Best Ever Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Bars

This is from Money Saving Mom.  It's not healthy, but a great treat once in a while!

Best Ever Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Bars

1 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup coconut oil or butter
2 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup shredded coconut (optional)
1/2 cup chopped nuts, raisins, or dried cranberries
1 1/4 cups chocolate chips 
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt the peanut butter, honey, and coconut oil over medium-low heat in a saucepan on the stove. 

Remove from heat once it’s melted together and add in the oats, shredded coconut, chocolate chips, nuts/raisins, and vanilla. Stir together until the chocolate is completely melted.

Pour into a greased 9×13 pan and cool in the fridge. If you’d like thicker bars, you can pour the mixture into a smaller pan.

When the mixture is hardened, cut into bars and eat. Store in the refrigerator or freezer.

Peach Honey

This is an incredible recipe. I found it at pickyourown, which is a very useful and often visited (by me) site.

Peach Honey

When peeling peaches to can, save peelings in a large pot. Rinse them, if not previously washed.

Cover peelings with water and cook peels until they are soft. I let my peelings sit in water overnight, since it was late when I was finished with the peaches.

Strain the water, which is now peach juice, off of the peels and measure. Pour juice in a pot and add half the measure of sugar, ie: 10 cups juice, 5 cups sugar. Compost peelings. Bring the juice and sugar to a boil, then transfer to a crockpot. Cool on low until juice is thickened. I cooked it half a day, then overnight and it was ready in the morning. The juice has thickened into 'honey' and tastes great! Use in recipes calling for honey, as a spread on a peanut butter sandwich, to stir into oatmeal, etc.

If you wish to can your honey, fill jars to 1/4", and do a Boiling Water Bath for 5-7 minutes.

Honey-Almond Triangles

I found this intriguing recipe over at The Common Room, one of the very few blogs I read daily. I am looking forward to trying it next week, after I visit the grocery store to get the almonds.

Honey-Almond Triangles

1/2 cup butter
1/4 sugar
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons milk
1 cup chopped, slivered, or sliced almonds
1 tsp almond extract
1 3/4 cup sifted flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg

In saucepan combine 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar, honey, milk, almonds and almond extract. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Set aside to cool slightly.

Sift together flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder and salt. With pastry blender, cut in 1/2 cup butter until particles are very fine.

Beat egg with a fork until blended; add to crumb mixture, tossing with a fork to mix. Gather dough and work with hands until mixture holds together, with lightly floured fingertips, press evenly over bottom of lightly greased 15 1/2 X 10 1/2 x 1" Jelly roll pan.

Pour honey-almond topping over dough and spread evenly. Bake in moderate oven (350) 20 to 25 minutes, or until a deep golden color. Place pan on rack at least 10 minutes, or until cool. Cut in 2 1/2 inch squares, then cut each square diagonally to make triangles. Makes 4 dozen.

Sesame Honey Candy

This is from The Nourished Kitchen.

Sesame Honey Candy: Ingredients

• olive oil, for greasing the baking sheet (see sources)
• 3 cups hulled sesame seeds
• 1 cup honey
• unrefined sea salt to taste

Sesame Honey Candy: Method

1. Generously grease a baking sheet with olive oil and set aside.
2. Heat a well-seasoned cast iron skillet over medium-high flame until it becomes hot to the touch.
3. Pour three cups sesame seeds into the hot pan and stir them continuously with wooden spoon until they’re well-toasted and golden-brown in color – about four to six minutes.
4. Stir honey and a generous dash of unrefined sea salt into the toasted sesame seeds until they become well-coated and the mixture stiffens.
5. Pour the mixture of honey and sesame seeds onto your greased baking sheet and pat down and smooth out the mixture with a wooden spoon.
6. Score the candy into pieces of 1/4-inch by 1-inch and set the pan aside until the candy is cool enough to handle comfortably.
7. When cool to the touch, but still warm enough to be malleable, grease your fingers with olive oil and roll the pieces of honey candy into small small, round logs.
8. Allow to cool completely before serving.

YIELD: approximately 96 candies.

Whole Wheat Honey Banana Muffins

Whole Wheat Honey Banana Muffins

Warning: Yield is 48 muffins :)

7 cups soft wheat (pastry) flour
4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 1/3 cup olive oil (or sub as much applesauce as you want, up to all of it!)
2 cups honey
8 eggs
4 cups mashed bananas
1 cup hot water

Combine dry ingredients.
Combine wet ingredients; oil and honey first, then beat in eggs.
Blend the banana into wet ingredients.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet, alternating with the hot water.
Spoon into greased (NOT papered; they stick to the paper) muffin cups. Bake at 325 for 17 minutes or till they pass the toothpick test.