Warm Sweet Potato Salad

Warm Sweet Potato Salad

This was gooooo-oood.  And it was destiny, I think, because when I found this recipe online I was able to say, "Oooh, got that...have that...yes...can make that, have that."

Here's the rundown:
Salad:

• sweet potatoes, roasted with cumin, ginger, and rosemary
• toasted pumpkin seeds
• dried cranberries
• roasted peppers
• scallions (or just thinly sliced onions)

Dressing:

• balsamic vinegar
• mango chutney
• dijon mustard
• garlic
• honey
• olive oil

Here's the link: Warm Sweet Potato Salad
I did a couple of things differently - but not too much:

• I used dried rosemary instead of fresh, so I only used about 1.5 tablespoons.
• I didn't have roasted red pepper, but I did have some of those little sweet peppers, so I just sliced a few and threw those on one end of the pan in which I roasted the potatoes (but took them out earlier than the potatoes, of course).
• I didn't have mango chutney, but I did have mangoes, so I briefly sautéed those with some onions, butter, a little brown sugar, lime juice (my mango needed more tang), and a pinch of salt....viola!...chutney.
• And I didn't have scallions, so my plan was to thinly slice some onions, but my chutney turned out plenty onion-y, so I didn't add any more.
• And the green stuff on top is fresh parsley...just for prettiness.

Snack Bars.

Homemade Snack Bars

Since Mark doesn't always feel like eating breakfast at 5 something in the morning before work, he likes to stick a Fiber One bar in his pocket so that he doesn't totally fizzle out before getting to eat lunch.  So after buying a couple of boxes of them at Sam's the other day (we now have 40something bars in our cabinet), I started to wonder if it would be easy to make something like them at home.  Without all of those weird additives and such.

I figured if I found a good recipe for the stuff that makes it all stick together, then we already had some decent ingredients in our kitchen that would make for a pretty good snack bar.

I used this Homemade Granola Bar recipe for reference.

I think you could pretty much use whatever crunchy or chewy nutty/fruity/cereal-ish goodness tickles your fancy; just make the total amt. of dry ingredients add up to about 4.5 - 5 cups

Here's what I used in mine:

• Organic Cheerio-like cereal (This particular brand I had bought tasted like cardboard, so I thought this would be a perfect way to get rid of it!)
• Chopped Pecans
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Oatmeal
• I added 1/2 cup of Flax Seed after toasting

Pecans, Pumpkin Seeds, Oatmeal, Cereal, Flax Seed

And for the "glue that holds it all together" I followed the recipe directions except....

• I left out the vanilla extract
• I used 1/3 cup honey and 1/3 cup peanut butter
• I used half the amt. of Brown sugar  (it was already very sweet!)

And then, because my original idea was to make them Peanut Butter and Chocolate Flavored, I dipped the bottoms in a thin layer of melted chocolate

Mark likes 'em!  These were so simple, and I think it will be fun to make various flavors with whatever kinds of ingredients we like!