Successful Baking Day

Ever since I read through my mom's once-a-month cooking cookbooks in my mid-teens I've seen the benefits of bulk cooking. It's been so nice when I've had my babies to have a stocked freezer with meals and easy-prep foods. It's such a time-saver to cook chicken and beans and brown rice in bulk and freeze. Yesterday I decided we didn't have nearly enough snacks in the house and I decided to bake up a bunch since I'm trying to eat from the pantry as much as possible this week. So, I made cinnamon graham squares, granola bars, muffins, oatmeal bread, and black bean brownies as well as cooking and freezing black beans and making about 4 dozen hardboiled eggs for us to dye this weekend as a fun spring project. The freezer is full of snacks, and the table is loaded with healthy treats now! A big part of the reason I got so much accomplished was that one of Ali's friends invited her over for 3 hours to play and the boys were napping during that time!

You can find the granola bar recipe I used here. My bars were overcooked and more crumbly, like granola cereal so next time I will try making them in a smaller pan and less time in the oven since my gas stove cooks things very quickly.
This is the cinnamon graham squares recipe.

Black bean brownies are the best for those of us who love chocolate but are trying to drop some weight too! You take a can of black beans (or I do 2 C. of cooked black beans made from dry) and puree in the blender. Add about 1/2-3/4 C. of water to them and blend very well. Dump into a bowl with a brownie mix and mix up. Don't add eggs, more water, oil or anything else unless you want to throw in some chocolate chunks or chips. Bake in a greased 9x13 until done. I usually throw some chocolate chips or marshmallows or both on top just before they come out of the oven to make them extra tasty. You would NEVER guess they were made with black beans and they fulfill that chocolate craving with about 1/3 of the calories you would normally get out of a brownie.