I wanted to share a link to a recipe I've made twice this month, applesauce-raisin bar cookies. The recipe is technically for applesauce cookies, but I added about 1/2 cup of raisins. Doesn't it look like there are raisins in the photo at the website?
If you have an inexpensive source of applesauce, these are very budget-friendly. They call for just 1/4 cup of butter, whereas most cookie recipes that use butter call for about 1/2 cup. These sweet and spicy bars are a soft cookie. The frosting, as made by the recipe,. will use another 3 tablespoons butter. However, I made 2/3 of the frosting recipe, using 2 tablespoons of butter, and we liked them a lot that way. So, in total, I used 3/8 cup of butter, still less than most of my cookie recipes.
I also think they're a healthier cookie than many recipes, with just 2/3 cup of added sugar and applesauce and raisins for additional sweetness. The rest of the ingredients include 1 egg, flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. For the pumpkin pie spice, I used a combination of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg, totaling just over a teaspoon (we like to taste the spices).
The recipe suggests cutting the pan of cookie bars into 20 servings. I cut mine into 24 bars. Mine baked in under 25 minutes. So I'd suggest setting the timer for 20 minutes and checking at that point.
If you try these, let me know what you think.
And for the carrot top pesto --
I made it this morning, doing a large enough batch to have some for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow (a little autumn picnic scheduled). It turned out really delicious. I didn't have any basil, so I just used oodles of carrot tops, almonds, garlic, olive oil, salt, lemon juice and just a little water to get the right consistency. It's very tasty. I added this and that until the flavor was just right. I will say, pesto is an excellent way to use up a lot of carrot leaves. I'm down to about one more recipe of some sort and I will have finished off all of this year's carrot tops. I highly recommend making a pesto with carrot greens for the gardeners on here.
Wishing you all a lovely weekend. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to our friends in Canada! 🦃
Mmm, those cookie bars look delicious. The pesto is probably healthier, but I find it hard to resist a good cookie. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Kris,
DeleteThese cookies have been popular in my house. It looks like I'll be making a third batch this week! I think it's on the healthier side for a cookie. The recipe could also be made with canned pumpkin in place of the applesauce and whole wheat flour for some added nutrients.
I'm with Kris. I find it hard to resist a good cookie and I think it would be hard to resist those. The picture looks more cake-like than cookie like. Is that what they are like? They remind me of the Spanish Bar Cakes we used to get at A&P. I made pesto yesterday with some of our basil. I'll be making more when I get get more ingredients.
ReplyDeleteHi Live and Learn,
DeleteYes, they're cake-like. By the end of the pan (about 3 or 4 days after baking), they firm up (I guess you could call it going stale). But these are soft, cake-like cookies., much thinner than cake, though. I've never heard of Spanish Bar Cakes. I'll have to look those up.
I made more carrot leaf pesto today. Tonight I tossed cooked pasta with pesto and diced tomato. It was delicious! This batch of pesto had Parmesan added to it. So the pasta dish was a tiny but cheesy. I hope you get more ingredients soon for your next batch of pesto!
Yum to both recipes! I myself have long been wanting to try carrot top pesto. It's such a quandary though.... in my area of the midwest we are experiencing an invasion of Poison Hemlock, a plant within the carrot family that when sprouting looks very similar to carrot, and smells very similar to carrot, but is actually highly poisonous, even lethal, when ingested. (It's what killed Socrates). Poison Hemlock is spreading like wildfire in my part of the country right now. We purchased bulk compost from a local garden center several years ago not realizing it was contaminated with hemlock seed -- now I have to be very careful indeed when planting carrots to make certain what's coming up actually IS carrot and not the nasty hemlock (just this past spring I was nurturing a pretty green seedling I initially assumed was a carrot volunteer from an unsuccessful seeding the season before, only to realize over time that nope, it was Poison Hemlock). Needless to say Poison Hemlock Pesto is probably a very bad idea lol....!
ReplyDeleteYikes! That sounds dreadful. Is there any risk to touching the hemlock plant, or just eating it? I'm with you, I wouldn't be using any carrot leaves from the garden either. Will the hemlock seeds die out in the soil with time? Good luck with this.
DeleteDid you know that you can use other greens to make pesto? I'm hoping to make nasturtium leaf pesto next week, and some radish leaf pesto in late October or early November.
Yes, Hemlock sap that gets on the skin can make the skin extremely photo-sensitive to the sun, leading to bad burns. I read in the paper a few years back about a guy in the next county who used his riding lawnmower to mow over a big patch, not aware of the risk -- the mowing made the sap go airborne exposing him and he ended up with severe blistering sunburn that landed him in the hospital (though he survived). And yes for sure, we love pesto of all kinds and radish and other greens (like garlic mustard)-- especially in early spring before the basil has started to really kick in
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