Homemade Granola

I have never been able to find a brand of purchased granola that I like.  Either they have too much sugar, too much salt (Why would you put salt in granola anyway?), bad for you oils or GM ingredients (plus assorted other nasty stuff) ...

YUCK!

So ... after perusing multiple recipes I came up with my own ...

Ingredients:
1) 4 Cups Oatmeal (Bob's Red Mill Extra Thick)
2) 1/4 cup Brown Sugar (organic)
3) 1/4 cup Honey (local from the Farmer's Market in Shelton)
4) 3/4 cup Sliced Almonds
5) 1/2 cup Sunflower Kernels
6) 2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
7) 2 tsp Pure vanilla Extract (unfortunately not my homemade ... it's not ready yet)
8) 1/4 cup Coconut Oil (Mountain Rose Organic)
9) 1/2 cup Golden Raisins
10) 1/2 cup Dried Date Pieces (Bob's Red Mill)
11) 1/2 cup Dried cranberries
12) 1/2 cup Dried Apple Bits (Bob's Red Mill)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Place ingredients 1 - 7 in a large bowl.

Scoop out the coconut oil (which is semi-solid at room temperature), place in a small glass bowl an microwave for one minute on the defrost setting (Careful!  It melts quickly!)

A little bit is still unmelted ... it won't hurt anything ...

Add the coconut oil to the ingredients in the bowl and mix well.  (NOTE!  Do not add the dried fruit yet ... it gets mixed in AFTER the cereal is cooked.  If you add it now it will all become hard as rocks ... ask me how I know this )

Spread the cereal mix on a large baking tray lined with foil.  Bake for 10 minutes.

Stir and turn the cereal and bake for 5 more minutes ... check the cereal again and if it is a nice  golden brown it is done.  You might want to stir it again and bake for 5 more minutes.

Oops!  I let mine bake an extra 5 minutes (a total of 25 minutes ... 20 would have been enough) ... it got just a little too crispy around the edges.  The rest is fine though.

Allow the granola to cool and then mix in the dried fruit.

This is my favorite way of serving it ... over a bowl of my homemade vanilla bean yogurt and drizzled with a little organic agave nectar ... *bliss*

Enjoy!

The Cheese Stands Alone ....

I have a confession to make.  I am addicted to Pinterest.  I love the quick, generous sharing of ideas and interests.  I recently clicked on a pin of a freezer full of carefully stacked and labeled packages ... I was doomed!  I found a whole series of pins about make-ahead and freezer meals and tracked them back to their blogs and web sites.  Now I am in the process of filling my freezer ... not just with healthy, organic, No GMO whole foods, but also with already prepared foods that I can thaw and cook up in hardly any time at all.  Today I'm planning to make lasagna rolls.  The first step is the homemade ricotta cheese.

I made my first batch of ricotta following this recipe at Smitten Kitchen.  It was good, but I didn't care for the strong lemon flavor and it was a little too salty.  Today I altered the recipe a bit ...

4 cups whole, organic milk
1/4 tsp sea salt
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Line a colander with several layers of damp cheesecloth and set it over a large bowl.  Pour the milk into a nonreactive pan (stainless or glass; no aluminum) and stir in the salt.  Heat over medium high to 190 degrees stirring occasionally to keep the milk from scorching.

Remove the pan from the heat and add the lemon juice, stirring once or twice very slowly and very gently. It will look like this as the curds and whey start to separate ...

 Let the pan sit undisturbed for 10 minutes.  Pour the curds and whey into the colander and allow the whey to drain into the bowl for about an hour (save the whey ... it's great for making bread!).

After about an hour it will look like this ...

... and you can transfer it to a container and refrigerate ...

It turned out well, but still with a distinct lemon flavor.  Hmmm ... my eyes focused on my bottle of Garlic Scape infused white wine vinegar ... hmmm ...lemon = acid ... vinegar = acid ... why not?

I made this batch a little richer, replacing 1 cup of the milk with organic half and half.  OMG!  This isn't going into the lasagna ... there won't be enough left ... toasted baguette drizzled with olive oil, Garlic Scape Ricotta, roasted red pepper and Kalamata olives ... heaven!

So much for plans ... I'll make the lasagna next time ...

Enjoy!