I have always had a love/hate relationship with granola. You see, I love to eat granola, but I am often put off by the extremely high-fat, high calorie granola that comes with the itty bitty service size. Some different brands of granola I have tried have as much as 10-12 grams of fat per serving. I love chocolate far too much to be wasting those fat calories on granola so I passed on granola for ages, until now.
I feel like the skies cleared once I started making this recipe. It is so flipping good. One of the main things I love about this recipe is how versatile it is. The base includes oats, crisp rice cereal, coconut oil and either maple syrup or maple flavored agave syrup (I am sure that honey would taste delicious here as well.) All the other ingredients can be included, excluded and/or swapped out based on what you have on hand. I included chia seeds and hemp harts in this granola recipe due to their nutritional benefits. However, if you don’t have those ingredients, by all means leave one or both of them out. Same goes for the almonds. You may also notice that I have excluded dry fruit from this recipe. I did this because I actually prefer to enjoy this granola with fresh fruit and I find dried fruit to be extremely calorie dense and overly sweet.
Whew! That is one long title for a recipe! However, I will tell you that all elements are so amazingly delicious and really make the dish go from really good to crazy good so bear with me on this. I have previously blogged about how I love a one pot meal and one of the main reasons I love meals like this is because I can re-heat them and often times these one-pot wonders actually taste better when they are served reheated. This chili recipe definitely falls into that category.
I hate going on vacation only to find that I didn’t pack enough of something or hate what I packed. On a recent trip to Hawaii I found that not only did I not pack enough bathing suit coverups, but the ones that I did pack – I hated. While on vacation I am very zen so I didn’t stress and made what I had work, however now that I am home, I am on a cover-up mission.
I have a couple of tips regarding purchasing cover-ups that I wanted to share with you. First, I do not like spending a lot of money on these pieces. Generally I am swimming, wet and drenched in sunscreen. These items are used, abused, thrown on the ground, the beach – you get the idea. Also, when purchasing cover-ups I look under casual dresses. The second thing I wanted to touch on is to keep an eye open for the fabric. I love terry coverups as they mimic wearing a towel and are very absorbent. I have been hard pressed to find any cute terry coverups recently though so if you find any cute ones, by all means, please share.
I love the look of a perfectly manicured nail. The ironic thing is that in the past I have rarely take the time to do my nails. It is a horrible habit and one that I am embarrassed to admit. Between doing extremely mundane household chores, washing my hands constantly and the fact that I just tend to be very hard on my nails I have found that the only thing worse than unpainted nails is chipping nail polish.
I have made a resolution to either have a manicure more frequently or to take the time to give my own nails a mini manicure of their own. With the whole nail polish chipping problem I do have one work around that seems to work for me. Enter the nude, baby pink nail polish. I love the subtle, girliness that these colors provide as well as a less noticeable look when my nails actually do begin to chip.
My oldest son loves to cook and I love his love of cooking. Between football and lacrosse, he is very busy, but always finds time to watch one of the many cooking shows that is regularly on in the background.
One weekend morning we were watching “The Kitchen” and the Sandwich King, Jeff Mauro made Fried Ravioli. My son was intrigued and became insistent that he make a batch. Since we have recently gone gluten free I purchased a package of Three Bridges 3 Cheese Ravioli, with hopes that the ravioli would be tasty. Normally fried ravioli consists of flour and breadcrumbs, however I decided to use rice flour in place of the flour and toasted breadcrumbs from several slices of Udi’s bread and we were good to go. Aside from helping out with the ingredients my son made these all on his own. I am so proud of him in general, but this is just another example of his creative and fun personality that is always up to try something new.
