Granola

I've been wanting to try making granola. I love granola but all the good granolas are fried and bathed in sugar. This morning I decided to make my own. I found a recipe for vanilla scented granola on epicurious. As always, I didn't really follow the recipe, but it provided me a good base to start from. The recipe I came up with still has quite a bit of sugar but I'm hoping it has less then the average store bought brands. I tried to make it healthy by making some substitutions. I used a small amount of olive oil instead of butter or vegetable oil. I significantly lowered the white and brown sugars and used blackstrap molasses instead of honey. Blackstrap molasses is still loaded with sugar, but it is full of iron, calcium, and potassium making it significantly more nutritious then white sugar. Blackstrap molasses is also a fantastic natural energy booster.

Plain Organic Granola

2 c. organic oats
1/4 c . organic brown sugar
1/8 c. organic olive oil
1/8 c. organic blackstrap molasses
1 tbsp. organic sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
a couple dashes of cinnamon
dash of salt

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet in tin foil and spray with olive oil spray. Mix together oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt together. Combine olive oil, molasses, and sugar in a small skillet. Briefly simmer over low heat. Stir constantly until it begins to bubble (you don't want the mixture to be too hot, a little bit of heat is enough to help the ingredients mix together.) Remove mixture from heat and add vanilla. Add mixture to the oat mixture and mix together with hands until oats are evenly coated.
Spread mixture onto cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Stir. Bake for 20 more minutes. Allow granola to cool.

This granola turned out okay. It isn't fabulous but I think it has potential. Mike tried it and thought it was a bit too sweet. I don't know if I agree, but I think next time I will decrease the brown sugar and add a bit more molasses. I like my granola really clumpy, and this one isn't very clumpy. This granola would be better as a sprinkling on yogurt then it would as a bowl of granola for cereal. I would also love to add almond slices or raisin's.
I will say that i keep sneaking into the kitchen to eat a little more. It's addicting. The molasses gives it an excellent flavor. This recipe needs a some tweaking, but I think it has potential and it is definitely is a healthier and nutritious alternative to store bought granola's.

Good Morning!

This is my idea of a "good morning." Acai bowls are just as delicious as they are healthy. Acai has the most antioxidants of any fruit and is filled with Omega 3's, protein, and fiber. I first had an acai bowl at Cafe Brazil in Santa Cruz, sometimes i would wake up craving acai bowls and head straight to Cafe Brazil. In March of 2005, Mike and I went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with his family. I started each morning with an acai smoothie from the local fruit stand. YUM! When I came home from Brazil I happened upon this fabulous product at my local health food store.

Now I make my own Acai bowls.

1 pack of unsweetened acai
1 scoop of soy base *
1/4 c. soy milk (you can use regular milk or apple juice)
3 strawberries, sliced
handful of blueberries
1/2 banana, sliced
granola**
I throw all these together and use my immersion blender to blend it all together, a regular blender would also work. Then I put it into a bowl and sprinkle some granola on top.

*I make my own soy base in my ice cream maker. I mix 2 cups of soy milk, 1 tsp of vanilla, sprinkle of vanilla bean, & 2 TBSP splenda (or sugar)... then i throw it in the ice cream maker for 25 minutes. Then I freeze it and use it in these smoothies. I do have a problem keeping the creamy consistency after I freeze it. It becomes a solid block. If anyone has any solutions to this problem, let me know. I end up having to microwaving the soy base for 30 seconds to make it soft enough to scoop.

You can also use a store bought soy vanilla ice cream, or regular vanilla frozen yogurt, if you don't want to make your own soy base. You can also opt not to use soy base at all, the acai will just be more liquidly and more like a drink.

**I use Trader Joe's vanilla almond granola...but I've really been wanting to make my own granola one of these days. If anybody has ever made their own granola, i would love a good low-fat granola recipe.