Homemade Granola

I am trying to shy away from processed foods as much as possible. It is not so much a calories thing, or a refusal to eat junk food thing, it is just not knowing what I am putting in my body and what the TRUE ingredients are.

I am not above chips, crackers, easy grab-and-go snacks by any means, but I want as much as possible to make from scratch any foods that I can and have time for.

Today I whipped up a batch of granola, and let me tell you it was super easy and worth it!

So yummy!

Maybe the granola at the store has truck loads of sugar and salt, I don't really know, but I know for a fact mine doesn't, and that is comforting in a way! To know exactly what I am eating is freeing.

Granola is one of those things you can dress up any way you like, but mine is simple and to the point.

Ingredients

4 cups rolled old fashion oats

2 cups sliced almonds

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup honey
optional: dried fruit or raisins

Prep: 5-10 mins

Bake: 45 mins

Add coconut, dried fruit, cashews, raisins, etc if you want!

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

Measure oats and dump in a large bowl

Chop and measure almonds and toss them into the bowl with the oats

In a small bowl combine the oil and honey and whisk together

to make things easier, I dumped my oat and almond mixture into a gallow sized freezer bag and poured the honey and oil on top.

Seal the bag and shake and roll it until all the oats and almonds are coated.

Spread granola out onto a cookie sheet and place in the oven

set timer for 30 - 45 mins (depending on how hot your oven cooks) and bake until oats are golden brown. Stir or flip granola occasionally with a spatula.

Place granola in an airtight container or in a tupperware. One down side of non-processed foods is that they don't last super long, but I will take that over not knowing what I am putting in my body any day! It just means more time to try new recipes and constantly having different snacks in your home!

YUM!

And March's cooking theme is...

All things cupcake and muffin. YUM. This is a selfish pick because I love myself a good cupcake.

I say cupcake and muffin...but really this will be the only muffin post. The rest will be cupcakes. 

Also they will come out on Sundays, as I would not want to waste a cupcake and Sunday morning bible study is the perfect time to make them disappear (all those hungry guys...ya feel me?)

Triple Berry Muffins

In case you haven't noticed, I rarely stick to a recipe and usually make up my own...this is no exception.

1. 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
4. 1/4 teaspoon salt
5. 2 eggs, lightly beaten
6. 1 cup milk 
7. 1/4 cup melted butter
8. 1/2 cup-1 cup frozen mixed berries (I used Trader Joe's Berry Medley)

Preheat oven to 400*.In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. in a small bowl combine milk, eggs, and melted butter. Create a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the liquids in the middle of the well. Add berries and GENTLY fold dough until it is JUST combined. Stir too much and your muffin with be too dense. And nobody likes a dense muffin.

Line a cupcake tin with cupcake papers and spoon a good sized amount of dough into each cup. Cook for 20-24 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Enjoy!

 I'm sorry there are no pictures for the actual process, but I didn't think about blogging this until after the fact and all I had was artsy shots of the batter and uncooked dough.

Love.

Love, Sav

What the crock?! Beef Stew

 Welcome to "What the crock?!" Tuesdays. Tonight I am going to share a delicious beef stew made in the crock pot. Greg was so anxious and excited about the new crock pot that when I showed up to pick him up for work this morning (yes, we work together too...) the stew was already done and had been slow cooking all night. Soo...so much for dinners done when you get home, we had to take the cold stew and heat up in the microwave tonight, oh well. Next time I'm crocking.

The cover looked so tasty we decided to start there!

Ingredients

6 medium yukon gold or red potatoes, quartered

4 medium carrots cut into 1 inch lengths

3 medium onions, quartered

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 to 3 pounds beef chuck, fat trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces (I literally used "beef for stew")

2 tbs olive oil

1 1/2 beef broth

2 tsp dried thyme leaves

2 cups frozen peas

2 cups frozen corn, defrosted

Method

Combine potatoes, onions, carrots 1 tsp of salt and 1/2 tsp of pepper into a 5-7 quart insert of a slow cooker and toss the veggies all around to evenly distribute seasonings

Add 2 tsps salt, 1 tsp pepper and the flour to a large ziplock bag and stir to combine. Add the beef to the flour mixture, seal the bag and shake to coat meat in flour.

Heat olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add the meat and brown on all sides, then transfer browned meat to slow cooker with the veggies.

Add the beef broth to the skillet and swish it around until the pan is deglazed. Transfer the broth into the slow cooker and add the thyme. Cover and cook for 8 hours on low until meat is tender.

Add the peas and corn and cook for an additional 1 hour. Season as needed with more salt and pepper.

Enjoy your winter time comfort food!

Greg getting his de-glaze on

Salt disaster

Crock pot of love.

Love, Sav

New Features!

I have a couple new features comin' atcha in the next couple of weeks! My wonderful BF just bought a crockpot cookbook because he was just given one by my parent's when they got a new one. (They didn't think to maybe, I dunno...give it to their DAUGHTER!) ; )

So for the rest of winter, until March 1st I will be having "What in the Crock?! Tuesdays" with recipes for  everything from Beef Stew (tomorrow) to pumpkin butter. I'll think of a new cooking series for Spring.

Another feature I am having will be DIY projects once a week. I have been pretty sporadic with DIY projects, throwing them all out at once, but now I can just hit you with one a week. So follow me every Thursday if you are interested in handmade goodies! From practical to decorative, I'll do it all!

Love, Sav