Family Chow Hall

I just love making these cookies and an added bonus — there is very little guilt involved with eating them!

Not much more than an over-baked glob of pie meringue, containing no fat or cholesterol, and only a bit of sugar, Meringues can satisfy that urge for a treat without ruining your diet.

Last weekend, we made some of these - a few for us and a few to share, and I was experimenting a bit so we added some mint extract and broken up chocolate bits. Delicious!

Mint Chocolate Chip Meringues
makes 2 dozen

3 large egg whites, room temperature is best
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. cream of tartar
1/2 t. peppermint extract
3/4 c. sugar
1/2 c. broken or chopped semi-sweet chocolate

To start with, set the oven to 225 degrees (that’s correct, not a typo - really low heat for this) and line two cookie sheets with foil.

Next, separate the eggs and discard the yolks or set them aside for something else, like noodles. I’m not a great noodle maker, so mine generally get tossed. Drop the whites into a medium-sized bowl. (No yolks allowed - if you get a bit of yolk mixed in with the whites, you have to start over, this recipe will NOT work with yolks, even a tiny bit.) Add the salt and cream of tartar. You will have to get out your mixer and go to town beating those egg whites up. Beat and beat and beat them - on high. They will turn white and fluffy, but keep on beating until they form peaks when you pull the beaters out.

Now it’s time for the sugar and mint — add the mint, but just a little sugar at a time, and lower the speed on your mixer to medium. Once all of the sugar is added, your meringue will be smooth, fluffy, and glossy. Gorgeous. Slow the mixer way down and fold in the chocolate bits.

Great - now plop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheets. Bake these at 225 for 1 1/2 hours. (Again, not a typo - an hour and a half.) No peeking! They might fall if you do. The final result should be a slightly browned, crispy, airy meringue cookie.

ENJOY!

After buying Nature Valley Granola bars with a coupon, I decided to try making my own homemade version of those delicious treats. With a family of seven, a dozen granola bars does not last long at all. For us, it’s really not worth spending the $4 to get 2 boxes of granola bars that will last less than a day.

Somewhere between a Payday candy bar and a whole grain granola bar, Nature Valley’s Sweet and Salty bars are the latest bar on the market and they are GOOD. I could not resist buying a few ingredients and heading to the kitchen… After you read the recipe, keep scrolling for a cost comparison…

Sweet and Salty Bars
makes 40 bars (a darn sight more than the 6 that come in a box)

4 c. crisped rice cereal
3 c. oats
1 c. crushed graham crackers
2 c. cashews or peanuts, coarsely chopped
1 c. sweetened condensed milk
1/2 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 t. vanilla
2 c. peanut butter OR butterscotch baking chips, or a combination of both

First, heat the oven to 275 degrees and put the oats on a jelly roll pan to toast. It should take about ten minutes, just let them begin to turn golden brown. Leave the oven on, since you will be using it again soon.

Next, combine the oats, crisp rice cereal, graham crackers, and nuts in a large bowl. Set this aside. In a saucepan, heat the sweetened condensed milk and butter and let it begin to bubble. Add the brown sugar and stir until it is completely dissolved. Then add the vanilla and stir well. Pour this gooey mixture over the cereal combination and stir well, tossing with a rubber spatula.

Press tightly into a greased jelly roll pan. Using a sheet of aluminum foil can be helpful for this, just lay it on top and press down with all your might. Remove the foil. Then, sprinkle the baking chips over the top and return to the oven for 10 minutes to let the chips melt. Remove from the oven and spread the melted chips over the granola as if you were frosting a cake. Cool in the freezer or refrigerator.

Cut into bars and wrap in foil or plastic wrap.

(To simplify this recipe, toss the baking chips into the mixture along with the cereals and nuts. Then you can eliminate the final step of returning it all to the oven and spreading the melted chips.)

Cost comparison; the amounts below reflect my estimate for the cost of each ingredient, the amount used in this recipe:

Crisped rice — $.50
oats — .$50
graham crackers — $.25
cashews — $2.00
sweetened condensed milk — $1.00
butter — $.50
brown sugar — $.50
vanilla — $.05
baking chips — $2.00

Total cost of 40 homemade bars — $7.30 equals $.18 per bar
total cost of 40 boxed bars (with coupon) — $13.33 equals .$33 per bar

Can something as simple - and tasty - as coconut help sufferers of IBS? (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) This is what I’d heard, and a quick google search confirmed - that some people with IBS have found that eating just two Archway macaroon cookies each day helps control their symptoms (diarrhea).

We had to put this to the test, and - by golly - it really does seem to help. Some folks say it is the coconut oil, others claim it is the soluble fiber. Who cares - coconut is yummy and I think it’s not a hardship to eat a couple of coconut cookies every day.

This morning, my ten-year-old tried the recipe for macaroons that is printed on the back of the coconut package. I’ve decided to call them meringues, since they really are a meringue cookie with coconut added. Macaroons, I believe, have flour, eggs, etc., like a sugar cookie. These were so easy for her to make, all I did was separate the eggs. She probably could have done that, too, but they were my last two eggs, so we didn’t take any chances.

Coconut Meringues
makes 2 dozen or so

2 egg whites
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
dash of salt
2/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 c. sweetened coconut flakes

Heat your oven to 325.

Whip the egg whites, vanilla, and salt until stiff, white peaks form. This takes awhile, as any experienced meringue-maker knows — be patient, it WILL happen. Next, slowly add the sugar - a little at a time, while still beating. The mixture will remain stiff and become glossy. When all the sugar has been added, turn off the mixer and gently fold in the coconut.

Grease a cookie sheet and plop spoonfuls of your mixture on it. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes. Let cool before removing from cookie sheet.

Enjoy!