Sunday, April 24, 2011

Most beautiful eggs ever

Check out the turquoise, deep red and gold colors!
Well, these eggs have already been in a rainy egg hunt but can you see the vibrant colors? They are even better than the first time I did them.  Basically you just need the cheapest basic dye kit, BROWN eggs, and use a quarter cup of vinegar to let the pellets fizzle until they melt and then add enough water to just cover the eggs, about a quarter cup more.  Let the eggs soak for about 5 minutes and you have the most amazing colors I have ever seen.  I almost didn't want to eat them! These are way better than the pastel colors you get from using white eggs.  Try it next time!
These eggs were more solid color looking until they got rained on, but still look so vibrant.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Turning "Granola"

 Sorry about the bad phone camera photos.  Here is my general mixed up and three granolas made with milk.

First of all, why does my phone capitalize granola when I type it in? Is it a proper noun or something? Well, I have news for all you granola lovers out there...you're missing out if you haven't tasted my lime cardamom granola my friends.  This week I did a granola demonstration for the Relief Society sisters and so this past week I delved into researching all granolas to find the best recipes.  What did I find? A whole lot of nothing the same.  Granola recipes couldn't be more different.  I feel like I tried to search for just "soup" or something and got so many recipes with only a few ingredients in common. 
Here are two jars of chocolate cinnamon and one of almond essence with maple syrup. 

So, this is the skinny on granola...it can be really unhealthy if you make it with processed oil and brown sugar with just a dab of honey like most recipes call for.  Just use coconut oil and only natural sweeteners and you will be well on your way to healthy and delicious eats. 

This is the recipe...

5 cups of dry ingredients, whatever you like (can be all oats or a mixture of oats, seeds, and nuts and coconut)
3/4(scant) cup of oil(or milk)
1 cup or less of sweetner(depending on how sweet you like it)
Mix it all together, spread on two TIN FOILED AND GREASED  cookie sheet at 325 for 8 minutes on the top rack and 8 minutes on the bottom rack and then take out, let cool, add any dried fruit desired and store in a tight container. 

Having a recipe like this can open your mind to experimentation instead of following another's concoction.  As I was making my granola I thought of what spices I could throw into the mix.  Cinnamon, yes! Real almond extract, Oh so yummy! Chocolate powder, yes! Peanut butter(in place of oil), yes! Lime cardamom sauce, double yes! I'm telling you that not one of them turned out bad.  I'm only sad I didn't get a chance to try cranberry juice concentrate to essencify a batch with cranberry flavor.  I think I have about 50 lbs now in my cupboard so I think I'll just send it off to the Missionary Training Center where my sister is learning how to be a missionary for the Fukuoka, Japan mission.  I miss her so much.  Take care little sista and I know you'll enjoy some of this healthy granola so you don't have to eat the biscuits and gravy(death to the body!)

I mostly love this granola because it adds a much faster breakfast to our list of acceptable breakfast foods which is limited to, home made yogurt, french toast, pancakes, eggs, steel cut oats or cracked wheat, all made with whole wheat and all from scratch.  For once I can decide to not cook breakfast in the morning and spend a half hour cleaning up! I know some of you are thinking, what's wrong with cereal? Well, 1. because it fills my kids up for all of 5 minutes and, 2. there's nothing more processed on the face of the planet.  Plus, 3. it's super expensive and most of it is just air.  Anyway, please make up your own granola recipe and tell me how much you love it:)