Food favorites

I am LOVING this granola—so simple and incredibly yummy.  We just finished our first batch yesterday and plan to make more tonight.  I dream of someday kicking boxes out of my kitchen, and would especially like to get rid of all over-priced, over-sugared, over-commercial, over-processed cereal.  I made it with (using what I had on hand) only sunflower seeds for seeds, chopped walnuts instead of almonds, everyday whole wheat flower and vegetable oil, Dole mango juice, and of course our very own maple syrup. 

Also making me very happy is baking bread!  I go through phases with this, as it isn’t always the best for my waist line, but it sure is enjoyable.  My grandmother makes bread often and gave me a copy of her go-to book:

It is so easy and yummy.  I make the Light Whole Wheat bread.

Cookbooks are sort of a passion/obsession of mine, and I am very happy (thanks Bob!) to finally have a whole bookshelf dedicated to my collection.  However, I collect so many that I still have lots to discover.  Here are some of my other current favorites:

• The Fanny Farmer Cookbook
• Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Sienfeld
• First Meals by Annabel Karmel

I also very often use allrecipes to find recipes, enjoy watching the PBS cooking shows, and get lots of cookbooks out of the library.

Today for fun in the kitchen Joseph and I made bird “muffins” (just peanut butter and birdseed mixed together and frozen in muffin tins and hung outside) and SNOW ICE CREAM.  We still have some kinks to work out with the bird muffins (they fell of their strings the first time so are in the freezer again for another try), but the snow ice cream was a big hit.  It was incredibly easy and fun.  All you do is fill a bowl with snow, mix in some sweetened condensed milk, and a tiny bit of vanilla.  Joseph really wanted chocolate so in his bowl we added cocoa powder.  I am sure we will be doing this again.  It received many thumbs up and lots of Joseph-style enthusiasm.

     

We love playing in the kitchen!