lifestyle - The Seventh Sphinx

February 16, 2014February 16, 2014

on the menu: homemade granola

Few foodstuffs seem to me as sublime, as supremely edible as homemade granola. It needn’t be expensive, and you can chuck in all sorts of nice things.

I use a Fanny Farmer recipe as a base, which I’ve modified over time with a smidgen of every granola recipe I’ve liked or think I might like. The result is a bit different every time, and always to my liking.

Here’s roughly what I did this time, though the proportions can vary quite a bit before it becomes distinctly different. I say add more of what you like most. The main thing is having enough of the oil/honey mixture to coat the dry ingredients evenly.

3 c oats

1+ c almonds (flakes, whole, or both – I like extra)

1 c pumpkin seeds

1 c sunflower seeds

1 c coconut flakes

1/4 c dried cranberries (or any dried fruit)

1/4 c flax seeds

1/3 c sesame seeds (more like 1/4 c or none for normal people)

1/2 c pistachios or pecans

1 tsp cinnamon (adjust to your taste; the recipe can handle twice this if you like, also fine with half)

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 c coconut oil (or you can substitute 1/4 c canola oil with a couple of tablespoons of butter, but the coconut oil gives excellent flavor. I often add a bit extra.)

1/2 c honey (can substitute maple syrup here, too, or add in addition. I go heavy on the honey, too)

2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Warm oil, honey, and vanilla in a saucepan and mix well into dry ingredients, coating evenly. Spread granola mixture evenly in a baking pan or sheet (line it with parchment paper for easy stirring and removal). Bake, stirring every 10 minutes, until granola is deep golden brown, about 35 minutes (this part is flexible as well, you can do 25 minutes for a chewier texture or 45 for more crunch. The shallower the mixture on your baking pan/sheet, the less time it will take). Add dried fruit around the last 5 minutes of baking time. Let cool before eating or storing (it will harden as it cools, so expect it to seem slightly underdone when first removed from the oven). Store in an airtight container.

Note that I mean raw nuts and seeds here. A few roasted ones tend to work out OK if you opt for a quicker cooking time and adjust salt levels accordingly (or don’t mind the extra crunch).

aside: I love pistachios

I often don’t bother baking the dried fruit at all, simply adding it to individual servings as desired.

Add berries and a fraction of coconut or almond milk. Maybe some maple syrup if feeling decadent.

Happiness.

February 14, 2014February 14, 2014

Happy Valentine’s Day

I do not profess to know much about love, and certainly not much that would be useful to anyone else,* but I am all for it (in the cosmic finding of home sense, the joyful gladdening sense, the maddening sense, the hopeless devotion sense, the love of peanut butter sense, and so on), all for the expressing of it in some form or another, and I think some of it’s commercial trappings are charming. I like hearts and flowers, and I like the word love, and would not mind wearing it on a necklace (umm…I just got a necklace like this) or having it printed on a T-shirt or some such thing. That can be appealing to me in regulated doses. I bought these conversations hearts, which have pleasant childhood nostalgia for me. My heart is romantic. I like attention, too. Well, certain kinds.

*If you love me, you know I am not being modest here…I am often not even especially nice. If I love you, may the universe have mercy on you.

That said, Valentine’s Day doesn’t do much for me, regardless of whether I have a Valentine or not. [Not since it became suddenly uncool to give little valentine’s cards in elementary school, which I really did like, and did with great care (I still have some of the earliest batches I received, when the spelling was shaky and the messages especially earnest and loving). I still like vintage Valentine’s cards.] I can get behind the concept but even if I did have a Valentine (which I don’t, as it happens, in part due to being wary, particular, and unwilling to tolerate anyone in my space/time for long, in part—like so many things—due to chance), I suspect I would still think it was kind of hollow, at least on its (non-personalized) cultural surface. Holidays tend to irritate me, anyhow. I don’t like being told what to do, nor being given a deadline by which to do it. Sometimes, admittedly, they are a convenient excuse to give a gift I have wanted to give yet somehow lack the status to give freely.

[Gifts are strange, are they not? Highly recommend The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, by the way.]

I think this day is going to be a dud until there are children to exchange cards with again.

Andre 3000 sums up the issue nicely. Let’s all just take a moment to remember how incredible The Love Below album is, and this song in particular.

I like this ominous cupid character, “Well keep on runnin’ playa. Cuz I got my gooood shoes on. And I got ’em tied up tight. And you gon’ find out. TONIGHT.”