"granola" news and stories

If you've been following along for a while, you might remember the granola recipe I posted back in the summer. It's a basic, easy recipe that is a great way to get comfortable with the process of making your own granola. However, as the post up today on Dorie Greenspan's blog reminds me, there are a variety of ways to spice up your granola. She describes the homemade granola that friends brought with them when they came to visit over the weekend.

I am intrigued by the combinations she describes, especially the one that they made just for her that included bits of black licorice. I've never thought of incorporating that kind of sweet into granola and already my brain is racing with the possibilities.

If you are traveling this week to spend the holiday with friends or family, think about stirring up a batch of homemade granola to take with you. It is sure to inspire exaltation and joy from whomever receives your bag of oat-y, nutty goodness.

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Back in the early 1970's, my mom had a friend named Melinda who had a small business making homemade granola. One day, on her way home from shopping for several weeks worth of ingredients in her VW Beetle, she was rear ended. She was not hurt, but the force of the impact sent oats, nuts, raisins, oil and honey flying all over the interior of the car. Even after the body work was completed, the car was never the same. She stopped making granola sometime soon after that. Customers all over the Bay Area mourned her choice, as it was very, very good granola. Thankfully, before she closed up shop, she shared the recipe with a few fortunate people. I thank my lucky stars that my mom happened to be among that number.

This much-coveted recipe is after the jump. It is delicious eaten with yogurt, given away as gifts and eaten as a before-bed snack, right out of the jar or bag in which you are storing it.

photo by Marisa McClellan

Granola fans should introduce themselves to Bear Naked granola, if they aren't familiar with it already. The award winning, good-for-you cereal is on of the best selling and best tasting granolas in the country. Made with wholesome, all-natural ingredients, the company's goal is to make sure that their customers enjoy living a healthy lifestyle and eating healthy - starting with granola, of course. Their granolas are hand-crafted in small batches with real whole grains and other "bearly processed and utterly naked ingredients." They have been available in three flavors for a couple of years now: fruit and nut, apple cinnamon and banana nut. This month, the company is rolling out two new flavors, Peanut Butter and Jelly granola and Peak Protein Blueberry Walnut. The peanut butter flavor is designed to taste like one of the most popular sandwiches in the country and to appeal to kids as well as adults. The blueberry flavor is intended to remind eaters of freshly baked blueberry muffins.

Only the blueberry flavor is available at their online store right now, but both should be on store shelves alongside the original flavors within a couple of weeks.

If, for some reason, you aren't familiar with the practice of giving candy out to costumed children on Halloween, you might want to take a look at the guide put together by Stuff Magazine explaining the best and worst things to give out. Eager trick or treaters look forward to participating in the ritual every year and we wouldn't want to disappoint them. The worst "treats" include:

• Apples -- They're tasty, but they're not candy. They're "disappointing as hell for a little kid expecting a Snickers."
• Marshmallows -- Yes, they're candy, but they don't usually come individually wrapped -- a must for Halloween treats.
• A bag of pennies -- "It's like giving away a gift certificate for a piece of gum." Save up all those pennies and buy a bag of the real thing.
• Smarties -- The U.S. Smarties are chalky and kids don't even seem to enjoy them, despite the fact that they sometimes eat them on the grounds that they still constitute candy. Try to get U.K. Smarties (similar to M&M's) or avoid the candy mixes that include these.
• Anything homemade -- "This one is alright if you only give them to kids with neglectful parents." Any responsible parent is going to dump something unwrapped as fast as possible. Save your energy.
• Raisins -- "People generally give them out under the pretense that they want to make kids healthier. In reality, they give them out because they hate fun." The boxed raisins never taste all that fresh anyway.

The best options would include "anything made by a real candy company," preferably king-sized versions.

After all, any resulting cavities aren't going to end up on your dental bill.

[Thanks, Patrick]

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We love coffee - a sentiment that most bloggers probably share - but you cannot subsist on coffee alone and the pastries at coffee shops often leave much to be desired when it comes to flavor, as well as a little extra that we don't desire around our waists. With coffee and better-for-you options already on our minds, the new granola bars from Caribou Coffee caught our attention right away. The bars come in two coffee flavors - Vanilla Latte and Chocolate Mocha - but have only as much caffeine as decaf coffee, despite their taste. Each bar has about 140 calories and 3 grams of fat. Caribou says that they're a good source of calcium and whole grains, too.

Both flavors of bar are available online, so you can pick them up without trying to hunt down a store that carries them.

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