With the arrival of spring comes the urge to get back into shape and lighten our diets. Regular exercise routines start now and for breakfast we’ll have granola.  It was our first attempt at making it and it turned out great.  It’s a loose recipe concept therefore it can be adjusted to fit what you like or to use ingredients on hand. When I was thinking about making granola for us, I wanted to use a variety of nuts and seeds that would otherwise be tough to include in our daily diets, putting a focus on making a highly nutritious granola.

Granola recipe :

(5 cups rolled grains)
18 oz old fashioned oats (5 cups)

(3-4 cups nuts and seeds)
1 cup walnuts chopped
1 cup pecans chopped
1 cup almonds chopped or slivered
¼ cup sesame seeds
¼ cup millet
¼ cup flax seeds ground

(1¼ cup syrup)
¾ cup maple syrup
½ cup honey

(3 cups dried fruit)
golden raisins
cherries
cranberries
blueberries
uncrystalized candied ginger

cardamom (optional)

The oats we used were labeled organic old fashioned oven toasted oats. I think just about any rolled oat or rolled grain would work. It was an 18 oz cylinder which equaled about 5 cups. I measured them out first to give me an idea of the proportions of the other ingredients. Oats will be the base of the granola although I wanted it to be less than half of the entire granola. Place the oats in a giant bowl.

Next up is the nuts and seeds. For nuts we used walnuts, pecans, and almonds. The walnuts we used were pre-chopped and I hand chopped the pecans. The almonds we used were raw and whole, I didn’t want any whole nuts in the mix so instead of chopping again I pulsed them in the magic bullet (or a food processor) to basically make a coarse almond meal. This worked great but I think slivered almond would be ideal. Include other nuts if you have them or love them – cashew, hazelnut, peanut, etc.  As you measure out the nuts place them in the bowl with the oats.

For seeds we used sesame, millet, and flax seeds. It was a heaping ¼ cup of each. We  had flax seeds so we ground them up before adding them to the mix. Other seeds that would be nice are sunflower and pumpkin. Add the seeds to the bowl.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Mix the oats, nuts, and seeds together and get ready to dress it up with syrup.  I used about 1¼ cup of syrup total – ¾ cup organic maple syrup and ½ cup honey. You can use other types of syrup if you prefer or include a little olive oil as well. Pour syrup mixture over the oats and stir.  Transfer the sticky granola to a large baking dish, we used a 9×12 lasagna dish. Sprinkle cardamom over the top, stir and repeat. Cardamom is optional, I just love the flavor. I probably used about 2 teaspoons or so. You may consider using other spices as well like cinnamon or nutmeg. It’s delicious and flavorful without additional spice though.

Place the baking dish in the over and stir every 5-10 minutes. I baked this granola for about 50 minutes, probably could have taken it out of the oven after 40 minutes. Cooking time will vary depending on your oven and your baking dish. But be prepared to tend to it in order to prevent it from burning. It will need to be stirred regularly throughout the baking. When the granola becomes golden it is ready to take out of the oven. Allow it to cool completely.

As the baked granola is cooling measure out the dried fruit. Get a good mixture going, about 3 cups worth. We started off with Trader Joe’s “golden berry blend” which was 8 oz, about 2 cups. It included: golden raisins, cherries, cranberries, & blueberries. Then we added a small handful of uncrystalized candied ginger chopped and topped it off with extra cranberries. Stir dried fruit into cooled granola mixture and transfer to an air-tight container for storage.

My favorite way to eat granola is on top of yogurt!

ps the next time I made this I added dried coconut!

Over winter Joe and I fell in love with kale.  Because it is more of a cooler climate crop it was easy to find and very inexpensive in the fall/winter months.  Kale has become a little harder for us to find as spring has been approaching, meaning it’s not always at our local produce markets.  So what we have been doing is grabbing several bunches of it every time it’s available and freezing whatever we can’t use fresh.  We cut and prepare the kale in pieces (remove the stem), blanch it for a minute or two, cool it down quickly with cold water and/or ice cubes and let it air dry. Shove it in a baggy to freeze.  It becomes surprisingly condensed as well when you squeeze air our of the bag. The first time we did this I was worried that it would all stick together and be difficult to use later, but that wasn’t a problem at all.  All of the pieces pulled apart without struggle.  Using it once frozen is practically like using it fresh, except all of the work of cutting it up has already been done!  Yesss! Do it!

One of our favorite things to do with it is to make kale smoothies.  I know it’s not unheard of, but people who have not tried it before might scoff at it thinking it would taste gross.  It’s actually extremely delicious and anything but gross.   To start, the color of it is an amazing and bright green, & who doesn’t like ingesting beautifully healthy food?

We make the basic kale smoothie with a few simple ingredients :: kale, banana, orange juice, & flax seed.

We use about 2 cups of kale, 1 cup of orange juice, a tablespoon of flax seeds, and 1 banana per smoothie.  Add a bit of honey for sweetness and a heaping teaspoon of nutritional yeast for an extra boost of nutrients.  Adding nutritional yeast to the smoothie does give it a bit of the flavor which I don’t mind, but it doesn’t necessarily make it taste better. (I think Joe would prefer to leave it out ;)

Instructions :: blend all of the ingredients together. Add more orange juice if you like it thinner. We use our Magic Bullet which was an awesome gift given to me by my buddy Dave a few years ago — thanks Dave!  Still using it regularly, it’s a great little tool for smoothies and sauces, but a regular old blender would do the trick just fine ;)  I don’t think the Magic Bullet airs infomercials anymore, but I’m sure many of you remember them — “it’s as easy as ooooone, twooooo, threeee” as if it has magically made your meal. Extend the twooo about another hundred oo’s.  Also, it suggests you can make a lovely diced pico de gallo; not true. This thing pulverizes everything and dices nothing, which is fine with me because I don’t know how to pulverize with a knife!  Plus I love to dice my own vegetables. It’s perfect and extremely convenient for smoothies, dips, and sauces.  It’s super easy to use and clean — I love it and use it often!

As usual we make a lot of variations of this smoothie, you can add just about any fruit to the mix. Frozen blueberries are one of our favorite fruits to include — it’s delicious but turns the beautiful green into a drab grayish purple….  mmmm purple!