Peanut butter | Made by Jayne

Honey and Peanut bars #rivercottagerocks

Posted by Jayne in Baking on June 22, 2012

My friend Charlotte is hosting a blog event this month called River Cottage Rocks on her blog Charlotte’s Kitchen Diary. To participate you simply make a recipe from one of the River Cottage books, following a theme, the theme this month was Baking Bliss. Baking is one of my favourite themes for any occasion so of course I wanted to participate! With the hope that summer will arrive here some time soon and the hope of fitting into my summer clothes I have a self-imposed a ban on cakes at the moment, not so good when taking part in a baking themed blogging event! Silly me! While perusing the many River Cottage recipes I came across these Honey and Peanut booster bars from the River Cottage Every Day book. Packed with oats, dried fruit, honey and peanut butter a more healthy than cake option I thought and even better I had all of the ingredients in my cupboard, I love it when a plan comes together!

The were incredibly simple to put together, melting some of the ingredients in a pan then adding the rest. When making them I thought there was a lot of sugar considering there is also honey in the recipe but I followed the recipe including raisins as my dried fruit as that’s all I had. With peanut butter already in the recipe I didn’t see it necessary to add more calories by way of nuts or seeds. I love granola and granola bars but the fat and calorie content often have me leaving these items well alone, sometimes you are better off just having the cake you were avoiding! Where the sugar was concerned I wish I had listened to my gut, these bars are incredibly sweet, I would recommend using at least 50 grams less sugar. There is also an option to use banana rather than peanut butter which I think I will try. Despite the sweetness they were very tasty and so easy to make. If you made the version with banana rather than peanut butter and avoided including any other nuts they would make a good kids school snack.

Honey and Peanut Booster Bars from River Cottage Everyday.

I didn’t change the recipe and just added raisins.

I would recommend adding less sugar

granola bar, healthier snack, Honey, Peanut butter

6 Comments

A Pie for Mikey

Posted by Jayne in Baking on August 21, 2011

While on holiday in Florida (with random wi-fi). I checked twitter for the first time after a few days of arriving and saw a tweet by food blogger @JenniferPerillo saying “he’s gone and my heart is shattered in a million pieces”. I went cold and just knew it was something about her husband who she lovingly refered to as “the mister” The awful fact was Jennifer’s husband, Mikey, had died suddenly of a massive heart attack. Jennie was one of the first real (non- celebrity) people I followed on twitter and I always enjoyed reading her loving tweets about the husband she so obviously adored. I do not know Jennie nor did I know her husband but my reaction was as if this had happened to a friend. While telling my husband I started crying and my husband (known for making fun of me when I cry at sad things on tv) did not make fun of me. I could not sleep for thinking of Jennie at night. A few days later I saw Jennie’s beautifully written blog post asking people to make Mikey’s favorite peanut butter pie on Friday (the day of Mikey’s memorial service) to share with those we love. Random wi-fi allowing whenever I checked on twitter so many people were making pie! Jennie’s terrible loss had affected so many people. The twitter foodie community was a heartwarming place to be last Friday and I do hope Jennie felt the waves of love.

I returned from my holiday yesterday and although its more than a week late, today my first job was to make a creamy peanut butter pie in honor of Mikey, the man I never met, who’s passing so touched my heart and also for his wife Jennie.

Jennie I wish you were closer so I could share this pie with you. You and your girls are in my thoughts.