Homemade Granola

My daughter loves granola and eats it with fruit and yogurt every morning. A couple of weeks ago my husband suggested I try making it. He thought I would enjoy the challenge and the savings! However the bonus for me was knowing exactly what went into something my family eats every day. I love to play around with recipes so I found one I liked and got started. Whenever I adjust recipes I usually only change one thing at a time. So for the first run on this recipe I substituted the vegetable oil with coconut oil. I have completely eliminated vegetable oil from our diet so it was an obvious choice. This is the adapted recipe after one try, my changes in red:

Granola
Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown

Ingredients:

• 3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup slivered almonds
• 1 cup cashews
• 3/4 cup shredded sweet coconut
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil -- substituted with 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup raisins

Directions
Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. In a large bowl, combine the oats, nuts, coconut, and brown sugar. In a separate bowl, combine maple syrup, oil and salt. Combine both mixtures and pour onto 2 sheet pans. Cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes to achieve an even color. -- baked for an extra 20 minutes to ahcieve a deeper color & crunch

Remove from oven and transfer into a large bowl. Add raisins and mix until evenly distributed.

We really liked it but found it a bit sweet so here are some planned changes for future batches:

- switch out the maple syrup with agave nectar. This link talks about using agave nectar in recipes.
- decrease the brown sugar
- substitute shredded coconut with unsweetened variety
What I just described is the process I use to adapt a recipe to our tastes. I believe in feeding my family as well as possible and one way I achieve this is by making the things we like as healthy as possible without compromising the flavor.

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you'll try this recipe, let me know what you think!

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Valentine's Cookies

These cookies are not only beautiful, they are also delicious! The recipe I used explains that they are copies of the soft cookies found in grocery stores. I think they are much better than those!


They are soft, buttery and the icing adds the right amount of sweetness. Find the recipe from Annie's Eats: here. Please make these soon, I know you'll love them!
And lastly a peak at our crafts from this afternoon. My daughter and I made a mailbox to hold all her valentines. It is due tomorrow and she told me it was her favorite homework for Kindergarten, much more fun the math! Ha! I think she takes after her mommy, crafts over math always! We also worked on the valentines she will hand out in school. As you can see she is still obsessed with owls, they read "I'll owl-ways be your friend!" They were easy for her to make and she had fun! Inspiration can be found here: Mailbox & Owl Valentines.

Thank you so much for stopping by and may you have a wonderful Valentines Day!

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