I love these Quaker Oats Granola Bites, but the place I can buy them from is almost $2.00 a small bag. It’s just too expensive, so I decided to try making my own granola bites using this no-bake recipe.

I like them a lot. Very tasty and nommy, but forming the balls I did not enjoy. It involved a lot of hard squishing, and I made about 10 balls before calling it quits, haha! The rest of the batter I just ate with a spoon. Will I try this again? Probably, but I may get my mum to help with the ball part.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chips Granola Bites
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup oats
1 cup crispy rice cereal
1/4 to 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Mix the honey and the peanut butter.
2. In another bowl, mix the oats, cereal, and chocolate ships.
3. Add the oat mixture to the honey mixture and blend well.
4. Chill the mixture for 30 minutes to an hour.
5. Take a bit at a time and squish them hard into balls.
6. Store in an airtight container for about a week in the refrigerator.

I had fully intended on making tomato basil soup, but the commissary I shop at had no basil. That threw my dinner plans through a loop because I was also counting on the basil to make this pesto chicken sandwich. Without the basil, I turned to cilantro and changed the sandwich to garlic bread instead.

The soup turned out to be pretty good. It’s not the best thing in the world, but it’s good enough to where it complements well with the garlic bread. Also, adding cilantro gave it a unique taste — though I’d still very much prefer basil!

Tomato Cilantro Soup
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 – 14 oz. cans of crushed tomatoes
1 – 14 oz. can of whole tomatoes
1 – 14.5 oz of chicken or vegetable stock
1 tsp of sea salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 tsp of fresh ground black pepper
1/2 cup of Greek yoghurt
3 tablespoons of fresh cilantro, chopped

1. Saute garlic in oil for about a minute over medium heat.
2. Add crushed tomatoes and then add the whole tomatoes one by one, breaking them up. Add the juice from the whole tomatoes.
3. Add the stock, salt, pepper, and sugar, and simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes.
4. Lower the heat and add the Greek yoghurt.
5. Serve with cilantro on top.

Holiday Fudge! (recipe)

Holiday Spiced Nuts! (recipe)

Holiday Sugar and Coffee Scrubs! (recipe)

Throughout this year, I had discovered how to make various little DIY gifts, so I decided to combine all what I knew to give them to people for the holidays this year. So the above things I made this year were gifted to various people. Despite the time crunch I found myself in, I really had fun doing this. So much easier and better than going out and buying gifts. Shopping for ingredients and supplies is far easier than shopping for like 10+ people!

All of the gifts above, the 46 holidays card I mailed off, 24 holiday goodie bags for the kids I work with, a letter book to M., and of course this gift . . . I ended up only buying gifts for two little kids and some coffee for my two male co-workers. Not bad, I say! Anyway, Happy Holidays! I hope you all have a good one!

A couple of weeks ago, I bought some frozen cod because I wanted to do a fish-and-chips-like meal. I found a recipe but I wasn’t enamoured by the olive oil, salt, pepper, and lemon pepper flavouring. Instead, I decided to take the sweet ginger sauce from this recipe and try baking the fish and the potatoes that way. Oh, man, this was one of the best ideas ever. This dish turned out really good. Quoting my dad “The sauce is better than the cod!” Yes, Dad, the sauce is definitely yummy and acts as a fantastic marinade! I think this dish will become a staple, but with a different fish. Dad suggested using halibut next time. I shall have to try it. In the meantime, I’m still reeling from the awesomeness of this dish. Yummmmmm.

Asian-Inspired Baked Fished and Potatoes
5-6 crushed garlic cloves
1/2 cup of sesame oil
3-5 tablespoon of ground ginger
3-5 tablespoon soy sauce
5 tablespoon of rice vinegar
5 tablespoon of honey
2-3 teaspoon of ground black pepper
10-12 baby potatoes or 4-6 large potatoes
2-3 fish fillets

1. Preheat oven 425 F.
2. Mix the first seven ingredients in a bowl. You can add or decrease each ingredients. Taste the sauce as you make it.
3. Slice the potatoes into chunk. Put them into a baking dish.
4. Pour about 3/4th of the sauce into the baking dish. Mix the potatoes well.
5. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Stir. And bake 10 more minutes.
6. While the potatoes are baking, put the fish fillet into the bowl with the remaining sauce. Let them marinade.
7. After 30 minutes of baking, stir the potatoes again and push them to the side to make room for the fish fillets.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes until fish and potatoes are all done.

Made for my grandmother :D

The recipe is exactly the same as this one — just omit the chips and the nuts and add 2 tablespoon of cocoa powder to the batter once it reaches around firm or stiff peak.

I also piped it through a frosting bag and used some sprinkles. These came out much prettier than the drop method.