In the Kitchen: Dry Roast Granola

I bought this wonderful cookbook, Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe, at my local grocery store and found that it's full of fabulous breakfast/brunch ideas! Our family loves breakfast anytime, so I plan on getting tons of use out of it. Not only does it have recipes, it has tips and helpful ideas. I love that.

The first recipe I tried was the Dry Roast Granola and it was yummy. I found everything I needed at Mother's Market . Maybe you can find these items at your local grocer, but I knew I'd have better luck at Mother's.
Everything goes in one pan!! I double-love that!
This was my yummy, homemade, healthy breakfast the next day. Well, maybe the Cinnamon Vanilla Coffemate with a little bit of coffee wasn't so healthy...but we all need a little pick me up in the morning right? ;)
Here is the recipe:

Dry Roast Granola

1 cup rolled oats

1 cup barley flakes

1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (your choice)

1/2 cup oat bran or unprocessed wheat bran

1/3 cup sunflower seeds

1/3 cup sesame seeds

1/3 cup pumpkin seeds

1/3 shredded unsweetened coconut (optional)

5 - 6 tablespoons (packed) light brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt (rounded measure)

1 tablespoon carob powder

Optional additions: 1 cup dried fruit or up to 1/2 cup wheat germ

1. Place a large (10 in.), heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the oats, barley flakes and nuts and cook, stirring, for 10 to 15 minutes, or until they look and smell toasty.

2. Add the oat bran, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds, as well as the coconut, if desired. Keep cooking, stirring frequently, for another 10 minutes or so.

3. Sprinkle in the brown sugar and salt. Continue to cook and stir for about 3 more minutes, or until the sugar melts slightly, coating the other ingredients. Remove from the heat, sprinkle in the carob powder, and toss to distribute throughout the mixture.

4. Cool to room temperature, and add dried fruit and/or wheat germ, if desired. Transfer to a clean glass jar with a tight fitting lid or a zip-style plastic bag. To keep fresh longer, store in the freezer.

ENJOY!!!

Bus stops

These cute bus stops are located in Colorado on the way to the Keystone resort. I wonder if they're heated at all?I hope she's warm in there because it was very cold outside that day!

Monday, Monday

It can come and go for all I care... ;)I've never been a big fan of Monday. I know it's not Monday's fault that it's the first day of the week....just the luck of the draw, I suppose. I feel like it's a living to-do list; a new day to start off where last week left you hanging. Every week.

Maybe one of these days I'll learn to like Monday.

Home again, home again

Jiggety-jig. It feels great to be home! I loved our road trip to Denver. We went through AZ, NM, CO, UT and NV and we saw some gorgeous sights, but living out of a suitcase isn't my idea of a good time. I feel lucky to have had this experience with my family and to have made the memories that we did.

The Wildcats (our son's team) worked hard and won...
We ice skated on a frozen pond in Keystone, CO...

This little guy and his buddies greeted us on a brisk morning in Utah...

A frozen waterfall on the way to Keystone, CO...

Beautiful trees on the side of the road in New Mexico...
This is our silly son in NM, it was about 12 degrees outside...Fuel for the ride; Starbucks and Lofthouse cookies. Yum...
It's so exciting to get the opportunity to drive through so many places. I think we tend to forget or even ignore the beauty of things in our day-to-day routines. I've been making a conscious effort to notice things around me and point them out to my son so that he develops the habit of doing the same.

Halfway there

Day two of our 'Denver or Bust' trip! We made it to Tempe last night and drove to somewhere between Albuquerque and Santa Fe NM tonight. We hit sun, rain and beautiful snow. :) Tomorrow we go straight to Denver....finally our last ridiculously long day in the car!!

P.S. This isn't from this trip; it's from our last trip through Flagstaff (but it looked exactly the same!) because durr...I forgot the USB cable for the camera when I was packing!! :/

There's no crying in Target

Except for today. Out running errands for our road trip (see post below), I stopped at Target. As I was driving up and down the aisles in the parking lot, I spotted a little boy about 8 or 9 with a drink in his hand. No big deal except that the mom/daughter combo I saw near him walked away and he didn't follow. Maybe he didn't belong with them. So as I came up the other side of the aisle, again I see another mom/daughter combo walk away and he stayed put. I proceed into the store and I go in the exit (which I never do; too many carts to run into head-on, you know?) and there's a mom crying holding her daughter talking to Target security. I almost walked on by until I heard the mom ask if anyone has looked in the bathroom. I interrupted and asked if she was looking for a little boy and she exclaimed "YES!" so I told her where I saw him and she ran out to the parking lot and there was her little boy. Turns out he was waiting for her at their car. Smart boy.

As I was going through the line, she was still standing at the exit and she saw me and came over and gave me a big, teary eyed hug and so of course I start crying because a few years back I thought we lost our son at Sea World. Very scary. So we're both crying and smiling at each other. And I said to her kids "Always stay with your mom, o.k.?" and her little boy replied "Well, I just got a little off track, that's all." Needless to say, he was all smiles and had not a care in the world. Typical of little kiddies when they get lost, right?

My husband and son are always telling me to not stare and be nosy. I always tell them it's good to notice what's going on. Turns out I'm right. ;)

On the road...again

Lately the whole 'travel hockey' thing is getting on my nerves. Big time. It has consumed our whole lives. Every weekend there's somewhere else to be, and at a ridiculous hour to boot. I guess these trips would be considered local, but a two+ hour drive to and from with 2 - 3 hours in between makes for a really l o n g day! And with two to three practices a week, well, you get the picture.

In November we drove to Tempe/Chandler, Arizona and that was cool because we've made the drive to AZ. tons of times. This time, though, we're off to Denver, CO. Actually Arvada, a suburb of Denver. We were supposed to leave today, but alas, the weekend was consumed (games Sat. and Sun. and a practice to contend with) and time got away from us. Last night hubby looked at flights online, but we decided to stick to out driving plan. Are we crazy?? Probably. We'll be gone about 11 days total. !

When we were going to leave today, we had all kinds of time to kill on the drive (or so it seemed), but now we feel the need to tighten up and make the whole trip in two days. Tomorrow make it to New Mexico and the next day into Denver. hmmmm.... Not real sure about how that's going to go, but we have no choice I suppose.

Wish us luck...

Cute new napkins

I bought these recently at an 'antique' store...I know they're not antiques or even vintage (they have very modern tags), but they're still really cute! I love a fruit motif and these do not disappoint. My only complaint is that there were only four for sale; I guess I need to research them and see if I can find more.
P.S. I got the Printshop program for MacBook, so look out! Too much fun stuff to do for sure and I can't wait to use it ALL!! ;)

Happy Happy

O.K., so computer issue part deux. I bought a new MacBook last night and excitedly clicked through the process of setting it up to our wireless service. I got to the end and nothing, and to add to my frustration, some of the icons in the menu bar weren't showing up on my computer (they were a huge part of why I chose it). Today I went back to the Apple store and talked to Don. He is wonderful!! He helped me and now I'm able to tell you all about it on my new shiny laptop! yay!!!! He even got me a break on purchasing the iWork program (the missing icons) and their OnetoOne in store service because I homeschool my son....AWESOME!

THANK YOU DON!!!!!!!!! :D

grrrr.....

O.K., so we got a new computer today (one is quickly becoming not enough for the three of us; how is that exactly??) and it's a MacBook that I CANNOT figure out. We also recently got cable/wireless hooked up at home, so I thought it would be so easy to set up our new toy. It's not. I followed all the directions in the manual and a book I bought and got all the way to the screen that says "Congratulations, you're now connected to the internet!" and I was so excited (and proud seeing as how I don't get along well with tech stuff). Apparently it was a lie because when I proceeded to connect, I got nothin'. Just a homepage stating that I'm not connected to the internet. The familiar feeling of frustration is slowly setting in. Stay tuned...