L’arte D’arrangiarsi

From Italian, L’arte d’arrangiarsi means the art of getting by or the art of making something out of nothing. To be able to open up the cupboards and/or the fridge and pull together something to eat with whatever ingredients are found is a skill. I am trying to teach myself that skill. I think I have established that I’m an ingredient hoarder so I really should not have a hard time piecing something together.

I’ve been dying to use up a jar of apple butter – a highly concentrated version of apple sauce – for ages. And this night, I was able to make a main and a dessert incorporating this ingredient.

I’ll begin with the dessert because as I write this, the main is still in the oven and not quite ready to be unveiled. Using just a few ingredients – all found in my cupboard – I made some apple butter oatmeal squares.

In a bowl, the oatmeal, apple blueberry granola, sugar, pumpkin spice and butter is mixed until crumbly.

Then half of the oatmeal mixture is pressed into a prepared pan and the apple butter spread on top. The rest of the oatmeal goes over the apple butter and into the oven.

30 minutes later we have squares!

The apple butter is a little tart in taste but the sugar and granola brings a nice sweet contrast. The texture is crunchy, but the middle layer is moist and soft. A really easy and quick treat to make. =)

White Chocolate Gingerbread Blondies

Gingerbread and the holidays go hand in hand. This weekend, I tried out a white chocolate gingerbread blondie recipe.

It began by coarsely chopping some white chocolate.

The dry ingredients included flour, salt, baking powder and spices. I ended up just using pumpkin spice because I had it on hand.

Then I mixed butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla together.

In went the dry ingredient and then all the white chocolate.

The dough was very sticky and thick. I lined a 17×11 inch baking sheet with parchment and spread the batter onto it.

About 25 minutes later, I had the following:

Golden, soft and chewy. White chocolate morsels that are following up with a little kick of ginger and clove. The smell that wafted in the air was divine. I think these will go over well at work tomorrow. =)

A Wicked Craving…

…for pecan tarts. But I had no pecans. I had a look in the cupboard and saw I had walnuts. Hmmm, I would make do.

Instead of tarts, I decided on making squares. It was just quicker. I started with making the crust. Flour, brown sugar and butter – mixed together until crumbly and then pressed into the square pan.