Cranberry-Walnut Power Bars

We're always on the lookout for good portable snacks, especially something that can give us a little afternoon energy. Last month (in Food & Wine, I think), I spotted a recipe for cranberry-walnut power bars from Heidi Swanson. They were, as with a lot of things I've been cooking lately, extraordinarily simple. And they should be just as easy to manipulate next time we make them.

First came the dry ingredients. These included cranberries, toasted walnuts, oat bran, rolled oats, puffed Kashi cereal, and diced crystallized ginger. Next, I boiled brown rice syrup with vanilla. When the syrup was hot enough, I pulled it off the stovetop and poured it over the dry ingredients.

After stirring to incorporate everything, I pressed the mix into a greased 9" x 13" Pyrex pan. (If you try making your own power bars, make sure you press down hard at this step so you'll have firm, chewy bars that will hold together nicely.) They cooled for about 45 minutes. I cut the whole batch into about 16 bars and wrapped each individually in plastic wrap to keep them fresh. We stored the bars in some Tupperware and ate a few as snacks when we weren't sick from the flu.

I'm already planning to make these again, possibly with chocolate chips and soy nuts or dates and figs. I suspect you could make two half-size batches of dry ingredients and have two flavors of granola bars at the same time.

Black-Eyed Pea Dip with Toasted Pita

We rang in 2007 with black-eyed peas, bacon and collard greens for lunch. Black-eyed peas, eaten before noon on New Year's Day, are considered good luck.

I had quite a bit of leftover beans and decided today to make a dip with them. I served them with oven-toasted pita chips. Perhaps we'll wrest a little more luck out of this year, yet.

Black-Eyed Pea Dip
Drop two cloves of garlic in the food processor, pulsing until they're finely chopped. Then add about two cups of black-eyed peas (if you're using canned peas, rinse and drain them first. Better yet, use freshly cooked peas. They're so inexpensive!) and process until creamy. Add one teaspoon of natural peanut butter, the juice of one small lemon, and salt, pepper and Tabasco to taste.

Toasted Pita
Cut pita rounds into triangles. Spray the bottom of a jelly roll pan with nonstick spray, then arrange the pita triangles on a single layer in the pan. Brush the tops of the pita with a lightly beaten egg white (I suppose you could also use more cooking spray) and bake them in a 450-degree oven for about five minutes. If need be, crank the oven to broil for the last minute or so.


We ate it with Escarole and Fennel Salad with Pears and Gruyere and called it lunch.