Hey, Happy Day-After-Memorial Day. I hope you are enjoying the long weekend. Travis is home for the summer from college and Alex came home for the weekend- it’s so nice to have all three kids home. We had a fun BBQ to attend Sunday for a friend’s son who enlisted in the Marine’s reserve program. Wow! How exciting! Yesterday we had a pool party to attend, I love weekends like that. Tons of delicious food and hanging out with good friends!

This recipe is great for a BBQ or pool party. It’s hearty and can be served just on napkins- no fork required. Unless you serve it with ice cream or whipped cream! I was in charge of dessert for Bible study the other night and wanted to try something new. I had just picked up some blueberries from the store so that was my inspiration. I also had a pint of fresh blueberry jam that someone had given me, so I was set. I basically just changed up my raspberry bar recipe a bit and voila – blueberry cobbler bars.

I doubled the recipe and put it in a 9×13″ pan. It made it a bit difficult/messy to mix up the ingredients in the mixer, so I would probably do that a bit differently if I wanted to double the recipe again. However, the finished results were delicious and a bit unusual with the jam and fresh berries and the hearty crumble topping. The recipe below is for a single 8″ square pan recipe.

Blueberry Cobbler Bars

2 sticks butter, softened
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 cup old fashioned oats, or rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup blueberry jam
1 generous cup fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch square baking pan. I just used the excess butter leftover on the butter wrapping, and smeared it around or spray with cooking spray.

Add the flour, both sugars, oats and salt to a bowl in your stand mixer. Add in the butter and egg and beat at low speed. Stop the machine and scrape the bowl down a couple of times. Keep processing until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Keep 2 cups crumb mixture aside.

Press the remaining crumb mixture on the bottom the prepared pan. Spread the Blueberry jam over the top of the crust and then sprinkle the fresh blueberries over that. Crumble the rest of the oat mixture over the blueberries.

Bake until lightly browned, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

We served ours with a bit of whipped cream, but it would be great with ice cream or just on its own.

Cindy

The other day I was walking around Target and saw a bag of white chocolate chips and decided I wanted to bake something. I’m not a huge fan of white chocolate, but for some reason paired with oatmeal, I thought it would be delicious. It was! I experimented with several different recipes and ended up with a yummy cookie that was a little unusual. I loved how the cookie held it’s shape, I think that was due to all the chunks of extra goodies!

Oatmeal Cookies with Raisins, White Chocolate Chips and Macadamia Nuts

Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup raisins
1/2 cup macadamia nuts, chopped

Directions:
Beat the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in a bowl with a mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla; beat.

Whisk the flour, rolled oats, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Add to the butter mixture and beat until just combined. Stir in the white chocolate chips and raisins.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough and place on parchment-lined baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake until the cookies are golden on the bottom, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on the baking sheets, 10 minutes, then transfer to racks to finish cooling.

Cindy

Hey there – happy Monday. Have I got a delicious and easy dessert for you. Jordan whipped up this chocolate espresso mousse on Saturday afternoon as a special Mother’s Day treat for me. It took minutes to put together and as chocolate mousse goes, this was relatively healthy. The finished product turned out creamy, rich and super delicious.

The original recipe called for agave syrup which we substituted with equal measurement honey. It also called for sea salt, which we omitted. We also doubled the espresso powder, which I would do again. Since I love anything coffee!