Remember how I told you I'm in school again? One of the great benefits of studying nutrition is it keeps you motivated and accountable. I'm over-the-top excited about preparing dishes made with whole foods. Really. I go to bed at night surrounded by books (it's true, just ask hubby) and wake up in the morning ready to get in the kitchen and experiment. My journey to optimal health is definitely moving to the next level.
In an effort to keep processed foods on the grocery shelf instead of in my pantry, I've been dabbling with a few things to keep on hand for snacking. So far I've tried two granola recipes, modifying slightly when we were missing an ingredient.
I chose to try the first recipe because it was sweetened with honey and didn't call for oil. I added raisins and gogi berries and thought it was perfect when smothered in almond milk. In our opinion it's not the reach-your-hand-in-the-jar-and-eat-a-handful kind of granola, but it made for many delicious breakfasts (and a few snacks too).
The second recipe uses olive oil and is sweetened with maple syrup. It calls for almonds, cashews, and pecans (we were out of pecans so we used pepitas). After cooking, we threw in some naturally sweetened cranberries. The flavor of this granola is very nice, and it's been great for snacking when we just need a little something crunchy. The granola jar's getting low, and Hubby casually mentioned it might be time to make another batch. That's huge progress people.
I'm finding once you get the basics down you really can't go wrong. Eventually, I expect we'll come up with our own signature recipe and I think it might include some dried blueberries. I love blueberries. Perhaps a savory granola might be nice too. I've got some beautiful rosemary in the garden..........................
