Nom nom nom

Warm granola puts cold granola to shame. What have I been doing all my life that I hadn't learned this yet? So, MotherRunner is one of those friend of friend's blogs I read, you know, because she's awesome. On her blog she has this recipe for slow-roasted granola.

I was missing a few things, but as she notes on her blog, granola's forgiving.

8 cups rolled oats... or 4 cups of some oat/rye/barley mix that you use at oatmeal in the morning
1/2 cup sunflower seeds... or not because you don't have them
1/2 cup sesame seeds... or more because you don't have sunflower sea
1 cup sweetened coconut... or a little more because you can
1 1/2 cups chopped almonds... ish. I just hammered my whole almonds until I worried I might be too loud hammering at 11pm on a Sunday night

2/3 cup vegetable oil... or 1/2c since you don't have as many oats
2/3 cup honey... or a little more because you don't have any maple syrup
1/2 cup maple syrup... well you don't have it so how about some brown sugar
1/4 water or 4 egg whites*... I used a fair amount of egg whites
1 tsp. vanilla... or a little more because you like it
1/2 tsp. salt... or a little more because you poured too fast
1/2 tsp. cinnamon... or pumpkin spice because for some unknown reason you have pumpkin spice and no cinnamon

Nom nom nom

While looking over websites with cheap recipes I found a recipe for a bulgur-cashew veggie burger and thought it seemed simple enough.  I went to the grocery story and low and behold there was no bulgur at the East Harlem Target.  Instead of searching elsewhere I did a quick search for other veggie burger recipes and found that couscous is often used as the grain.  I was also buying bread crumbs for another recipe so thought I could use those if need be.  The first recipe required cashews, but another recipe suggested sunflower seeds. The container of sunflower seeds was $4 cheaper so that decision was easy.  Some recipes called for lentils and some for pinto beans so I went with the one that would take up less space it the cupboard; there are limits.

So, home I went with a variety of ingredients that fit no recipes, but I figured it could only go so wrong.

I bought: Lentils, Sunflower Seeds, Couscous, Bread Crumbs, Eggs

I had: A tiny bit of left-over uncooked spinach, Garlic [that was added to the second batch], Onion, French Dried Onion [for the second batch when I ran out of onion], Frozen peas, corn, carrots, and beans, Cumin, Salt, Pepper

I cooked the couscous as directed and boiled the lentils.  After pureeing the lentils, an egg and sunflower seeds in the ever-so-fabulous Magic Bullet until they were "a paste I added them to the couscous.  I mixed in veggies and seasonings.  Since I had cooked the whole box of couscous I just added bits of each thing until it looked like I could make patties.   I made 4 and refrigerated them, waiting impatiently for them to be cool; I didn't want to use up the rest of the couscous until I knew they tasted deliciously.

The "recipe" was a success, but needed a little something so I added my safety ingredient: garlic to the second batch. By this time I was so full from snacking on the couscous and the first burger that I decided against making one from the second recipe...  I'm optimistic for tomorrow.


Nom, nom, nom <3