Homemade Graham Crackers

A while back I started thinking about what kind of junk was entering my sons body via additives and preservatives in his snacks. I am sure packaged graham crackers are just fine but because I was wanting to be able to really monitor what he was eating I found this recipe. I had a hard time finding graham flour so I just called a local small health food store and they special ordered it for me at no extra cost. They ordered the Bobs Red Mill brand. These turn out so good everyone will love them...and you for making them!

My husband was a little confused at first because rather then making them square I used a round cookie cutter to cut them out with. He kept referring to them as flat harder cookies. "No Dear they aren't hard cookies they are graham crackers. " Next time I will make them square so no one gets thrown off.

MIX:

3 c. flour

3 c. graham flour

1 tsp. salt

1 c. brown sugar

MOISTEN WITH:

1/2 c. oil

Water to make a stiff dough

Make a stiff dough and knead until well formed. Roll out thin, make sure you dust the area with flour first. Cut into squares and prick with a fork. Place on cookie sheet. Bake until crisp at 35o degrees. I sprinkled mine with a little sugar...yummy!

Quick Pickles

For Christmas dinner one year I decided to go with a BBQ theme. What would BBQ be without pickles? Well if you have spent any time in the south then you know you simply can NOT have one with out the other! A truly southern treat would have been fried pickles, but I am not ready to have a coronary yet so I went with a basic version. This is so unbelievably easy it makes my heart flutter. Is it bad that my favorite part of dinner were the pickles? This recipe is good for 2-4 people, depending on how many pickles you like (wink, wink!) 

1 large cucumber sliced in rounds 1/4 inch thick
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup white sugar
1 Tbs salt
couple dashes of dill
couple dashes of celery seeds
5 black pepper corns

Place cucumber slices in a bowl or mason jar, then bring all other ingredients to a boil in a sauce pan. Boil on low for about ten minutes, when done pour over cucumbers. Place in refrigerator until you are ready to eat these tasty tokens of love!

Best Ever Parfait!

I have created the best ever: vanilla infused granola, blueberries and lemon cream parfait! I repeat BEST EVER!!!

Just look at this picture if you aren't sold by it and it alone, then you might as well move on. I have to admit that the recipes individually were not my own, but finding them and weaving them together is where I will take the credit. LOL!

I have NEVER had homemade granola that was remotely good. I have been eyeballing these pretty little bags of locally made granola at Whole Foods. But paying eight bucks for the small bag wasn't very appealing to me. So I decided to get back on the horse and find that one awesome granola recipe that I knew had to be online some where! I found that recipe with Alton Brown. For some that will be no big surprise I am sure. I did make a couple of changes to his recipe just so I wouldn't have to run out to the store and buy any ingredients.

I used walnuts rather then cashews. I added a little but of unmelted coconut oil only because I thought I was out of shredded coconut. Then I looked in my freezer and found a big jar of it! Hurray, so it had both. I tried grinding up just a Tbs or so of flax seeds to add to it. But sadly my grinder was jammed. WHICH by the way, if you are new to grinding your own flax seed make sure you clean your grinder very well, or you may be in for a little not so nice surprise the next time you pull it out of your cabinet. Gurrrr! So I added a couple spoonfuls of sunflower seeds to my little bitty food processor and the flax seed and tried to grind it up that way (the flax alone wouldn't have ground up in it) some ground up and some stayed whole. WHAT EVER, its not important really! Also I omitted the raisins. I then stored the granola in mason jars with vanilla pods, to lightly infuse it! All I did was slice the pods length wise, scrape the seeds out and place the pods inside the mason jars, then fill them up with the granola.

Best ever homemade granola recipe ~thank you Alton Brown!~

Next I went out to search for an alternative to using yogurt in my parfait. I am not sure how I stumbled onto this recipe but it is so insanely good you have to use it instead of yogurt!!! Its tart and refreshing and adds the perfect zip to this parfait! I added more lemon juice at the end to make it as tangy as I like. This recipe hails from the Tasty Kitchen site. If by the way you haven't used this site before its time to get going! Its just like Allrecipes only it is newer and seems to be a little more human friendly (I have had recipes pending to be published on that site for MANY years now.)

The third and final layer in this parfait is fruit. I choose blueberries and it was the perfect simple healthy option! I wouldn't change that as long as they are in season.

All you have to do is layer these in pretty glasses or use a small mason jar like I did for a nice country effect. I used a wide zester to make pretty little lemon curls on top, which are totally edible!

Here are the links to the two main recipes:

Granola: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/granola-recipe/index.html

Lemon Cream: http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/lemon-cream-fruit-dip/old i

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

So here's the deal I have multiple blogs, and rarely add to any of them anymore. There are just too many for me to wrap my time and attention on any one specific one. Blah! Its like ADHD in blogger land around here!

I am going to import my posts from my other blogs onto this one, and only use this one from now on. Simple enough.

The picture above is from two summers ago. We took T-man to Disney Land for his fifth birthday. He was really into "spy" stuff that year. Man he is a good looking kid!