M&M Chocolate Chippers

Another snow day in northern Illinois. The news is calling this extreme winter weather "Santa's Revenge." Maybe that's why I still feel like making cookies post-December? On this particular day indoors, my daughters and I settled on a variation of what I affectionately call, "Mommy's Super Terrific Chocolate Chip Cookies." The girls thought we needed a little more color to offset the endless white snow, which I just witnessed my littlest one eating from a bucket (let's hope it was white...oh, she dumped out the bucket, bad sign.). So we added colored M&Ms and made them a bit smaller than usual. We ended up with 60 happy little cookies we call M&M Chocolate Chippers.

Homemade Granola in 10 Minutes or Less!

I absolutely LOVE granola. Obsessively. But store-bought granola is expensive, loaded with calories and often loaded with ingredients (some mysterious) that I don't particularly want every single time I eat it. The homemade granola recipes I have come across are great but always time consuming. And the ingredient list is so long I would go broke stocking the pantry! Last night I tried making a low-impact, small-batch amount of granola using just four ingredients and 10 minutes of baking time. The result was complete success!!! Try this....

GRANOLA (low fat and gluten free!)

1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
2 tablespoons shredded coconut
1 scant tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients together in a bowl using a spoon at first, then your fingers as it will get sticky! Spread out oat mixture onto a small sheet pan, spreading evenly. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, checking on it after 5 to mix it up a bit and to make sure it is not toasting too quickly. Let cool to room temperature where it will crisp up. YUM!