Entries Tagged as 'granola'

Granola Bars

3

30.8.12

Like many mornings of late, I find myself struggling to roll out of bed, drowsy-eyed and yawning, at 8:30 – yes, I realize that this is pathetic, as most of my friends have to be in the office as early as 8 or 9 in the morning.

In my office, I’m not considered late until 10 AM. This is a wonderful thing. It means that, when I get to work in the morning, I’m awake and ready to work. My make up is done. My clothes are not wrinkled. My coffee is freshly homemade. My lunch is packed, my bills are paid, and my laundry is done. I don’t run for the bus, and I don’t have to send that daily email from my phone that gives a very vague idea of how late I might be – because, well, sometimes, you just don’t know (or care).

Overall, the 10 AM start time has made me very productive. That might also be the job change – it’s amazing what loving your job does for other parts of your life.

But with all the good comes challenges: new job excitement and this newfound recognition of talents, combined with being thrown into a major project, forced me into hyper productivity. I’ve only designed two infographics in my life, and one of them was retweeted by Barack Obama.

A girl can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed. So I’ve been gymming it like a madwoman, and spending a lot of time watching TrueBlood reruns in bed in my bathrobe.

A girl can’t complain. Life is good.

Homemade Granola Bars, adapted from The Sprouted Kitchen Cookbook

Ingredients
1 and 1/4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
3/4 cup honey
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup rice cereal
1 cup dried cherries

Instructions

Toast the the oats, almonds, and pecans. Sara calls for your to toast your nuts and oats in the oven, but I just toasted them in a cast iron skillet over my stove. If you combine all three ingredients in a skillet and toast them over medium heat, constantly stirring to make sure they don’t burn, that should work too. Let them cool completely.

Drop your oven heat down to 300 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the honey, water, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt. Whisk until evenly mixed. Then, combine the toasted oats, almonds, and pecans with the syrup mixture. Stir in your rice cereal and your dried cherries.

The mix should be rather sticky. Line two bread pans with greased foil and/or parchment paper.  I did this with foil, which didn’t peel off very easily, so I actually recommend parchment paper. I used the bread pans because they are the perfect width for individual granola bars, which makes for easier slicing once finished.

Pour half of the mixture into each pan, and with another piece of parchment, press down on the mixture to form a dense granola bar base, about one inch deep.

Bake at 300 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Once completely cooled, remove from the baking pans, slice into one-inch bars, and wrap in parchment paper for storage. The bars should last you about a week or so – but you could always freeze them to last longer.

3 comments categories: Easy

Gardening, Step One: Composting

1

17.4.11

Back when I was a teenager (and probably way cooler than I am now), my dad repeatedly forced me to observe his progress on the compost pile he started in our California backyard.  Naturally, I was beyond grossed out at the sight of the steaming five-foot mass of vegetable peels, raked leaves from our yard, and the months upon months of organic matter that we weren’t allowed to throw away in the regular trash can.  Depending on what Dad’s intentions were — sometimes it was to gross me out, but sometimes it was out of wholehearted pride from fostering sustainable matter in his own garden — I either rolled my eyes and laughed, or pretended to care for support.  I was soooo cool.
Fast-forward ten years.  I’m living in DC.  I just moved to a house with a yard.  I’ve never not neglected a live plant before.  And yet, for the past year or so, I’ve felt strangely guilty when I nudge fruit and vegetable matter in my sink’s garbage disposal.  Memories of odors, caused by tossing food in our aluminum trash can, strangely haunt my kitchen adventures, and usually with a grimace.  I dream that potato peels squeal out every time I threw them away in the trash: “Nooo!  We don’t belong here!”
That was a lie.  I don’t actually dream about that stuff.  But it’s kind of like how people feel about a lobster screaming as it plunges into a vat of boiling water. Thanks, Dad.  You planted this seed in my head ever so strategically, probably knowing that I’d eventually grow up and start a compost pile of my own.
What he did not know, was that I’d start a food blog, and eventually blog about it.  Or him!]
But still, I really do feel guilty by wasting food, and I have been wanting to start a garden. So I started a compost pile.  Yes, it’s true.  I am slowly turning into the person that I rolled my eyes at ten years ago.  But the cool thing about it is that I get to blog my garden’s progress, for all of you to read.  Hopefully, it will help motivate me to keep everything together.  The sunflowers, spinach, leeks, zucchini, and sugar snap peas are sprouting.  Hooray!
Enough with the photos of dirt.  This is our entryway bookshelf, and views of the flower collections that adorn our house during birthday season.
1 comment categories: Pretty

Almond and Honey Granola

7

02.10.10

I never realized how beautiful my balcony floor boards are.  Look!  That muted wood just turns out beautifully in photos.
Discovering new things in the house I’ve lived in for a year now is something I look forward to every time the seasons change.  The nutty aromas that seep through walls take me back exactly one year, when I was just moving into this house in Washington.  Some people say that smells hold the strongest memories.  It’s the one-year anniversary of moving in, so it seems natural that those smells are bringing me back… as the humidity recedes, the moisture in the house must be drying up, changing the character of the house itself.  It sounds, smells, and feels even more like the house I moved into last October, for reasons I can and can’t describe. Then the other morning, I walked to work, and actually grabbed a sweater (it feels like ages since I’ve been able to do that, outside of my trip to Bogotá).  Then I walked outside.  It was more than a crisp cardigan morning — I really should have grabbed a trench coat, which got me thinking about the pending fall.
Trench coats.  Boots.  Jeans.  Winter coats.  Snow!  Am I actually missing winter?  Yes, I am excited about summer’s end, because I thought I hated winter until I experienced a Washington summer.  In winter, I can go running and biking, and have the choice to spend my days and nights either inside or out.  Whereas during summer, I spent most of my time sweating in front of an air conditioner and dreading the thought of going outside, or even moving at all.  Not fun.
And with the cooler weather comes the ability to use my oven.  I mean, to actually use my oven.  The cookies and baked dinners are coming back to my blog, and my life — how I’ve missed them!  I did go through a summer of eating mostly raw vegetables, which worked wonders on my metabolism and overall demeanor, but that’s why I run in the winter anyway.  It was just too hot to cook these past few months.  But these days, a little warmth in the kitchen will take me a long way, and I know it will keep my house happy even on the dreariest of days towards February’s end and March’s beginning, which is another one of those other seasonal transitions that seems unnecessarily fickle, as if the Earth couldn’t decide if it wanted to be winter or spring, summer or fall.  The latter finds a way to win in the end.
Homemade Almond and Honey Granola
WHAT YOU NEED:
3 cups rolled oats (the same kind used for oatmeal raisin cookies)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/3 cup unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup raisins
WHAT TO DO:
Preheat your oven to 300 degrees, and line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the oats, almonds, and salt.  Melt the butter, and then pour both the butter and honey into the bowl with the dry ingredients.  Stir until the ingredients are mixed well; they’ll form little clusters.  Spread evenly onto the foiled cookie sheet, and bake in the oven for 30 minutes.  About halfway through, stir the granola around to ensure even baking — you’ll notice the oats on the edges starting to brown.  Towards the end of the 30 minutes, make sure to keep an eye on the granola, which can burn quickly at this time (and we don’t want to ruin a batch of perfectly good granola).
When it’s finished, make sure to spoon some warm granola in a bowl of milk or yogurt — there really isn’t anything like warm, fresh granola.  And it will leave your kitchen smelling wonderful.  I will never buy store-bought granola again.
7 comments categories: Easy, Sweet

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