Banana or Not - Oat Pancakes

These pancakes are wonderful! They are tasty, healthy, and very filling. I love them!
YIELD: 3 servings - serving size: 4 pancakes
One serving is 9 Weight Watchers points.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup quick-cooking or old fashioned oats
1 tablespoon sugar or 3 packets of Truvia
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup nonfat buttermilk or milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1  large egg
Cooking spray
2 bananas (optional) - if using, I do not add sugar.
1. Combine the first 7 ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk.
2. Combine buttermilk, butter, and egg in a small bowl. Add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.
3. If using banana, mash it up and stir into batter.
4. Heat a nonstick griddle over medium heat. Coat pan with cooking spray. Spoon about 2 1/2 tablespoons batter per pancake onto griddle. Turn pancakes over when tops are covered with bubbles; cook until bottoms are lightly browned.
If you do not use sugar one serving will be 8 Weight Watchers Plus Points.

Ummm Ummm Chewy Granola Bars

I LOVE THESE BABIES!

I have tried a few different granola bar recipes and this is by far the tastiest and easiest I have come up with.  I love that you can add just about anything your imagination can come up with too... So much fun and pretty healthy snack.

I used white chocolate in these.  I must say I like milk chocolate much more.

You will need:

4 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup all-purpose flour or whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup honey

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 cups your favorite chocolate chips

1 cup your favorite peanut butter

Preheat oven to 325.

Mix together all ingredients except chocolate chips.  I've found that a large metal spoon works great to work the honey and peanut butter into the dry ingredients.  Once it is well incorporated stir in the chocolate morsels.

Generously spray a 9x13 pan and firmly press mixture into the pan. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until light brown.  It must begin to brown.

Let cool for about ten minutes or so and cut into bars. 

ENJOY!

"Comfort Basket"

My dear sister in law's mom passed away this last week.  My husbands family wanted to do something for her, my bro in law, and the little hooligans and also her dad, but didn't really want to do the flower thing... So we came up with this idea.

This first basket is for her dad that is a diabetic.  We tried to find "good" individually wrapped snacks for him.

All of the hard candy on the bottom is sugar free.

And this one is for the not so diabetic... As you will see

So here is how we decided to put it all together:

First decide on you basket and buy all of your "comfort" food and snacks.  You will also need green floral foam, shredded paper you know the kind you fill baskets with, wooden skewers,  & a hot glue gun with plenty of extra sticks.  You can't see but both of these baskets have a 2 liter bottle of soda in the back. 

Place the foam in the bottom of the basket.  You may need to cut it with a kitchen knife to get it to fit properly with the shredded paper over the top then glue some of your larger items to a skewer and stick them in the foam.  You can then fill in any holes with smaller items.  We then dropped our small hard candies on top of the shredded paper, which really put the finishing touch to the basket.

We also decided something like this would be such a cute Center Piece for any party!!!