Crazy About Oats

First and foremost, I would like to apologize for my absense this past week and a half; I had a lot of schoolwork to finish up before my March Break started, and, in addition to that, I had started the Lenten fast which made baking quite difficult. Now that I am in the oil-free vegan regime, though, the smells of the treats I'm about to share with you don't lure me into taking a bite.  Instead, I hand over the job of taste-tasting, and eating, to my parents, who don't seem to mind the multitude of oats in our baked goods this week.

Over the course of this past week, I have been eating a lot of oatmeal.  The version you see in photo was topped off with dried figs, pecans, and blackberries.  (Mmm). Both of the recipes for the scones and the bars are not original, but there are several modifications that I had made to both. 

Put the Crunch In It

 

Today we had a snow day here in Toronto, and that meant that I was excused from school - a rare occasion I couldn't not take advantage of. ; ) In the morning I flipped open my recipe organizer to find these caramel crunch bars from Dorie Greenspan.





Because we had little dessert left in our house, I took the oportunity to bake these - but tweaked the recipe a little to suit my mom's craving for nuts.  Since there was already so much chocolate required and we had no toffee in the house, I used nuts to top off these Crunchy Caramel Bars, renamed Crunchy Hazelnut Bars. 



I was surprised at how quickly the chocolate melted and set, and how unfragile they were when cut.  In other words, these were perfection.  Enjoy.

Almond Orange Rosemary Biscotti

It just wouldn't feel right to start a new blog without a proper introduction. : )   To anyone who's reading this, though there are very few (if any) of you out there, I'm Mary and I am 15 years old.  I'm an aspiring chef, and a photography fan (my flickr account can be found here).  A friend of mine suggested I start a food blog and post photos and recipes of my weekly culinary creations, so here I am, sharing with you a favourite of mine: biscotti.  

Biscotti is one of the few things I make every week - normally on a Monday, or Tuesday.  Though I use various nuts and dried fruits, my secret ingredients are rosemary and orange zest.  I guess it's because they are two very homey, familiar flavours to me, and they taste great in combination with the sweetness or the biscotti.  Oh, and, I'm sorry to rant, but I'm sure you foodies out there will understand what I mean - I get very irritated when I see a biscotti recipe with butter in the ingredient recipe.  The biscotti that is served at Starbucks is merely an americanized version of the traditional italian classic.  A traditional biscotti must be firm, hard, and strong enough to dip into coffee or tea - not cakey,  fragile and overly sweet.

This recipe is one that I have come up with after trying and combining various versions of biscotti recipes in the past week after week.