Hey folks. Sorry for the unseemly lack of posts; since I last posted I’ve stopped teaching fitness classes and started back to work full time (outside the home) and have been swamped with a daily routine of schlepping my eldest to school with the twins in tow, picking up the hubby each morning after he finishes teaching an early morning anatomy class, catapulting myself to the office, and then racing back home for dinner time, and collapsing after extracting my remaining drops of energy while kicking and punching my way through an hour of my mom’s Turbo Jam DVDs (love it!!).

Peanut butter and chocolate: it’s a match made in candyland heaven, no? Yes. Perhaps the simplest and most enduring commercial manifestation of this tasty pairing is in Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups,  a peanut butter-filled chocolate candy created way back in 1928 by Harry Burnett Reese, a former dairy farmer and shipping foreman to Milton S. Hershey (yes, that Hershey).

A friend recently asked me how I choose what to make on my adventures in baking. Well, occasionally I whip up family favorites or requests, often I play around with tastes and textures in baking experiments, and sometimes there are recipes for desserts and confections that have long been on my “to bake” list. And then — increasingly as my baking prowess swells — there are those fresh and boxed treats that I come across in my daily trips to local food shops and down grocery store aisles when I taste and peer at the item, inspect the food’s list of ingredients and say to myself: “I can make that… and without all those nasty preservatives and unpronounceables, at a fraction of the cost.” And so I was inspired to make biscotti…

Danishes are one of those ultra impressive pastries that will have your guests rushing the brunch buffet table, and licking their fingers for more. So, when I was set with the task of bringing the starring (sweet) attraction to a family brunch over the holidays, I though I’d try my hand at a simplified version of this elaborate treat.

We’re a few days into 2011, and it’s back to the grindstone. After a season of ultra rich, fatty and sugary foods, and lots of festive cheer, most of us are ready to turn a perennial new leaf of increased activity and healthier foods. As a nod to these well-intentioned resolutions — and an inclination to bake some healthy, tasty, high fiber snacks for my family — I’ve whipped up a batch of these delicious, nut-free granola bars.