Granola Bar Irony and Other Nonsense

For those who asked, I used Alton Brown's granola bar recipe, found here: Alton Brown's Granola Bar Recipe on Foodnetwork.com. My add-ins were pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, dried blueberries, dried cherries and chocolate chips (which melted but I still stand by that choice).

I love these granola bars. Mr. Geeky likes them. The kids won't eat them. Heh.

Flashback to my childhood: My devoted mother almost never bought convenience foods. We rarely ate out. So my sister asked for "storebought" (i.e. Wonderesque fluff with pseudo-crust) bread for her birthday. At school I'd trade the homemade chocolate chip cookies for twinkies.

Lest anyone think I am crunchier-than-thou, I thought the rest of today's blog would begin my confession:

I prefer processed peanut butter over the "natural" kind. I have tried to cultivate a more "refined" preference, but I just hate the whole experience with natural pb. I hate how the oil on the top splashes out when I'm trying to stir it up and gets everything all greasy. I hate how it has to be stored in the fridge and is then so rock hard it tears up the bread and won't stick to celery. For the last several years I've bought the natural kind because I felt I should like it. Well I don't like it. When I was at the grocery store, last week, I bought Skippy and since then I've been stuffing the natural pb chunks chipped out of that last jar into the dog's Kong... but it turns out she doesn't like it either. I'm going to have to wash the peanut butter brick out of the dog's chew toy. Go figure.

I will pay extra for organic dairy products but I just can't spend the money required for organic/free-range meats. We are eating more vegetarian meals. Punctuated by fast food about once per week. And not high quality fast food, either. The kids love Mickey D's. I feel guilty about sending all those stupid happy meal toys to the landfill, but I throw them away anyway, when I'm pretty sure the kids won't miss them.

I won't cook or bake for myself. If Mr. Geeky won't be eating with us or if I'm by myself I will neither cook nor go out. I will eat one of those meals that comes packed in a little plastic tray. FYI - Ethnic Gourmet's Chicken Masala with curried brown rice and peas is actually quite good. Anyone looking through my trash would call my foodie bluff and I'd have to admit that I'm as lazy as anyone else. But then I'd totally tease them about digging through my trash, so it would all work out in the end.