These are what I brought to the swap with mini choc. chips + butterscotch firmed in on top. Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars (Like chewy granola bars, but more cookie like, this is the lower fat version my kids created while in 4-H. I made the full 1 cup oil version at the swap with 1 cup water because it bakes in 15-20 minutes & thought you all might prefer the full version. Either way, it always gets eaten.) ½ cup oil 1 ½ cups water 2 cups brown sugar 1 cup white sugar 2 T. vanilla 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 ½ tsp salt 1 ts soda 1 tsp baking powder (or just use ½ tsp soda + ½ tsp cream of tartar) 2 tsp cinnamon 2 cups raisins 1 cup chocolate chips 6 cups rolled oats Preheat oven to 325. Combine oil, sugars, water, & vanilla. Beat well. Add flour salt, soda, baking powder, and cinnamon to the first mixture & mix well. Stir in oats, raisins, then chocolate chips. Spread in a well-greased 9x13" pan and bake for 40-45 minutes until dough firms up and is brown around edges. Will firm up more when cooled, so don't overbake. **Wait to cut into bars when cooled. Bars remain soft & chewy. Makes 32. Store in airtight container up to a week. Refrigerate up to 2 weeks or freeze up to 3 months.

You can make ghee easily at home. How to make Ghee Ghee is essentially clarified butter. I use organic cultured(European style)UNSALTED butter as the end product tastes richer than with regular butter. Bring the cubes of butter to room temperature so they melt evenly when you start to cook them. Use a heavy bottomed saucepan that has enough height as the ghee will foam during cooking. Make sure the pan and the spoon are thoroughly dry. Add the butter to the pan and cook on medium low heat. In the beginning you want to stir well to prevent over cooking the ghee and burning it. Once the butter is all melted, continue cooking the ghee. It will foam and rise. Keep stirring to prevent burning. The ghee is cooked and done when the foaming subsides and the color is a pale caramel color. Be careful. It is very very hot. Take it off the heat immediately. Due to the retained heat in the pot, the ghee will continue to darken a bit more. Decant when it has cooled but still liquid to a clean glass or metal jar with a tight fitting lid. Use sparingly as this is high in fat. Ghee is highly aromatic and is amazing in omlets, for toasting nuts etc. Keeps forever in the fridge. It will be solid like butter but you can scrape a spoonful as needed. and will melt like butter. If the ghee is very pale and whitish, it needs to be cooked a bit more. If you have dregs in the bottom of the pan, just drain the liquid and use the dregs immediately. This is how my grandmother taught me to cook ghee the traditional Indian way. Ghee and unfiltered unrefined cold pressed coconut oil and raw sesame oil were pretty much the only fats used in cooking then.

I bought 8 somethings of blueberries last week at the farmers market. They are in the freezer but I'm thinking one package will be coming out soon. Yum! Not to mention your working full time these days... David

It is exactly like eating leftover food because it IS leftover food, but consider this..... When oatmeal is overcooked (cooked until it's nice and thick like you'd like it in the bowl), it tends to lose much of it's texture when reheated. Oatmeal will thicken up after it is removed from the heat, so stop cooking while it's still somewhat loose and liquidy to prevent over-cooking it, and you'll have a better texture when it's reheated. Allow the oatmeal to sit for 4 or 5 minutes before serving it, and it will thicken while it's sits and won't be over-cooked. As an option to cooked and reheated oatmeal, I'd suggest trying the recipe I posted above that is refrigerated, and consume it cold or heated if the texture of cooked and reheated oatmeal is a concern and see if you like that texture better than cooked oatmeal reheated. Over the weekend I made a pot of Pumpkin Oatmeal using soaked steel-cut oats (you could also use old-fashioned oats or quick oats), coconut milk, canned pumpkin puree leftover from another recipe I made, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice. We ate it with homemade coconut milk kefir, crispy pecans, and maple syrup over it for breakfast on Sunday. This morning I made a batch of "Cooked Oatmeal Scones" with 1 cup of the leftover Pumpkin Oatmeal (see link below for the scone recipe). If you ever need a recipe to use leftover cooked oatmeal, this is a great one. If you have oatmeal haters in your family, this is a good recipe for them. The scone recipe calls for whole wheat flour, but all-purpose flour would work just as well. I used a gluten-free mixture of 1-cup of freshly-milled buckwheat flour and 3/4 c. almond flour for the whole wheat flour, and the recipe worked just fine. Another change I made to the recipe - instead of milk, I used more homemade coconut milk kefir, and I've also used plain yogurt, buttermilk or sour cream in this recipe and plain oatmeal. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Cooked Oatmeal Scones This post was edited by grainlady on Mon, Nov 25, 13 at 14:59