I love my job as a freelance food writer and consultant. It has given me various different opportunities and pushed me to learn more and excel in my passion of cooking and food. All of these opportunities have also allowed me to not only grow in my career but grow as a person too.
One thing that I am heavily involved with in the city I live is an after school cooking class for kids. I help teach, develop the lesson plans and recipes. I love being involved with these classes because my first career choice and path in college was teaching. I decided not to go into teaching because after spending several hours in the classroom I realized that most of the teachers and students were burnt out by all the standardized testing requirements. I did not want to be in this position so I left to pursue my other passion, cooking.
These cooking classes are fun for both me and the kids, not stiff and boring as their regular schooling is. These kids learn a lot from me and I learn a lot from them. Like learning to think fast!
The recipe below was originally supposed to be granola ‘bars.’ But since kids do better when they can do things hands on, I let the kids press these granola bars into muffin tins. This created the perfect size portion in cute and fun cupcake form (which also resulted in happy kids)!
Lunchbox Granola Cupcakes
Printable Version
Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 5 minutes Wait Time: 30 minutes Makes 12 “cupcakes”
1⁄2 cup honey
1⁄2 cup peanut butter
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1 Tablespoon canola Oil
1⁄4 cup brown sugar
1⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups oats
1 1/2 cups brown rice or fiber cereal (ex: Fiber One and/or Whole Wheat Chex)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
In a small saucepan over low heat, combine the first 8 ingredients and simmer for 5-7 minutes or until warmed through.
In a mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients.
Add peanut butter mixture to oat mixture and fold to combine.
Spray muffin tin with non-stick spray. Press granola mixture into muffin tin and chill for 30 minutes before serving.
adapted from Cook Learn Grows
