Leftover Cranberry Sauce?

Got leftover cranberry sauce?  If so, make these cranberry crumble bars.  Super easy and quite a big hit at the Thanksgiving party we went to in Jakarta...  they went slowly at first, but at the end of the party, as we were leaving, I had at least 6 people pull me over and tell me they were awesome.  Pretty ringing endorsement.

I used this cranberry crumble bar recipe from the November issue of Martha Stewart Living, which conveniently arrived here in Jakarta the day before Thanksgiving.  The recipe looked pretty easy and delicious, but I had to make a few changes out of necessity:

• First, a 9"x13" pan doesn't fit in my mini oven, so I decided to switch up the pans.  I went with my removeable bottom tart pan so I would end up with pie-shaped bars... I split the dough recipe into 2 and made 2 tarts, each cooked for 30 minutes. 
• I probably used 1 and a half cans of cranberry sauce between the 2 tarts, though.  
• Also, I substituted toasted, slivered almonds for the walnuts, which I couldn't find for some reason (the Real Martha thinks there is a walnut shortage of some sort this year- she says prices of walnuts have skyrocketed of late).

 

Pumpkin Bars with White Chocolate Chunks

Even though "fall" isn't really a thing here in Jakarta, I am still craving fall foods... pumpkin, kale, apples, cranberries, etc.  Sadly, only some of those things are available here (haven't seen kale or cranberries yet, but I am hoping some pop up in the grocery store soon!).  Luckily, pumpkins are available, both fresh (in the form of kabocha squash) and in canned form.  

Needing a dessert for a BBQ we were invited to, I made these pumpkin bars with white chocolate chunks using the canned pumpkin I bought (although I switched out the white sugar for brown).  Quite easy to make, quite tasty, and quite a big hit at the BBQ, but texturally they didn't turn out quite as I had hoped they would.  They were billed as blondies, which in my mind indicates that they should be dense and brownie-like, but these were much cakier than expected.  Not sure how to fix that, but also not sure it needs fixing, as these were pretty popular as is. 

Belated Birthday Magic Bars

Tim's birthday was last Saturday, but I didn't get around to baking something sweet in honor of his 32nd until Sunday. And we were hungover. So basically we ended up with whatever I could easily make with goodies out of the cabinet.
Ta da: Magic bars! A perennial favorite...

Blueberry Pie Bars

I had 2 pints of blueberries in the fridge and Chuck and Tony brought back a third one... so blueberry pie bars it was!

The photo of blackberry pie bars on Joy the Baker looked really good, so I figured I would try replacing the blackberries with some of our many blueberries.

I halved the recipe, because none of us really needs a 13"x9" pan worth of baked good. I used a 9"x9" pan. Because that 4 extra inches of baked good was really putting this over the top.

Eat these slightly warm. Mmmm.