Not your Mom’s Meatloaf

I’d earmarked this meatloaf roll I’d seen on the Phantom Gourmet a few weeks back, and intended to test it sometime before next Christmas (as it looked, and sounded) good enough to serve then - I mean, c’mon Bacon wrapped meat - not a tough sell, even with spinach inside.

Their recipe, courtesy of McIntosh College, called for 1/2 ground beef and 1/2 Ground pork. Previously on Good Eats I recalled Alton Brown suggesting a 1/3 mix of Beef, pork and Lamb… but still being somewhat vegetarian, I knew I’d still stick with turkey regardless, but when I saw the sign for fresh ground dark meat turkey, I knew this was what I needed.

It went together pretty easily, even considering I altered it somewhat by making my own breadcrumbs (have you looked at the ridiculously long ingredients list on a package of breadcrumbs?), sauteeing down some baby spinach and harvesting my own herbs from the hydroponic herb garden I got for Christmas. (Ok, that still doesn’t really sound like extra work - I still only got one bowl, cutting board and knife dirty in the process of prep).

Looks good, smells like bacon wrapped goodness (yes that was turkey too), and even though I’d overcooked it by at least 10 degrees, It was moist, juicy and delicious.

 

where o where has my little blog gone

No sooner do I hash out a redesign at this (and my other) blogs, that blogging seems to take a backseat. What have I been doing? Well culinarily, not much.

I mean, I am virtually swimming in beer. And excess breeds indifference,… (so naturally, I’m on a coffee kick. Coffee coffee coffee - but his time, not in beer) But - I did find some great 3-4 ounce glasses, I bought 24 of them for a song (don’t you just love a bargain?) and am planning to have a couple beer flights (mini tastings) at the coming family gatherings. After weighing the collective opinion of my beer-drinking friends and family, I’ll know better what to make (and gift) in the coming year. For now, I’ve put the kegs on vacation. I have cases and cases of ales, stouts, dopplebocks, IPA and pilsners OH MY! taking up precious kitchen space.

Right before Turkey, work (the day job) found me doing some overnights in Quechee, VT. I love that town, and we frequented a local brew pub - just across the river. The first night there we were serenaded by a Birthday Party of theatre types (I”ll let you paint your own picture of colorful 20 somethings - each trying to outsing, and out talk the next)… but, unlike the family chain restaurants, this bunch could belt out a great rendition of Happy Birthday. I enjoyed a Russian Imperial Stout with my fish and chips - huge portions for the price - and really, really good.

On a return visit I had a beer flight of six or seven? samples - basically everything on tap. Liked the lighter beers then. The Cream Ale, and Canadian especially.

Back across the river, we went to Firestone’s - Brick oven flatbread pizzas (inspired two return visits!) Their clam chowder was about the best I’ve ever had - odd, being so far from the ocean (for a New Englander). My beer of choice there, wasn’t the local microbrew… but rather Bass Ale - perfect with a Margarita pizza, 3 mushroom and chicken, or whatever the special was the first day. mmmm

I was going to take some of my homemade stout and make the same Guiness Gingerbread I did last year, and try my hand at the Guinness bread in my “recipes to try” page. Long days, and road trips have kept me out of the kitchen for the most part. I’m only going to do two Christmas cookies this year. (Two great big ones!) Both new favorites of mine as of last Christmas (and both thanks to Food Network)  - Chocolate Peanut-Butter Biscotti - salty, a little sweet, and surprisingly good with coffee, and a variation of AB’s Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels - heretofore called Chocolate Bailey’s Pinwheels. Skip the peppermint, go green, go Irish! -A splash in regular chocolate chip cookies wouldn’t be a bad idea either.  For years we’d dine on Mom’s Chocolate Brownie Bailey’s Pie for Christmas Breakfast, but I digress.

My latest food find, also thanks to being on the road, and the fantastic Co-op in Lebanon, NH - was really a food re-find. One thing that’s great about my local Trader Joe’s is they can get all sorts of neat things - and packaged under their own brand, come pretty cheap.

I happened to find out that their private-label brand of yogurt is locally made Stonyfield, which is all-natural, organic and totally what we’d be buying if we shopped at a different store. I can also guess with considerable certainly that some of their pizzas are made by Amy’s, which we used to get for a dollar or two more elsewhere. But they also carried bags of Coffee Candy, two bucks for dozens and dozens of little coffee hard candies. I was nearly addicted to those puppies. Kept a full candy dish on my desk at work. It never stayed full for long (I had help), but they were cheap, and easy to come by… until they didn’t sell them anymore after a year or so. Poor seller? They have another line of coffee candy, a name brand, a little chewy and, IMHO gross. An internet search found a bag of my mystery ones on Amazon for, big bucks. I wasn’t 100% sure they were the right product, and at that price, they had better arrive on velvet cushions and recite Shakespeare and Douglass Adams! Gevalia also offered them up in one of their gift baskets, in one, and only one catalog. Oh well, it was a good thing while it lasted… BUT THEN, I found tins of them at the Coop, with all sorts of other Stocking stuffers. Bali’s Best - from Fusiongourmet.com - oh how I love thee. Santa could bring me nothing but a stocking full of your rich coffee deliciousness,… (and I promise not to get addicted!)

This year, I’m all about simplifing the kitchen. Two cookies, lots of coffee (in candy and regular form) and one birthday cake - two flavors in the form of Blue’s paw print (yes, That Blue) Blue frosting on a chocolate paw, and 4 yellow toes - with a #5 candle in case you were wondering.

 

soup follow up

I always seem to blog when things are cooking, and never when they’re done.

One quick post to follow up on my soup fest last week (some blogged about, others just linked on the recipe page).

The Split pea was good. I think I’ll skip the potatoes next time.

The “Good soup for the sick” (essentially garlic, beans and little else) delicious! (and hopefully the large chunks of garlic will keep whatever my little one is coming down with away from me.

I already knew the Bermuda Fish Chowder would be delicious. It was.

Same with the Apple & Butternut Squash soup. Mmmmm..

Now which to pick for supper?

 

Pumpkin Bread (with beer)

That is pumpkin bread with beer… stay tuned for pumpkin beer bread, and pumpkin bread with pumpkin beer… (just need several weeks to get the goods for, and to brew up the pumpkin lager (or porter… still haven’t decided!)

Is there such thing as too much beer? There sure can be if you’re brewing it up gallons at a time, and have to wait several weeks to find out if it was even worth it. (Meanwhile, while your waiting to drink it, you brew more…)

I may have mentioned that a few years back, (OK several years - before my little one was born - who’s coming up on her 6th Christmas) my wife gave me the Mr. Beer Kit, along with several different recipes to try. Basically malted grains and hops in a can - open, heat, add sugar & yeast, wait, bottle, wait, enjoy. Today I’ve finally worked through all the (old) kits.

They had a warning on them to use by summer 04, but I went ahead and tried anyhow. I could either throw them away before or after I found out if they were any good - nothing to lose but time if I tried, right? I figure that molasses, etc… doesn’t really go bad, so unopened cans of malted anything should last pretty much indefinitely. Though, I’ll still be making batches from fresh kits here on out.

As long as the fermented beer isn’t sweet or vinegary before I bottle, I should have something palatable… though I may need to kick it into high gear - as far as coming up with more recipes involving beer.

So far, most have been adequate, and some have been outstanding. Even the adequate ones were better than most of what I’d tend to get out at a bar or restaurant. But I’ve got to say, I haven’t felt the need to buy much beer - as I’ve got quite a bit - though sometimes lacking in selection.

Some have been fine, once they’ve reached the proper levels of carbonation - some have improved over time, others have changed - neither for the better or worse, just changes. The Apple Ale has proved the exception. It’s devolved a bit, once light and drinkable with food, now it’s tolerable. It’s darkened. Got a stonger taste to it. Not altogether bad, just different. Perhaps it finally became what it was meant to be, but not exactly as described. I guess I just liked it a little premature. This has long been earmarked for cooking with anyway, and today (with a cool enough kitchen) it finally got it’s chance to redeem itself.

My mothers recipe - given to her from a friend, currently a baker of wedding cakes and such - has been the recipe I’ve grown up on. I’ve looked online for others, to see how I could better incorporate the beer without any negative effect (and to also use up at least a bottle per loaf) no luck there, so I just went back to basics and crossed my fingers.

The verdict - Redemption! I’m going to be making a heck of a lot of pumpkin bread. Hopefully I don’t get sick of it! Having already eaten half a loaf before it cooled.

This recipe yields 3 loaves (I must have big pans, because mine have always come out short) So any extra leavening from the beer wouldn’t be a bad thing. It was in fact, just the ticket.

• 4 Cups Flour
• 3 Cups Sugar
• 2 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 tsp Baking Powder
• 1 tsp Cinnamon (heaping)
• 1 tsp Nutmeg
• 1 tsp Allspice or Pumpkin Pie Spice
• 1/2 tsp Cloves
• 1 Cup finely chopped nuts (nuts are always optional with kids in the house…)*

Mix above in bowl, add wet in well in center:

• 1 can pumpkin or squash puree
• 4 eggs
• 2/3 Cups Cold Water (Homebrewed Dutch Apple Ale, or any appropriate Beer you have on hand)
• 1 cup oil (canola, crisco..) I used grapeseed - use what you’ve got (but not olive oil)

Mix, pour into greased and floured pans, split evenly among 3 pans.  1/2 to 2/3rds full

bake at 350 for 1 hour, or until toothpick comes out clean. Or as Gramma says, when you can smell it, it’s done.

*come to think of it, I’ve typically left out nuts in recipes (at least I used to, so taking out an entire cup full of an ingredient may have been why my loaves were shorter than moms. - but I still think it’s the pans. 

Before the cable company came and took our channels away - no more Food Network ;(  (don’t really care about the rest), I remember Alton Brown talking about was using stocks or juice instead of water - they bring more flavor to the party - so perhaps there are lots more simple recipes I can just work beer into… Soups, sauces, salad dressings… well, maybe not.

While in France I did learn how to make crepes using beer instead of milk - though that was just 1/2 a can per batch. still have 4+ quarts of Apple Ale left to use up, and in the coming weeks I’ll have 7 Quarts (each) of a Higher Alcohol Red Ale, and a similarly made, high alcohol Belgian Witbier to cook with, and/or drink.

I’ll welcome any thoughts and suggestions… maybe this will end up turning into “the cooking with beer blog”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

 

it ain’t beer

The “other story” begins…

To explain, allow me to pull a large portion from a previous blog entry almost verbatim:

I’ve been making myself a nice (very nice if you ask me) Dark and Stormy since October. The recipe hasn’t changed, but I perfected the preparation, and somehow, that has made all the difference. I smuggled two bottles of Black Seal Rum and 2 liters of Ginger Beer (not the same as Ginger Ale, as one patron at the Grocery Store informed us. “That is not Jinjah Ale, that is Jinjah.”)

The simple recipe is to take 1 glass, fill with Ice. Add 2 oz rum, 6 oz Ginger beer, and a twist of lime. Enjoy.
I’d combined the rum and ginger beer in a measuring cup, poured over the ice, only to have it form a foamy head atop the drink.
After finding inspiration in various places (Food Network mostly), I’ve learned to modify the drink as follows:
1. take a tall beer glass, fill 2/3 with ice.
2. Squeeze lime juice (1/2 lime) over the ice
3. add 2 oz. Dark rum (Black Seal, Baby!)
4. add 6 oz. Ginger Beer (Barritt’s if you’ve got it, can’t vouch for any others, yet…)
5. add a slice of lime
6. try to drink just one!

*note to any federal agents, or legal types reading this post, I only use the smuggling term in jest, a pirate reference, having been to sunny bermudy on a boat and all that… I got my two bottles all proper and duty free like, with the knowledge that this Rum was described as “hard to find”… outside of the NH liquor store that is… So 1/2 of the equation is taken care of - futurewise, that is. As for some nice Jinjah beer, that is another story.

The small bit of research I’ve done so far has taught me that Ginger beer is made in Bermuda, England and also (of all places, Mass and RI. Yay, close to home. (Triangle trade route anyone?) I’d figured the (exact) rum was going to be the toughie… searching the web, well, the soda merchants aren’t exactly easy to find. (Despite one of them in RI mentioned in an episode of one of Rachael Ray’s shows)

So far I’ve tried one Ginger Ale I found at Trader Joes - missing one ingredient - Quillaia bark (whatever that is), but does contain sugar rather than high-fructose corn syrup (also missing from sodas made in and around the tropics). The verdict. Nope. Not even close. I was told that Root beer would also work, but I didn’t milk these 2 liters of jinja just to resort to some A&W or IBC.

There is a natural foods store up the road from me that carries a ginger ale with the mysterious quilllaia, but does regrettably have the HFCS I’d rather it not. So I’ll give that a shot next, but in the meantime, does anyone have access to anywhere that sells the real deal (Barritts) or perhaps knows of a micro-soda-brewery making the good stuff, and willing to ship?

 

Year end food wrap-up

(or why we need to make resolutions)

The weeks leading up to Christmas and New Years found me in the kitchen even more than planned. I wrote up a list of what I was planning to cook/bake, and when, if only to minimize the time I’d be cooped up, and maximize the tastes and aromas that speak Christmas so much more than words can convey.

My favorites this year, turns out, are recipes that have little to do with Christmas, or family traditions at all!

First off, The 12 days of cookies newsletter found it’s way into my in-box, the Chocolate Chip first caught my eye, mostly because it was a simplification in terms of prep (and touted ease - have the kids come help) so I envisioned time with my little one, rolling out sheet after sheet of cookies.

My new mixer (Oh, how I still love thee) really simplified prep. A triple batch in one bowl! Lets make two! (so I did).

In the end, most of my cooking was done solo - too much in the house, (primarily the 25 days of Christmas countdown on ABC family) to catch and hold the attention of the little one.

This left me time to improvise a bit. The addition of espresso powder to the basic dough, combined with two kinds of chocolate chips (whether semi-sweet and Bittersweet or white) turned out to be an inspired one.
And a new holiday, no, year round staple was born.

Also on the cookie front, AB inspired me to make up a batch of his sugar cookie pinwheels - again, I thought I’d have some “help” with cookie cutters, but in the end, a roll was made, to slice and bake, but in lieu of peppermint, I added Baileys. Yum!

My favorite new discovery, I have to say, also courtesy of Food TV, was the Chocolate Peanut Butter Biscotti. These were a lovely salty/sweet counterpoint to all the sweet I’d been noshing thus far.

Having my fill of cookies, and needing a break from them, I decided to start off the new year right. Soup sounded like it would fit the bill, so for New Years Eve, I managed to perfect the two recipes I left Bermuda with. I tried my hands at making a Fish Chowder reminiscent of the one I had on our Oct vacation (cruise). (The conch fritters that rounded out that meal would have to wait.)

Vegetarian or not - being a good New Englander, chowder must have a nice creamy base, at least where Clam and seafood chowder is concerned (sorry Manhattan, San Fran…). But, that said, the tomato broth of this Fish chowder works for me. Not being such a big seafood person, my wife was a little uneasy when I first brought up making the recipe (especially with no side dishes for her to fall back on), but the addition of the hot sherry peppers sauce had its appeal.  I replaced the water and beef consomme of the recipe with equal parts chicken stock and vegetable broth, but otherwise followed the recipe as written. I would have doubled the recipe (I almost did) but fortuanately I decided against, as the recipe nearly came to the brim of my 8 quart pot!

The verdict - a winner!

Perhaps it was the spiciness of the sherry peppers sauce, perhaps it was the fact that the fish cooked down into such tiny pieces she didn’t know them for what they were, or perhaps it was the rum!

Speaking of rum. I’ve been making myself a nice (very nice if you ask me) Dark and Stormy since October. The recipe hasn’t changed, but I perfected the preparation, and somehow, that has made all the difference. I smuggled two bottles of Black Seal Rum and 2 liters of Ginger Beer (not the same as Ginger Ale, as one patron at the Grocery Store informed us. “That is not Jinjah Ale, that is Jinjah.”)

The simple recipe is to take 1 glass, fill with Ice. Add 2 oz rum, 6 oz Ginger beer, and a twist of lime. Enjoy.
I’d combined the rum and ginger beer in a measuring cup, poured over the ice, only to have it form a foamy head atop the drink.
After finding inspiration in various places (Food Network mostly), I’ve learned to modify the drink as follows:
1. take a tall beer glass, fill 2/3 with ice.
2. Squeeze lime juice (1/2 lime) over the ice
3. add 2 oz. Dark rum (Black Seal, Baby!)
4. add 6 oz. Ginger Beer (Barritt’s if you’ve got it, can’t vouch for any others, yet…)
5. add a slice of lime
6. try to drink just one!

*note to any federal agents, or legal types reading this post, I only use the smuggling term in jest, a pirate reference, having been to sunny bermudy on a boat and all that… I got my two bottles all proper and duty free like, with the knowledge that this Rum was described as “hard to find”… outside of the NH liquor store that is… So 1/2 of the equation is taken care of - futurewise, that is. As for some nice Jinjah beer, that is another story.

 

baking fool

A double batch of spritz cookies last weekend, then a double batch of chocolate chip yesterday morning, two loaves of multi-grain bread this morning and a triple layer birthday cake tonight…

I LOVE my new mixer. I’m so happy my friend had to “upgrade” to the bigger one (ahh the demands of the foodwriter), otherwise I might have put off this purchase indefinately…

…and consequently not spent the money I saved (off retail) on flour, sugar and eggs this week! Don’t think I’m kidding.

Tomorrow (if I dare), I can try my first batch of beer. St. Patricks Stout from Mr. Beer. (It may benefit from additional time in the bottle.) If it is less than stellar, I’ll have no qualms about using the lot (yes all two gallons worth) to make the gingerbread I blogged about recently….

Lets see, two gallons of beer,.. divided by 3/4 cup per batch…

We’re gonna need a bigger oven.

 

have some beer with (or in) your cake

There was a recipe in the paper a few years back that really caught my eye - a gingerbread cake made with Guiness! Described more like a fudgey brownie than a cake, it sounded like a winner to me. (It had me at Guinness)

I whipped up a batch a week or so before Christmas (as loaves and muffins rather than a regular layer cake). I liked it so much that I immediately worked on another batch while the first was still cooling. - As an interesting aside, the power went out while I was just getting everything started, so I packed up, drove over to the inlaws and “borrowed” their oven.

I’ve made this every year since without any problems, although, I sort of OD’d on Ginger cakes and cookies last year. I made a triple or quadruple batch of the cake, as well as chocolate chunk ginger cookies, so I’ll probably only make a single (or double) batch this year.

But I plan to take this new holiday staple of mine to a new level of homemade this year. I’m going to forgo the regular inclusion of Guinness for my own homemade stout! How’s that for “from scratch?”

If you’re not that ambitious, pop open a can, pour off 3/4 of a cup (and let it go flat) and enjoy the rest while the oven preheats. (350 degrees)

Meanwhile grab:

• 2.5 cups AP flour
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter (room temp)
• 1.25 cups brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup molasses
• 3/4 cup stout (beer) flat, room temp - best if left out several hours to flatten

1. Butter and flour two 9″ cake pans, (muffin tins, bread pans or what have you)
2. Combine dry ingredients (first six) in med bowl set aside.
3. beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each. Beat in molasses.
4. Beat in flour mixture in three additions, alternating with 1/3 of the stout (mixture may look curdled, but that’s ok). Beat until just smooth.
5. Pour into pans, and bake 40 min (or until passes the toothpick test). let cool before frosting.

This cake is fantastic with whipped cream, or you can take the ginger level up a couple steps and frost the cake, or plop on a dollop of:

• 3 cups chilled whipping cream
• 6 tbsp powdered sugar
• 2 tbsp minced crystalized ginger
• orange slices
• crystalized ginger
• cranberries (fresh or chopped craisins)

1. Beat cream and sugar with electic mixer until stiff peaks form.
2. Fold in minced crystallized ginger.
3. garnish with any/all other options.

I love starting my own new food traditions. I’m anxious to see how my own beer will hold up. Perhaps I’ll find myself taking homemade to a new level with other recipes as well. I’ve already made a knock-off of Bailey’s Irish Cream several years ago - mom uses it (the Bailey’s, not mine) in a few of her desserts… could certainly continue with those!

 

2 dozen muffins from a single batch!

Just returned from a weeklong cruise to Bermuda (and I have several weeks of blog fodder), but before the tales of buffets, beaches and Black Seal rum, Sweetie and I whipped up some of these muffins, to get us through that last week of work. Vacation prep is always hard work on the home and work fronts :(.

Presenting the fruits of our labor, two dozen mocha chip muffins, each in our own scale…

If you can’t tell by now, I have a thing for mocha. My wife doesn’t, but our little girl seems to be on my side of the fence, so I have to learn to share. On the plus side I have more excuses to make such things! She delighted in my using her small “play” cooking set, and I must say, it did a fine job. I ended up taking a container full of the little guys as car food for our trip to the boat - coffee and muffin all rolled into one!

Unlike other muffin recipes in books I have (healthy or otherwise) that recommend mixing up the batter as little as possible, these spend a bit (ok, a lot) more time under the mixer and come out really smooth - which I found a little “different” at first, but kept coming back for more. These are really quick to make - the longest part is waiting for the butter to soften, if you don’t plan ahead (as I seldom do).

The recipe comes from Cooks Illustrated, which tests recipes to perfection, but I’ve had to alter it to fit my pantry a few times, and large variations have still yielded the same (if not very similar) results. Here’s my version:

dry ingr:
3 cups flour (unbleached all-purpose)
occasionally I’ll use equal parts whole wheat (or soft wheat pastry) flour and AP flour)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

wet ingr:
10 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) butter, softened
1 cup  sugar
2 eggs
2 six oz. containers (1 1/2 cups) coffee yogurt
   or vanilla yogurt mixed with
3 tbsp instant espresso powder
(or 5 of instant coffee)

goodies:
1 cup (heaping) chocolate chips
or 1/2 cup each chips and pecans or walnuts
Preheat oven to 375.
Mix dry ingredients in med bowl.

Cream together sugar and butter in large bowl, add eggs, beat until incorporated.

Add approx 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter and sugar mix, beat until combined. Add in the yogurt and flour in two or three alternating batches, mixing until incorporated between each addition. Fold in chocolate chips.

Spray twelve cup muffin tin with cooking spray, and divide batter evenly among the cups, bake until golden brown 25-30 min. Check with toothpick to see if done, set on wire rack to cool 5 - 10 min, serve warm.

If cooking a batch of mini-muffins alongside, check about 1/2 way to see if done, then watch closely so the smaller ones don’t burn.

These are great for breakfast and/or dessert - if they last that long!

 

Second breakfast Sunday - Granola!

The kitchen, and the rest of the house, managed to get back down to a reasonable tempurature this weekend. We opened the windows, gave the AC a break (and traded in my shorts for pants).

This morning for breakfast I attempted a frittata. Well intentioned, but I overcooked it, and it was tolerable at best. So, while things were still relatively cool, and more importantly, not humid, I dragged out more of my bounty from last week’s excursion to Whole Foods. Granola was on the menu, and I wasn’t going to mess that up.

Sweetie joined me in the kitchen to “help.” She counted off the cups of oats - and then asked of every ingredient - “Should I try that?”

She liked the almonds, dates and wheat germ as-is. Apparently, though, the rolled oats “needs salt,” and the shredded coconut “needs celery.”

An hour and a half later, I had plenty of granola (22 cup’s worth) - should last a little while (If I can keep someone out of it). It seemed to cool/dry up nicely and didn’t get soft or worse, like it surely would have had I attempted this on a more humid day.

I’ve tried several versions of granola over the years. The first recipe I tried, probably the healthiest, has always been my favorite. Apple juice concentrate replaced any sugar, honey, maple syrup and most of the oil in other versions I’ve found/tried.

Unfortunately, in the past year I misplaced that recipe. I thought I got it from one of my Mom’s cookbooks, but, still, I couldn’t find it. Yet a search of the internet, plus remembering key amounts of certain ingredients, found one that was close. So I took that one and adapted it to more closely resemble my older recipe. Viola, a new favorite was born…. thanks to the addition of brown sugar. (just like I knew it would.)

In large bowl combine:

• 7 cups of Rolled oats
• 1 cup wheat germ
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds
• 1 cup almonds

In small bowl combine:

• 1/2 cup veg oil
• 1 cup applejuice concentrate, thawed
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (opt)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla

1. Mix wet with dry,
2. spread out on baking sheets,
3. bake in 325 degree oven for 90 min.
4. Stir every 30 minutes, adjust temp if browning too quickly.
5. Sprinkle 1 cup dates, chopped, on granola for last 20 min. of cooking.
6. Cool, store in airtight container

I generally make a double batch, (I’d make more, but it already maxes out my biggest bowl) and substitute almonds for the sesame seeds if I’m out. The original recipe called for 1/2 cup honey and 1/2 cup boiling water (and 1/4 cup brown sugar) if you don’t have any apple juice concentrate. Oh, and the celery, that’s optional, but not recommended.