A Tightwad Granola Recipe

4-6 ingredients:  Easy homemade granola!

Cereal is crazy expensive.  We are talking around $3.00 a box on average and they have a dozen ingredients that you can't even pronounce.  Almost all of them have high fructose corn syrup, which is a no-no, and what the hell is  tripotassium phosphate?  When you get into the organics section things may get healthier, but they also get pricier.  My kids eat homemade granola.  The cheap version.  You can add wheat germ (which I have done), flax seed (which I have not done) and a whole host of sticks and twigs to make this granola as healthy as you want.  I am posting the scaled down tightwad recipe.  Play with it as you like:

Set oven to 375 degrees
In a roasting pan or baking sheet with sides pour 5 c. regular (not quick) oats,  a pinch of salt, and 1/2 c. nuts (optional)  if you are using wheat germ add 1/4 c.
In a saucepan combine 2/3 c. brown sugar, 2/3 c. canola or vegetable oil, and 1/3 c. honey (here's a tip - use a 1/3 measuring cup and measure out the sugar first, then the oil and then the honey.  The oil will prevent the honey from sticking to the cup.)  Cook until the sugar is dissolved.  Pour honey mixture over the oats and mix to coat the oats.  Bake for 10 minutes, stir, and bake another 10 minutes.  Once the granola is cool add 1/2 c. raisins (cheap) or other dried fruit (not so cheap).

Here are some other options:

Fruit - Nut:  Dried cranberries/pecans, dried apricots/pistachios, dried cherries/hazelnuts, dried blueberries/almonds
Banana-Nut:  Add 1/2 c.  dried banana chips and 1/2 c. chopped walnuts and 1 tsp. cinnamon before baking
Almond Joy:  Add 1/2 c. chopped almonds and 1/2 c. sweetened coconut before baking, add 1/2 c. chocolate chips after granola has cooled.
Tropical:  Add 1/2 c. sweetened coconut and 1/2 c dried mango, pineapple and papaya
Rocky Road:  After granola has cooled add 1/2 c. mini marshmallows and 1/2 c. chocolate chips

Use your creativity and create a granola to suit your taste.  You can also put this in a quart size mason jar and tie it with raffia to make a nice hostess gift!

Blueberry Posting #2: The Recipes!

Organic Texas Blueberries

On a recent trip to Moorehead Blueberry Farm in Conroe, Texas, we picked 10 pounds of blueberries at $2/lb.  We should have doubled that.  Berries freeze very well (spread them on a cookie sheet until they are frozen hard, then put them into gallon freezer bags).  Here are a few recipes:

Blueberry sorbet
In a saucepan combine 3 c. blueberries and 1 c. sugar and 1/2 c. water.  Cook until berries are soft and sugar is dissolved.  Cool and put in a blender on high until smooth.  If you want super smooth sorbet, strain the mixture through a fine sieve.  If you don't mind the tiny seeds don't worry about it.  Pour into a shallow lidded plastic container and put in the freezer for about 4 hours.  Remove from freezer.  It should be slushy.  Put back into the blender and blend with 1 Tbsp. creme de cassis (that's booze) until smooth.  Put back into the freezer.  You can put it through the blender again after another 4 hours for a smoother sorbet, or you can eat it when it is frozen.  I serve this with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a crushed graham cracker on top as a sort of mock blueberry cobbler.

Blueberry bars
These are delicious and healthy - I cut them big and give them to the kids for breakfast or an afternoon snack:  Heat oven to 350.  In a bowl combine 1 1/2 c. oats, 1/2 c. whole wheat flour, 1/2 c. sugar, 1/4 tsp. baking soda, 1/8 tsp salt, and 6 Tbsp melted butter.  Combine until oats are coated.  Reserve 1/2 c. of the mixture.  Coat an 8 inch square pan with spray oil and pour the mixture into it, gently pressing it down to form a crust.  Bake for 12 minutes.  While that is baking, in a saucepan combine 1 1/2 c. blueberries (frozen are fine) 3 Tbsp sugar, 2tsp cornstarch, and 1 tsp lemon juice.  Simmer for 2 minutes and pour over the crust mixture.  Top with the remaining crumb mixture and bake an additional 30 minutes.

Blueberry/banana smoothie
 In a blender combine 1 frozen banana, a handful of frozen blueberries, 1 c. plain yogurt, and 1/2 c. milk, and 1/4 c. honey (or to taste).  Add a little more milk if necessary to get it to the preferred consistency.  Serves 2.

Blueberry muffin

WT Day Trip...Moorehead Blueberry Farm

Sweet Potato picking blueberries.

Seriously.  What a deal.

June is blueberry season on the Texas Gulf Coast, and if you are anywhere near the area you must drive out to Moorehead Blueberry Farm and pick your own blueberries.  We arrived early on a Sunday morning (yes, we skipped church to pick blueberries.  Don't judge me.)  At about 9am the heat was just beginning to creep in.  We found the place, thanks to good signage, at the end of a bumpy dirt road, parked the car and headed toward the gate.  We were greeted by two young men who handed us buckets and directed us to the best picking area.  Upon entering the orchard I marveled at the acre upon acre of tall bushy blueberry shrubs loaded with berries.  We staked out a spot and started picking.  Sugar Snap gathered the berries closer to the ground, while Sweet Potato and I held our own in the middle, and hubby snagged the upermost berries.  We were soon joined by a family with a small (I'd say three year old) boy, and enjoyed some casual conversation.  It wasn't long, however, before Sweet Potato became indignant.  Her sister was picking the berries, and popping more of them in her mouth than in her bucket.  In her defense, the berries were big and juicy and sweet.  I was doing my best to fill my bucket, but I, too, was giving in to temptation.  We decided that we would 'fess up when it came time to pay that we had probably eaten a pound or so berries in the field and would be happy to pay for them (at $2 a pound!)  Satisfied with that, we continued to pick berries.  Our goal was 10 pounds, and judging by the size of the bucket, we could tell we were getting close to that amount.  Let me tell you, it was soooo hard to walk away from the berries that were still on those bushes.  It must be some sort of latent hunter/gatherer thing because we all felt it.  There's always one more perfect berry just begging to be picked.  We  managed to tear ourselves away and walked back to the covered area where they have the cash registers and scales.  Sure enough, we had picked 10 pounds.  $20.  What a bargain!  Sweet Potato proceeded to explain that we figured we had eaten about a pound or so in the field and would like to pay for them.  The man behind the register wouldn't hear of it.  He explained that it was part of the deal - they fully expect and hope that their customers will sample the berries, and are happy about that.  That eased Sweet Potato's conscience.  He turned out to be Sid Moorehead, the son of  Albert, the gentleman who started the Blueberry Farm.  It's a rather quaint story:  some time in the 1970's Mr. Moorehead attended a presentation hosted by Texas A&M Agriculture Dept. in Overton, Texas.  The purpose was to introduce blueberry farming to Texas farmers.  Apparently, the idea appealed to Mr. Moorehead, who planted 20 plants the first year and expanded with his success every year into what is now the 20 acre farm with 20 different varieties of blueberries.  His son Sid now runs the business.  We chatted briefly before shopping the little jam and pickle booth that was set up right outside the gate.  We bought the kids a sno cone to cool off, also for sale right near the front gate (genius!).  We continued to nibble on blueberries all the way home to Pearland.

When we got home I froze most of the berries for future use, I turned some into blueberry sorbet, dried some for granola, and turned some into blueberry cobbler.  Our only regret - we should have picked 20 pounds.

Berry pickers!

WT Get Away... The TX Lavender Festival

If you have just one opportunity to visit Texas, you should go to the Hill Country.  Skip Houston, and by all means skip Dallas - go straight to one of the small towns in the Hill Country like Boerne,  Fredericksburg, Wimberley, San Marcos, Gruene, even San Antonio or Austin,  - but for God's sake, don't go in July or August.  The heat will make you think you've gone to hell.  Texans are slowly realizing that crops which grow in Provence also do well in the Texas Hill country.  As a result, we get to enjoy Texas grown almonds, olives, wine, and lavender!  This year Hubby and I found ourselves at the annual Texas Lavender Festival in Blanco.  We arrived at lunchtime and rather than eating at one of the many food vendors set up on the courthouse square, we opted to eat at a local restaurant:  The Uptown Blanco Restaurant.  Given how busy the square was I was surprised to be seated within 10 minutes.  The cafe is the cutest place - charm out the wazoo with quilt wall hangings and high ceilings.  There were several lavender inspired items on the menu in honor of the festival.  We ordered the lavender lemonade, which was good, it was delicately flavored with lemon and lavender, and not too sweet.  I ordered the fried goat cheese salad with an orange/lavender vinaigrette.  The lavender was subtle, and the salad was a nice mix of greens topped with mango slices and pecans.  Hubby had the lavender smoked chicken plate, and the lavender was so subtle as to not be detected.  Still, a good meal, and we could say we had lavender for lunch.

Lavender lemonade.

What I love the best is the dedication to the Lavender that this small town has.  First of all, Blanco is totally quaint, and very small, and every single business and local person was gung-ho for all things lavender.  We took our time and looked at the craft booths set up on the square, even made a few purchases before heading to the park to listen to some great live music.  We walked the square a while before getting in the car and heading to one of the lavender farms about 15 minutes away - The Wimberley Lavender Farm.  Sadly, the lavender plants took a hit during last year's brutal drought and are still recovering, so there was not lavender to cut, as there has been in years past.  We did buy a couple of lavender plants and there were many other items in the gift shop:  soaps, sachets, even books.  Several other lavender farms were open for visits, but we only went to the one.  Then we continued on to Wimberley, another charming Texas town, where we were staying for the night.  It was a great way to spend the day.  Next year when June rolls around go check out the Lavender Festival in Blanco - it was worth the trip!

Yes, the officer directing traffic is wearing a lavender cowboy hat.

Even the port-o-john is lavender!

Making Pickles: My New Obsession

I have a whole bookcase full of cookbooks, and I will read a cookbook from cover to cover.  People who know me know that a great or interesting cookbook is a great gift for me.  I especially enjoy vintage cookbooks because they can give us a real insight as to the foodways of the past.  I recently had an abundance of green tomatoes that had developed on a rapidly dying vine.  In search of some green tomato recipes I pulled out a couple of my favorite oldies - one is a Menonite Cookbook published in 1950.  The other is the Little House Cookbook, which is a newer book that features recipes for many of the dishes mentioned in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House book series.  I found my tomato recipes - one for green tomato pickles, (meh)  the other for green tomato preserves (fantastic).  Here's the other thing I discovered:  at some point along the way in our change from a primarily agricultural/  rural society to urban, one where our food is grown and sold to us by a handful of corporations, a decision was made that "pickles" means pickled cucumbers.  There are rows and rows of pickled cucumbers at my local grocery and little else.  There are a couple of jars of pickled beets, one brand of pickled okra, and one brand of pickled green beans ($7 for a small jar!)  Going through the books I was astonished at not only all the different pickle recipes - some with dill, some with mustard, some with curry, etc. - but the variety of fruits and vegetables that were pickled or preserved was amazing.  Yes, cucumbers, okra, and beets, but also squash, tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, peaches, plums, beans, peppers, onions, even watermelon rind.  I compost watermelon rind.  I consider it to be garbage.  They were pickling it!  One of my favorite recipes was for "End of Garden" pickles.  Basically, you take whatever's left over from a harvest - a few okra, some green beans, one gangly squash, etc. and you bung it in a jar and pickle it together.  Brilliant.  I recently bought a big bag of green beans on sale for $1 a pound.  I haven't done the math yet, but with vinegar costing mere pennies and if I use garden herbs a quart of pickled green beans are bound to come in for less than $7!   Here's how to do it:

Green tomato pickles. Meh.

Pick your veggie and pick your recipe.  Do you want sweet pickles, dill, or spicy?  There are loads of pickle recipes all over the Web.  Here's the recipe I used for sweet and sour sugar snap pea pickles. They were addictive. I only had enough sugar snap peas to make one jar of pickles since the kids go out and munch on them while they are outside playing.  Sterilize your jar(s) and lids.  Remember jars and rims can be reused, but you need to purchase new lids each time you do any canning.  Once jars are sterilized stuff them with the sugar snap peas that have had their strings removed, add some red pepper flakes, and 1 clove garlic per jar.  In a saucepan combine 1 1/4 c. white wine vinegar, 1 1/4 c. water, 1 Tbsp salt, and 1 Tbsp sugar and bring to a boil.  Pour hot vinegar into the jars, seal with lids and rims and place in a pot of boiling water for 10 minutes to seal.  Make sure the water fully covers the jars.  Remove and let cool.  Check the lid for a proper seal.  If the lid pops it didn't seal.  Put any that don't seal in the fridge.  You are supposed to let them sit for 10 days to let the flavors meld.  Good luck with that.  I broke into mine the next day and they were gone within the hour.

Dilly beans.  Oh.Yeah.

For dilly beans, follow the same procedure, only omit the sugar and add 1 sprig of dill to the jars before putting in the liquid.  Truly addictive.  Great with martinis!  Happy pickling!
For more on canning click here.