Granola Round-Up

How about another crunchy granola round-up. It's been a while since I've made any, I've been leaning towards the much easier option of buying some, but here are some really fun flavours I made last year. Pretty much all of these were served over some sort of soy, almond, or cashew yoghurt and sometimes I added fresh fruit if I had some around.

Pecan-Sweet Potato Granola from Sweet Potato Soul by Jenne Claiborne: This granola is delicious! Though the sweet potato flavour in it, coming from grated sweet potato, is fairly subtle. It has both brown sugar and maple syrup in it, putting it on the sweeter side of granolas, but it has a bunch of cinnamon to make it warming and welcoming. I found out as I was making it that I didn't have quite enough pecans for the recipe, so I topped it up with some pepitas.
Rating: :D



Homemade Granola from Chloe's Vegan Desserts by Chloe Coscarelli: This is in the dessert for breakfast chapter, but even with a hefty amount of maple syrup is more a traditional granola rather than anything particularly desserty. I have seen recipes for ones with chocolate chips and marshmallows in other places! But this recipe is super easy, can be scaled up or down, and tastes great. As well as oats it has almonds cinnamon. It called for raisins as the fruit, but I don't love raisins so I used a mix of sultanans and cranberries instead.
Rating: :)



Stove Top Granola from Forks Over Knives The Cookbook by Del Sroufe: I hadn't made granola not in the oven before. This method was easy, however it didn't crisp up the way it does in the oven and while it was yummy, it was also very sticky! It uses date molasses as the sweetener and binder here, which was lovely and not too sweet. Surprising, given how sweet dates themselves are! I used a blend of mixed fruit (like for Christmas cakes) and cranberries. I made 1/3 of a recipe for 3 serves.
Rating: :)



Chai-Spiced Almond Granola from The Easy Vegan Cookbook by Kathy Hester: This granola uses a lovely mix of spices to give it a warming glow. It uses a combination of flax-seed mixed with water and oil to bind it together. They call for coconut oil, gross, I used canola oil instead. The mix of the spices and crunchy almonds makes it a lovely way to start the day.
Rating: :)



Sesame-Apricot Granola from Vegan Bowl Attack by Jackie Sobon: I just realised this is a recipe from a bowl cookbook but it is the only one I photographed not in a bowl! Ha. This is a really nice combination, with a mix of oats, buckwheat, coconut flakes, almonds, apricots, and seeds (including sesame seeds and chia seeds... I could do without the latter in there, they were weird). All coated in a tahini mixture. I had to add a smidge of hot water to my tahini mix to get it thin enough to be able to stir through and coat everything. I also had to bake it for slightly longer in my oven. It came out in wonderful crunchy crumbles! I made a whole recipe, which said it served 6 but really makes 3 generous serves.
Rating: :)



Homemade Hippie Cereal from Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking by Dana Shultz: This is a combination of granola mixed with puffed rice cereal. The granola part is gluten free, so no oats. It is all based on a mix of nuts (I used almonds and pecans) and seeds... including chia seeds again. I just really only like them under specific circumstances. I also added some raw sunflower seeds to the first baking stage, rather than adding rosated ones later on. It also has dried blueberries, and I added extra cinnamon as well. Confession time: I forgot to set a timer for this after I put it in my oven, so it baked for however long it took for the lovely smell to remind me that I had something in there! But it all worked out well. Once cooled, you mix it with the rice cereal. It is pretty fun to eat!
Rating: :)



Crunchy Citrus Toasted Granola from Cooking With Kindness (Edgar's Mission): A bright and tangy take on granola, using orange, lemon, and lime zest in mix. I made a half recipe for this, and used a blend of rolled oats and rolled rye. It also has coconut flakes, almonds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, dried dates, and dried apricots. I left out a the linseeds (aka flaxseeds) and the dried figs (I don't like figs), and I used canola oil instead of coconut. Served with some orange segments, it was a refreshing start to the day.
Rating: :)

A New Year

I am not a New Year's person. I don't do resolutions. I don't really get excited that a change in the year is going to bring all sorts of new changes and excitement. Especially not this year, which was the first time waking up in a new year without any of my girls. I do still have a few food traditions though, because why not. So here they are.

Pumpkin Pizza from Cooking With Kindness: I always make pizza for dinner on New Year's Eve. This year I picked a simple pumpkin and feta pizza from one of my cookbooks (that I haven't really spoken about yet, but eventually will get its own post). Store-bought pizza dough (as opposed to pre-cooked pizza bases) has recently become available here, so I tried out one of them (which I will picture below). I wouldn't use this brand again. Even following the instructions, the dough didn't rise and it was so sticky and hard to spread out that I almost thought I was going to have to abort the whole thing. But, onto the pizza itself. I used some Leggo's Pizza Sauce to spread on (rather than just some crushed tinned tomatoes). It is topped with roasted butternut, sliced shallots, kalamata olives, Sheese Feta, and some leftover mozzarella sauce I had in the freezer from another cookbook. It was a wonderful mix of salty and sweet, and the feta and the cheese sauce melted into a wonderful stretchy mess.
Rating: :)





Normally we follow up our pizza with some pie for dessert. I rarely make pies, they are effort, and this is one time of year I will make something fun. But this year, there was no energy or excitement for it. So I just went the easy route by heating up some individual Nanna's Vegan Apple and Rhubarb pies in the oven, and serving with some ice cream from my freezer stash.



Marmalade Pancakes from Chloe's Vegan Italian Kitchen: New Year's Day is pancakes for breakfast day. And I am glad that I found the energy to make these as they were really nice. These had marmalade and dark chocolate chips gentle mixed through the batter. I got six regular sized pancakes and two bitty pancakes out of this. The recipe suggests serving dusted with powdered sugar, but that was a step too far for me for breakfast, so we went with maple syrup. Also served with some grapes. My brother lives in Spain with his partner and near her family, and apparently at midnight on New Years it is traditional in Spain to eat green grapes. I certainly was not up at midnight, but these were a nice fresh addition to our breakfast table.
Rating: :)



Black-Eyed Peas from Vegan Diner: After pizza and pie and pancakes, I like my New Year's Day dinner to get back to basics with beans and greens and grains. I often will make something involving black-eyed peas, as these are traditionally served in parts of the US. Aside from brief moment in time, we can't get tinned black-eyed peas here, so it involves having some home cooked in the freezer, which I did not have. But I did have some dried one, and this recipe blessedly calls for those. I had soaked them over night before cooking. I made a half recipe of this, which gave three serves over rice. I left out the capsicum, but also added some chopped tomato and a lot of baby spinach (this recipe on its own doesn't have greens in it).
Rating: :)



It is Easter Monday as I write this, and I am still waiting for my COVID test result. I don't have any food traditions with Easter except for a lot of hot cross buns, which I achieved. I also had bought a few vegan Easter eggs I was looking forward to trying yesterday, but because I have been sick my appetite is a bit wonky so I will save them for another time.