First Course

Eating is highly underrated. It is something I enjoy, and do more often than any other activity that I like nearly as much. Why not take those multiple opportunities each day to have something enjoyable, and maybe even positively affect your world/community by making smart choices about it. I love food. I would like to give it the respect it deserves.

I am by no means an expert at any type of cooking, really. If anything though, I am a baker. It is what I enjoy most, and those are the recipes that I search through in the wee hours of the night. Perhaps it's the chemist in me. The measurements, visions of acid/base chemistry as I add calculated amounts of baking powder and baking soda. There is a certain comfort in precision. A clean toothpick inserted into a perfectly baked cupcake is so gloriously simple. Alternatively I could spend pages trying to explain the mouthfeel of a perfetly al dente pasta.

I suppose as part of this first post, I should explain what exactly I eat. In a word, everything. I like to think of myself as an ethically-minded omnivore. I try to be aware of the sources for everything I eat, and make choices that are both humane and environmentally responsible. I eat vegetarian more often than the average omnivore. That being said, I will gladly savour, on occasion, a perfectly medium-rare grass fed steak accompanied by nothing more than a heaping spoonful of horseradish.

As a reward for sitting through my long and wordy introductory post, I think I at least owe you a recipe. And for the first post on my first blog, why not begin with the first meal of the day. Breakfast of course. I managed to make this granola just yesterday in the midst of preparing a much more complicated set of recipes for cupcakes and buttercream. So you know it must be easy. Homemade granola is all kinds of easy, and really so much better than anything at the store. Hippies give granola a bad rap. It's even become it's own adjective. You know, that's so granola. In spite of this, I promise that you can enjoy the sweet, nutty, crunchy, subtly spicy hints of a few spoons of granola on all sorts of things (or by sneaky handfuls on its own) regardless of your tree-hugging status.



Basic Granola
Adapted from Lets Do... Organic

As far as granola goes, this is about as simple as it gets. Which is what make the delicious results that much more satisfying. It really only takes a little foresight to have the few necessary ingredients, a couple minutes to mix them together. Then just bake and enjoy!

Prep Time: <5 min.
Cook Time: 50 min. - 1 hr.

Ingredients:

3 cups oats (I ususally just use any NON-instant oatmeal)
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
3/4 cup sliced almonds
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup safflower oil
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 F, and grease a large cookie sheet.

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients together thoroughly until evenly coated. Spread mixture evenly on the greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 30 min. Stir, and then bake for another 20-30 min, or until granola is golden and no longer sticky.

Keeps well for a week or two in an airtight container. Honestly it's never lasted long enough for me to find out how long it takes to go bad. That said, I just bet that it would keep beautifully in the freezer if you're worried about it.