I’ve been thinking about making granola for about a month now. Before I lived with Aaron I would never have the stuff in my house because it’s addictive and I’d eat bowls and bowls of it instead of nutritious things or just other things in general. However, since we live together now, I’ve been buying Aaron granola because he likes to make parfaits in the morning. It’s kind of expensive to buy so I finally decided to try to make it myself.
I made muesli a few weeks ago and this is pretty much the same thing but coated in sugar and baked. mmm.
I found a recipe from Cooking Light magazine and just changed up a few of the ingredients. My adaptation is below. I would say cook for only a total of about 20 minutes because I left mine in for 25 and it tastes a little burnt.
That will not stop me from eating it though.
Power Granola!
Adapted from MyRecipes – original here
Yields 2 large mason jars + 1/4 cup
Ingredients:
4 cups oats
2/3 cup chopped pecans
2/3 cup chopped slivered almonds
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2/3 cup orange juice
1/3 honey
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 teaspoons canola oil
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Cooking spray
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup raisins
Preheat oven to 300°.
Combine first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl.
Combine orange juice, honey, maple syrup and brown sugar in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat just until sugar dissolves, stirring frequently. Remove from heat; stir in oil and vanilla.
Pour honey mixture over oat mixture, stirring to coat. Spread mixture in a thin layer onto 2 jelly-roll pans coated with cooking spray. Bake at 300° for 10 minutes; stir well. Bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Spoon granola into a bowl; stir in dried cranberries and raisins. Cool completely.
Note: Store completely cooled granola in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.
I love mason jars! (Our wedding centerpieces were in them!)
I also made a crustless quiche for dinner Monday night. It was yellow squash/onion/red bell pepper and goat cheese with 4 eggs and egg whites. I’ve made it twice now and pretty much made up the recipe as I went along. I think I’m going to write it down though and post it when I post about the brunch that we had this past weekend.
It’s THAT good. Or maybe it’s just the goat cheese. Aaron and I are loving goat cheese lately.
I also made a completely random soup last night (Wednesday) for dinner. It was supposed to be cabbage soup but I forgot the cabbage until it was pretty much done cooking so I just tossed a bit in until wilted at the very end. Basically, I just wanted to use our awesome new dutch oven.
It’s beautiful and red and weighs a million pounds.
The soup contained
- 2 sweet potatoes
- a few carrots from my coworker’s son’s garden
- an onion
- can of kidney beans
- diced tomatoes
- vegetable broth
- cabbage from the farmer’s market
- GARLIC, salt and pepper
It was pretty delicious, served with leftover cornbread and quiche:
And since I had TONS of cabbage leftover, I made a mayonnaise-less cole slaw.
It contained:
- cabbage
- shredded carrot
- apple cider vinegar
- honey
- salt & pepper
- plain Greek yogurt
- raisins
All together:
A whole lot of fiber in that meal…
Alright off to eat broccoli and yogurt with tons of granola for dinner then watch Glee!
