Granola Boulderites

While granola might describe most of the hippies in Boulder, its also what I munched on after this mornings easy ten mile run.
1/4 cup veggie oil
1/2 cup honey
a splash of vanilla
a dash of cinnamon
2 cups rolled oats
walnuts, slivered almonds, cashews, coconut (you choose what you want to throw in!)

Simply whisk the oil, honey, vanilla and cinnamon in a small bowl, pour over your oats and nuts. Mix together well and then spread onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 25 minutes @ 350.

If you ran hard this morning, serve the warm granola over hot peanut butter waffles.
Enjoy!

Crispy Peanut-butter and Jelly Quesadillas

For Christmas this year I received a quesadilla maker. My first thought was, when was the last time I even ate a quesadilla? let alone needed a kitchen appliance to make one for me. However to my surprise I soon became addicted to warm melted cheese and crisp tortillas. The epidemic spread through my entire house and now the quesadilla maker is ranked second in usage, only to Mr. Microwave.

Saturdays are our one day a week we don't meet to run. We call these days O.Y.O., on your own. I procrastinated my run until a little after one. Which meant when I returned to the kitchen, I was ravenously hungry. I had already pulled the jar of peanut butter out of the cupboad, when Steve, equally as hungry, spotted the quesadillai maker in the corner and posed an interesting question... Before I knew it we were spreading tortillas with peanut butter and jelly (I used honey) and letting them sizzle on the hot Teflon presses. The end result was a familiar taste that was warm and crispy. It oozed from all three of the triangular sides, an error made completely by our stomaches wanting more crammed inside the flat bread. Licking our fingers and plates, we took a look at the mess around us, and knew it had been totally worth it!

The Oxymoron of a “Healthy Treat”

Often I find myself trying to conjure up ways to make my baked treats “healthier.” Butter is substituted, oils are minimized; I bypass the sugar and reach for the Splenda. Yet I know ingredients matter.  Good cooking requires good ingredients. There’s a reason we use cream sometimes and not milk.  A reason a recipe calls for FRESH basil, not dried. What we start with dictates our end produce. A healthy treat should not be limited in its ingredients, but only in its proportions.