Instead of my evening bowl of ice cream, tonight I am eating homemade granola with Michigan blueberries and almonds and raisins and organic milk. Mmmm, it is ever good!
I had enough of the hail and rain and storms and broken garden plants this morning. I couldn't do anything about most of the weather stuff, so I decided to go shopping.
First, though, I did some laundry. That always helps bring a sense of accomplishment to a day. If nothing else, the laundry gets done. Then I made some granola.
Now our family has some very smart cooks in it. My niece Kelsey is one of them. She shared her granola recipe several years back. I promptly lost track of the recipe, but recently got her to share it within the family again.
Kelsey's recipe starts with 5 cups of oatmeal, some wheat germ, coconut, and nuts. She makes a mixture of oil, brown sugar, molasses, honey, vanilla and cinnamon. That mixture is stirred into the dry ingredients and then spread out on parchment paper. Of course, I had to substitute maple syrup for molasses and honey. I'm not a cinnamon-in-granola fan, so I left that out.
Oven temperature is 300 degrees, no more. This is a low and slow method of making granola. I used the convection setting on my oven and then (remember, it was a shopping day!) I left the granola in the warm oven with the door closed. My mother, Val Hayes, Kelsey's grandma, always made schaum tortes that way. You baked them in a real low oven, turned off the heat, and walked away.
Well, Kelsey Rose got some of her baking smarts from Vallanee Rose. The granola is great, just the thing to cap off a day where, you guessed it, it rained again!
Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler
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