Going Granolafied

Apparently, I really am going granola. All this crocheting and crafting and bread baking and detergent making has pushed me over to granola making as well. I've made it for the second time this week - second time because the family GOBBLED up the first batch. When it comes down to it, I'm not 100% sure this is  cheaper than buying it at the store (recently, I've been buying the organic granola from costco at around $7 for a good sized box) I haven't actually sat down and figured out the price per cup but clearly the beauty of this is that I know exactly what I'm putting into it, which means I know exactly what the family is putting into their bellies. I also had bought oatmeal in bulk a while back and it hasn't been going as fast as I thought, so this is a good way to use that up.

I mainly drink almond milk - and personally I thought the granola was delicious with that. The almost 14 year old man-child who would be a junk food junkie if I allowed it absolutely loved this stuff - of course he decided he loved it enough to put it on top of a bowl of ice cream as well, but whatever ... I just keep cramming the word "moderation" down all of their throats. Poor eating habits have certainly hit home and I am bound and determined that these kids will take what they eat seriously before they reach full adulthood.

After scouring around on the internet, the recipe I finally landed on was this one I found at CDKitchen. It is beyond easy and best of all, it makes the house smell AMAZING - exactly like autumn should smell. I did make some slight adjustments - so here's my version of the recipe:

Ingredients:
4 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
1 cup coconut
1/2 cup bran flakes
approx. 1/4 cup chopped nuts (I had a little bag partially used and just threw it in for the heck of it)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
approx. 1/3 cup veg. oil
approx. 1/3 cup honey (the recipe called for 1/4 cup of each of these, I went a little more since I put in more ingredients)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup raisins (I love raisins but my kids all fight against the raisin tide, so the adults end up eating them all anyway)

Preheat oven at 300.

In a bowl mix top nine ingredients. On the stove, warm up the oil and honey in a saucepan, don't let it boil, add in the vanilla. Rotating the dry ingredient bowl, slowly add in the honey mix. Pour on a baking pan. I used parchment paper for this and I highly recommend that - I don't think it would have turned out as well on just a baking sheet. Bake for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. If you like your raisins to have a slightly baked flavor, I'd add them in at this time (which I did) or if you like them totally raw, you add them in at the end. Bake for an additional five minutes. The original recipe calls for a full 40 minute bake time, but that was too long in my oven - you'll need to know your own oven here because I'm guessing you don't want charred granola. Set the baking pan on a cooling rack and cool completely - during the cooling process is when the granola clumps together so letting it cool completely is important (although, I did nibble on it during the cooling). And then seal it up in tupperware and watch it disappear - at least it did at my house!

Obviously, this is an easy recipe to make your own. I think next time I'll get some dried apples and use apple pie seasoning or I was thinking maybe pumpkin spice might be yummy to try in honor of pumpkin spice latte season. I'm just going to say, I'm good with being a little granola.

Muffins, Addictions, and Baby Contortionists

I found this recipe on pinterest or stumbleupon or flicker or craftgawker or tumblr or I have no idea! You could spend your entire life going from one social networking site to another looking at blog after blog of things, things that after awhile could make a person feel like an inadequate slob for not being able to transform a thrift store  kitchen table into an amazing wall mural that is both elegant and kitschy. But in all honesty, it's a hard addiction for me to avoid. I looorve stumbleupon and pinterest especially and I could spend hours on etsy convincing myself I could make this or that. It's a problem. *sigh* One that I'll just have to live with.

So back to the muffins. I found this recipe here. I loved the idea of having a snack for the kids for after school or in their lunches that I made out of just two ingredients - and two ingredients I often have in my cupboard. Why I always have an extra can of pumpkin in the back of my pantry is a total mystery to me - but there it always sits among the extra cans of black beans and diced tomatoes. So I went ahead and made these this morning - except I made them in muffin form and added a half of a bag of chocolate chips I needed to find a use for. They're pretty yummy! Mostly they taste like pumpkin muffins, you don't taste a lot of the yellow cake mix in there and I could not make them look pretty - but that's okay (refer back to my suspicion of too pretty food). They have a denser consistency than your typical cake or muffin batter which means it didn't lay in the muffin cups very uniform, even though I used an ice cream scoop like usual. But other than that, easy peasy - you should try them out.

Also this weekend I worked on several projects. A couple I'm not revealing at this juncture - but I had a request for one of my apple cozies and then a friend has asked me to make a little man sweater vest for a baby boy (who is to blame for the sweater vest return? I'm not complaining - I love them myself - even wore a couple in high school, which were not at all cool... but I'm wondering, is it that kid on Glee? Justin Timberlake? Who has pushed this fashion forward? Personally, I'd like to think it was Harry Potter, but I always like to think it's Harry Potter). But do you know, those aren't easy to find! I could not find a pattern anywhere so I made it up. This was my first attempt - however, it's going to need to be in a stretchier yarn (this one I just used in worsted weight since I was practicing - but I rarely ever use plain ol worsted weight yarn, I generally stick to cotton if I can). But as my dear bff pointed out - how exactly are you going to get a baby into that thing? Only baby contortionists can wear it - and I think that's a pretty small demographic. So back to the drawing board....

Love Charley!

Harper that is. Charley Harper was from Cincinnati and when we first moved here I went to an exhibition of his work, his Ford Times art in particular, and just loved it. If you aren't familiar with him, you should definitely check him out.  So I made my own embroidered rendition of his cardinal close up - I drew it free hand so it's obviously not exact, but I like the way it turned out.

Also, here is my cutesy little owlishness mural as well. 

The tiny pie mess

Here's the deal - I am a hot mess. Not a hot mess in that my life is falling to pieces (thankfully!) but a hot mess in that I can't keep anything tidy. I do clean my house - several times a week) so at least it's clean (minus the dog hair, that is the bane of my existence). But I'm always in the middle of some messy project. I have embroidery floss on the couch, my ottoman is filled with skeins of yarn and half finished projects - in short, I am not nearly as tidy as I would like to be. Molly is also a total mess and has been since she came out of the womb. I tell her that it's the perceiver in both of us and that we should embrace our artistic mess but this is a parent lie that I can forgive of my child but I myself do not want to be so darn messy!

This morning I woke up with my twisted foot aching at 5:30am so I thought it would be a good idea to get up and make some tiny pies. Obviously, if I had thought that all the way through I would have realized that my foot would be aching even more after standing on it for three hours making my first batch of tiny pies. But instead I was thinking that I had seen the cutest recipe here at Not Martha that I want to try out for my life group on Wednesday night but I should do a practice run on the family.  And I was also thinking - how nice for them to wake up to warm strawberry pie on their Labor day (because I'm a thoughtful wife/mom like that) .... (Okay - I'm partially lying. What I was initially thinking was that would be an awesome breakfast for me - the rest of them totally an after thought.)

But let me just point out - pie crusts are another bane of my existence. I can make homemade bread in my sleep, I'm a pretty darn good cookie maker and I can bake a cake just fine. I'll also mention though that I do not bake or cook pretty - I'm all about how a thing tastes, not how a thing looks. I'm suspect of too pretty food - I want delicious and I don't care a wit how it looks. But all that to say, I can not get a pie crust right! I've thrown more food-related temper tantrums over pie crusts than any other food I can think of. Most often I end up tossing my lump of gluey, overly crumbly mess of crust in the trash and making my too kind husband go to the grocery and pick me up a frozen one. But it drives me bananas that I have to do that! My grandma made the most gorgeous perfect pie crust and my mom makes the same one and I'm using the same recipe - so WHY WHY WHY can't I get it right??!! Well, I'm determined to master it this year. DETERMINED!

So this morning I made the tiny little pies with my sucky pie crust - but I did not give up. And by the end I felt like I had a much better grasp on my pie dough. It is an ugly pie crust! But it's yummy to taste and I think that this is a pretty good way to make a pie crust because you can't really roll it out and make it work when you're making a pie in a tiny jar - you have to sort of smoosh it in there and pinch it all together. And just to bring things full circle - I made such a disaster of my kitchen it took me over an hour to clean it up. The dog was happily licking up all the flour I spilled on the floor. I ended up having to change my clothes because I was covered in flour - couldn't even brush off - nope, it was that bad. I had two counters and the island covered and both sides of my sink filled with dirty dishes. It was a mess - I was a mess. But the pies are tasty and adorable - not pretty - but maybe my next batch will be a little nicer looking .... though not too nice! I certainly want to avoid suspicious food.

Owlishness

I had to take a little break from crocheting today. I'm working on an amigurumi and he's being particularly petulant. He doesn't want to work the way I want him to work anyway.  So I've begun this new project, here's a sneak peak:

Clean Basement Ranger

Spent the whole day cleaning out the basement - and it's such a relief. We haven't even been in this house for a year yet and it had already turned into a pit for any homeless item in the house. But now it's spic and span and I even made myself a craft corner. I've always wanted a craft corner! I dusted my old sewing machine off, set up a desk, a book case, unpacked boxes of supplies and now I'm ready to play. At least for today I feel organized. Of course, that'll be short lived - but I'm going to relish it while it lasts!

I made some cute little coasters - because my kids were driving me crazy leaving glasses to sweat all over the bookcases. Here are two of them.

Finished!

Holy moly - this blanket has taken me a whole week to finish! I don't think that I've ever worked on any project so long - part of the reason is that crocheting while on painkillers makes things especially difficult. I don't know how many rows I ripped out and had to redo and I'm sure there are still a few mistakes. At least the kidney stones gave me the extra time to work on it - because what else am I going to do besides sit around and moan about the pain. :) But I really love the way this pattern looks, I'll have to try it again with some different colors.

Now on to another project! First one today happens to be cleaning out the basement. Not sure whether to be happy about this or to dread it. But, who knows? Maybe I'll find some treasures I forgot all about.

Today's project

A blanket for sweet pea.

lunch bags, lunch bags, lunch bags

Oh, did I mention that I'm no photographer? Well, there, I've mentioned it. These three are for sale - $12 each + $2 shipping.

Lunch bags

this will probably be the first item in my etsy shop. I made the first red and white one for Molly last year and it has held up really well - 100% cotton, so it's washable as well.

Molly's lunch bag

My Pretties

In the last year I've become a crocheting, crafty crafter maniac.  I love to create and I get bored quickly so I lean toward the swifty projects - something I can finish in a night or two. After some persuasion from those I love, I've decided to start this blog and find out if anyone else likes my pretties besides my loved ones and who are therefore required by law to compliment me profusely.

It's been about a year and I still consider myself a beginner, I just hope to continue to improve with time. And maybe, just maybe, I'll actually stick with this blog (again, I get bored quickly) and maybe, just maybe it too will improve with time. And so it begins ... here are some of my projects from the past year.

And So It Goes....

And So It Goes...., a photo by My Eucatastrophe on Flickr.

"little by little one travels far...."