Granola Gifts

One of my gifts to some friends/family happened to be homemade granola. I have to say, I loved making this and it tasted amazing!!

  

After researching granola recipes I ended up creating my own. Most recipes I found were either too complicated or too many odd ingredients that I didn't have in our kitchen. So, here's my recipe:

Homemade Granola

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

2 cups sliced almonds

½ cup sunflower seeds

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp pumpkin spice

¾ cup wheat germ with cinnamon and flax seed

*Mix the above in a large bowl and set aside

½ cup melted butter

¾ cup honey

1 Tbsp vanilla

*Mix the above wet ingredients in a small bowl

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix well.

Pour the mixture onto baking sheet and bake for 10 min. Remove from oven and stir mixture around. Bake for another 8-10 min until light golden brown. Remove from oven and pour onto parchment paper to cool for 5-10 min.

Once cool, stir in dried fruit.

½ cup dried cherries

½ cup dried cranberries

½ cup dried blueberries

½ cup dried apricots

Makes about 5 cups. Enjoy!

You may know, from a prior post, I had created my own basil pesto and frozen it for later use in my meals. Well, I have an update for you.  I made my own pasta dinner with the frozen pesto and the meal received Beans approval :) It was a success!

Bowtie Pesto Pasta 

2 cups uncooked bowtie pasta
3/4 cup shredded turkey breast (used deli meat since I didn't have shredded on hand)
1/2 cup basil pesto (2-3 cubes frozen pesto)
1/2 cup chopped roasted red bell peppers
1 small can sliced black olives

*Cook and drain pasta as directed on pkg
*Mix hot cooked pasta, turkey, pesto and bell peppers in same saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until hot and pesto cubes are melted.
*Add olives and serve.

I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as my family and I have! Happy New Year and best wishes for a safe and healthy one!

Baby Food

So, I always thought I'd make my own baby food for my child. However, when the day came Bean was ready for baby food, I wasn't. I was still trying to figure out how to be a working mom (...sometimes I think I'm still trying to figure it out) so I felt my time was limited when it came to cooking extra food. I mean, I already had laundry, dinner, cleaning the kitchen and getting my child to bed before I could think about feeling exhausted. I had thought it was much easier to just go to the store and buy a jar of food for my child.

After about 4 months of baby food and realizing how much it was costing us, I thought to myself, not only will it save us a little money but I will know what is exactly going into my child's belly if I take a little extra time each week to make just one thing for her (plus, I know what I make her is made with lots of love). By doing this we can supplement the jarred baby food and/or solid table foods with some homemade baby food. I do have to say that jarred baby food is great for traveling and it's nice to buy the combination fruits or veggies for some variety.

I finally decided to started making my own baby food when the three of us went to the Downtown Farmer's Market a few weeks ago. I bought basil, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes. I bought enough butternut squash and sweat potatoes for baby food as well as a meal or two for our family. I ended up purchasing some basil to make homemade pesto. I figured while I was making baby food I might as well make pesto (what was I getting myself into).

That weekend, after the farmer's market, I baked the butternut squash, pureed it and poured it into ice cube tray's. This gave me cubes that are easy to store in a freezer bag. It also helps that I can just take 2 cubes out of the freezer, pop it in the microwave for a few seconds and, ta-da, it's ready!

After this great experience I thought, this was so easy! I actually had fun doing it so I thought I'd try pureeing up some breakfast food for Bean.

So, for about $6 I got a large bundle of bananas, a few pears, and two containers of raspberries. I already had organic plan yogurt at home that I'd planned to use for the breakfast purees as well. When I got home, I got started...

I started cutting up my bananas and pears, then added the plain yogurt. I blended it and poured the mixture into my ice cube trays. I still had an ice cube tray empty so I decide I'd make the raspberry puree next.

The raspberry puree had yogurt, berries and bananas. I leave my puree's a bit chunky since Bean is eating the stage 3 baby foods and doesn't need them so thinned down. It turned out good! I even made of of these puree's for myself this morning as 'breakfast' (I consider it a smoothy of sorts)!

I wish I would have started all this much earlier but, like I said, adjusting to being a mom is exhausting and so if you didn't, can't or haven't had the time to make your own baby food, don't feel bad. In my opinion, as long as your baby is getting the nutrition and love he/she needs, that's what matters :)

BTW, the pesto turned out great in the ice tray cubes and now I can use it for pasta dinners throughout the winter. I also had some fresh rosemary that I had growing through the summer. I ended up chopping it and storing it in the ice cube trays with some water for use of fresh herbs throughout the winter. Boy, I feel like I'm preparing for hibernation!

Perfect fall food

Cornbread!! Need I say more? I fell in love with this corn muffin recipe I found on the Food Network website. I did make a couple tweaks to the original recipe. but I found it to be pretty darn close to the muffins at Famous Daves - which are amazing! (Hubby thinks that comment is stretching it... but I obviously disagree)

Honey Cornbread Muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup 2% milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 stick butter, melted
• 1/2 cup honey

Directions 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Into a large bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the whole milk, eggs, butter, and honey. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.

Place muffin paper liners in a 12-cup muffin tin. Evenly divide the cornbread mixture into the papers. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden. 

Happy baking!!

New tastes

As you most likely are aware, I like trying new foods and experimenting with my tastebuds...especially when there's a healthy alternative. A couple recent recipes I tried include a Waldorf Salad and brownies. The healthy spin on these is the fact the Waldorf Salad is made without the mayo and the brownies are made with black beans.

Waldorf Salad: I can't say this complete recipe came from my noggin but I did combine a few different recipes so I suppose I could say this my own version of this salad.

1 McIntosh apple; cored and cubed
1 Granny Smith apple; cored and cubed
1 celery rib, sliced thin
2/3 cup packed fresh mint leaves; washed, dried and chopped
1/2 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup cran-raisins
1/4 cup walnuts (or pecans)
2 scallions, chopped
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
3 tablespoons fresh orange juice
Lettuce

1. Combine all ingredients into a large bowl and toss well. Serve over lettuce.

Verdict: Thumbs Up! I've made this twice already. It's such a colorful dish and has so much flavor!

Here's a photo of my little chef practicing her mixing skills while I was making the Waldorf Salad. What a cutie!!

Brownies: I over heard someone at work talking about black bean brownies so I did a little research and here's what I found:

1 can of black beans
1 box brownie mix

1. Drain and wash the black beans. Place the black beans back into the can and fill can with water.
2. Place water and beans into blender and blend until smooth.
3. In a medium bowl, mix together brownie mix and blended black beans. Pour into a greased pan and follow baking instructions on your brownie mix box.

Verdict: Thumbs down. Once I took a bite, the only thing I could taste was beans so I wasn't a big fan of this recipe. These are suppose to be healthy for you but since they don't satisfy my tastebuds, I don't think I'll be making these again unless I can find a recipe that doesn't make these taste like beans. Thoughts anyone?