• Two More For You

    June 27, 2008

    Writing one granola recipe made me realize that there are two more granola recipes I must share with you (this reminds me of If You Give A Mouse A Cookie—one thing leads to another and another and another). The granola recipe I gave you last time is our most basic, no-frills recipe. I especially like to have it around in the summer time because it’s a great base to which we can add all the fresh fruits that make their way into our kitchen. But during the winter I like to make what I call Fancy Granola, and then, for a treat, I’ll sometimes make French Chocolate Granola.

    Fancy Granola
    This is called “Kris’s Granola” on my recipe card because my friend Kris gave me the recipe. The recipe below is hers, with a few of my changes. Don’t be afraid to change it around yourself. Make it your own. Granola encourages creativity, so don’t be shy.

    18-20 cups rolled oats
    3 cups raw sunflower seeds
    2 cups almonds, ground in the blender
    2 tablespoons, and then some, if you wish, cinnamon
    1/3 cup blackstrap molasses
    1 1/4 cup maple syrup
    1 ½ cup canola oil

    Mix the dry ingredients together in a big bowl. Put the wet ingredients in a saucepan and heat until warm and well-mixed. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry, and stir well. Spread the mixture on two large ungreased cookie sheets that have sides and roast at 275 degrees for three to four hours.

    After the granola has cooled, add two to three cups of chopped nuts (English walnuts, pecans, almonds) and about three cups, or more, of dried fruit (raisins, craisins, dried cherries, dried blueberries, dates, etc.). Store in large glass jars.

    French Chocolate Granola
    From Orangette’s blog

    At first I was turned off by this recipe. I’m not one who likes my granola sweet, especially not with chocolate. Those little containers of store-bought yogurt with an additional see-through topper of granola and chocolate chip mix-ins makes me wanna gag. Granola is supposed to be wholesome and fortifying, not a dessert food. But then I made this recipe and about died and went to heaven. Then I called up a handful of my friends and insisted that they make it, RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE. Several of them did, most likely in a desperate attempt to get me off their backs, though I choose to think it’s because they know I have fantastic food sense.

    Always double the recipe. In a twelve-hour period my family ate all but one cup of a double batch: bowls of it for a bedtime snack and bowls of it for breakfast the following morning.

    3 cups rolled oats
    ½ cup raw almonds, chopped
    ½ cup coconut
    2 tablespoons white sugar
    pinch of salt
    6 tablespoons honey
    2 tablespoons canola oil
    ½ cup finely chopped bittersweet chocolate (I use the mini-est chocolate chips I can find)

    Mix the dry ingredients, all but the chocolate, in a large bowl. Heat the oil and honey in a saucepan till warm and then mix with the dry ingredients. Spread in an ungreased cookie sheet that has sides and bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes till golden and crunchy. (When I think it’s done enough, I turn the oven off and let it cool in there—it gets crunchier without getting too brown.) When it’s totally cool, stir in the chocolate bits, and store in a large glass jar.

    Read More

  • Odd Sleeping Configurations a la Miss Becca Boo

    June 27, 2008

    My daughter apparently has some issues when it comes to sleeping. What could this mean? She’s terrified of letting go? She’s scared of the dark? She likes to sleep in corners? She likes to be warm? Really warm? We might want to warn her future hubby because I imagine this could become a pretty big issue between them.


    She’s in there. If you look hard you’ll see a tuft of hair sticking out of the blankets.


    What does she think she is—a nun or something?

    Read More

  • Brown Bread

    June 27, 2008

    This is my catch-all bread recipe. I like to clean out my fridge and cupboard, adding the lumpy cream of wheat from last week’s breakfast, maybe the dregs of the molasses jar, the last bit of cornmeal from the bag, or, ooh—those sesame seeds would certainly add a nice crunch. And so on. Sometimes I make it earthy and dark with lots of freshly ground wheat, and other times, for a special treat, I use mostly white flour. Be creative with shaping the dough, too. Make sweet rolls or buns. Dust the tops of the loaves with seeds or oats. If you have a loaf that flops, tear it up to make bread crumbs. And then try it again. The whole process should take about six hours, from start to finish, especially now that it’s so toasty warm outside.


    Brown Bread

    Put 1 cup of warm water and 3 T. of yeast with a pinch of sugar in a smallish bowl. Mix and let sit till foamy (5-15 minutes).

    In a large bowl:

    ½ c. fat (butter, oil, etc.)
    1 c. sweetener (white or brown sugar, honey, molasses, etc)
    2 T. salt
    a mixture of about 3-5 cups of whole grains (oats, cracked wheat, cornmeal, rye, spelt, flax seed, leftover cooked cereal, whatever strikes your fancy—this is the fun part, but don’t overdo it or your bread can get heavy and crumbly)

    Pour five cups of boiling water (you may also use milk, or whey from cheese making) over the mixture, stir, and let sit until lukewarm. Add the yeast mixture. Add several more cups of whole wheat flour and then enough bread flour to make a knead-able dough. Knead till satiny and elastic, adding more white flour when it gets sticky. Flour the dirty bread bowl and plop the dough into it. Sprinkle more flour overtop. Cover with a towel and let sit till double.

    Cut the dough into four pieces and shape into loaves. Place in greased bread pans and let rise until nearly double. Gracefully slip the loaves into the oven, which has been already heated to 350 degrees, and bake for 25-35 minutes, or until the bottoms are golden brown and sound hollow when tapped. Dump the loaves out on a cooling rack or a cut-open brown paper bag, and, if you want, you can put the loaf pans away without washing them.


    To store the loaves, wait until they are completely cool, then bag and freeze them. But definitely keep one loaf out to eat for supper.

    Read More