts, just the way I like it!  That's fine though, they can keep their expensive granola because this stuff is so simple to make at home! It takes almost no time and the joys of making it yourself is you know exactly what is going into it and you can customize your ingredients depending on your tastes!  Like I said, I love mine with lots of fruit and toasted nuts so I tend to use quite a bit of them in my recipe.  Feel free to adjust this to your tastes and try out different ingredients like coconut and various seeds, nuts and fruits. In a medium bowl combine your oats and sunflower seeds. Roughly chop you...

So, my family has an obsession with bacon.  Like seriously, an obsession.  I remember once making chili dogs and my daughter looked at me after I placed them in front of her and asked in all seriousness, "What?  No bacon?", as if that was a normal ingredient like salt or pepper.  Now it has become the running joke, that everything I serve must contain bacon.  Most often, I ignore my crazy husband and daughter but occasionally, I give into their wild demand and throw bacon randomly into something that doesn't usually have it. This recipe came about mostly because my husband was hassling me about making his favorite cookies, peanut butter chocolate chip bacon cookies (I featured them on the blog a while back if you want to go check them out here ) and I didn't feel like going through all the effort of making cookies.  I love rice crispy treats, mostly because they are crazy simple and delicious.  This recipe seriously takes 5 , maybe 10 minutes max ...

So, hopefully by now you have all checked out my last blog entry with the best peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies I'd ever had.  Notice the past tense there...they were the best ones I had ever had until I made one little addition!  Any guesses?!  Bacon! (It was my hubby's idea, he claims bacon is the "duct tape of food", it makes everything better...) The basic recipe is the same, the only difference is that I mixed in eight pieces of chopped bacon, cooked until crispy.  Honestly, it sounds weird.  Trust me, I know...I've had pretty much every single one of my coworkers look at me like I was crazy since I first baked these cookies...that is until the tasted them.  I don't think I know a single person that was not converted after trying these little gems!  The crispy bacon adds a more interesting texture and a little bit of salty crunch.  I don't think I will ever go back, chocolate + peanut butter = amazing...chocolate + peanut butte...

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!  I know we did!  As part of our family gift-giving, I always make a little package of goodies for family and friends. This year, with the moving and work and everything going on I decided to go ultra easy and quick.  I made these secret turtle candies that I learned from my mother-in-law (sorry guys she won't let me tell you all the recipe) and candied almonds!  Those I can share with you cause I found them all on my own! They are super duper easy!  It does take an hour and 15 minutes or so total to make, but most of that can be spend hanging out with the family or relaxing and recuperating from all the holiday festivities.  They are super tasty and very addictive and would probably make great snacks for a New Year's Eve party or a great gift to the host of a party you may be attending.  My main tip would be to buy the almonds at a bulk store or out of the bulk bins if your grocery...