granola

Easy Homemade Granola

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 1 Comment

For those of you that have been reading ICTW for a long time, you’ll be thinking, hey this isn’t the first time you’ve made granola before. And you know what – you’re right! I’ve been making granola for years. I grew up with my mom making a batch of granola nearly weekly (thanks to my brother’s obsession, which he passed along to me) and when I moved out of the house I missed it a ton. The store bought granola, while yummy, just didn’t cut it. So, every so often, I get on a granola kick and have to make a big batch for myself.

Luckily for me, my kids are loving granola these days as well. So, now I have someone to share it with!

This is another one of my mom’s recipes that she has been making for a while. I shared another one of her granola recipes here, but these days, the recipe below is what I’ve been craving.

easy homemade granola - easy to make and made with maple syrup! - i crashed the web

Easy Homemade Granola

Here’s what you need: 

  • 4 cups old fashioned rolled oats, or organic oats
  • 2 cups slivered almonds
  • 1 cup chopped pecans
  • 3/4 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened (Note, if you can’t find and need to use sweetened, it’s okay, I’ve been there)
  • 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup avocado oil
  • 1/3 cup maple syrup (I’ve also used honey)
  • Optional: 2 cups dried fruit (I love dried cherries and blueberries)

Here’s what you do:

  1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F
  2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl – oats, nuts,  coconut, cinnamon and brown sugar.
  3. In a small bowl, combine avocado oil and maple syrup. Once mixed, pour over dry ingredients. Mix well so it’s evenly distributed.
  4. Pour out mixture onto a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper.
  5. Bake for 30-40 minutes, checking and stirring at about halfway through.
  6. Now the hardest part — let cool and enjoy!  I add in the optional dried fruit AFTER baking, so the fruit does’t also dry out any more.

Suggestions – if you’d prefer not to just eat granola right out of the jar, you can also serve over yogurt, cottage cheese, oatmeal or on top of your favorite smoothie bowl!

Questions for you:

  • What’s your go-to breakfast?
  • What’s your favorite type of granola?

I’m linking up with Meatless Monday with A Whisk and Two Wands and Confessions of a Mother Runner

Weekends Waiting for Spring

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

Happy spring! That’s right spring is officially HERE… though it doesn’t feel like it in snowy, COLD Cleveland right now. Despite the weather not being the greatest, we still had some fun this weekend.

St. Patrick’s Day B and I both had to work and for dinner we opted to have Chinese food. Yup, super Irish, I know 🙂 (confession – I’m not Irish)

At least FW had something festive for dinner – a green smoothie 🙂 Mango, banana and spinach!

I was BEAT after this week and ended up passing out early while FW finished some Guinness on the couch. St. Patrick’s Day as parents=success.

Saturday morning started with a 3.5 mile run.

And then a birthday party! FW got dressed up in his bowtie. 

There was delicious food – my favorites, including pickles and lox!

FW got to play with some of his other baby friends. 

That afternoon my shirt came in the mail! I was pumped to wear it out that night when we decided to watch college basketball.

We went to Masthead for pizza, beer and NCAA basketball. FW and B look like the game they’re watching isn’t going there way here, don’t they?

I love their thin crust pizza and salads. Even though the teams we wanted to win didn’t win, at least we had some good food, right?

Sunday it was nice to relax and be productive. I spent the day running (7.7 miles on the treadmill), meal prepping, cleaning (Confession – B did the cleaning), baby proofing (again, this was all B) and making granola and smoothie bowls.

The best part about a homemade smoothie bowl is you can add whatever toppings you like. I had coconut, homemade almond butter, homemade granola (see above), blueberries and pineapple.

Sunday night we enjoyed some comfort food (lasagna!!) at B’s parents’ house. With ice cream sundaes for dessert. A pretty good way to end the weekend.

Hopefully spring actually comes this week – I am ready for warmer weather!

I’m linking up with Katie and the weekly wraps.

WIAW: Cinco De Mayo

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 5 Comments

Cinco Cinco Cinco De Mayoooo … woopwoop! That’s right, I’m sharing my Cinco De Mayo eats for  What I Ate Wednesday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very Mexican-themed day–but I did try with dinner!

The day started with the return of the smoothie bowl! It had some vanilla protein powder, ice and some frozen blueberries and raspberries. I had not had one of these in AGES and it was so good!

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And a snack of a plum.

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Lunch was a ginormous salad I had made – so good. It had a little bit of chicken, broccoli, cauliflower, feta, avocado, tomato and a Japanese sweet potato (hidden).20160505_123904

And a few ginger candies.20160505_133049

My afternoon snack was some yogurt and granola and cashews. 20160505_150349

And then I headed out to Barrio to celebrate Cinco De Mayo! I didn’t imbibe and only could be there for a little, but thy do have the best chips and salsa.

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Before dinner, I admit I had another sweet snack – one of these freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. It was SO good.

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Dinner was semi-Cinco De Mayo themed? I made some cilantro lime quinoa with avocado, feta, broccoli and black beans. I paired it with some chicken and cumin/lime roasted potatoes and cauliflower.

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Confession – I couldn’t finish my plate. I’ve been getting super full while pregnant and my stomach was too full to finish dinner. After dinner, I made some granola, but somehow found room for a bowl 🙂 You know, for quality control.grnaola

 

I really wanted to do more Cinco De Mayo themed food and even a fun dessert (homemade churros perhaps?) but pregnancy fatigue sat in and I was too tired after dinner and making granola to do much else. Still, a satisfying What I Ate Wednesday.

 

Some questions for you:

  • Did you do anything fun for Cinco De Mayo?
  • Do you like smoothies? Smoothie bowls? Which do you prefer??

WIAW #29: Just an ordinary day

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 11 Comments

Happy What I Ate Wednesday party people!

First, let me warn you that this day is just an ordinary day. A pretty boring, eat breakfast and lunch at my desk and dinner at home day. That being said, it was still pretty yummy, so here we go.

Side note – did anyone else have this song in their head now? #sorryimnotsorry

Anyway, I digress. For breakfast, B made me my usual. Egg whites with hot peppers plus veggies. Yum yum yum. Tired of seeing this same meal? Oh, those are farm fresh local tomatoes. So. Good.

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For lunch, I basically had last night’s dinner leftovers on top of lettuce, plus goat cheese. So it became a salad! Salad with olives, salmon, tomato, roasted cauliflower, sweet potato, broccoli and green beans. Plus a few nuts. Colorful, huh?

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For snacks, I had some delicious fruit. Grapes and this apple, which was also local.  I can’t believe it’s practically apple picking season!

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Oh, and of course a pickle! I made pickles this past weekend (they’re so easy!) and couldn’t resist having a few before dinner.

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B made me dinner, too. Yup, breakfast and dinner today .. and we had a shrimp stir fry. We had a few veggies that needed to be eaten (bok chou, broccoli, eggplant) and combined with soy sauce, hoisin, sriracha and fish sauce, it was delicious!

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And for dessert? Some homemade granola. Yum!

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Some questions for you:

  1. I need a new breakfast. Any ideas? What’s your go-to?
  2. Have you ever pickled?
  3. What’s your favorite/least favorite kind of apple? I love so many kinds it’s hard to pick a favorite. Least favorite – red delicious!

 

Pumpkin Granola! [yes, this happened]

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / Leave a comment

As you may know, I looooove granola. I grew up eating my mom’s homemade granola and have been looking for an excuse to make a new version.

Well, I was talking with my brother recently and he mentioned that if I wanted to send him a package (which I do on occasion – usually with baked goods), to send him granola. Challenge accepted! And of course, since pumpkin season is here (as if you haven’t realized that from my plethora of pumpkin recipes), I decided to try to make some pumpkin granola to send him.

Warning – this stuff is really good if you like granola. And pumpkin. So good that my brother only got a small baggie (sorry, Greg, I promise you more if you visit!). But it’s also SO easy that you can make it and share it with friends! And really, this recipe is not much different from the original granola recipe – just has some more  spices and of course, pumpkin!

pumpkin granola - i crashed the web

Pumpkin Granola

Here’s what you need:

  • 3 cups old fashioned rolled oats, or organic oats (I used the amazing oats we got in our CSA)
  • 1/2 cup flaxseed
  • 1 cup your favorite dried fruit (you can use any combination of dried fruit – as usual, I used dried blueberries, dried cranberries and dried cherries)
  • 1 cup your favorite nut, loosely chopped (I used almonds and cashews – but I imagine pumpkin seeds would work really well this time!)
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
  • 3/4 – 1 cup maple syrup (I used about 1 c. of what we had on hand which was pure maple syrup from Canada!)
  • 1/2 cup canned pumpkin

Here’s what you do:

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
  2. Combine oats, flaxseed, nuts, dried fruit in a large boil.
  3. In a smaller bowl, combine brown sugar, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, maple syrup and pumpkin. Combine until well mixed.
  4. Add brown sugar-pumpkin mixture to oat mixture. Mix well until oats, nuts, etc. are well and evenly coated.
  5. Pour out onto a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper.
  6. Bake for about 40 minutes, checking and stirring at about 15-20 minutes and again at 30ish minutes. Careful not to let it burn!
  7. Let cool and enjoy!
Nuts and dried fruit. Yum!

Nuts and dried fruit. Yum!

pumpkin granola - i crashed the web

Enjoy!

My mom’s homemade granola {recipe}

/ Melissa (I Crashed the Web) / 6 Comments

Remember when a few weeks ago we got some organic oats from our CSA? I’ve been debating what to make with them – cookies? Energy bites? Oatmeal? These awesome oatmeal caramel cookie bars? But when our CSA this week gave us some organic yogurt, I knew exactly what I’d be making – homemade granola.

I looooove homemade granola. My mom makes a fresh batch of it nearly every week (probably more when my brother and I were home) and this is the recipe she used when I was growing up. I will warn you – it’s addicting. My brother and I could probably eat the whole recipe in one sitting! With or without yogurt.

easy homemade granola

The Best Homemade Granola (my mom’s recipe, with a few of my own twists)

Here’s what you need: 

  • 3 cups old fashioned rolled oats, or organic oats
  • 1/2 cup flaxseed (my mom doesn’t always add this but I did)
  • 1 cup your favorite dried fruit (you can use any combination of dried fruit – I used dried blueberries, dried cranberries and dried cherries)
  • 1 cup your favorite nut, loosely chopped (I used almonds this time – my mom has used pecans and slivered almonds as well and they are AWESOME)
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 3/4 – 1 cup maple syrup (I used about 1 c. of what we had on hand which was pure maple syrup from Canada!)

Here’s what you do:

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
  2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl – oats, flaxseed, nuts, dried fruit, cinnamon and brown sugar.
  3. Add in vanilla and maple syrup. Mix well until everything is well combined and dry ingredients are coated.
  4. Pour out onto a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper.
  5. Bake for about 40 minutes, checking and stirring at about halfway through.  Your house will smell amazing. I LOVED waking up to the smell of homemade granola cooking in the oven!
  6. Let cool and enjoy!  Serve with yogurt, cottage cheese, mix with other cereals or just enjoy on its own!
best homemade granola recipe

all the ingredients before mixing

easy homemade granola