Real Feel -3

This morning when I took the dog out to the bathroom I wore Nick's rabbit skin hat, 2 pairs of pants, a jacket, a scarf and very very thick cumbersome gloves.  And I was fine.  I get kind of excited about extreme cold.  Nick and I agreed that we get a thrill watching the thermometer in our car drop to ridiculous temperatures.
By 9 it had warmed up to a balmy 15 degrees with sunny skies and we bundled Callah up and ventured out to Alterra, our favorite coffee shop for breakfast.

But, what to do with the rest of the day?  A picnic is out of the question, so I did what I usually do when stuck inside for any period of time: bake!

I made muffins, healthy granola bars and for the splurge, chocolate chip cookies straight off the Nestle Tollhouse bag with no modifications, oh wait, I threw in a quarter cup of whole wheat flour (I can't help myself).

 Basic sweet muffins with shredded apple, cinnamon and nutmeg.

My trusty assistant.

Next project toddler-friendly granola bars.  Before I had Callah, when I knew everything about raising children, I was pretty darn sure my future child would not be a picky eater.  I knew for certain that all you had to do was expose said child to a variety of foods and they would eat anything!  So simple I shook my head in pity and exhasperation at all the dumb parents who didn't know this.

Sigh.  Currently we are going through a phase in which we have regressed and eat only baby food (pureed, preferably from a jar).   And snack foods.  Puffs, breakfast bars, cheerios, graham crackers, etc.  That said I make it my daily quest to cleverly force her to eat something outside her comfort zone.  Even if it's just a nibble.  I found and adapted a toddler bar recipe from Allrecipes.com (playgroup granola bars).  The base recipe is great, it's just got tons of sugar which is silly and a lot more oil than you need, especially if you like flat bars and not fluffy pretty ones!   My recipe goes a little something like this:

2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oat cereal (left over from when she was teensy-weensy, I am determined to use this up)
3/4 teaspon cinnamon
1/4 teaspon nutmeg
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup dried fruit (I had apricots on hand today) *
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup honey
1 egg
1/4 canola oil
1/4 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla

* I also threw in about 1/4 shredded apple, because I had it from my muffins) and a ripe apricot (because it was rotting on my counter)

 Ta da!! They were still cooking when Callah went down for her nap, but when she wakes up this will be her snack.  I have made them before using dried cranberries, but maybe used a little more sugar.  So this time I wrote down exactly what I did.  In my taste test they turned out really good, but like I said, they are not fluffy--more oil would help with this.

This afternoon we are going to hit up the downtown public library.  I wanted to do something with Callah to honor Martin Luther King Jr, so we will pick up a story about him and then do a simple craft project tomorrow morning on our day off.