Pinterest Test Kitchen: Crock Pot Failures, Soup Is Fine and Oatmeal Bars Extraordinaire

Ah, Pinterest recipes –

I have not forgotten you.

Me and Pinterest recipes have still been hanging out like the old chums we are.

I just haven’t had the time to take cute photos of the food we’ve been crafting together.

Also – there’s been a few flops of late from my Cook This board and that’s always a tad discouraging.

Let me just get the flops out of the way first.

Well – there was that one night I thought it’d be wise and clever to put breakfast in the crock pot with this apple oatmeal crock pot concoction.

All we got out of this was wasted apples, gooey oatmeal mush and burned and encrusted apple goo on the sides of my crock pot that are still soaking one week later.

(One week later people.  I even tried using the garden hose with the forceful sprayer accessory to crack the burned muck off.  No luck.  It’s wasteful to throw away a crock pot – right?  Oh – and when I say I used a garden hose, it’s nice of you to think I am embellishing.  I am not.)

Hmm.

There was the lentil soup.

It was fine.

Not – let’s make this again great – but not  – let’s throw away the crock pot bad.

Just fine.

Adequate.

(I didn’t have sausage so I added beef so who knows if sausage would have been the winner.)

I made this white chicken chili the next day.

It was pretty tasty actually.

And, surprisingly, when I poured the leftovers from the lentil soup and the leftovers from the white chicken chili together in a big pot the following day for lunch – everyone liked the soup just fine.

See?

I told you Pinterest and I have still been chums.

But the real victor of all of last week’s trials and errors and moderate successes were these bad boys –

Chocolate Oat Bars.

I’ve been faithfully staying away from my once beloved m&m’s so I replaced those little magical bites with a substitute magical bite – chocolate covered sunflower seeds.

(I also made sure to use Ghiradehli chocolate chips.  I think you can taste the difference.  But I might be a chocolate snob.)

And let me tell you —

these bars were delicious.

Rich.  Fudgy.  Bar-y.  Crunchy.

Good good stuff.

As soon as they came out of the oven and were warm and gooey, Hannah and I tried a couple of spoonfuls.

(And you needed a spoon because they were too gooey to cut right then.)

Man, had we some ice cream with that gooey warm chocolate-ness?

Fuh-get-about-it!

The next day the bars were perfectly cut-able and were a super satisfying co-op after-lunch treat.

So.

In conclusion –

1.  I will not be attempting the apple oatmeal thing again.

2.  I might be shopping for a new crock pot.  Don’t judge.

3.  If my crock pot ever recovers, I actually would like a reliable overnight oatmeal breakfast. (So please share if you have one.)

4.  I am fully aware that the flop could entirely be my fault and not the fault of the recipe.  Maybe I cooked it too long.  Who knows?

5.  I know lentils are good for you but I’m not sure when I’ll purchase them again.  I feel mostly neutral about them.

6.  If you come over to my house for dinner soon, it is rather likely that the oatmeal bars will be your dessert.