Preparing for Hospitality

I am on the Hospitality team at my church.  This means that every couple months I get to prepare about 60-75 servings of a breakfast item for the church members to snack on before the service begins.  For this week's hospitality I decided to make two items.  One was definitely going to be an old favorite, "Playgroup Granola Bars" from allrecipes.com.  I had a couple zucchinis in the fridge so for my second item I thought I would break out my Aunt Deb's Zucchini Bread recipe.

Below is the "Playground Granola Bars" recipe.  (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/playgroup-granola-bars)

Although I have recently not been doing super great at Weight Watchers, I often like to substitute oil and sugar for applesauce and agave nectar whenever I can because they are less points on the Weight Watchers scale.  I have made these bars both ways and they are tasty whichever way you prefer!   When I made them yesterday, I found that they only needed about 20 minutes to bake instead of the 30-35 minutes listed in the directions.  I can't remember if this is a normal occurrence when making these bars or if I just had my oven up too high.  Matt has given this recipe a consistent 4.5 out of 5 chicken wings every time I make it. 

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Playgroup Granola Bars

2 cups oats (instant or rolled)

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup wheat germ

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup raisins (optional)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup honey

1 egg, beaten

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Generously grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

2.  In a large bowl, mix together the oats, brown sugar, wheat germ, cinnamon, flour, raisins, and salt.  Make a well in the center, and pour in the honey, egg, oil, and vanilla.  Mix well using your hands.  Pat the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.

3.  Bake for 30 to 35 minutes in the preheated oven, until the bars begin to turn golden at the edges.  Cool for 5 minutes, then cut into bars while still warm.  Do not allow the bars to cool completely before cutting, or they will be too hard to cut.

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Here is a picture of the final result!

I am including my aunt's Zucchini Bread recipe in this post as well.  Sorry there is not a photo.  I forgot to take any pictures of the process and the actual muffins because I made them late last night.  Oh, and the original recipe is called Zucchini Bread, you read that correctly.  I realized after looking for bread pans around 10:15pm last night, we don't actually have any.  Therefore, in a quick decision making moment, I made muffins instead!  Changing the Zucchini Bread into Zucchini Muffins ended up changing the bake time from about 60-75 minutes down to 20-25 minutes.  That was definitely a nice surprise at that time of night!  

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Deb's Zucchini Bread (or Muffins if you don't have any bread pans)

3 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup oil

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups raw, grated zucchini

1 cup nuts, chopped pecans

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease 2 bread loaf-sized pans. 

2.  Beat eggs add sugar and oil.  Add remainder of ingredients.  Bake for 60-75 minutes.

3.  Enjoy!

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I will let everyone know that although I love both of these recipes, everyone at church seemed to really like both of these recipes too.  Wes, a longtime friend, actually turned to me during the service and asked if I knew who made the Zucchini Muffins.  When I said I had, he said they were soooo good (which is a lot of emotion coming from Wes) and that I needed to bring more of them to small group on Monday night.  Thanks Aunt Deb!  I appreciate your help in keeping/making friends.