Cherry Oat Bars

Um, yum. Crunchy bar cookies, laced with jam. I ask you: what could be better?

But before we get into it, and because we're into real food, let's have the discussion. You know, THE discussion. The one about empty calories. The one about sweets.

Listen, anything like this is nutritionally void. Oh, sure, I could blather on about oats. But really? These are a treat. Period.

And should be. You need treats in your food choices, if only to vary them. But two things. 1) Despite any ad copy blather, any dessert should have a whole grain in it. Hey, let's not kid ourselves. We need to get in the grains where we can. And 2) we shouldn't have treats lying around the house for days on end. So here's a strategy. Make these, then cut them into squares and freeze them in small batches. There'll be ready to go when you are. Or share them. The very best way to enjoy treats? With others.

And you know the final rule: never make pans of dessert within two weeks of a relationship break-up. I'm just saying.

OK, enough. On to the bars.

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Chocolate Covered Cherries, Part 2

It's a great day to keep making our candied cherries. You've got the fondant ready, right? If not, check it out here. It's fairly easy to make. Just don't substitute the packaged stuff for icings and frostings.

In fact, don't willy-nilly substitute much in tested recipes, especially in baking. A little here and there is fine. (Readers of this blog have repeatedly commented on successful substitutions to these recipes--and with good reason, too.) But too much and disaster lurks.

I once spent a whole evening teaching a rather hapless cook how to make a pie crust so she could take pies to work for a company function. We did it over and over again. I left her confident of her skill. I called her later that week to ask her how it went. "Terrible," she said. "Your recipe doesn't work."

Um, no. I'm a Southerner. Reconstructed, but still. . . . Listen, I KNOW pie crusts. My recipe is my grandmother's and my mother's. Don't even think about questioning it.

So I questioned her. Turns out, she'd run out of flour and then substituted corn starch.

"They're both white," she reasoned, still trying to pin it on me.

Sigh.

OK, off to making the cherries.

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