Granola

Posted on December 15, 2020April 14, 2023 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Homemade granola is one of my favorite foods to make. It’s easy, it’s yummy, and it saves so much money. Granola found at stores usually either contains extra ingredients I’d rather not have or it is super expensive and comes in an itty-bitty pouch which I’m never quite sure is recyclable.

I’ve been making this granola for years. It’s from one of my favorite cookbook authors, Alana Chernila. I highly recommend all of her books.

I buy the ingredients in bulk from a Natural Grocers store and recycle the bags with grocery bag recycling or the bottle with glass recycling. I love that you can make this recipe your own and the lovely Alana encourages this. It makes a big batch of granola that takes very little time. I put the granola in Pyrex containers in our freezer and use as needed. It also makes a simple and easy gift if you put it in a large Mason jar!

Tips

Lately, I’ve been using the leftover almond pulp from making almond milk (after drying it out) to supplement the almonds.

Instead of using a maple syrup, I use an agave maple blend, which is usually cheaper. And once, when I was ran out of syrup partway through measuring, I supplemented with honey, which seemed to work just fine.

You can make it to suit your preferences, which is awesome. I omit the sesame seeds, coconut, and almond extract. And instead of canola oil, I’ve been using olive oil or sunflower oil.

I also make our vanilla extract from scratch to add to the savings.

I hope you consider giving this recipe a try! It is so yummy as a cereal or on yogurt (with some chocolate chips or blueberries).

Fortune Cookies

Posted on November 15, 2020June 16, 2023 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

I remember being SO amazed when I discovered I could make my very own fortune cookies. How cool is this! Homemade fortune cookies taste nothing like the ones at restaurants, by the way. They are buttery and delicious and decadent. So, if you’re feeling nostalgic for some classic restaurant taste, then homemade is not the way to go. But, if you’re up for some lovely, homemade awesomeness, look no further. (Recipe link)

Making this batter is ridiculously simple. (Just be sure to spread the batter VERY thin– thinner than you think.) So, the tough part is the time it takes. Because you have to form the shapes while they are fresh from the oven, you can only make about two or three at a time. eeps! I find having helpers are a good thing. (And sometimes…not.) Also, putting two trays in at staggered times so you’re not in the kitchen all day is helpful. I’m wondering if some sort of oven gloves (or even thin winter gloves?) would help too with the burning hot cookies you need to handle. I find that the first 3 or 4 cookies are always my “test” cookies that come out a bit too thick and crumbly. But, by the end, these look gorgeous!

Writing the fortunes is so much fun. The first time we made these for Lunar New Year, I asked my then-four-year-old daughter to help with the messages. She said awesomely hilarious things like:

Garbage is good for garbage cans.

Birds go in nests, of course.

The window is closed at nighttime.

Your walls will be down.

The stage is for dancing on.

You can see stars and the moon through a telescope.

School is about playing.

I mean, only a four-year old could think up such profound words. Seriously.

I’ve compiled some of my favorite quotes from authors, poets, etc. into pages of fortune cookie papers and posted them as a digital download on my shop, if you’re interested! Some famous quotations, while others are ones I’ve gathered while reading my favorite books.

Making fortune cookies is definitely not an everyday sort of baking project, at least for me, but it is fun to do once in awhile. I also highly recommend making these as a paper craft project!

(You can also watch the San Francisco Fortune Cookie Co. at work or here)

Croutons

Posted on November 13, 2020March 5, 2021 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Here is a simple recipe for delicious homemade croutons!

I’m a sucker for yummy restaurant croutons. They’re always a thousand times better than those store-bought things. And making croutons at home is so incredibly easy that, if you’re looking for a place to cut back on all the store-bought packaging, this is a great one.

I know making bread is another one of those very basic things that companies somehow convinced the public we don’t know how to do. But…it feels like a bit of a shame sometimes to take a beautiful fresh homemade loaf and turn it into croutons. Your choice. I like to pick up day-old loaves (50c for a 12 foot loaf at Jimmy John’s). I bring my own bag, and I figure it’s a bit of reusing to do something with the day-olds that are already sitting out at bakeries or sandwich shops.

The “hardest” part of the recipe, if you can call it that, is just cubing the bread and trying not to eat it all as I go. I find that my batches usually need to cook longer than 10 minutes. And then, at some point, I turn the oven off and let the tray sit a little longer to crisp everything up a bit. But keep an eye, since, even with the oven off, these things can start browning pretty quickly.

I don’t know how long these keep–never really comes to that. But, I know I’ve frozen them in the past as a way to always have some on hand.

Grating Cheese

Posted on November 10, 2020November 13, 2020 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

We’ve been grating our own blocks of cheese for awhile now, but I thought it might be good to share. It’s so helpful to have staple food items on hand. So, instead of buying small plastic bags of pre-grated cheese, we buy large blocks, grate them, store them in Pyrex containers, and keep them in the freezer. This way, they last longer, and we always seem to have cheese on hand when we need it for a recipe.

The great part about this method from an environmental standpoint, is a decrease in the individual plastic bags that pre-grated cheese is usually sold in. Another benefit is avoiding the cellulose found in pre-grated forms. While cellulose itself isn’t bad, too much of it can be; there’s often not much monitoring as to how much cellulose in a bag is being used as filler, in place of genuine cheese. And, the third benefit, as always, is cost. Pre-grated bags will almost always work out to be more money, even when there’s a sale.

So, how to grate all that cheese? Freezing the block of cheese for a bit before grating is known to help. If you’re lucky enough to have a fancy kitchen gadget like a food processor or Kitchen Aid mixer, they often have attachments that will help with grating cheese or vegetables quickly. If not, it’s a little bit of a workout, but once it’s done, you’ve got yourself a bunch of cheese at the ready! And that, my friend, is always a good thing!

(Photo at top is from a 2 lb block of cheese)

Chicken Soup

Posted on November 10, 2020November 13, 2020 by keepinthesunlightblog@gmail.com

Natural Grocers Immune Kickin’ Chicken Soup

I’ve been eager to have a really great chicken soup recipe for years. And while it couldn’t hurt to have multiple winners, I really loved this one. I made quite a few modifications due to preferences and lack of volume of ingredients and so on. But, just truly delicious and comforting. I feel like I could just sip the broth from this all day (it does have coconut milk in it, so…)

Here are the changes I made:

-I didn’t use any miso, since it’s not for me.
-Only about 4 oz of mushrooms, because that’s what we had.
-Only 1 bell pepper
-1 tsp. dried ginger, since I didn’t have fresh. Probably could have done more, but this worked
-1 tsp. minced garlic, which really only equals about 2 cloves, so I probably could have added more
-1 pound of chicken. Didn’t want to use too much this time, in case the recipe was a bust.
-Only 4 cups chicken broth, then 4 cups water with veg. broth cube
-A little less spinach. (I forgot to defrost our frozen spinach, so I just heated it a little bit before adding to the CrockPot.)

I’m curious to see how the leftovers will look with that coconut milk, but I’m sure a reheat will solve any separating.

SOooo delicious and definitely part of my new go-to recipes.