Homemade Granola

So since i'm doing this Real Food challenge, I decided to make my own granola so that i can have some for my breakfast tomorrow.  It's pretty easy and you can come up with all sorts of delicious variations based on what you like.  Here's what I made just based on what I had on hand.

Homemade Granola

5 cups 100% Whole grain Old Fashioned Rolled Oats

1/2 cup Organic Shredded Coconut

1 cup Campfire Trailmix (raisins, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds, dried fruits) -- i didn't actually included the blueberries and almonds included in the pic above

1/2 cup Coconut oil

1/2 cup water

1/2 organic honey from the farmer's market

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Heat the coconut oil, water, honey, and salt  in a sauce pan over medium low heat.  Once the liquid ingredients are heated add cinnamon and vanilla.  Whisk all ingredients together.  Pour half of the warm mixture over the dry ingredients and stir.  Add the remaining half of the liquid coating all dry ingredients.  

Line a large roasting pan with parchment paper.  Pour granola into the pan, spreading granola out evenly.  Bake at 300 F for 30 minutes.  Take out and stir granola.  Lower the temperature to 200 F and bake for another 35-45 minutes.  Let cool and store in airtight containers.  

It's super easy and super delicious and you should smell my kitchen!  It kinda smells like Christmas!  Yumm....

Easy Summer Pasta Salad

I was invited to a 4th of July potluck with some friends last night so i was trying to decide what to bring.  I woke up at 5:50 am because that's what time my cocker spaniel's internal alarm clock is set to go off, but back to the pasta.  So I decided I'd whip together a pasta salad for the get together.  This is just what I happened to have on hand so these are the ingredients I used.  It's a pretty flexible recipe, so get creative!

Easy Summer Pasta Salad
1 box tri-colored rotini pasta
1 can of sliced olives (actually, I only had whole olives so I sliced them all in the egg slicer!  Pretty fun!)
1 cucumber, seeded and diced
2 small roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1/4 red onion, very finely sliced
3/4 cup feta cheese
12 slices of pepperoni, sliced (you can use more, but i only had 12 slices because it was leftover from something else i made)
3/4 to 1 cup Paul Newman's light Italian dressing

Cook the pasta according to the directions on the box.  Rinse off pasta in cold water to stop the cooking process.  Toss all ingredients in a gallon sized ziplock bag and refrigerate, flipping the bag over every couple of hours.  I like tossing it in a ziplock bag because 1) it takes up less space in my fridge and 2) it's easy to coat all of the ingredients with the dressing. 

You can make the pasta salad up to 24 hours ahead of time.  The longer you let the ingredients marinate in the dressing the better it will be! 

When you're ready to serve, plate it up and enjoy! 

Did I mention I don't like popcorn?

That's right. I don't even like popcorn! But apparently I can't stop covering it in all kinds of deliciousness. My friends are either gonna love me or hate me. It's such a vicious cycle! Lol.

Last night I made some cookies n creme popcorn drizzled in milk chocolate for my friend's birthday today. I'm gonna blame pinterest when she slaps me for giving her sweets (after all it's not really my fault that I don't really care for popcorn!)

Anywho, it's super easy to make and I did get the recipe off of pinterest.

All you need is some popcorn, about 12 crushed Oreos per bag of popcorn. Melt some white chocolate (I melt it in a double boiler because I'm never successful melting chocolate in the microwave) and coat the popcorn. Slowly adding the crushed oreos to the mix. Let it sit do the chocolate can harden. (I threw mine in the fridge for about 15 minutes). Then I melted the milk chocolate and drizzled it over the popcorn/Oreo mixture coated in white chocolate. Store in an airtight container!

To Blog or Not to Blog...the is the question...

I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting up a blog lately, but what in the world would I write about? Back in college, I had dreams of being a writer and publishing some great novel but then somewhere along the way, life happened. And i got sidetracked. And the next thing i know it’s 20 years later and I my writing career only exists as a ghost writer at work.

So back to blogging. What would I write about? Food? Exercising? My dogs? And more importantly, would anyone even want to read my sometimes weird and quirky musings?

Yet, I always believe that there is something great waiting to be discovered around every corner! And this is no different. I will see where this leads me. So happy reading or blogging or lurking, whatever you feel comfortable with is fine by me! Aloha!