Mom's Homemade Granola

Mix together: 
6 cups Old Fashioned Oats
½ cup Brown Sugar  (crumble it into the bowl)
¾ cup Wheat Germ
¼ cup Seeds (Sesame? Flax?)
½ cup Nuts (Peanuts? Cashews?)


Blend and warm together:
½ cup Canola Oil
⅜ cup Honey (Note: three EIGHTHS!)
1 TBSP Vanilla (Bourbon Vanilla Extract?)


• Preheat oven to 300° F

• Heat the oil & honey together with the vanilla: about a minute in the microwave. 

• Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix them well. Pour the whole mixture into a baking pan. Whatever size fits, steel, glass, cast iron, whatever.

• Turn every 10 or 12 minutes.

• Bake until it’s golden brown and the house smells wonderful. Should be about an hour. 

Comment: doubling the honey makes a very sweet sticky mess. You can cut it into bars while it's cooling, but it's nearly impossible to get out of the pan! There has to be a better (and more intentional) way of making granola bars!

Hitachi Breadmaker White Bran Bread

Ingredients:

3½ cups bread flour
½ cup oat bran
1½ tsp dry yeast
1 TBSP gluten (“gluten flour”)
2 TBSP sugar
1½ TBSP butter or cooking oil
1½ TBSP dried milk powder
1 tsp salt
1⅛ cups lukewarm filtered water

Instructions:

• Measure the warm water and add yeast to it while you’re measuring out the other ingredients.
• Measure other ingredients. Load into bread machine.
• Yeast should be active by now. If not, give it 10 minutes or so.
• Add yeast / water to the machine.
• Press “GO”
• When it’s done, remove the bread, slice, maybe add butter, and enjoy.

Starting point: 

TJ's Curried ButterNut Soup

Ingredients:
1 large butternut squash.
1 1/2 heads of garlic, smashed.
2 Shallots, finely diced.
3 TBSP Red curry paste.
2 cans coconut (cream, milk or combination).
4 cups strong veggie broth.
Some (4 or 5?) chicken thighs, sliced thinly against the grain.
A bunch of broccoli. Be generous.
Some yellow/Dutch potatoes.
A bunch of crushed/chopped peanuts.

Instructions: Cook this is a stockpot. Cast iron is a good idea.
• Peel squash. Quarter it. Remove seeds & goop.
• Rub squash with high-temperature oil.
• Roast squash: 45 minutes at 425. Turn halfway through.
• Cook curry paste for two minutes.
• Add shallots and garlic. Cook 'till translucent.
• Dice the cooked squash. Add to curry, onions, garlic. Re-heat.
• When it's hot, add broth & coconut. Re-heat again. Blend 'till very smooth with immersion blender.
• While it’s simmering, cook chicken, broccoli & potatoes separately (Reminder: they take different times). Season liberally with salt & pepper.
• Combine solids with blended liquids just before serving. Dust with peanuts.
• Serve and enjoy!

Comment: This is delicious! 

TJ's Succotash

 INGREDIENTS: 

-1red bell pepper

-1 green bell pepper

-1orange bell pepper

-1 red onion

-1 Zucchini, small

-1 yellow squash (or two Zucchini if you can't find the squash)

-1 bunch of cilantro

-corn (frozen or fresh)

-Seasonings: salt, pepper, garlic, cayenne, paprika

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

Basically try to have equal amounts of everything, though if the onions tip the balance, it isn't a bad thing.

Dice everything really finely.

Sauté red onions till translucent, add Zucchini, sauté for a couple minutes, add peppers and corn. 

Season to taste with salt, pepper, garlic, cayenne, and paprika. Add more heat as you like. Add cilantro at the end.

(Thoughts: I think a little white pepper would go nicely, and fresh jalapeños or serranoes will also go well.) [I may try it with de-seeded scotch bonnets.]

Cook till a happy texture. Avoid mush.

Pizza on the Grill

Ingredients:

▪️ Flour tortillas (We like thin crust pizza anyway) 

▪️ Tomato sauce 

▪️ Garlic powder (I had smoked garlic powder available) 

▪️ Sliced pepperoni 

▪️ Slices of sweet peppers (I had baby bells) 

▪️ Italian sausage, cooked 

▪️ Cheese, shredded (I had cheddar) 

▪️ Dried basil (I had cinnamon basil) 

▪️ Corn meal

Instructions:

🔹 Preheat grill to 450 or 500 with pizza stone in it. (It took longer than I expected.) 

🔹 Lay the tortillas on a cutting board 

🔹 Spread sauce (back of a spoon is helpful)

🔹 Layer stuff on. I added things in the order listed above. 

🔹 Sprinkle corn meal on pizza stone. 

🔹 Slide pizzas off the cutting board onto pizza stone 

🔹 Bake until top is melted and the bottom is getting brown. 

🔹 Turn off the grill and let the pizza finish as it cools, 

🔹 Slice, serve and enjoy. 

Observations: this was a good pizza. It was fairly mild. Definitely need to discover more options for toppings here. Need to discover a vegetarian version.