Can't you just feel the warm oven and smell the medley of vanilla and spices?

I have loved granolas ever since i was a little girl and my mom would buy those small boxes of thick cluster granola with dried up raisins and nuts in them. Old school granola, loaded in calories, sugars and wonderment! I think the caloric value was integral to the mountain climbing crowd that it was marketed towards–but i loved it–despite keeping my feet at sea level.  Love it!  For my own family I like to create a less saturated fat granola–you know one that is actually good for you.

Here is a great recipe that you can make and eat right away, or spoon over yogurt, pack into snack bags for school or even sprinkle onto a bowl of fruit.  It also makes great holiday gifts packed up for teachers or loved ones!

Cranberry Orange Granola

¾ c orange juice
1/3 c honey
2 T canola oil
2 t cinnamon
1 t vanilla
2 t orange zest
2 c old fashioned oats
1 c dried cranberries
½ c coconut
½ c chopped almonds

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.  Combine juice and honey and stir until the honey dissolves.  Add all of the spices to the liquid and mix.  Combine all of the remaining ingredients in a large bowl then dump liquid and stir  to evenly coat mixture.  Let the mix stand for 10-15 minutes to absorb the liquid.  Place on a greased or foil lined cookie sheet with a lip around it and cook for approximately 25 minutes or until the oats have started to brown a little.  Stir every 5 minutes or so.

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A perfect warm dish on a cool fall day

I love a hearty stew in the fall. I love all the rich flavors of the fall harvest, too. Carrots, squashes–heck I want to curl up inside a cornucopia and marvel at the fall wonders.  When I think of winter squashes and hot stews I want to draw hearts on paper with the names of each dish they can create. Comfort, warmth, excitement of the seasons cool nights, crunching leaves–the bright open night sky with the stars spilling across the entire view like vibrant beacons of sparkling hope.  I love Autumn!  This dish is a great accompaniment for the mood of the season. Rich, soothing  velvety and crisp!

I used boneless skinless thigh meat in this recipe because, let’s face it, that is where the flavor is. Sure we run off and purchase chicken breast in bulk now for most recipes but in a hearty dish like this–use the thigh! The heavy cream–just a bit–ensures it will hold up with the vinegar and not curdle or do anything else in the stew you do not want it to do. Fully fat creams behave well in this recipe–and it is just a splash–or two.

Creamy Chicken Stew
(adapted from Eating Well October 2010)
serves 6
1 pound brushed clean mushroom caps
1/2 cup diced sweet onion like Vidalia or Wala
1 cup chopped white and orange carrots
1 cup fresh peas
1/4 cup water
3 cups chicken broth
2lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs cut into bite size pieces
1 Large spring fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
4 tbls cider vinegar
2 tbls corn starch
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 tbls Olive Oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Combined mushrooms , onions , olive oil and 1/4 cup water to a 6 quart dutch oven. Cover and cook over high heat stirring often until the mushrooms are juicy –about 6 minutes. Remove cover and cook for another 10 minutes–browning the mushrooms. Add 2 cups broth, carrots, rosemary, and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Cover the entire soup with the chicken thighs and sprinkle the cider vinegar over the meat. Lower heat to simmer and cook for 45 more minutes. Mix the cornstarch with the remaining cup of chicken broth add in the cream. Pour the mixture into the cooking soup and stir until thickened, add the fresh peas and heat for another 20 minutes. Serve warm in large baked squash bowls.

Calories per 1 cup serving: 319
Fat: 15 grams
Carbohydrates: 17 grams
Protein:31 grams

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Now, consider my garden, as I mentioned in previous posts–it is just a hodgepodge of plants all swirling around and under one another hoping for the best spot in the sun and in the earth.  Well, I have beans growing there! Right near my unnamed squash plant and behind the other mystery plant–I had green beans, wax beans and burgundy beans. The burgundy ones are beautiful  and not pictured here because small children and even smaller bugs also enjoy the flavor and color of this garden harvest!  I did manage to save a large amount of wax beans and decided to give them a toss in a pan to see if I can reasonably recreate the bean dish my sweet husband likes so much.

So, first thing I considered is the beans are crisp and not all flippy-flop when you eat them but they are cooked through so–they must be blanched I concluded in another kitchen genius moment. So, I set up the water to boil, snapped the tops and ends off the beans and prepared the ice bath for the heated yellow veggies.

If you have not blanched a bean–let me walk you through it because it is super easy and weird.

Set up a pan of boiling water and a separate pan filled with ice water.  Add the beans to the rapidly boiling water and boil for 3 minutes, set a timer stand by the stove and let your mind wander for 3 minutes.

Bean ice baths are not as controversial as they look

Once the timer goes off and you fade back into the kitchen activity and away from the daydream, use a large slotted spoon to toss the beans right into the ice bath. This will make them talk!  Let them sit in the ice bath for about 1-2 minutes–you want them to completely stop cooking.  While they were cooling off I set a cast iron skillet on medium high heat and added a slab of butter and let that melt, sizzle and turn slightly brown.  Drain your beans in a colander to completely remove the excess water on the outside of them. Prevents you being burned when you drop these babies into the hot pan.

In the now hot skillet I added a shaved garlic clove–this means I sliced it super thin, my garden does not grow hairy garlic–does yours? I want to see it!  Once the lovely scent of that garlic hits your nose add in the beans and toss to cover them in the butter and garlic.  I tossed them in this for another 3 minutes then removed from the heat, stirred in some sesame seeds and a generous pinch of sea salt and served them up.

Easy Summer meal

I paired the beans with a juicy turkey breast burger as shown.

So, the conclusion my husband had for the closeness or the Chinese restaurant hidden calorie beans and these were– “These almost taste like the ones at the Chinese food place!”   I win!

Really, this is such a simple recipe and so easy to do and was really super yummy. My son’s girlfriend was over when I was making them and I forced one on her as well and she really liked them. So, this garden to table dish is husband and teenager approved!

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Did you know right now there are people wearing safety glasses and white lab coats who are staring into beakers adding chemical substances and hoping to create new and exciting foods for us. Yeah–these test tube foodies are hoping that the magic mix of just the right chemicals will give you that melt in your mouth, cooked for hours by your loving grandmother feeling when you have their new food dance on your taste buds.  There is no thought to the lasting effects these chemicals have because they are food chemicals–approved for consumption and digestion. You will not drop dead from the toxic levels of these additives at all according to the Food Police in the higher levels of the test tube foodie office building.  So, drop by drop they are bringing you the newest flavor –the most exciting life like creation they can figure out. You can picture this as the real world creation of Willie Wonka’s 3 course meal gum–we all know  Violet Beauregarde’s reaction to the amazing reality of the flavors of the gravy and mashed potatoes as she chewed the gum. I think these test tube foodies are surpassing Mr Wonka’s hopes and dreams with the new way they can conjure food up out of nothing but some chemical additives, some water and a few solids. So–where does that leave the people who want real food? The people on the outside of the industry who are choosing not to follow in Violet’s footsteps and turn into a giant blue blob because of the unforeseen reaction yet to be discovered by these lab coated food chemists.  Not only is it hard to create foods free from chemicals but also to create the same WOW PEP and ZEST flavor that only the artificial world can bring you. I mean, by evolutionary design we like the things that are MORE MORE MORE!

Well that is where the real foodies come in. Throw backs from the kitchen, if you will. People who remember a real pie crust made with butter /lard not margarine–or–shortening (YUCK!) People who took the time to create flavors from nature–French cooking, Italian cooking–European cooking! It takes no time, it creates an experience. Just a few tricks, a few tools and you too can bring back the moments of food that are safe to enjoy and are great for your body.

Enter for exibit–the Stewpendous Chicken! My family loved this dish, the house smelled divine while it was cooking and I even manged to get those lentils past the mouth of my husband who usually runs the other way when I say I added lentils to anything in the kitchen aside from the garbage bin.

Stewpendous Chicken
serves 8
4lbs  boneless skinless chicken sliced thin (breast or thighs–use what you want)
1 cup raw lentils
6 cups water
4 stalks of fresh celery-chopped
1/2  sweet onion-chopped
4 medium carrots cut into sticks
2 baked and peeled red sweet potatoes mashed
2 cloves garlic-diced
2 springs fresh Thyme
2 springs Rosemary
1 bay leaf
1 tbls butter

In a large pot, set on medium heat, add the butter and allow it to brown. (not blacken, stir the butter and let it cook–not die!) Once the butter is nicely brown  add all the vegetables and lentils (leaving out the mashed sweet potato)** and spices and stir to coat in the butter. Keep stirring for about 10 minutes more, your house will now be filled with the scent of goodness.  Now add in 2 cups of water and the chicken slices, making sure all the chicken fits in the pan you chose. Now, here is the thickening trick–add in the mashed white sweet potatoes and mix well with the rest of the ingredients in the pan.  Now cover the soup with the remaining water, turn the heat to low and allow to simmer for about 3 hours.

Serve hot in large bowls! Allow the family to compliment you on the amazing stew and bask in your greatness. You have fed them well and the meal is feeding their body well!

** Here is a red skinned sweet potato–the flavor is this was drastically different from the orange fleshed relative. I  found it to be sweet and earthy–like a happy married between a red bliss potato and a sweet potato.  You will see how this adds a great thickening property to the stew as well as creates a new dimension of flavor.

Here is what it looks like after you bake it and peel it–this picture was for informational purposes only and I was not trying to humiliate the potato in away way. OK–well maybe a little.

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