Vegan Coffee Rolls

I've been on an eggless/vegan kick recently. Honestly the idea of eggs is freaking me out slightly. I never really enjoyed making or eating eggs, but now I'm more inclined to bake without them than with them if I can.

We have a family recipe for Coffee Rolls, that is similar to this recipe. However I wanted to work with a separate recipe than my families, because I wanted these rolls to not be a vegan version of something great, I wanted this recipe to be great on its own.

Vegan Coffee Rolls
prep time:  3 1/2 hours
cook time: 15 minutes
oven temp: 400 degrees
yeilds: 35 coffee rolls

1 package dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1 cup soy milk (I used light soy because that is what I had.)
3 cups flour plus 1/4 cup flour for kneading
1/4 cup earth promise vegan butter
3 Tbsp sugar**
1 Tbsp ground flax seeds
3 Tbsp water
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 Tbsp earth promise vegan butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

 It does say that this recipe will take 3 1/2 hours from start to finish, and yes that is true but a lot of it is resting and rising time. This recipe is not as intense as it seems from first look. So I'd definitely recommend trying it.

Dissolve the entire package of dry yeast in warm water, then add the soy milk and stir. Add 1 cup of flour to the yeast and soy milk mixture-you are making a yeast sponge. Let sit for 30 minutes.

Cream the vegan butter, and sugar. Microwave the flax seeds with the 3 Tbsp water for 30 seconds until it forms a gummy texture. Add the flax seeds to the creamed butter and sugar, stir in the salt. 

Once the yeast sponge has sat for 30 minutes mix in the vegan butter, sugar and flax seed mixture. Add 2 additional cups of flour to make the dough soft. Turn out onto your kneading surface. I needed an extra 1/4 cup of flour to get my dough to the correct consistency, but just work your dough slowly until it is soft and no longer sticky.

Place the dough into a greased bowl, and put in a warmed oven, let the dough rise for about an hour. The oven should not be on. You can warm the oven prior to placing the bowl in by having the oven on 100 degrees for about 5 minutes. The dough should about double in size.

While the dough is rising you want to make the filling. Fork the 1/2 Tbsp vegan butter, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. It will end up being the consistency of sand.

Punch the dough down, and let it rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Roll out the dough into a rectangle, should be about 12 inches by 18 inches. Spread the cinnamon mixture over the entire surface. Roll the dough tightly. Cut into about inch width pieces and place into a greased muffin pan. Let the rolls rise in the muffin tin for another hour.  

Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until golden brown. Let sit in the muffin tins for a few minutes then turn out onto cooling racks, and let cool.

**Please note that if you are making this recipe for someone who is vegan you should either check with them on if they eat refined sugar, or buy vegan sugar.

Recipe variations: The coffee rolls that my mom makes have raisins in the filling, so if you like raisins you could always add this to the filling. I prepared half the recipe without raisins and half with. I added 1/8 cup of raisins to the filling ingredients. You can also top these rolls with icing, but I don't think they need that extra sweetness.

Be careful, as you can see above. One of mine stayed in the oven for a minute or two too long, and these ended up going down the drain. The caramelizing of the sugar and cinnamon creates this sticky goodness, but it will burn if you leave the rolls in too long.

I really liked these coffee rolls, just enough sweetness paired with the yeast dough, makes them perfect for a snack or breakfast.

Whipping Cream Coffee Cake

I finally found a solution to what to do with extra Whipping Cream. Make a coffee cake with it!

I originally bought whipping cream to make Abby's No-Bake bars. If you like making homemade whipped cream, you are in luck for what to do with the extra whipping cream, but if you are like me, the left over carton was sitting in the refrigerator waiting to go past the date so I could throw it away. And that seemed like a complete waste.


I scoured the internet searching and searching for something to make with the whipping cream. Finally I found a simple cake recipe that seemed too good to be true, but very plain. I figured nothing terrible would happen if I added some flavor to the cake. I assumed by looking that the ingredients that the texture of the cake was going to be somewhat light and fluffy like a pound cake but also be creamy both because of the whipping cream, and this would be a great coffee cake base. I added a filling and miraculously it all worked out. This is a great solution to the left over whipping just sitting in your refrigerator waiting to get old. This cake might even be a reason to go out a buy whipping cream it is that good!

The only change I would make next time I make this cake is that I would make 1 and 1/2 of the cake recipe to fill the 8 inch loaf pan better. The original recipe is below. As you can see from the pictures it came out a bit too thin. You could also double the recipe and use a bunt pan.


Whipping Cream Coffee Cake

Cake

1/2 cup whipping cream
1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 minus 1 Tbsp all purpose flour

Filling

1/2 cup toasted walnuts
1 1/2 Tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 Tbsp cocoa powder

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Pour the whipping cream into a bowl and with an electric mixer beat until it is fluffy. Add the egg and continue beating. Once combined add the vanilla and the sugar to the whipping cream mixture, and beat. Once the sugar and the vanilla are combined in the mixture you want to take off the whisk attachment on your mixer and fold in the dry ingredients. This is important so the air that you beat into the whipping cream, stays and the cake will rise.


Combine the filling ingredients in a small bowl and stir to combine.

Place half of the cake mixture into a greased 8 inch loaf pan. Sprinkle the filling mixture over the top then cover the filing with the rest of the batter. Please not you may not use all the filling, just coat the batter with a thin layer.


Place in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest and cool for about 30 minutes before releasing from the pan.


Serve and enjoy!

Did Someone Order an Egg and Cheese on Toast?

Sunday morning, it comes around every week without fail. This Sunday morning was Mother's Day, so I needed to make something that was quick and easy to shuffle Ben off to spend the day with his Mother, and so I could get ready for our family festivities. I remember that my dad loved these egg sandwiches my mom always made and thought it would be easy enough to recreate. I knew Ben would love it, becasue he always does, no matter if it is actually good or not.


Egg & Cheese on Toast
Pam
2 Extra Large Eggs
2 0z 50% reduced fat cheese
2 Slices of toast*
Margarine or Butter to spread
Salt & Pepper to taste

*I used Pepperage Farm Whole Wheat White. I like white bread a lot better than Whole Wheat, this is a great compromise so that you are getting the benefits of Whole Wheat with the taste of White.


Pam a pan, and place on medium heat. Once the pan is hot, crack your two eggs directly into the pan. Let cook. I kept the yolks runny so I let the eggs cook until the whites were slightly browned. If you want not runny yolks, just flip the eggs for a minute until cooked through. Add salt and pepper to taste.

While the eggs are cooking toast your bread and spread margarine or butter on the bread. Add cheese to one slice of warm, toasted bread, if the cheese needs a little help to start melting, you can pop it in the microwave for like 10 seconds. (Reduced fat cheese needs more help melting than regular cheese.) Once eggs are cooked, place on to of cheesed bread, and top with other piece of bread.


I would have served something on the side, but I was out of time, and did not want to be late to Mother's Day.


This took about 10 minutes, and was very successful, really quick, easy, and so much better for you than stopping at Dunkin Donuts for one of their greasy breakfast sandwiches. So do it yourself, becasue its just way yummier.

Banana Nut Muffins

Three ripe bananas on the last day of passover. It may not have been quite ok to go ahead and do some baking yet, but I decided that I needed to get my hands dirty in a little baking finally.


Three spotted brown bananas plus a boyfriend who loves banana bread but is trying to start eating better, equals Banana Nut Muffins. This way the potion size in controlled unlike the usually large slices that are taken from a loaf.


I used the same recipe that I do for making banana bread and just put them in a muffin tin, with liners of course. This cut the baking time from just about an hour to 25-28 minutes, and clean up was a snap. I under filled the muffins (getting 22 muffins, therefore Ben gets 2 for breakfast,) and would next time make them twice as big I think, fill them all the way to the top of the liner and do the recipe the original way.


This banana bread recipe spans my family, my mom, aunts, and I all use it, but we all do it a little differently. The original recipe stays to split the eggs add in the yolks first to the batter then at the last step, after the vanilla fold in beaten whites. This will add lift and a lightness to the bread. I have never done the recipe this way, my mom has done it both and my aunt swears by splitting the eggs up. For a muffin I think that puff and lightness may be needed to bring these Banana Nut Muffins to the top of the list.

There will always be another three ripe bananas, and therefore there will be another chance to take on these muffins.


*I only used a 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts, 1/4 cup into the batter and the rest sprinkled on top of the muffins.

Breakfast for Dinner?

So it's Passover, 8 days of no bread, or more specifically oats, wheat, barley, rice, corn, soy, legumes, and basically everything else that's good. I'm a bit on the strict side when it comes to keeping passover, and not eating any of those foods or anything derived from those foods, including peanut butter and corn syrup. Yeah it's a difficult 8 days.

So besides being overwhelmed with family and helping my mom host the Seders I am sick. Very sick all weekend long. After a lot of matzo ball soup today I am finally feeling better, slightly. So I wanted to make some dinner for Ben and I, something easy and nice to say thank for him taking care of me the last few days. I decided since we were unable to have a Sunday Breakfast this week, that we would do Breakfast for Dinner tonight.


Omelets and Hash Browns it is. Since my hash browns are always mushy I went to a fellow blogger for help. I need to make sure that the potatoes are as dry as possible before cooking them.


This was my experiment in finally hopefully making crispy harsh browns and therefore making Ben fall in love with me for ever and ever. Or something like that...

My Omelet
4 Egg whites
1/2 red pepper chopped
5 or 6 chopped mushrooms
1 oz 50% reduced fat Cheddar Cheese

Ben's Omelet
3 Whole Eggs
1/2 red pepper chopped
5 or 6 chopped Mushrooms
1 small yellow Onion
1.5-2 oz reduced fat Cheddar Cheese


In a pan coated with Pam, sautee down the pepper, mushrooms and onions, for about 3 to 4 minutes until they have reduced over medium heat. They should not be mushy, but nicely cooked, add in scrambled eggs and let cook. Make sure you have a nicely grease pan or else your omelet will get stuck, flip if you can. If not cook on medium low heat until the bottom is browned and the top is cooked add in cheese and fold over in classic omelet style.

Hash Browns
2 small cooking potatoes
salt
pepper
1 Tbs olive oil


Grate the potatoes and get off as much liquid as you can before placing in satuee pan. Add salt and pepper, place in a sautee pan over medium to high heat that is coated with olive oil, make sure that the potatoes are not too thick in any place. Once in pan do not move until browned on one side. Then flip, let cook until brown again, serve and eat.


I also served a bit of matzah with this meal, to replace the bread, but it did no justice. The meal was great, but I needed a peice of toast. We also had a little trouble flipping our omelets, since I don't have huge sautee pans the omelets were a little on the thick side and needed to be flipped so we didn't get one of those diseases from eat raw food. It ended up a bit messier that I had anticipated, but turned out to be great. We sat outside on the summer like night and enjoyed our breakfasts for dinner together.

French Toast with Pecan Banana Syrup

It was time for something different. A sweet Sunday morning breakfast for Ben, no more eggs and potatoes. He might not have been bored of it yet, but I was. I needed something...well great, and I needed to have some creativity in the kitchen. This came out great, but not fabulous. There are many reasons for that. All of which I will address. This became more of an experiment in making syrup than anything else.

French Toast! I thought, it's been forever since I've made that for Ben, I had the bread, eggs, everything I needed, so this seemed like a perfect idea. Now I went to the grocery store I think 2 or 3 times after I had come up with this idea. (I love going grocery shopping.) None of those times I ever thought to buy syrup. Well I did actually think about it and decided against spending 8 or so dollars on an entire bottle of syrup for one single breakfast and besides my roommates would end up using it. Now, I'm all for sharing, but between the beer and everything else they "borrow" I thought against it. It seemed a waste of money, and usually one of my roommates does have some syrup in the refrigerator so I thought borrowing a squeeze or two they might not notice. I did however notice the bottles of Jack Daniels and vodka that "disappeared."


Ok back to the french toast. Sunday, morning, well afternoon, I went downstairs to make breakfast, got the bread out, made the egg soak, and started looking in the refrigerator to find the syrup. NO SYRUP, Ahh. Whats french toast without syrup, its just disappointing. So I vaguely remembered watching a Paula Dean episode where she makes the syrup that goes on some tragically buttery breakfast. Alright, lets experiment. First the recipes:

Best French Toast

2 1/2 pieces white bread*
2 Extra large Eggs
2 tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon


*Challah is the best bread to use for french toast, but in a pinch you can use anything even french bread or plain white as I did.


I cut the bread so that they would fit better in my smallish size pan but either way works. I didn't want to be cleaning every pan in the house after breakfast. The key to making a good Sunday morning breakfast is to get greatness and little clean up. Combine Eggs, milk, vanilla and cinnamon in a bowl, add the bread to the egg wash and let soak for a few seconds on each side. Do not leave in the egg was for too long, especially with thinner slices of break, the liquid will start to break down the break and it will just be mush. Place in pan that have either butter or Pam in the bottom, and let cook over medium heat. Flip only once, it will need maybe 4 or 5 minutes on each side, but this also highly depends on the thickness of your bread.

Plate and cover in syrup. Dust with powdered sugar for a professional look.


Ok my syrup was almost like caramel, and this is the only fault that Ben found with the dish. By the end the thickness of the syrup was too much, he loved the taste of it, so therefore managed to clear the plate, but did comment that it was on the thick side.

Pecan Banana Syrup

4 tbsp butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1/4 whole pecans
1/2 banana sliced


Melt the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat, add in the brown sugar and the honey. Stir to combine, let the sauce start to bubble up, this will start to thicken the syrup, take off heat, because you do not want it to burn add in the pecans put back over low heat and let warm. Start slicing in the banana and let sit in syrup for just a few seconds to let warm through. Top on french toast and serve.

It was great, but not amazing, maybe I put too much syrup on the plate when serving? Oh well it was a crisis averted, and a successful experiment.

Land Ahoy! One Eyed Sailor

I admit it, if I could I would watch food network all day every day, I would. So well as you can see I watch a lot of food network, and yesterday Paula Dean was making some breakfast/brunch dishes. She made one she called a one eyed sailor and I thought that would be the perfect Sunday morning breakfast for Ben, something new, fun and it looked so good when Paula made it. I made a few changes, because she made a cheese sauce to go with the one eyed sailors, and I thought that was just too much work for a Sunday morning. You can find her original recipe here.


So a one eyed sailor is a piece of bread with the center cut out, and an egg in the middle. Simple, but it looks extravagant and is soooo good.

One Eyed Sailor
2 eggs
2 pieces thick toast
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
pinch of chyanne pepper
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1/8 cup sharp cheddar cheese

You will also need medium sized cookie cutter, just big enough for an egg to sit in the middle of the bread. I used a frog, but I would recommend using a shape that doesn't have too many sharp edges. This will allow for the egg to sit better in the toast.


First cut out the centers of your bread. Then place butter in sautee pan and let melt, over medium heat add the spices to the butter and just stir to combine just so that the spices are even in the pan. Place bread with middle cut out in pan and crack egg into the middle, let sit, DO NOT MOVE, TOUCH, ANYTHING. Just let the egg and bread hang out until the egg is starting to cook and bread will be perfectly toasted, maybe 3 or 4 minutes on the first side. Then flip! The second side will take less time maybe 1 to 2 minutes, and then you have a one eye sailor. I then grated some sharp cheddar cheese on top before taking them out of the pan so it could melt into the top of the one eyed sailor.


Ben said "Tied for favorite with everything else." But he also said that if he had to only order one thing in a restaurant it would be this.

I also just grated up a Yukon gold potato and put it in a pan with a small yellow onion and let everything cook out until brown (a simple hash) to go with these one eyed sailors.

Potato Latkes the Wrong Way

You didn't think we could do it, did you. Potatoes, again. Oh but we were able to. I mean what's a Sunday without Sunday morning potatoes? As I've told you before, I generally wake up before Ben and lay in bed contemplating this weeks Sunday morning Potato experience. This week, I had just one red potato to use, well I mean I had more potatoes, but potato is just one part of Sunday morning breakfast (except last week when I was too lazy to stock up on groceries.) This week I tried to go above and beyond for Sunday morning. It included Red Potato Latkes, an Everything bagel, and good old scrambled eggs (plain and simple.)


Potato Latkes are a traditional Jewish food and I think each family has their own recipe. I know how to make MY mothers potato latkes, but this Sunday morning when I was only making one potato I had to tailor the recipe a little, because the quantity of potato was so small. Latkes are traditionally fried in vegetable oil and appear at a majority of the holidays but especially during Channukah where the celebration of oil burning for 8 nights is celebrated with fried foods. These are good as a side dish, main coarse (just add sour cream and sugar or applesauce) or as we found out this week as a Sunday morning addition.


The reason why these potatoes are titled the wrong way because the recipe is a little different, and I think made these latkes special, not necessarily better than traditional ones, but still good enough for Ben to gobble up and ask for more.

Potato Latkes the Wrong Way (small batch)
1 medium Red Potato
1 Egg Yolk
2-3 Tbsp All-Purpose Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1/8 tsp Garlic Salt
1/4 tsp dried Parsley

Grate entire potato on the thicker side of a hand grater. If you do it too small you'll end up with potato mush. You want it about the same side as if you were making hash browns. Add in yolk and flour and mix until you have a little bit of a bater with the potato, egg, flour mixture. Meanwhile in a sautee pan heat vegetable oil to medium high heat. Add seasonings to the potato mixture and stir to combine. Once oil has heated spoon potato into the pan and let cook until golden brown about 5 minutes or so. Flip and let the other side brown. Once finished on both size, about 10 minutes (depending on how big you make your latkes) let sit on a paper towel to drain any excess oil. You want the outside to be crunchy. Then eat!


Normally you would be making more than one potato and I would then recommend using the entire egg and additional flour (to make a smooth consistency.) I would also say that if you have a fry-a-lator or a deep set pan to fill with oil and really fry these potatoes instead of my quick-fix apartment style solution. You can add in a cut up sauteed onion to the mixture or any seasonings that you prefer. Its really a great recipe that you can tailor to the tastes you like. Red potatoes are not the traditional, either Yukon gold or Idaho potatoes are really what most people use. But use what you have and make it how you like.


So try it out. Its good the wrong way.

Roasted Garlic Parmesan Red Potato Fries

Another Sunday morning, means another take on potatoes. This Sunday morning I woke up, way earlier than Ben did and laid in bed thinking how can I revamp the usual Sunday morning potatoes. This week I had bought red potatoes which according to Ben are his favorite. I like them as well, they have a nicer flavor than just regular potatoes I think, and are generally a lot smaller and will cook up faster. Having no microwave (I know its been a rough few weeks to exist without one) I had to make these potatoes the old fashioned way...in the oven. So therefore it was actually good that I was up earlier than Ben becasue the usual 10 to 15 minutes it takes me with a microwave to make Sunday morning potatoes tripled to 45 minutes for these potatoes.


After a late night including a few drinks I was thinking what are the best flavor combinations to help that head ache and stomach turning feeling go away. Ben loves garlic and makes his own version of baked garlic fries, and I thought that flavor with a dusting of Parmesan cheese on top make just cure any hang over.


Roasted Garlic Parmesan Red Potato Fries
2 medium sized red potatoes
1 tsp dried garlic
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
2-3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Wash and dry the red potatoes, then cut lengthwise into fries. Place on a baking sheet and coat with the olive oil. Make sure you toss the potatoes so that each one is coated, then dust the garlic powder and sprinkle just a bit of cayenne pepper over, this will add just a hint of a kick to the taste. Toss again, the easiest way to do this I found was just using my hands. Try and make sure that all of the fries are evenly coated with the spices and oil. Place in your oven for about 30 minutes. Make sure depending on the size of the potatoes or slices that you make to check on them becasue they could bake up a lot faster if smaller, or take longer if bigger. After about 30 minutes make sure to turn the potatoes so that both sides will crisp up on the baking sheet, then sprinkle kosher salt and Parmesan over the potatoes, place back in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Make sure you don't leave them in too long after the cheese is added, you just want to heat them with the cheese, and make sure the cheese has stuck to the potatoes by melting slightly.


Take off baking sheet and serve. :)

Naner Bread

One of my favorite childhood memories of my mom's cooking was the comforting taste of my Mom's banana bread, the top was my favorite. I used to eat the sides, middle and save the top for last. She made it once in a while and I used to eat it a a breakfast treat.


A couple years ago when I really started to bake and experiment with cooking, I decided to ask my mom for this recipe so that I could make Ben a Banana Bread, he loves banana bread, it's one of his favorite sweet treats. It seems like many of the things that I have put up on this blog are Ben approved, or one of Ben's favorites, but this is all family approved. There is nothing to change about this recipe because it makes the perfect banana bread. The right amount of banana to bread ratio, not too dense cake and amazing top crust.

All you need is a few extra bananas, and this week I bought some for the sole purpose of making Ben and his mom some banana bread.

Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp sour cream
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 medium sized ripe bananas
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Cream the softened butter and sugar together until smooth, add eggs, make sure to scrape down the sides to make sure that the sugar, butter and eggs are fully incorporated. In a separate bowl mix the sour cream and baking soda together, put aside. Mix all of the other dry ingredients together. Mash bananas with a fork until a gooey consistency and bananas to to sugar and eggs. Add in sour cream alternating with the dry ingredients until just fully incorporated. Add in the vanilla, and you can add in 1 cup of walnuts if you are using them. I am not putting the nuts in this time, the bread is a lot healthier without them, and you can then eat bigger slices. :)


Bake in a 350 degree oven in a greased loaf pan for about 55 minutes. A tooth pick entered into the middle of the cake should come out almost clean. Make sure you are not putting the tooth pick into a gooey piece of banana, because it will come out looking like the cake is not baked, when it might be. Let the bread sit in the pan for around 20 minutes until it has cooled. Run a knife along the edges of the pan to release the bread and flip over. Bread should come out easily. Let sit until fully cool, then make sure to cover so that it says fresh. The loaf will last a good week on a counter, or you can place it in the freezer for up to 3 months.


Make sure you share this bread with friends and family. It's too good to just take one slice.


Tip: Also I have found that if you double this recipe it will make 3 good size loafs, as a single recipe it makes a large loaf, you can also use 2 large bananas to substitute for 3 medium ones in a pinch.

Sunday Morning Potatoes

Ben and I have a standing Sunday morning ritual. I make him breakfast, and I try to come up with new and original things every week. A couple of weeks ago I had some potatoes laying around and thought, how I can I make some easy breakfast potatoes (home -fries) without it taking an hour to cook the potatoes. I realized if I did the majority of the cooking of the potatoes in the microwave and then finished them in a pan so that the outsides could get crispy, it would cut the cooking time by a lot.



Home Fries
2 idaho potatoes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper

Wash and dry the potatoes, just to get off any dirt that may be on the skin, poke potatoes with a fork so that it doesn't explode while cooking. Wrap potatoes in paper towels and place in microwave for 4 to 5 minutes, this depends on the size of your potatoes, just keep an eye on them.

Once the potatoes are cooked, take out of the microwave and cube, you can make them any size you want. Spray Pam or coat a pan with a little oil or butter, depending on what you have on hand, toss in cubed potatoes and sprinkle seasoning over the potatoes. Cook on medium to high heat until the outsides are golden and crispy, will be about 10 minutes.


This is a really healthy, tasty and easy alternative to heavier fried home fries or any other diner like potatoes.

Raisin & Almond Nola

Nola is no different that granola, maybe it is different thought, it has Hallie love in it. Ben and I tend to shorten any word that can possibly be shortened. Granola became Nola, Bananas became Naners. You'll get used to the short cute, love-y names that we have for our favorite foods. But nola, I eat nola every day. At work, during the week for lunch in yogurt and for breakfast on the weekends. I'm not sure when I realized that granola existed in a non-bar form but it wasn't until recently, but almost every morning for all 3 1/2 years of college, I ate granola bars for breakfast. And yes I am that oblivious to the world.

Last week I found a recipe for granola, and thought how good an idea it was to make my own. I make my own cookies, soup, etc. why have I never though of making granola before? And besides I spend like 7 dollars on granola every week at the grocery store, this way is a lot cheaper and you can customize your granola and add in any thing you like. It is such an easy, yummy snack, or meal.

This is my second attempt at making granola so I have change the original recipe a lot, so much so it seems unnecessary to post the original.

Granola

2 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups puffed rice cereal (rice crispys)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt
1 3.9 oz individual size applesauce
1/4 cup granulated sugar
just under 1/2 cup honey
1/8 cup molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup almonds roasted or natural
3/4 cup raisins

In a big bowl combine the oaks, rice cereal, and spices. In a separate bowl stir all of the wet ingredients including sugar, apple sauce, honey, molasses and vanilla. Stir until combined, pour wet ingredients into dry and mix throughly. Mix in almonds and raisins (or any other mix-ins that you like.)

Spread out on a baking sheet in one even layer. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 30 minutes, then flip granola to other side and let bake for an additional 30 minutes on the other side. Granola will break apart while flipping, just try your best to make sure the majority of it is on the other side. If some still feels wet take out the dry granola and continue baking until crunchy an additional 10-15 minutes.One thing I must warn you about granola is that it smells so good while its baking. Its just almost impossible to wait on trying it, but you should really wait until its cooled to taste it.

The first time that I made this granola I added in the raisins after the granola was cooked, but did not like it because the raisins were not part of the actual granola, just almost an after-thought that fell to the bottom of the bag. This time I added them in before baking and the raisins exploded, well not exploded, but blew up into little raisin balls. But they shrunk down as soon as the granola was cooled, and look like normal raisins again. So don't be alarmed, however cooked raisins do taste a little different than straight from the box, so you can add them in before or after cooking, it doesn't really matter.

Store in an air tight container, and will last for as long as it takes you to eat it all. It's hard not to snack on...

Yum.