Crunchy Quinoa Granola

No this is not a picture of bird seed. It is actually human food: granola made with quinoa! I was looking for something to have in the morning that wasn't oatmeal and was higher in protein. I began to search my evernote database for breakfast recipes. I came across this toasted quinoa recipe I had saved from Healthy Tipping Point. I thought I would give it a try. I made a few changes but the same concept was the same: a granola made with quinoa.

I was a bit skeptical since I had never eaten quinoa that wasn't cooked through boiling, and was weary as to how the texture would be. Turns out, toasted quinoa is actually not like eating pebbles as I thought it would.

Crunchy Quinoa Granola adapted from Healthy Tipping Point

makes 4-5 servings

1 cup quinoa

~ 1/4 cup of nuts (I used what I had on hand...sunflower and pumpkin)

3 tbsp dried cranberries

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp pure maple syrup

1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl until cinnamon evenly coats everything.

2. Add olive oil and maple syrup and mix well.

3. Toast at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes, stirring every few minutes.

4. Allow to cool and then store in an air-tight container.

As I was making this I really thought I had added WAY to much cinnamon. I thought for sure I had just wasted a whole cup of quinoa because it was going to be too strong and spicy. Too much cinnamon can taste medicinal. Turns out, the baking mellowed out the cinnamon and it had great flavour. I am really happy I added the cranberries because they were a wonderful addition, especially when I eat this with my plain unsweetened yogurt.

I'd say this recipe is very "granola." Someone used this word the other day to describe my act of making homemade tomato sauce (if I remember correctly). I liked the word and what I thought it represented, so I vowed to begin to use it more often. After looking up the urban dictionary definition, I'd say this recipe is fairly good representation of "granola," except I can't promise my ingredients were fair trade. In fact, I could probably bet that they weren't, unfortunately.

Carrot Cake Disagreement

A while back I made a carrot cake for dessert from 101cookbooks.com (Big surprise. At one point, every meal I ate came from that site, I just love it!). It was hearty, dense, not too sweet, and was fairly healthy. I had it with a light maple cream cheese icing (included in the recipe) and it was delicious! With this success I forwarded the recipe link to my good friend Jenna who also loves a healthy baked good recipe. She tried it out with her Mother one day and thought it was awful! The only way she could eat it was with the icing!!

This surprised me beyond belief. We don't need our muffins very sweet and usually like the same foods. It takes a lot for us to call a baked good awful! I had to find out once and for all whether we did something different, or whether we really do disagree on the deliciousness of this health cake.

I thought today would be a perfect time to rebake the cake. I am leaving for Alberta tonight (with Jenna) and it would make a good snack as well as a quick breakfast tomorrow for my friends and I. I followed the recipe as it is on 101cookbooks but left out the dates. The first time I made it I also left out the dates. I also use regular yogurt instead of Greek yogurt.

The finished product:

I didn't make the icing this time becuase I didn't think it would travel well with icing, haha.

Then I had a piece....

So it wasn't as delicious as I remember, and I could have definitely used some cream cheese icing, but it wasn't awful! I think next time I will include the dates becuase they would definitely sweeten it up. I will still take this cake on my trip with me and will do it's job of providing a hearty and healthy snack.

Now to round out the experiment Jenna just needs to try a piece. We will share a piece on the flight tonight and I will know once and for all if our taste buds are not quite as similar as I thought, or whether Jenna's baking skills are not as fine tuned as mine (joking of course - Jenna is much more careful than I - haha).

I'm off to get ready for my trip to Alberta. I hope to have some great food stories to share from out west while I fuel up for days of hiking!

Yogurt Bowls

Now some people would call these parfaits, but I like to call it a yogurt bowl. Whenever I am kinda hungry mid morning or mid afternoon I often have a yogurt concoction with plain yogurt, fruit, nuts, granola or whatever I've got. Yesterday I had such an early breakfast by 11 it was time for a yogurt bowl.

I thought I would share this one because I think it looked so pretty!

This one is Astro all natural 0% plain yogurt, a tiny nectarine chopped, half a banana chopped, chopped walnuts, sliced almonds, and goji berries (the newest "superfood"). You could also sprinkle some flax seed on top.

This kind of snack will keep you satisfied for at least a few hours. I bought some blueberries yesterday, and I can't wait to use those in a yogurt bowl for my break at work!