I’ve had this recipe of Catherine Newman’s bookmarked for months. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite sources for recipes. Now that I finally got around to making her granola bars, I’m wondering why I waited so long. I tweaked the recipe a bit to suit my taste and the contents of my pantry. Then I accidentally left out the vanilla and cooked the bars on the wrong temperature, but even with my mistakes they are so delicious I’m already planning my second batch.

It’s important to let these bars completely cool before cutting them, or you’ll end up with a pile of crumbly granola. Still delicious, but not remotely bar-like. Also, the original recipe called for chopped dates, but I didn’t have those so I added extra apricots and chocolate chips. You could use whatever dried fruits you like, and probably substitute other nuts for part or all of the almonds. I’m thinking sunflower seeds would do nicely. Don’t be scared by the wheat germ and ground flaxseed. I happened to have both on hand, but they’re available at most grocery stores in the baking aisle.

In her post, Catherine mentioned that she wraps individual bars in waxed or parchment paper, then sends them in her kids’ lunches. I liked the look of the wrapped bars, so I experimented a bit with that. I happened to have this scrap of sticker paper lying around, so I made a little label for one bar. The rest of them just got taped with scotch tape. Do you really think I’m crazy enough to make hand-written labels for two-dozen individually-wrapped homemade granola bars? Okay, I guess I am that crazy. I’ll probably do it next time.

Homemade Granola Bars
Adapted from Catherine Newman’s recipe

• 2 cups rolled oats (not instant or quick)
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1 cup shredded coconut, loosely packed (I could only find sweetened, and it worked fine.)
• 1/2 cup toasted wheat germ
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2/3 cup honey
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
• 3/4 cup chopped dried apricots (I had Annalie help me here, using clean scissors to cut each apricot into 5-6 pieces)
• 1/2 cup dried cherries

Heat the oven to 350 F and line an 8×12 baking pan with parchment or waxed paper. (You can use a jelly roll pan in a pinch, which is what I did.)

Mix the oats, almonds, and coconut together on a cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring every few minutes, till lightly browned. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl and stir in the wheat germ and flax meal.

Reduce the oven temperature to 300 F. Don’t be like me and forget this step, and then overcook your bars later.

Place the butter, honey, brown sugar, and salt in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook and stir for a minute, then add the vanilla. Pour over the oat mixture and stir. Add the dried fruit and chocolate chips and mix well. Scrape into the parchment-papered pan, spreading it around evenly and pressing it flat with a spatula. (Because I used a 10×14 jelly roll pan, I shaped the mixture into a square, only covering about two-thirds of the pan. Otherwise they would have been the world’s thinnest granola bars. Next time I’ll probably just increase the recipe by half so it fills the whole pan.) To press the bar mixture more firmly in the pan, wet your clean hands and press away. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until light golden brown. If you do accidentally cook the bars at 350, they’ll be very done and medium brown at 20 minutes. Cool for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares or oblongs with a sharp knife. Store in an airtight container. Try not to eat them all at once.

I know, I need to announce the winners of the vanilla, plate and gift card. That’s coming soon, I promise!

After our morning’s adventure at Sunny Jim Cave and La Jolla Cove, we still had a few hours to kill before they would turn the water back on at our house. So we headed to Balboa Park.

Balboa Park is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s a beautiful park, right in the middle of the city. Our world-famous zoo is there, along with a bunch of museums, gardens, and performing arts centers. It’s a really fun place to explore, and easy to spend a day there.

Tuesdays are especially cool at Balboa Park, because some of the museums are free to county residents and military. There’s a rotating schedule—different ones are free each week—so before we left the house we checked to see which ones were free that week. We almost decided on the Museum of Man, an anthropology museum which is one of my favorites, but since Brenda doesn’t live in the county she couldn’t get in free, and the admission to that one is steepish. We decided the Mingei International Museum would do very nicely instead. It’s a museum of art from cultures all over the world and looked really interesting.

Plus the Nikigator is outside the Mingei. Whee, art that kids are encouraged to climb all over! Even the moms got in on the fun.

That’s a tiny little me, reflected in each one of those shiny marbles. Too bad I’ll be in Omaha during all of the next 7 Days run.

Inside the Mingei (which is well worth the price of admission) the best thing we saw saw this project called Fisch Out of Water. It was a display of wire jellyfish, hung from the ceiling. I especially got a kick out of the fact that some of the jellyfish were crocheted.

There were tons of cool, interesting, unique pieces of art in this little museum. Unfortunately, most of it is tempting to small children’s hands. It didn’t help that some of the art looked a heck of a lot like benches and tables. There were security guards hovering everywhere, reminding us anxiously not to touch the art. It’s not like Brenda and I were ignoring our kids, either, we were right on top of them reminding them to keep their hands behind their backs so they wouldn’t forget and touch anything.

Brenda and Bug and I could have stayed much longer than we did, drifting from room to room and leisurely examining our favorite pieces. Annalie was champing at the bit to get back outside, though. And we didn’t want to end up on the wrong end of town at rush hour.

On the way back to the car we stopped by the organ pavilion, thinking the kids might like to run across the stage. Annalie decided she needed to climb over each and every row of benches on her way to the stage. Okay then.

Bug made a beeline for the stage and sat on the edge, dangling her feet while she watched Annalie climb the benches. Once Annalie got there, the real fun began.

Annalie and Bug danced and ran and chased each other around that stage for a good twenty minutes or more. Brenda and I sat in the front row and enjoyed a break. We stayed until we noticed that the girls had apparently worn themselves out and were having a quiet chat on the stage, then herded the girls toward the parking lot, making vague plans to go back one Sunday for the free organ concert. Not only did we make it home before traffic got too gnarly, but when we got there the water was back on two hours ahead of schedule.

Go see the cave we’d been meaning to see for years? Check. Climb all over festively-tiled giant alligator statue? Check. Crocheted wire jellyfish? Check. Let kids burn off excess energy before going home? Check. Expose children to local geography, wildlife, and culture? Check, check and check. Tourist Tuesday? Win!

It’s happening again, that crazy Blogger’s Paradox: the more interesting my life is, the less time I have to blog about it. Or as Brenda said, she only blogs when her life is boring.

I have half-written posts in my drafts about Part 2 of Tourist Tuesday and SuperChic’s birthday party, and a few dozen photos on my hard drive waiting for editing and uploading to Flickr. On Thanksgiving I barely took any photos because I knew I was already so far behind, I didn’t want any more photos hanging over my head, which is a really stupid reason not to take pictures. Granted, I was busy hosting a dinner and preparing food and stuff. I still could have shoved the camera at someone and grabbed Annalie and had them take a photo of us, but noooo, didn’t do that. The only photos of me and Annalie that day were taken after we were already in our pajamas, with Photo Booth.

All of that to say, today was a day of rest after a very busy week, and we took full advantage of it. Annalie and I hung out on the couch, ate snacky food, snuggled under blankets, and watched an Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon with the cats. I know I’m a few years behind the times with this show, but we’ve only just discovered it and it’s fantastic. I’m not sure who likes it more, me or Annalie.

We kept the lights on the Christmas tree turned on all day, which added to the sense of coziness. I don’t think I’ve ever put up a Christmas tree so early before, but I rather like having it up. We don’t have any other Christmas decorations up this year, except for a few assorted homemade wreaths. Oh, and all of last year’s Christmas cards are still up. Yes, really. I meant to take them down, but after a while I thought the wall would look really bare without them so I just left them all up. It’s been rather nice to look at everyone’s photos all year long. I’ll take them down once we start getting this year’s cards.

I sat out on the deck for a while with a cup of coffee, listening to the rain. That made me ridiculously happy. I don’t know why rain has that power to cheer me up so instantly, but it does. So do Christmas-tree lights.

As long as I get a few relaxing rainy days and can go about my days bathed in the gentle glow of Christmas-tree lights, I think I can handle all the craziness ahead. I might even manage to blog about some of it.