Homemade Granola
There aren’t too many things better than homemade granola
My fiancé and I hosted Christmas this year. Most of her family flew in from the east coast to celebrate with us. Her sister and brother-in-law were supposed to come and stay with us. But at the last minute they weren’t able to make the trip. In preparation for their stay we stocked the house with some essentials they like. One of them was granola.
We don’t normally eat granola. Most of it is of pretty poor quality and loaded with added sugar. But if there’s granola in the house you better believe that were going to eat it. And since her brother-in-law never showed up, we went to town chowing down on his granola.
Once it was gone we wanted more, but we didn’t want to buy the packaged stuff. So, we made our own.
My fiancé found this recipe. We’ve now made it twice. It delicious. But we have made a couple of slight modifications.
One, we added chia to ours. Chia is packed with healthy fats and fiber and is therefore a great addition to any baked foods.
Two, we added chopped up dates to ours and omitted the craisins.
Three, on the second go we ran out of maple syrup and used honey instead. I actually think it tastes better with honey.
One other thing we found helpful was to place the walnuts, almonds, coconut, chia, cinnamon, and salt into a food processor for a few pulses before adding it to the mixture. It helps to spread the flavors throughout the granola a little more.
But this recipe has for sure become a staple in our pantry.
Almond Pulp Cookies
What to do with leftover almond pulp? Here’s one idea.
My fiancé went to hang out with her friend last week. Her friend has an Almond Cow, a machine that makes it really easy to make any type of nut milk or even oat milk you want. Her friend was telling her all of the different types of milks she’s been making and all the different ways she’s been using the left over nut pulp.
A couple of years ago my fiancé and I had been on a similar kick, making almond milk regularly the old fashion way. Soak the almonds overnight. Put them in a blender with a 3:1 ratio of water to almonds. Pour it all into a nut bag and squeeze out the milk.
When we first started doing this we were just tossing the pulp. Such a waste! So I started using it to make all sorts of things. But my two favorites were crackers and cookies.
After my fiancé got back from her friends we decided to make some almond milk (and order an Almond Cow). We maintain a strict diet of no sweets, so I decided to use the almond pulp to make us some cookies and give us a little “healthier” treat.
I followed the recipe almost to a T with a couple of exceptions. One, I added 1 tbsp of chia seeds. Chia is packed with good fat and fiber and is therefore such a good addition to any healthy treats you might want to make. Two, I used dark chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate. Again, dark chocolate, cocoa specifically, is packed with so many more nutrients than milk chocolate, so when I’m indulging in chocolate I always go for dark. Three, which I don’t recommend, I baked the cookies for an additional 2 minutes. Almond pulp cookies are not like normal cookies in that the pulp doesn’t cook the same way flour wood in a normal cookie. When I tested the cookies at 22 minutes they felt kind of wet still. So I left them in for another 2 minutes, but then they got dried out. I think at 22 minutes they might be a little soft and moist still, but I think when it comes to almond pulp cookies that’s what you want.